The Meaning of Life
 

In recent weeks I have spotted posts here and there describing one's struggles with this concept. Some say this is the meaning of life, some say that is the meaning of life, some say there is no meaning of life and some say the meaning of life is whatever you make of it. This thread is not to suggest one particular meaning is the meaning of life, rather, this thread is suggest another way of thinking, another approach to life that is different.

For a while I was back and forth on the idea. I thought and stated in the past that the goal in life was to be happy. Then it was to love. Then it was to grow. Then there was no meaning of life other than what I chose it to be.

It wasn't until recently that I speculated that perhaps the idea of having a meaning to life was more or less a flaw in our language. Language heavily influences the way we think, and our language (perhaps anything coming from a Greek origin) often approaches the world in terms of opposites and meanings, amongst other things. Things are described as "hot" as compared to "cold", and things are labeled by their purpose. Looking around my room, there is a door, a wall, a roof, and a chair. Outside my window I see dirt, a fence, and a shovel lying in the grass. Many of the things I'm seeing and interpreting are heavily associated to their meaning - a shovel isn't an odd-looking collection of iron and tree branch, its a shovel because if I pick it up, I can use it to dig a hole.

What is the significance of this? The significance is this results in a problem for defining life. Because just like so many other things, we want to ascribe a purpose or an end goal to life. We often describe life as a journey to whatever purpose or place it's meaning calls for.

This is not to say, however, that "there is no meaning to life". To say that would to to remain in the same realm of thought that created this perplexity. Rather, I'd like to step back and think of life as something other than a process to an ends, something other than a journey. And perhaps instead, something more musical.

Music & Life

How about: Life itself is a meaning :)

Now we're thinking! :)

mate feed kill repeat

This is the meaning of life for a Praying Mantis.

"What is the meaning of life" looks like one of those questions that any answer immediately becomes inadequate as soon as you formulate it. Enlightenment is perpendicular to reason.

The books of Jed McKenna are great reading in this respect, I recommend them to everyone. I was disappointed to learn that he doesn't really exist, but that doesn't invalidate the ideas in "his" books; after all, Jonathan Livingston Seagull didn't exist either :)

42

Anything "deeper" is just philosophical ego stroking.

I like this too. :) I also like the explanation in "Music & Life." I would try to expand upon this, but I'm afraid that might be futile. Simplicity works best in this case.

^this

I like it :D

There is no meaning. Don't take life so seriously, just enjoy it :)
also, 42 :awesome:

What exactly makes one animal so different from another?

I wasn't suggesting there is or is not a meaning to life. I was suggesting that perhaps defining life in terms of "meanings" (or lack of) is inappropriate or ineffective. You wouldn't define music or some other things in terms of "meanings". Rather, the best way to understand music is to just listen to it, feel it, let go of your fears and just sing and dance to it.

The intent of this thread wasn't to debate the meaning of life, or whether one exists. It was more about finding and discussing other ways of understanding life. We shouldn't let our language limit our understanding.

I don't think there's any meaning to life beyond what you make of it. Simple as that

It's a joke. See Mantis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

Any meaning is contrived from the eyes of the beholder. Good post Caveman, I think the influx of these types of posts you speak of is just a result of a group of people that seek for deeper purpose and meaning. That is a good thing. People do need to "take a step back", but not just in this sense...people need to do this with a LOT of things, if not everything. Understanding one's own cognition requires "taking a step back", and until we can understand ourselves...I think you see where I'm going with that ;)

As for contributing a meaning among 42, mate feed kill repeat, etc... Check my status: "By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe."

What you speak of sounds like a very Buddhist interpretation of things (Is this thread influenced by that in any way?)

My own take on it would be that meaning is whatever the creator intends it to be. Some would say that the meaning of life is whatever we make it to be but I would disagree with that from a philosophical perspective. A writer could author a book with the intent of explaining why we should take better care of the environment. Someone else could read that and interpret the book as being supportive of big business but that doesn't change the meaning of the book. Regardless of the reader's view, the original purpose and meaning of the book does not change. The book was originally written with an environmental message.

Likewise if we apply this analogy to life, its meaning is whatever the creator of life intended it to be. Many of us have our own interpretations of what this could be. If there is no creator, then there is no meaning in life.

With this is in mind. An aethiest would say that there is no meaning in life, a theist on the other hand would say that there is.

Disclaimer: this isn't to start a religious debate. We can discuss such things in another thread.

But by saying there is no meaning in life, wouldn't that inherently supply a meaning? *Twilight zone theme*, jk :xD:

Well that touches upon things like: Is nothing something? Another big philosophical quandary. :P

As an atheist I believe that life has no meaning, so just have fun with it.

This is from lyrics of one song:
"The meaning of life is to give life meaning"

But IMO it's just more difficult way of saying "Life itself is a meaning". :P

I believe that the meaning of life is yourself, you are the meaning of YOUR life.. As strange as that may sound.

(then maybe don't make grand sweeping statements like that?)

And, well, AS an atheist, I say life has what meaning you yourself put into it. I mean, yes, on the biological level the meaning of life is to survive long enough to reproduce, but that doesn't really cut it with humans, I don't think. So, yes, life is what you make it - and that it probably doesn't matter if you believe in a deity or not, you are still going to find a meaning in your life if you are that way inclined.

IMO:

I don't believe in the meaning of life, all that matters is we are alive.

But how does your wishful thinking change life's inherent meaning? I would argue that you start with an inherent purpose and simply discover it along the way rather than making one for yourself.

As I said, biological life's inherent meaning is to continue. Beyond that - no, life in general doesn't have a meaning, so we ourselves have to create one for OUR life. I don't believe in a deity, I don't believe in fate, so I don't believe that someone out there has given me something that I have to find. I have the choices that come up in the course of my life, and the option to take them, or to think about them, and form my own meaning.

I think we are confusing semantics here. Meaning is what is inherent to something. Interpretation is what we attach to things. I never said that you shouldn't try to interpret things or interpret what we should do in life. Your view on inherent meaning from a biological perspective is simply an interpretation of things. Life does continue but there is nothing to indicate that it is intended to do so. The mechanism for continuing could have no meaning at all.

...And so, logically, your view on the meaning of life is just another interpretation, and we get nowhere because we can't discuss the meaning of life because it's all just an interpretation.

And, yes, actually, we can hazard a guess that life's purposes is to continue, based on what we KNOW of living creatures. Life bounces back, again and again, and has done so for billions of years. And look at all the animals who die after reproducing - their "purposes", as far as Nature is concerned, is done.

But as humans now have choices about whether to reproduce or not, that doesn't help in the philosophical aspect.

The problem is that no one truly knows what the meaning of life is or whether such a thing exists. What is food for thought is whether it can even be discovered (if its there to begin with)

As you say in the end, its just a guess. Life could very well have been created by aliens. We may be a giant petri dish experiment where life was seeded but accidentally had the ability to reproduce. The ability to have a choice does not necessarily provide evidence towards any meaning.

Baneful, that is a typical theist interpretation, and not true at all. People can have their OWN meanings, which is far better than being told what to do by an argument from authority. Having a dictated purpose that is not your own is possibly the worst way to live possible.

Exactly. :)

@ HMN Again I say that we're just getting into a semantics argument.

mean·ing   [mee-ning]

1.
what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated; signification; import: the three meanings of a word.
2.
the end, purpose, or significance of something: What is the meaning of life? what is the meaning of this intrusion?

By the way the word is defined. Meaning is an objective frame of reference. That objective frame of reference may or may not exist. I never said that people should not try and figure things out for themselves. I never said that.

Yes, but you are arguing against what people usually MEAN when they talk about the meaning of life - that's where the confusion is coming in.

Though to my understanding, when most people ask about the meaning of life, they are asking why they are here to begin with or what purpose they have in the first place.

It should also be noted that the following statements have very different implications:

There is no meaning to life; therefore, make whatever you want out of your life.

The inherent meaning of life is to make whatever we want out of our lives.

Most people are actually referring to the first statement with the premise implied and this is where the confusion is coming from.

Although I appreciate conversation in my thread, I feel as though my point was missed entirely. It may have been my mistake labeling the thread "The meaning of Life", but I actually never intended to discuss what "the meaning of life" might be.

Let me start again.

For the longest time, I tried to understand life in terms of "meanings": Life has this meaning, life has that meaning, or the purpose of life is to do this , or even "there is no meaning" and so on. Under this frame of mind, life had to be defined in terms of meanings (or having no meaning).

Now, I speculate whether defining or understanding life in terms of meanings is appropriate. It might be like trying to understand a body of water in terms of weight, where as it might be more appropriate to understand how much water you have in terms of volume.

So I'm not questioning what the meaning of life is, yet several people have taken it upon themselves to answer that. I'm asking if there is another way of understanding life, perhaps under different terms, or no terms. So this thread is more about trying to understand life, particularly human life, in another frame of mind.

In short, I believe questioning "what is the meaning of life" is an attempt to understand life. But there may be other ways of understanding life, other than in terms of meanings.

I re-read your opening post. Have you read any Heidegger? You'd be all over it. (To tell the truth, I've only pursued modern derivatives of Heidegger, but maybe I should read the man himself; I'm just afraid the language would be hard to follow.)

So yours is a meta-question: Is there a framework for existence outside of meaning? Heavy stuff, man. I see you heading further down the Buddhist path, yes? This is so Zen. Can you experience the shovel in its shovel-ness rather than existing as something to shovel with? Does it even have any shovel-ness aside from that? What about a person? What about yourself? Can you experience yourself as something without meaning? I think by definition, if you could, you wouldn't be able to tell us about it.

Neurolinguistic Programming contains some thinking on the effect of language on thought. Don't go for any of the cheap technology stuff about V-A-K and eye movements written by people looking to make a buck off the movement; go to John Grinder's "new phase" books starting with "Turtles All The Way Down." He helped me get a real handle on the usefulness of alternate viewpoints and systems of interpretation.

Ultimately the only way to understand life's meaning would be to experience it directly in my opinion. As Sempu mentioned, what you describe sounds a lot like Zen Buddhism. In trying to explain things, too much information is lost in the conversion process. You can explain what its like to smell a flower but its never the same as smelling a flower for yourself. Likewise, someone trying to explain what the meaning of life is not the same as experiencing it directly yourself.

I would also think that such a thing resides outside the domain of logic and science. They attempt to explain ultimately "what happens" but not ultimately "what is" or ultimately "why". The way to find out what something is would be experience it directly imo.


For me, this is how I view things:

what happens -> logic and science
what is --> direct experience
why --> religion

and I'll leave it at that as I don't intend to debate these at all.

I think this is what I'm talking about. It's obviously hard to describe as its entering a whole other way of understanding things. Fun though. :D

Language obviously has a significant impact on our way of thinking. And our language interprets and understands the things around us in terms of its purpose. Like a shovel is a shovel because I can dig with it. If I can't dig with it, its junk.

Now, a shovel is a pretty shallow topic that perhaps doesn't deserve deep thought and attempted newer understandings. But something as significant as life might deserve a more objective understanding - one that isn't limited by our language or frame of mind.

Btw, thank you both Sempu and Baneful for the thoughts, particularly regarding Zen. I will check that out for sure.

You may find Zen koans to be rather interesting.

Oh, I don't know, maybe it's good for practicing on. Once you've got "shovel" down then you can work up to more advanced implements :)

A Zen master would probably say that there's no difference between a shovel and anything else for experiencing pure existence...

Caveman, you're speaking of the human value of reason. As in, how we interpret the world around us. If we think about it in the simplest ways, there is more than what meets the eye. Think of it in terms of light, we only perceive a small portion of the whole spectrum. I'm glad you brought this thread up, because as I said in my previous post, I can think of many people who need to be more open-minded.

You wouldn't happen to be a Zen master, would you;)

Well said.

The purpose of this thread was twofold. First, I find alternate ways of thinking to be fun and challenging. Secondly, this can be beneficial to other people who struggle to find meaning in life. To them, I say it's not about meaning. It's about music. Just let it in, let yourself sing, dance and have fun. :)