Meaning of life

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The meaning of life is a fundamental philosophical discussion of human existence, chiefly consisting of interpretations such as: "What is the origin of life?," "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?," "What is the significance of life?," "What is the purpose of life?," and "What is valuable in life?" These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

Note that these questions are all separate from the scientific issue of the boundary between things with life and inanimate objects.

Personal life Portal

Popular beliefs

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the many potential answers to this perplexing question. The responses are shown to overlap in many ways but may be grouped into the following categories:

Survival and temporal success

...to live every day like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...to be always satisfied
...to live, go to school, work, and die
...to participate in natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
...to participate and contribute to a given society by working, paying taxes, being a good citizen, and contributing to raise the collective quality of life.
...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future of intelligent life
...to compete or co-operate with others
...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
...to gain and exercise power
...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
...to eat
...to sleep
...to ensure that all others after you remember your name.
...to prepare for death
...to spend life in the pursuit of happiness, maybe not to obtain it, but to pursue it relentlessly.
...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction (alike to participating in evolution)
...to protect and preserve one's kin, clan, or tribe (akin to participating in evolution)
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to observe the ultimate fate of humanity to the furthest possible extent
...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)
...to attempt to have many sexual conquests (as in Arthur Schopenhauer's will to procreate)
...to find and take over all free space in this "game" called life
...to seek and find beauty
...to kill or be killed
...to live it. To simply keep functioning. This applies to everything. That includes songs stuck in your head to rocks. Everything has a bit of life in it. - Prof. E.C.D. (This cancels all others except the one directly below)
...No point. Since having a point is a condition of living human consciousness. Animals do not need a point to live or exist. It is more of an affliction of consciousness that there are such things as points, a negative side to evolutionary development for lack of better words.

However, nobody really knows the true meaning of our presence on this earth. Although all these may seem like great reasons for living, the true purpose of us living is not known, and possibly never will be.

Wisdom and knowledge

...to master and know as many things as possible
...to be without questions, or to keep asking questions
...to expand one's perception of the world
...to explore, to expand beyond our frontiers
...to learn from one's own and others' mistakes
...to seek truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom
...to understand and be mindful of creation or the cosmos
...to lead the world towards a desired situation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by humans about life
...to enjoy all the enjoyable things one really want and available in the world and filled with joy in inner through out the journey of life

...to 'be' that which we truly are, meaning, to manifest in the flesh that which we are deep inside

Ethical

...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule," treat others as you would like to be treated
...to give and receive love
...to work for justice and freedom
...to live in peace with yourself and each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds
...to leave the world in a better condition than when you came into it
...to live an honorable life and die an honorable death

Religious and spiritual

...to worship the Lord
...to find perfect love and a complete expression of one's humanness in a relationship with God
...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
...to become like God, or divine
...to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever
...to experience personal justice (i.e. to be rewarded for goodness)
...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. to seek objectivity)
...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
...to turn fear into joy at a constant rate achieving on literal and metaphorical levels: immortality, enlightenment, and atonement
...to understand and follow the "Word of God"
...to discover who you are
...to resolve all problems that one faces, or to ignore them and attempt to fully continue life without them, or to detach oneself from all problems faced (see Buddhism)
...To prepare for the meeting with God
...To be tested to see whether you deserve to go to Heaven or Hell

Philosophical

...to give life meaning
...to participate in the chain of events which has led from the creation of the universe until its possible end (either freely chosen or determined, this is a subject widely debated amongst philosophers)
...to find the meaning of life
...to achieve self-actualisation
...all possible meanings have some validity (see existentialism)
...life in itself has no meaning, for its purpose is an opportunity to create that meaning, therefore:
- ...to die
- ...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
- ...nature taking its course (the wheel of time keeps on turning)
- ...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
- ...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
- ...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory (see solipsism or nihilism)
- ...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"
- ...to figure it out
- ...to understand oneself
- ...to question life itself

Other

...to find and follow an artistic passion
...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable (see nonconformism)
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)
...that it ends.
...to find out how many licks it takes
...to accomplish something that has never been done before

Scientific approaches to the meaning of life

Where scientists and philosophers converge on the quest for the meaning of life is an assumption that the mechanics of life (i.e., the universe) are determinable, thus the meaning of life may eventually be derived through our understanding of the mechanics of the universe in which we live, including the mechanics of the human body.

There are, however, strictly speaking, no scientific views on the meaning of biological life other than its observable biological function: to continue. In this regard, science simply addresses quantitative questions such as: "What does it do?," "By what means?," and "To what extent?," rather than the "For what purpose?."

Science and the five questions

But, like philosophy, science doesn't rest when it comes to asking and answering questions, and scientists have tackled each of the five interpretations of the meaning of life question head-on, attempting to answer each from the perspective of what exists, or in relation to the human being (for which science itself serves), offering empirical answers from relevant scientific fields...

What is the origin of life?

Thus, the question "What is the origin of life?" is answered in the sciences in the areas of abiogenesis (for the origins of biological life) and cosmogeny (for the origins of the universe). Both of these areas are quite hypothetical, cosmogeny because no existing physical model can accurately describe the very early universe (the instant of the Big Bang), and abiogeneis because the environment of the young earth is not known, and because the conditions and chemical processes that may have taken billions of years to produce life cannot (as of yet) be reproduced in a laboratory.

However, general consensus is that an early protein replicator was formed by the gradual build up of amino acids in the oceans, and then proceeded to dominate the primeval soup, occasionally mutating into a more (or less) successful form. Eventually a primitive cell was formed, and life continued to evolve by the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection. Based on these or similar theories, some philosophers say that because life was entirely coincidental, one cannot expect life to have any meaning at all, other than its own self-perpetuation — reproduction.

What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?

Toward answering "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?," scientists have proposed various theories or worldviews over the centuries, including the heliocentric view by Copernicus and Galileo, through the mechanistic clockwork universe of René Descartes and Isaac Newton, to Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, to the Quantum Mechanics of Heisenberg and Schrödinger in an effort to understand the universe in which we live.

Meanwhile, countless scientists in the biological and medical fields have dissected the human body to its very smallest components to acquire an understanding of the nature of biological life, to determine what makes us tick. Near the end of the 20th century, equipped with insights from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists began to suggest that in so far as there may be a primary function to life, it is the survival of genes. In this approach, success isn't measured in terms of the survival of species, but one level deeper, in terms of the successful replication of genes over the eons, from one species to the next, and so on.

What is the significance of life?

The question "What is the significance of life?" has turned philosophers toward the study of significance itself and how it is derived and presented (see semiotics). The question has also been extensively explored by those who attempt to explain the relationship of life to its environment (the universe), and vice versa. Thus, from a scientific point of view, the significance of life is what it is, what it does, and what mechanisms are behind it. In psychology and biology, significance only exists within human and animal minds; significance is subjective and is an emotional function of brains, making it impossible to exist outside of people's thoughts and feelings.

What is valuable in life?

This question is a staple of the social sciences. The study of value has resulted in the fields of Economics and Sociology. The study of motives (which reflect what is valuable to a person) and the perception of value are subjects of the field of Psychology.

What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?"

This question also falls upon social scientists to answer. They attempt to do so by studying and explaining the behaviors and interactions of human beings (and every other type of animal as well).

Analysis of teleology based on science

One idea about the purpose of life probably arose many years ago (it's a common statement that "biology debunked teleology a century ago"). This "debunking" is said to have coincided with or resulted from advances in biological knowledge such as the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (i.e. Natural selection). It is not unlikely however, that it was philosophized long before that teleology (perceived meaning or purpose) is an illusion that has no bearing on reality and that ultimately there is no objective purpose to anything.

The proposition follows basically like this: setting goals and finding potential goals in physical objects and abstract ideas is an instinct deeply seated in the primate mind, as it was a characteristic fashioned by natural selection; part of the evolution of humanity's ancestors. This instinct, which is the search for purpose (or "meaning") is often known as teleology. We, as human beings, are all innately teleological thinkers. Teleological thinking is useful in the natural (and modern) world, making it a favorable trait for species to have. However, when we use this instinct when thinking philosophically about life, the universe, and everything, it misfires and we come up with an unsolvable conundrum - one which doesn't really exist in the first place. Teleological instincts apply well to physical objects such as food (purpose: to eat) but fail when they are attempted to be applied to the more abstract, like subjective experience. The failure of teleology can be demonstrated not just with abstract concepts, but objects that serve no known utility to human beings. What, for example, is the purpose of an asteroid floating around millions of miles from Earth? We can objectively explain the cause of things like space rocks, but we must conclude, if we are to embrace teleological thinking, that either a) far away asteroids have no purpose (at least, to us humans) or b) purpose doesn't exist in objective reality.

The argument about teleological thinking as a result of natural selection is put forward in various books and articles. The best-selling author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins puts forward his explanation in his Discovery Science video The Big Question: why are we here?.

Entropy

Self-organization

Philosophy of the meaning of life

While scientific approaches to the meaning of life aim to describe empirical facts about human existence, philosophers are more concerned about the relationship between ideas. For example, philosophers have considered such questions as: 'Is the question "What is the meaning of life?" a meaningful question?';^[1]; 'What does the question "What is the meaning of life?" mean?'^[2]; and 'If there are no objective values, then is life meaningless?'^[3] Some philosophical disciplines have also aimed to develop an understanding of life that explains, regardless of how we came to be here, what we should do now that we are here (such as humanism).

Value as meaning

In that they attempt to answer the question "What is valuable in life?," theories of value are theories of the meaning of life. Famous philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and many others had clear views about what sort of life was best (and hence most meaningful). Aristotle, for example, believed that the pursuit of happiness was the Highest Good and that such is achievable through our uniquely human capacity to reason.

Atheistic views

Main article: Atheism

Atheism's strictest sense means the belief that a god or supernatural overbeing (of any type or number) does not exist, and by extension that neither the universe or its inhabitants (us included) were created by said supernatural overbeing. Atheism pertains to three of the five interpretations of the meaning of life question: "What is the origin of life?," "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?," and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?" Because most atheists reject supernatural explanations for the existence of life, lacking a deistic source, they commonly point to abiogenesis as the most likely source for the origin of life. As for the purpose of life, there is no one particular atheistic view. Some atheists argue that since there are no gods to tell us what to value, we are left to decide that for ourselves. Other atheists argue that some sort of meaning can be intrinsic to life itself, so the existence or non-existence of god is irrelevant to the question (a version of the Euthyphro dilemma). Some believe that life is nothing more than a byproduct of insensate natural forces and has no underlying meaning or grand purpose. Other atheists are non-cognitivist towards the question, believing that talking about meaning without specifying "meaning to whom" is an incoherent or incomplete thought (this can also fit with the idea of choosing the meaning of life for oneself).

Existentialist views

Main article: Existentialism

Arthur Schopenhauer offered a bleak answer by determining one's life as a reflection of one's will and the will (and thus life) as being an aimless, irrational, and painful drive. However, he saw salvation, deliverance, or escape from suffering in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and asceticism. Søren Kierkegaard invented the term "leap of faith" and argued that life is full of absurdity and the individual must make his or her own values in an indifferent world. For Kierkegaard, an individual can have a meaningful life (at least one free of despair) if the individual relates the self in an unconditional commitment to something finite, and devotes his or her life to the commitment despite the inherent vulnerability of doing so.

Humanist views

Main article: Humanism

To the humanist, life's biological purpose is built-in: it is to reproduce. That is how the human race came to be: creatures reproducing in a progression of unguided evolution as an integral part of nature, which is self-existing. But biological purpose isn't the same thing as human purpose, though it may be a factor thereof. Human purpose is determined by humans, completely without supernatural influence. Nor does knowledge come from supernatural sources, it flows from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis preferably utilizing the scientific method: the nature of the universe is what we discern it to be. As are ethical values, which are derived from human needs and interests as tested by experience.

Enlightened self-interest is at the core of humanism. The most significant thing in life is the human being, and by extension, the human race and the environment in which we live. The happiness of the individual is inextricably linked to the well-being of humanity as a whole, in part because we are social animals which find meaning in relationships, and because cultural progress benefits everybody who lives in that culture.

When the world improves, life in general improves, so, while the individual desires to live well and fully, humanists feel it is important to do so in a way that will enhance the well being of all. While the evolution of the human species is still (for the most part) a function of nature, the evolution of humanity is in our hands and it is our responsibility to progress it toward its highest ideals. In the same way, humanism itself is evolving, because humanists recognize that values and ideals, and therefore the meaning of life, are subject to change as our understanding improves.

The doctrine of humanism is set forth in the Humanist Manifesto [1] and A Secular Humanist Declaration [2].

Nihilist views

Friedrich Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. The term nihilism itself comes from the Latin nihil, which means "nothing." Nietzsche described Christianity as a nihilistic religion, because it removes meaning from this earthly life, to instead focus on a supposed afterlife. He also saw nihilism as a natural result of the idea that God is dead, and insisted that it was something to be overcome, by returning meaning to the Earth.

Martin Heidegger described nihilism as the state in which "there is nothing of Being as such," and argued that nihilism rested on the reduction of being to mere value.

Nihilism rejects claims to knowledge and truth, and explores the meaning of an existence without knowable truth. Though nihilism tends toward defeatism, one can find strength and reason for celebration in the varied and unique human relationships it explores. From a nihilist point of view, morals are valueless and only hold a place in society as false ideals created by various forces. The characteristic that distinguishes nihilism from other skeptical or relativist philosophies is that, rather than merely insisting that values are subjective or even warrantless, nihilism declares that nothing is of value, as the name implies.

Positivist views

Main article: Logical positivism

Of the meaning of life, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists said: expressed in language, the question is meaningless. This is because "meaning of x" is a term in life usually conveying something regarding the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or that which should be noted regarding x, etc. So when "life" is used as "x" in the term "meaning of x," the statement becomes recursive and therefore nonsensical.

In other words, things in a person's life can have meaning (importance), but a meaning of life itself, i.e., apart from those things, can't be discerned. In this context, a person's life is said to have meaning (significance to himself and others) in the form of the events throughout his life and the results of his life in terms of achievements, a legacy, family, etc. But to say that life itself has meaning is a misuse of language, since any note of significance or consequence is relevant only in life (to those living it), rendering the statement erroneous. Language can provide a meaningful answer only when it refers to a realm within the realm of life. But this is not possible when the question reaches beyond the realm in which language exists, violating the contextual limitations of language. Such a question is broken. And the answer to a broken question is an erroneous or irrelevant answer.

Other philosophers besides Wittgenstein have sought to discover what is meaningful within life by studying the consciousness within it. But when these philosophers looked for a holistic definition of the “Meaning of Life” for humanity, they were stone-walled by the Wittgenstein linguistic model.

Logical positivism asserts that statements are meaningful only insofar as they are verifiable, and that statements can be verified only in two (exclusive) ways: empirical statements, including scientific theories, which are verified by experiment and evidence; and analytic truth, statements which are true or false by definition, and so are also meaningful. Everything else, including ethics and aesthetics, is not literally meaningful, and so belongs to "metaphysics." One conclusion is that serious philosophy should no longer concern itself with metaphysics.

Pragmatist views

Main article: Pragmatism

Pragmatic philosophers suggest that rather than a truth about life, we should seek a useful understanding of life. William James argued that truth could be made but not sought. Thus, the meaning of life is a belief about the purpose of life that does not contradict one's experience of a purposeful life. Roughly, this could be applied as: "The meaning of life is those purposes which cause you to value it." To a pragmatist, the meaning of life, your life, can be discovered only through experience.

Pragmatism is a school of philosophy which originated in the United States in the late 1800s. Pragmatism is characterized by the insistence on consequences, utility and practicality as vital components of truth. Pragmatism objects to the view that human concepts and intellect represent reality, and therefore stands in opposition to both formalist and rationalist schools of philosophy. Rather, pragmatism holds that it is only in the struggle of intelligent organisms with the surrounding environment that theories and data acquire significance. Pragmatism does not hold, however, that just anything that is useful or practical should be regarded as true, or anything that helps us to survive merely in the short-term; pragmatists argue that what should be taken as true is that which most contributes to the most human good over the longest course. In practice, this means that for pragmatists, theoretical claims should be tied to verification practices—i.e., that one should be able to make predictions and test them—and that ultimately the needs of humankind should guide the path of human inquiry.

Transhumanist views

Transhumanism is an outgrowth of Posthumanism, which is an extension of Humanism. Like its ideological ancestors, it proposes that we should seek the advancement of humanity and of all life to the greatest degree of differed feasible equation. Although transhumanism makes no distinctions regarding anything as grandiose as "the meaning of life," it is different from humanism and posthumanism in its emphasis on the proposition that science should take the foremost role in the improvement of life. To the transhumanist, the meaning of life is necessarily indefinite and ambiguous, and should be left to the philosophical inclinations of the individual. Nevertheless, whatsoever an individual chooses to believe, transhumanism insists that there does exist a moral imperative common to all intelligent agents to improve their lives and, moreover, to advocate for the universal recognition of freedoms regarding an individual's choice of life enhancement. All living things should be free to choose, to the extent of their capacities, to improve themselves or not in any way they so desire, and no living thing should ever be given the opportunity to interfere in the personal development of any other living being unless for that being's own good (such as if the being's ignorance of some otherwise well understood principle or fact were driving it to unwitting self-injury).

To transhumanists, these principles extend greatly beyond more conventional lifestyle choices and freedoms of thought, and encompass such experimental and highly controversial subjects as morphological freedom and procreative beneficence. These are, respectively, the freedom to choose the shape and function of one's body and mind, and the freedom to do the same for one's descendants, excepting when to do so would in some way injure the descendants or the descendants' freedom to make the same choices. Transhumanists therefore advocate that all intelligent life forms have the freedom to access the tools and knowledge necessary to improve their lives however they see fit (and that these things must be made universally available), whether this be in simple manifestations such as the options of meeting basic medical and dietetic requirements, or more complex examples such as the options of undergoing genetic engineering or cybernetic augmentation. Transhumanists argue that improved people will necessarily have improved capabilities to seek out and answer questions regarding "the meaning of life" as they see it, more so than even humans do currently. The transhumanist programme, then, is essentially the programme that insists that all living things be granted the basic option to inquire after their own personal or social "meaning(s) of life" (including meanings that human beings are currently incompetent to comprehend) as much as it is physically possible to do so, and no less.

Theistic beliefs about the meaning of life

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Main articles: Religion and Religious humanism

There are many different interpretations to the "Word of God," and therefore many interpretations to the meaning of life. However, reaching Heaven in the afterlife can be seen as a universal meaning of life or goal for followers of Abrahamic religions. Also universal teachings, or meanings, to be followed in virtually all religions are "The Golden Rule" and simple living.

Relationship to God

Most people who believe in a personal God would agree that it is God "in whom we live and move and have our being"^{[citation needed]}. The notion here is that they respond to a higher authority who will give their lives meaning and provide purpose through a relationship with the divine. Although belief is also based on knowing God "through the things he has made," the decision to believe in such an authority is called the "leap of faith," and to a very large degree this faith defines the faithful's meaning of life^{[citation needed]}.

To "be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it"

An example of how religion creates purpose can be found in the biblical story of creation in the Old Testament of the Bible: the purpose for man comes from his relationship to God and in this relationship he is told to "Be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it" Genesis 1:28. This indicates that subsequent to the goal of being in personal relationship with God, the propagation of the human race, the care and population of the earth, and the control of the earth (but as man sinned, he lost the full ability to do so, characterized by the fact that animals are not under full control) are the first three commandments God has set for man.

Another Biblical example is given in Micah 6:8, which states "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." However, instructions given by God and the meaning of life (or the purpose of one's existence), are not necessarily the same thing.

Sapiential meaning of life

In many^{[attribution needed]} esoteric strands of world religions, one encounters the meaning of life as "play."

The most notable of this is Hinduism's notion of lila (literally, "play")^{[citation needed]}. This is the suggestion that the meaning of life is not a final goal which can be arrived at in time, but rather a sort of game in which every being is unwittingly playing. Although it is pleasurable or fulfilling to 'win' the game of existence (at the end of one's life or at the end of time), the game itself, like music, dance, or sport, creates meaning as it moves through time^{[citation needed]}.

Similar ideas are contained in the hidden treasure referenced in hadith qudsi: "I (God) was a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known. Therefore, I created creation in order that I might be known." In this esoteric Muslim view, generally held by Sufis, the universe exists only for God's pleasure. However, because the happiness of God is not dependent on anything temporal^{[citation needed]}, creation works as a grand game with God serving as the principal player and prize^{[citation needed]}.

The Book of Job begins with God applauding over the piety of Job. Satan, says to God that Job is only faithful because he is rewarded accordingly, and asks permission of God to test Job. In his tribulation, Job suffers again and again without ever finding out the cause of his life's horrors. Instead, only God and the reader are allowed to know that the sorrows of life are merely a game played on the cosmic level^{[citation needed]}. The game itself is incidental, yet at the same time the will of God in the creation of life.

Spiritual and mystical views of the meaning of life

Portal:Spirituality

Spirituality Portal

Mitch Albom wrote about his dying professor Morrie and their last lessons together in the bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie in which some interesting questions were raised. Albom's life as a writer was until then in vain because he chased the wrong things in life: bigger houses, bigger cars, and bigger paychecks. No matter how big they were, they still could not fill his emptiness. The idea presented when Morrie learns they have Lou Gehrig's Disease is that the world was as green and as alive as before he contracted the terminal illness, and that the world does not stand still nor come to an end when he does. The professor's experience haunted Albom in his ego-centric view of life, and inspired him to change. Albom learned from Professor Morrie that the true meanings in life are in the giving, the loving and the sharing of what you've had, which in turn live on by being passed down from generation to generation{{cn}.

The Book of Light^[4] presents the nature of God and the purpose of creation. According to Michael Sharp, God is consciousness and the purpose of creation is to have fun (alleviate boredom). Creation exists "as a dream inside the mind of God" and we are all Sparks of the One Creator Consciousness.

The Urantia Book offers a point of view on the vast meaning of life by reconciling humankind's innumerable problems with discrepancies between creationism, evolution, cosmology, modern science, philosophy, history, theology and religion^{[citation needed]}.

James Redfield gave his perspective on the meaning of life in his book The Celestine Prophecy, suggesting that the answers can be found within, through experiencing a series of personal spiritual insights. In his book God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution (2002), co-written with Michael Murphy, he claims that humanity is on the verge of undergoing a change in consciousness.

Another answer was given by Neale Donald Walsch in his trilogy Conversations with God, in which he asserts that the purpose of this present creation is for That-which-Is (God, Spirit) to know itself experientially rather than merely conceptually, by creating of itself a billion billion individuals who interact, and learn, and thus can rediscover, through actual experience, their divinity by experiencing and exploring it in this world.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell, in his The Power of Myth interviews with Bill Moyers, answered the question in the following way:

People say what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive so that the life experiences that we have on the purely physical plane will have resonances within, that are those of our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive..

The purpose of life in the words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living foundation:

One who knows, will not tell you! And anyone who attempts to tell you, please know that they don't know! But this much I can tell you... this very fact this question has arisen in your mind, you are lucky! Many people just live life without asking what is the purpose of life. This question itself is like tool, a vehicle for you to go deep into life... the quest for reality!

Mystical views

The view of mysticism varies widely according to how each speaker describes it. In general the view is broadly that life is a happening, an unfolding. There is no duality, it is a nondual worldview, in which subject and object are the same, the sense of doer-ship is illusionary. This view is central to Buddhism, and is also found in certain non-dual sects of Hinduism. Atheists such as Susan Blackmore and Sam Harris have recently advocated mysticism through rigorous meditation as the only reliable way of attaining sure knowledge of our subjective experience.

Humourous and popular culture treatments

The concept of life having a meaning has often been parodied in popular culture.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: An incredibly intelligent pan-dimensional race builds a giant supercomputer called Deep Thought, in hopes of finding The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Seven and a half million years later, the computer returns the answer 42. After much confusion from the audience, Deep Thought explains that the problem is that they do not know the question, and they would have to build an even more powerful computer to solve it. This computer is revealed to be Earth, which is destroyed shortly before it finishes making its calculations in order to make way for an intergalactic bypass.

Later, in the hopes that his subconscious holds the question, Arthur Dent attempts to guess at the question, and comes up with "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?" Although this equals 54 in base ten, making the question either nonsensical or incorrect, it does equal 42 in base thirteen. After being told this, Douglas Adams replied that even he doesn't "make jokes in base thirteen".^[5]

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: In this comedy, it is suggested that there is no meaning to life. At the very end of the film, Michael Palin is handed an envelope, opens it, and says "Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."

In The Simpsons episode "Homer The Heretic," a representation of God tells Homer what the meaning of life is, but as usual the one who really wanted to know (the viewer) is left disappointed. The dialogue goes as follows:

Homer: God, what's the meaning of life?

God: Homer, I can't tell you that.

Homer: Why not?

God: You'll find out when you die.

Homer: Oh, I can't wait that long.

God: You can't wait 6 months?

Homer: No, tell me now...

God: Oh, OK... The meaning of life is...

At this point, the credits music starts and the show ends. The writer's original idea was that a commercial would come after this scene and before the credits, thus having the commercial interrupt God's explanation to humorous effect.

Peanuts: Charlie Brown explains he thinks the purpose of life is to make others happy, to which Lucy responds that she doesn't think she is making anyone happy, and—more importantly—no one is making her happy, so someone isn't doing their job^{[citation needed]}.

Paul Gauguin's interpretation can be seen in the painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey: Bill and Ted end up meeting God. Before being admitted into his presence, St. Peter (billed as The Gatekeeper on IMDb) asks them what the meaning of life is, and they reply with the lyrics to the song "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison.

Alchemist and the movie City Slickers both present a similar theme: the meaning of life is an individual journey to find one's own "path." In this context, the "path," similar to what is defined in Buddhism as the "4th Noble Truth," is best explained simply as the overall way one chooses to lead their life.

SmarterChild: It's creators have claimed that the meaning of life is one of the most common requests from its users^{[citation needed]}. The algorithm has since been tweaked so that instead of responding with a generic message, it replies with a humorous "ask Ken Ma" and a smiling emoticon. There has been speculation as to whether or not Ken Ma is a real person, whilst one common theory is that the name is an inside joke amongst the developers of the chat bot.

A Man Without a Country: Kurt Vonnegut sums up life with the words: "We're all here to fart around. Don't let anyone tell you any different!"

Comedian George Carlin jokes that the meaning of life is "to find a place to put all your stuff." In another skit he speculates: "Maybe the Earth needed plastic and didn't know how, so he created humans?"

Additional references

Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfilment, Jane Roberts, Amber-Allen Publishing.
Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement; by Anthony Robbins. Random House Publishing Group, 1987. ISBN 0-449-90280-3
The Science of Soulmates, By William Henderson, Booksurge 2002. ISBN 1-58898-611-X

External links

The Big Question: why are we here? - Richard Dawkins.
An Objectve Philosophy: Why We Exist? - Martin G. Walker.
The FAQ of life - by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, transhumanist
Hedonism & Meaning of life
The Logic of Existential Meaning
Website for philosophical counseling supporting
the treatment of depression[7]

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[1] Rudolph Wohlgennant. 1981. 'Has the Question about the Meaning of Life any Meaning?' (chapter 4). In E. Morscher, ed., Philosophie als Wissenscaft.

[2] Richard Taylor. 1970. 'The Meaning of Life' (chapter 5). In Good and Evil. Macmillan Publishing.

[3] David McNaughton. 1988. 'Moral Freedom and the Meaning of Life' (section 1.5). In Moral Vision. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

[Michael_Sharp-4] The Book of Light: The Nature of God, The Structure of Consciousness, and The Universe Within You e-book accessed July 2006

[5] Interview, the Digital Village, 1998

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Meaning of life

Popular beliefs

Survival and temporal success

Wisdom and knowledge

Ethical

Religious and spiritual

Philosophical

Other

Scientific approaches to the meaning of life

Science and the five questions

What is the origin of life?

What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?

What is the significance of life?

What is valuable in life?

What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?"

Analysis of teleology based on science

Entropy

Self-organization

Philosophy of the meaning of life

Value as meaning

Atheistic views

Existentialist views

Humanist views

Nihilist views

Positivist views

Pragmatist views

Transhumanist views

Theistic beliefs about the meaning of life

Relationship to God

To "be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it"

Sapiential meaning of life

Spiritual and mystical views of the meaning of life

Mystical views

Humourous and popular culture treatments

See also

What is the origin of life?

What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?

What is the significance of life?

What is valuable in life?

What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?"

Covering more than one of the above

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ISBN links support NWE through referral fees