Meaning of Life.

[Stanislaw]

well, life is rather meaningless, but I like what ye have to say.

but, how do we know what is infact a dream and what is reality, in dreams our senses, and reason can be decieved so to judge the reality, or meaning of anything, we have no tools nor guides, nor an acurate place to leap from, infact our existance is rather questionable, and I am quite happy in thinking we do not exist, well at least not in a definable term, so...generally humans are meanigless as no meaning can be proved, disproved or find a means to define the words that are used to make a sentace.

[Hyacinth Girl]

generally humans are meanigless as no meaning can be proved, disproved or find a means to define the words that are used to make a sentace.

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold." eh? Works for me.

In fact, that is my point to some extent. There is no rule by which we can distinguish meaning. . . so to create it is perfectly valid. Of course, that would make the converse true as well - there is no way to distinguish "meaningless" either. . .

[Fat29]

I cannot speak for the rest. For me, life and death are different sides of the same coin. In life, my purpose is to make living more comfortable and better for those whose lives come after mine. As for death, I see it as a welcome friend who takes me away after I have run out of time to do what I needed to do while alive.

[squire nick]

In my more inspired moments I believe that the purpose is to create something greater than myself.

[caesar]

Is 'meanining of life' and 'purpose of life' one and the same?

[Withoutme]

Well, the Meaning of Life is rather Objective, whereas the Purpose of Life is more of Subjective!

Regards,
wM.

[Mary Sue]

"Life's a journey, not a destination."

Not my own, that. I read it somewhere. Or is it just a line from an Aerosmith song?

We're all traveling this same road together so let's try to get along and enjoy the ride, without having to make too many pit stops, and guys, try not to crowd each other, and once we reach our final destination, wherever that is....well, then there we'll be!
: )

[caesar]

Yeah, its is from Aerosmith's song 'Amazing' (love that song)

[PierreGringoire]

To say the meaning of life is objective and the purpose of life subjective is the catalyst that separates the two viewpoints: hyacinth's and sharp 12's. The seclusion of the two, is in fact like sawing a human's waist, and saying that the two halves can function without eachother, is confusing. But let's delve into this query nonetheless. You wrote (sharp12) that our emotions give our life a shrouded reality. Frist of all, that is observation of the puropse of life. So you are arguing both the purpose and meaning; and yet criticze when hycanith responded about the purpose. So let's take the MEANING first off. A synonym for the word.. meaning... can be... definition.... The definition of life is blunt. It might as well be defined by a monotonous computer program. We can sum up the meaning of life by saying, " it is the interval between life and death" (The American heritage,LIFE). But its that EMOTION which gives life to this discussion, as well as your incitation to post this discusssion. So it is safe to say to find the meaning of the PURPOSE of life is by far more importance than to find the meaning of the MEANING of life. And the PURPOSE of life is...well let's just say...as Socrates puts it.... "the most precious thing to discuss".... For the PURPOSE is like a color sprectrum, and if you lack but one color you still do not have the whole... and in fact you still are just as much lost in its meaning as if you had only one color figured out.

[siska]

hi i am a new member.
i refuse to be meaningless. i think the meaning of life is inevitable. you can say you dont have a meaning of life because you can woke up and streched your arms lazyly and felt sure tommorow you can see the sun rises.but if you know that tomorrow or the next day you will not taste the rain falling [not just in your mind but the fact you will] then you will refuse to be meaningless. its not a choice at all. one has meaning of life which is true only for oneself. as for death, it reminds me about my father's death. i witness his eyes closed, hot temperature body turned into cold. one can say one died and another human being is born.that's the cycle of life, which is true.However, in my experience my father died just like other human being and he feared death as well.but he left me one truth which i myself unable to deny despite his weaknesses and lack, that is, he loves me and all his life had shown me that all he wanted was that i to become a good woman.
i am not good in speaking out my mind.i guess i dont have the gift. i did once red a book written by victor frankl, in search of meaning, about his own experinces in a concentration nazi camp. He describes that that condition only shows how meaningless and hopeless life is but also in search of meaning is inevitable.
please read the book then you'll understand better than me.

[caesar]

Hello Siska, welcome to the forum.

I can empathise with you, Siska. I don't know how it feels to lose a loved one but I know how it is to grow up without a father. My father is alive, but I never loved him and alawys thought that he never loved me. I grew up hating my father and dreading that I might become like him. Only recently, I realised, after I started living independently, that my father was a monster only in my mind, created by my vengeful mother through clever manipulation since my childhood. But, she is, nevertheless, a very extraordinary human, with a very strong domineering will, industrious, has rigid morals and is virtually infallible. However, the realisation hit me like a bolt and I'm still grappling with it, not knowing what to do. My whole childhood was torn apart between my parents. All this time, I believed my mother and felt grateful that she had saved me from turning into a find like my father, now suddenly when I realize that she has deceived me, I'm devastated. She ruined my life - 'cause the scar on my mind dosen't seem to heal and it affects the way I think and act - to nurture her hatred. I wish, I could tell all this to my father. I wish to say, “I’m sorry, father’”.

I think this is a question to which we will never find the ultimate answer. And it mostly depends on one's disposition towards his/her own life.

However, like Votaire said,

I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

I hope you will enjoy being here.

[holograph]

Well as a fellow adolescent with an inclination towards idealism (since reality essentially does not exist either, I cannot call myself a realist ) I will agree with you--life has no meaning, and we have no purpose.

Religion, philosophy, science, etc. are all created to find meaning, and to console human beings. And these institutions are necessary to give meaning to humans, or they would all go mad.

Now, let me bring another point across--to you and to me, meaning and purpose do not exist. However, perhaps the meaning is there (somewhere) but we are not meant to know it, so we are not all that wise.

Though I believe that in essence life has no meaning, I do believe that since we are here, we serve some sort of purpose, regardless of whether we know what it is or not.

Hence, seeking meaning is impossible and foolish, since it does not exist, and I am not Don Quixote. And so I do not seek meaning, I trickle towards it on my own. Why chase the sun?

[Skafte]

One could claim that the meaning of life is God, love or whatever. But if the meaning of life is love, for instance, then what is the meaning of love? Everything that one could claim to be the meaning of life must have a higher purpose to justify it. Let´s say the meaning of life is love, then what is the meaning of love? It might be to make us reproduce ourselves, but what is the meaning of that? And so on.. And with the knowlegde humans have at the moment we won´t be able to find the end of this, the ultimate purpose - the human mind (mine, anyway) is incapable of imagining an anwer to this, one will always be able to ask "Then what is the meaning or purpose of that?". So the ultimate purpose doesn´t exist! - so in regards to the meaning of life (and quite frankly also in regards to the question of the existence of a higher being), I guess I am an agnostic at best, but if you´ll ask me I´ll say I think the ultimate meaning of life is absurd and doesn´t exist.

But I haven´t experienced love yet, so perhaps this experience and some further pondering might bring me the needed insight.

[bhekti]

....But I haven´t experienced love yet, so perhaps this experience and some further pondering might bring me the needed insight.

Actually...........what is 'meaning' ?

[bhekti]

What do you mean by meaning of life when you say that it does not exist?
How am I supposed to understand what you mean by something that, you say, don’t even exist? Can we really talk or think about a non-existent? (or, to be more precise I think I have to put it this way: can we really talk or think about ............?)

In my opinion , we can’t. We wouldn’t have said that life has no meaning if it really had not. So I think statement that says life has no meaning has to be understood very carefully, that is to say, not literally, but with considerations of the situation of the discourse in which the statement emerges, such as considerations of the statement’s semantic resources.

"What is the problem? A universe that contains much that is obviously bad and apparently meaningless, but containing creatures like ourselves who know that it is bad and meaningless." - C.S. Lewis

Meaning is generated when exchange occurs. Whenever, wherever there’s exchange, in whatever form, then there must be meaning. Life is an exchange, a very complicated one. Then life generates meanings.

when one is not able to generate meanings out of life, one's life is not meaningless. One is only bored, and I do think that life is boring. (that's why I like reading literature)

"What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" - Wittgenstein

...but even silence is now boring.