Can anyone explain the meaning of life?

Question

Can anyone explain the meaning of life?

Answer 1

Learn all you can.

Happiness is not a destination, its enjoying as many happy moments as possible.

Learn from mistakes.

Love as much as you can.

Enjoy it.

Know it isn't without heartache.

Accept it.

Embrace it.

Answer 2

42.

Answer 3

To love everyone, everything and life itself =)

Answer 4

Only from the framework of one's own existence.  This concept allows for explanation of meaning that is intrinsic to one's own experience.  In other words, I can only explain the meaning of my own life from the confines of my past and present.  I am limited to my own thought but may assimilate the expressions of others.  Only in my frame of reference can I establish some meaning.  Whether that meaning is relevant to another human being would be quite dependent on their own framework and life experiences.

Answer 5

the meaning of life is to have a life of meaning.

Answer 6

A meaning is a idea or message that is being conveyed. If our existence has any meaning, then there is a God who is trying to convey that meaning. Nature isn't trying to send messages to us.

Some people will tell us to make our own meaning but to make our own meaning is the same as pretending. It says to just invent something that will make us feel good and then pretend that it was why we were put on earth. To make our own meaning is a child's game.

If we will but cling to the truth, then we must either give up on meaning or seek our Creator. I arrive at that conclusion independent of any "holy book", but I note that the Bible says, "seek and ye shall find". That makes me think that seeking our Creator and knowing Him is the reason He created us.

Answer 7

The Purpose of Life is to Disperse Energy

Scott Sampson, in What is Your Dangerous Idea?

The truly dangerous ideas in science tend to be those that threaten the collective ego of humanity and knock us further off our pedestal of centrality. The Copernican Revolution abruptly dislodged humans from the center of the universe. The Darwinian Revolution yanked Homo sapiens from the pinnacle of life. Today another menacing revolution sits at the horizon of knowledge, patiently awaiting broad realization by the same egotistical species.

The dangerous idea is this: the purpose of life is to disperse energy.

Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the second law of thermodynamics, the unwavering propensity of energy to disperse and, in doing so, transition from high quality to low quality forms. More generally, as stated by ecologist Eric Schneider, "nature abhors a gradient," where a gradient is simply a difference over a distance — for example, in temperature or pressure. Open physical systems — including those of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere — all embody this law, being driven by the dispersal of energy, particularly the flow of heat, continually attempting to achieve equilibrium. Phenomena as diverse as lithospheric plate motions, the northward flow of the Gulf Stream, and occurrence of deadly hurricanes are all examples of second law manifestations.

There is growing evidence that life, the biosphere, is no different. It has often been said the life's complexity contravenes the second law, indicating the work either of a deity or some unknown natural process, depending on one's bias. Yet the evolution of life and the dynamics of ecosystems obey the second law mandate, functioning in large part to dissipate energy. They do so not by burning brightly and disappearing, like a fire torching a forest, but through stable metabolic cycles that store chemical energy and continually reduce the solar gradient. Photosynthetic plants, bacteria, and algae capture energy from the sun and form the core of all food webs.

Virtually all organisms, including humans, are, in a real sense, sunlight transmogrified, temporary waypoints in the flow of energy. Ecological succession, viewed from a thermodynamic perspective, is a process that maximizes the capture and degradation of energy. Similarly, the tendency for life to become more complex over the past 3.5 billion years (as well as the overall increase in biomass and organismal diversity through time) is not due simply to natural selection, as most evolutionists still argue, but also to nature's "efforts" to grab more and more of the sun's flow. The slow burn that characterizes life enables ecological systems to persist over deep time, changing in response to external and internal perturbations.

Ecology has been summarized by the pithy statement, "energy flows, matter cycles. " Yet this maxim applies equally to complex systems in the non-living world; indeed it literally unites the biosphere with the physical realm. More and more, it appears that complex, cycling, swirling systems of matter have a natural tendency to emerge in the face of energy gradients. This recurrent phenomenon may even have been the driving force behind life's origins.

This idea is not new, and is certainly not mine. Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger was one of the first to articulate the hypothesis, as part of his famous "What is Life" lectures in Dublin in 1943. More recently, Jeffrey Wicken, Harold Morowitz, Eric Schneider and others have taken this concept considerably further, buoyed by results from a range of studies, particularly within ecology. Schneider and Dorian Sagan provide an excellent summary of this hypothesis in their recent book, "Into the Cool".

The concept of life as energy flow, once fully digested, is profound. Just as Darwin fundamentally connected humans to the non-human world, a thermodynamic perspective connects life inextricably to the non-living world. This dangerous idea, once broadly distributed and understood, is likely to provoke reaction from many sectors, including religion and science. The wondrous diversity and complexity of life through time, far from being the product of intelligent design, is a natural phenomenon intimately linked to the physical realm of energy flow.

Moreover, evolution is not driven by the machinations of selfish genes propagating themselves through countless millennia. Rather, ecology and evolution together operate as a highly successful, extremely persistent means of reducing the gradient generated by our nearest star. In my view, evolutionary theory (the process, not the fact of evolution!) and biology generally are headed for a major overhaul once investigators fully comprehend the notion that the complex systems of earth, air, water, and life are not only interconnected, but interdependent, cycling matter in order to maintain the flow of energy.

Although this statement addresses only naturalistic function and is mute with regard to spiritual meaning, it is likely to have deep effects outside of science. In particular, broad understanding of life's role in dispersing energy has great potential to help humans reconnect both to nature and to planet's physical systems at a key moment in our species' history.

Answer 8

as a Christain it is to love and bring others to God

But as an average person there is no meaning but to exist

Answer 9

The meaning of life can't be told to you.  It must be experienced and decided upon by you alone.

There is meaning in everything you do, whether you see it or not.

My personal meaning, my drive if you will, is to make sure that my friends and loved ones are happy and healthy.  If I can make them smile, laugh, and fondly remember me then I've done my job.

I do have to disagree with "littlelady75" on the atheist comments.  Atheists don't necessarily believe that nothing has meaning.  Being an atheist means that you do not believe in a higher power.  It does not mean that you have no emotions, which is what your assessment strongly implies.

Answer 10

To the Atheist, life is simply to be lived.  There is no future, and no real meaning.   s*x, Family, Intelligent discussions of philosophy, and various types of government all have a part in their lives and philosophy, but no real meaning.

To the Philosopher, the meaning of life is to try to solve and explore the mysteries of life and all it entails, but they too can not come up with any real answers.

To people of various beliefs around the world, Light and Darkness is always a theme that reoccurs.   Even the animists of the primitive peoples believe there are forces of light and darkness.  

The Bible teaches that Light is God's Creative Counterpoint to Darkness, and that even in the Darkness, he sees who we are, and what we are, and loves us.   That He loved us and loves us still, in spite of all the evil, the woe, the hurt, the sin, the only reason that we know that is that it is recorded Jesus came into the world to be the LIGHT of the world.  John 8.12

LOGOS in the Greek world of yesteryears was the sum total of all that was ethically good and right.    Jesus claimed to be that LOGOS.    Philosophically, he was not a good man if he made this claim, for either he was crazy, or mis-guided, or a liar, or he was true and right and the Truth as he said He was.

I challenge you to read the record of his life in the four Gospels.   There is more evidence of his birth, life, and death and resurrection than of Napoleon's surrender after defeat.  

Jesus himself predicted that he would die, be buried, and rise again.    He predicted this three times.    

If you can find any meaning to life outside of the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, it will never satisfy for very long.  You will still have too many unanswered questions that cannot fill the soul.    Thank you for reading this.   I respect the right of every one to judge for themself what to believe and how to view life.

Answer 11

Why do you assume it has a meaning? What do you mean by "the meaning of life"? Can you put it in other words?

Answer 12

It's whatever you decide it should be,without the need of a higher power to create it for you.