Meaning of life

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If shared significance is meaningless, then language is meaningless, written and typed as well as spoken, and Wrong Planet would go out of business.

If function and meaning are identified in this way then we are left with sheer futility, especially as your proposed function rests upon a circular argument. I do not believe that even Dawkins teaches that we exist ONLY to reproduce, or such a philosophy would have no more need for science than for religion. Have millennia of history been in vain, that late in time humans should swallow such an abominable lie?

This false teaching also effectively says that all who are virgins, (myself included) barren/impotent or whose children do not survive at least to adolescence have been living lives that have no meaning; with all due respect this is manifestly abject drivel.

Well then, what do you think the meaning of life may be?

The meaning of life is to

Purpose can only be assigned subjectively.

The problem is the way our thinking is built in to our brain. It’s a tool of our mental faculty that we see external processes in terms of purpose. This is how our brain makes it seem like there must be a purpose. It comes from evolution. This is my opinion anyways.

There is no meaning of life, and we need to get over this. I am convinced of this, but still find myself searching for meanings, or trying to do something 'important', or find someone who will make my life 'important' even though this is ultimately futile. I am hoping that sometime in the future I will be able to accept the pointlessness of my life and just live it for the little day to day pleasures. In the end, the only point to life is to try and make the lives of others pleasant instead of painful, and enjoy the things that you experience. If life becomes an unpleasant chore, then there is no more reason to stay alive.

there can be no ultimate meaning of life other than being true to oneself...to honor the noblest aspirations to which one may endeavor...and to make it one's highest priority.

"Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstacy."

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, "I Am That"

We were meant to live life as a community and take responsibility for eachother. Life should be about helping everyone for the sake of helping everyone. That is the meaning of my life.

To claim we were meant to do this or that is to inject a very personal opinion into a totally vague inquiry. If goals are indicated then certain behaviors can either promote or destroy progress in that direction. But nature merely provides us with the machinery to survive and reproduce and how we go about that or reject it completely is am matter of individual choice and social coercion.

Function and meaning are not quite the same thing, as in regards to a What is the meaning of life?

They are different. The universe has a function...but whether or not it has a meaning is another story altogether.

If it lacked functions nothing would exist. Things clearly do exist.

The "meaning of life" or what should be the "function of life" more properly termed, is simply the culmination of all variable functions existing in the universe to get to what we are at right now.

Therefore, to answer this question, one must be omniscient. Since that is either impossible, or only attainable by somehow being in an existant that is all possible functions of infinite time simultaneously(aka an omnipotent godfigure), we can gather that acquiring the answer will never happen.

However, in the search for the ultimate function, one finds the answers to other functions, and responds to new questions.

This process results in/is named progress.

So if you want an answer that will be incomplete but closest to what is possible to understand...

The meaning of life is an existant that perpetuates itself through function resulting in continuous change and continuous progress.

meaning of life: make your own/there is none.

Progress. That's an interesting word. It indicates movement - but movement towards what? Humanity is now ferociously destroying the environment that sustains us and doing it very successfully. And, it seems, doing it very consciously. Is that progress? Evolutionary biology has given up the old image of muck progressing through fish to apes and to us. It merely says that conditions change and evolution adapts to new conditions to survive. So that version of progress has been thrown out. What is progress?

You're right, its my opinion on why we are here and what we should do. It's a good enough reason to keep me positive about mankind and willing to help.

I am sorry your post made me laugh so hard and so much that I have to reply! Wish more public services were like yours!

The meaning of your life is up to you to figure out and decide for yourself!
I do believe that each one of us has the right and responsibility to determine what the purpose of life is for us.

Do you determine it or merely decide it?