What is the problem of asking "What is the meaning of life?"?

Question

What is the problem of asking "What is the meaning of life?"?

Answer 1

because no one can explain it.. no matter what degree they have and no matter how much they pray and believe in. and i think google explains it best. if you type in google "whats the meaning of life?" gives you the answer of: 42.

Answer 2

The main problem with asking "What is the meaning of life" is that the question pre-supposes that life does, in fact, have a specific universal meaning.

The question should really be "Does life have a specific, universal meaning, and if it does, what is it?"

The answer to that question is an emphatic "No", as evidenced by the fact that the question is asked continually through time, from all around the world.

That is not to say that life has *NO* meaning; just not a specific universally accepted one.  You may find your own meaning for life while someone else finds another.  One may accept some previously-stated meaning (maybe from a religion), while yet another may reject outright the idea that life has meaning.

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The late Douglas Adams claims (humorously, of course) that the answer to the the ultimate question of the meaning of Life, The Universe, and Everything, is 42.  The real problem, he claims, is that no one really understands the question.

Perhaps the essence of his humor is closer to the truth than it would at first seem . . .

Answer 3

it has been over asked....... why does it have to have meaning............ just kick back and enjoy it

Answer 4

I think there are at least two problems with posing this question:

The same answer will not satisfy the same man (or woman) at different stages of life. The meaning at ten is not the same meaning at forty any more than the person is the same.

There are as many answers as there are people, and each answer is as intrinsic and as varied as the person answering.

One thing that I can promise with a reasonable degree of certainty: there is no one answer.

Answer 5

You can ask for it, but no one can give you the correct answer.

Answer 6

well I don't think there is only one meaning to life. but most people say the meaning is to live.

Answer 7

There's never a problem with ASKING questions, the problems begin when we STOP asking them.

Answer 8

I see it all the time! it's a continuous question daily, and I feel as though a person could simply use the search for a questions option bar above.  They would more than likely get a hundred different answers, rather than 10 unless that person is new to the yahoo forum.

Answer 9

I don't see a problem with it. I just see that you will get lots of answers based on the perspectives of the answerers, lol. In other words, life has a different meaning to each and every single one of us.

Answer 10

There's no problem with asking the question, I just wouldn't expect an answer.

Answer 11

Part of the issue with the question is that it already PRESUPPOSES that there is a meaning to life. For all we know, life is meaningless because we have nothing to compare it to. We only construct meaning to feel better about things, yet we have no way of knowing if ANY meaning exists (let alone those meanings that we express as the answer to the question). It is like someone saying, "Life is hard" to which another response, "Compared to what?" In short, we don't know anything but life and so we can have no objective position to stand and give an adequate answer. We are always, perpetually left in the dark to the answer.

Answer 12

I don't see any problem, except that it's useless to try to fit an answer into the Y!A format and therefore I don't bother trying.

Also, it's asked so often, and so consistently with the same words, around here that the questioners are obviously not putting much thought into their end, so I don't see why I should put any effort in at mine.

Answer 13

no problem dear.

love

PLUTO

Answer 14

the problem is you can never be sure you have the correct answer

Answer 15

im not really sure what the problem is, but im fairly sure the meaning of life is to make offspring(children)

Answer 16

The problem is getting everyone to agree on the answer

Answer 17

i don't see anything wrong with asking that

but other people... most likely religious ones think it is a problem because you are questioning not only life but god himself -.-

Answer 18

Because life has no meaning; it just "is".

Despite the rantings of the supposed "enlightened" preaching to us that life could not exist without the hand of a higher being. Life, I believe, is the default condition of the universe. Humans have simply evolved the ability to ponder their existence and the emotional capacity to "need" answers.