WHAT"S THE MEANING OF LIFE?

borhan9 · Sep 1, 2006

To me I am a Baha'i. And we belive that the meaning of life is.

To Know God Exsists, and to Worship Him"
Click to expand...

Now worshiping him can be in different ways for you guys and girls out there soo to me there is no right and wrong answer to that.

glitchzoo · Sep 4, 2006

vgaddict8 you sound very depressed at the moment so dont do anythink bad lol.

yes the meaning of life is also 42 bud as far as im aware that is encrypter so the meaning is acually 68 :0 (bttw i guessed the encryption key lol)

'life is a test pass it you go to heven fail it you go to hell'

i saw that painted on a bench in a park about 3 years ago i hope it helps

glitchzoo · Sep 4, 2006

hey ireland you win afterdawns longest post compertition in a year

Meaning of life
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Monty Python film see The Meaning of Life. For the number 42, see The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

The question "what is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many 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 valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

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:

Survival and temporal success

* ...to accumulate wealth and increase social status
* ...to advance natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
* ...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future human
* ...to compete or co-operate with others
* ...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
* ...to die having succeeded in your purpose
* ...to gain and exercise power
* ...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
* ...to live
* ...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction
* ...to protect one's family
* ...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
* ...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
* ...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
* ...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)

Wisdom and knowledge

* ...to be without question, 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 try to discover and understand the meaning of life
* ...to understand creation

Ethical

* ...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
* ...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
* ...to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land
* ...to become like God, or God-like
* ...to be rewarded for your deeds
* ...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. God)
* ...to express compassion
* ...to follow the "Golden Rule"
* ...to give and receive love
* ...to live in a way that you don't harm yourself and don't harm your environment
* ...to work for justice and freedom

Religious and spiritual

* ...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
* ...to die and become a martyr
* ...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
* ...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
* ...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
* ...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
* ...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
* ...to serve others, or do good deeds
* ...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 worship, serve, or achieve union with God

Other

* ...to achieve self-actualisation
* ...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 live, and enjoy the passage of time
* ...to have fun
* ...to make the conformists' lives miserable (see non-conformism)
* ...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 relate, connect, or achieve unity with others
* ...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 seek and find beauty
* ...as there is no intrinsic meaning to life, to each individual, the "meaning of life" is whatever he/she decides it is. In that sense, every point above is potentially valid.
* ...an answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" is that it is just simply being able to ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" (see Sri Sri Ravi Shankar below)
* ...a combination of any of the above.

No purpose, and therefore...

* ...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
* ...just a series of events
* ...just nature taking its course
* ...the wheel of time keeps on turning
* ...the cycle of life
* ...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
* ...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
* ...who cares?

[edit]

Scientific approaches and theories

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 and to reproduce itself. 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?".
[edit]

Science and the five questions

But, like philosophy, science tackles each of the five interpretations of the meaning of life question head-on, offering empirical answers from relevant scientific fields.

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 these areas are quite hypothetical, cosmogeny because no existing physical model can accurately describe the very early universe, and abiogeneis because the environment of the young earth is not known, and chemical processes that may have taken billions of years cannot be repeated in the 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.

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 Rene 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.

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, it is evident 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.

The questions "What is valuable in life?" and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?" are staples of the social sciences. These questions are explored by scientists every day, from the perspective of the life forms being studied, in an effort to explain the behaviors and interactions of human beings (and every other type of animal as well). 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.

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Philosophical views
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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).
[edit]

Atheistic views

Main article: Atheism

Atheism's strictest sense means the belief that no god or supernatural overbeing (of any type or number) exists, and by extension that neither the universe nor we were created by such beings. 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?" Since they believe gods had nothing to do with it, most atheists believe that life evolved and was not created. The nature of the universe is one in which no god exists, and therefore its nature is left to our devices to determine, via more or less scientific means. As for the purpose of life, some atheists argue that since there are no gods to tell us what to do, we are left to decide that for ourselves. Other atheists argue that some sort of meaning can be intrinsic to life itself, so there is no need for any god to instill meaning into it.
[edit]

Existentialist views

Main article: Existentialism

The 19th century philosopher 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, a Danish philosopher of the 19th century, 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. This is a similar notion to the Buddhist quest for Nirvana or enlightenment by the betterment of oneself through the aid of others.
[edit]

Humanist views

Main article: Humanism

To the humanist, (biological) life's 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 life's purpose isn't the same thing as human purpose, though it is 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].
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Nihilist views

Main article: Nihilism

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, the ultimate source of moral values is the individual rather than culture or another rational (or objective) foundation.
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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 life itself has no meaning apart from those things. 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.
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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.
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Click to expand...

i would go on but i can see myself being told off :0

ZCONCEPT · Sep 4, 2006

Message for glitchzoo
______________________

WOW !! Glad you posted that one twice.....now everyone has to
read it twice. Maybe it will stick in the mind now !!

glitchzoo · Sep 5, 2006

well thank you there

i didnt notice i quoted that much of it i thorght i done about half that :0

whoops....

you dont have to read it you can be like me and skip of the lond threads

vgaddict8 · Sep 5, 2006

My 32 inch flat tv that costed 400 is stop working for me. While I was playing fifa world cup 2006...I saw a circular light flashed in the middle of the screen and then the power just went out. It has power...but I think a bulb went out in it. I AM SO DEPRESSED!!!!!!! NO MORE VIDEOGAMES FOR ME. I AM SO SAD!!!!!! GOD HATES ME!!!!! AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP**WEEP*

glitchzoo · Sep 5, 2006

oh crap man thats bad do plasmas have warrentys to replace them ?becaude you didnt do anythink it just stopped working
so try and get the manafacturer to replace it.

vgaddict8 · Sep 5, 2006

I have had the tv for about 2 years now. I think the manufacture warranty has expired on it....but you would think that a $400 flat screen tv would last more than two years......wouldn't you? I am trying to fix it but I am a poor basta*rd. I just don't think it would be practical to send my 300 hundred pound tv in a envolope to the manufacture and have then fix it and then send it back. Realistically....this process would take years and the PS9 would have come out already by the time..I would get my tv back. IT"S THE END OF THE WORLD FOR ME!!!!! THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN THE WORLD!!!! MY TV IS GONE!!!!!!! AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE MY TV SO MUCH....I CAN"T LIVE WITHOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO DEPRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!

glitchzoo · Sep 5, 2006

woah dude calm it down there,
just because you dont have a tv dosent mean its the end of the world. we lived 100 years ago fine with out telivisions and game consoles what you should do is sell the tv to a repair place for them to repair it and sll it again or sell it to someone who thinks they can fix it.
and then use that money and add a bit more money onto it and buy another telivision save up for it $$$ even if you are poor you can still buy entertainment stuff you just need to do your finances right ask for a pay rise if you work (maby with a bit of blackmail or force the boss to give you a higher pay rise).
im sure drd here gets the same from his emplooyees (joking)

and im sure for now you have a spare telivision to play your console on ?

gerry1 · Sep 5, 2006

@vgaddict8 ... I would at least check my warranty all the same. I sure can't blame you for being pissed; I'm sure I would be!

glitchzoo · Sep 5, 2006

well it should have a warrentry because xbox 360 which dosent cost as much has a warrentry forever (only if it completly breaks)
phone them up and if you need somthink new maby you can buy a replacment part

but sometimes its not worther e.g i have a 42 inch plasma and if the acually screen inside it broke it would cost more to replace then the plasma cost in the first place :0

vgaddict8 · Sep 6, 2006

NO!!! I Don't have a spare tv!!!!!! I just think the method where you send it back to the company and have them fix it is bull sh*t!!!! How the h*ll am I suppose to send a 300 pound tv in the mail? AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully.......I can get it fix somewhere for cheap........or sell it to some retard!!! HOW IN GOD's NAME DO YOU LIVE WITHOUT A TV?!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO FU*KED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND DEPRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIFE WITHOUT A TV IS RETARDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU DON"T HAVE A TV....YOU MIND AS WELL DO YOUSELF IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Auslander · Sep 6, 2006

life without tv is real life. all that's necessary to truly live is the internet! =^.^=

glitchzoo · Sep 6, 2006

this thread is so pointless really you can live without a telivision or why dont you buy a small one for the time and being you can get a small flatscreen for about 150 pounds. use the monitor\computer port to play in vertial high definision using a vga output for your console. or use yoru computer monitor using a vga output.
seriouslly you are in good health i persume so you still have life

vgaddict8 · Sep 7, 2006

LIFE IS GAY AND RETARDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ireland · Sep 7, 2006

vgaddict8
boy this is sad,no tv...wow....

do ye not have a life outside of a inside of a tv set,most of us do!!!!!!!!
i do not turn on a tv for weeks at a time.and there are 7 tv's in my home..and a 40inch in my computer room..and tv channels can be seen on my computer,

meaning life gos on with out a tv set..even if you have 20 tv sets..or none!!!!

gerry1 · Sep 7, 2006

TV, as opposed to computers, could well be developmentally bad for children as it not only requires no mental interaction but deprives the brain of it. My nephew is a pharmacist involved with this project which has all but linked TV (even educational kids shows)to attention deficit disorder. Some say ADD has risen dramatically in the last 30 years, other say that it was always there but went undiagnosed. This particular study he's working with is close to proving that the former is true, not the latter. My nephew is so scared at the information they've already gathered that he's limited the amount of TV that his younger kids watch.

We did not have TV when I was a kid. (I'm not so old that it hadn't been invented yet but cable hadn't and if you lived in certain areas, you simply got no television reception). While we enjoyed watching it at our relatives, I don't recall ever being in wont of something to do!

@vgaddict8 ... I mean no offense there, my young friend, but sounds like you could use a touch of the ol' ritalin yourself!

ZCONCEPT · Sep 7, 2006

SPACE TRAVEL MUSIC FOR vgaddict8
________________________________

http://www.sound-effects-library.com/soundsearch.asp?func=simple&start=426&datarequest=trance
" World Online " music track by Juan Sanchez
Copyright: Juan Sanchez
Duration: 3 min. 41 seconds ( loads in 3 sec. ).
Found this track on: sound-effects-library.com
[ this work is NO. 426 on page 18 with the word
trance on searchbar ]. It's the top track on list.
To start music just click the description line.

NOTE: Until vgaddict8 gets another TV set, listening
to this great music should make him feel better.
Afterall, this world online is now his main existence.

________________________________________________________
Signed: Robert Singletary__Thursday September 7, 2006__11:45 A.M.
(eastern standard time) USA

glitchzoo · Sep 7, 2006

wow he hasnt replied but seriusly you can live without a tv all you need to do is get a better social life do more stuff outside as irelend said.
you dont need a tv to live sometimes i hate watching stuff on my tv or playign games.
or even go to yoru neigbours and use the tv(n annoythem lol) but seriouslly this thread is sickining me now so please you dont need a tv your life isnt over.

ZCONCEPT · Sep 8, 2006

MESSAGE FOR vgaddict8
_____________________

Until you get another TV you can play all kinds of cool games
on this site:
http://www.newgrounds.com/game/
NEWGROUNDS.COM

NOTE: Lots of fun checking out all the games on this site
and trying your hand with each one. This website will keep
you VERY busy and take your mind off the loss of your TV.
In fact, my heart goes out to you because the TiVO feature
on the TV here makes watching even more enjoyable. I would
feel down too if it went on the blink. For example, after
saving " Coffee and Cigarettes " directed by Jim Jarmusch
I watched it 6 times ( because it's sooo funny !! ).
I hope other AfterDawn members post links to other great
GAME websites so you can feel better about life in general.
I DO FEEL YOUR PAIN !!

P.S. You may have fun reading this entire thread:
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/292879
Title of thread: " Top 10 games on your own "
started by TheReturn here on afterdawn.com

You may have fun reading this other thread too:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=93354&highlight=Half-Life2
Title of thread:
" In your opinion, what are the top 5 PC games ? "
which was started by 1337joel over at 3dbuzz.com

______________________________________________________
Signed: Robert Singletary__Friday September 8, 2006__1:57 A.M.
(eastern standard time) USA

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