What is the meaning of life?

[bahman]

Thought of as the central inquiry of philosophy [essentially the same as, "Who am I ?"], this question alone paints an accurate picture of the human ego.

When one considers the enormity of the Universe, how is it possible that some insignificant species on a planet out in the middle of nowhere could have, "a purpose," AND, if [by some miracle] there was some sort of purpose, that we have the cognitive ability to understand such?

For your first question, I know what you are saying but that is not a good argument. Your second question however is valid.

I say we spend our time figuring out why the vast majority of humanity spends so much of its time attempting to procure something for nothing. Now that would be something worth figuring out! Imagine a world where the vast majority was involved in productive activity [like every other species] instead of sitting round and doing God-knows-what all day long.

That is not an attempt to procure something for noting. Our life significantly changes if we become sure that one day we procure meaning.

[bahman]

How to staying alive just for sake of living could be the meaning of life?

Note "meaning of" "life".

• Life =the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body. b : a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings.
  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/life

Thus the striving to stay alive is the basic meaning of 'life'.

I know what you are saying but that is not the meaning that I am looking for.

The next task is how to make life more meaningful by understanding the basic mechanisms of life and align with the mechanisms to avoid sufferings, optimize pleasure and a sense of peace.

Peace is good but provided that there is a meaning to it.

There are many other variables to life and the meaning of life up of the levels of peak performances and achievements etc. to be optimized according to one's physiological and psychological state within one's environment.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
  In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time.

Apparently you seem to be seeking merely a single variable to represent 'what is the meaning of life' and you will never find a meaningful life.

You will never find one if you don't look for it.

[bahman]

For me, the meaning seems to be inherently already existing in the seemingly meaningless.

What you are talking about?

If I can find meaning in the meaningless, then life itself is self validating. What I mean by meaning is, this moment is enough just as it is. Nothing else needs to be added or subtracted.

But the key is, the movement from meaninglessness to meaningfulness is, there is no sense of time, not that time itself doesn’t exist, but a certain way of perceiving, for perceiving’s sake, no ulterior motive, no means to an end.

The moment must be an end in itself. That to me is meaning.

As far as the question of the meaning of life, I don’t like that statement, because it invokes some feeling of a need for our life to be of cosmic significance.

Our life is of significance to us, we find the meaning. But we don’t create it. Meaning cannot be created, only found. At least not the kind of meaning we are talking about, an existential kind.

I agree that we have to find the meaning of life. But where and how?

Just question what you are, look internally in your experience. What right now do you take yourself to be? If you think you are the body, notice the body can be seen by you. If you think you are the thinker, notice thoughts come and go, yet you don’t.

I just experience thoughts and feelings but no meaning.

This is the kind of meaning I am talking about.

To be alive?

By meaning in the meaningless, once your self concept shifts, seemingly meaningless things seem imbued with meaning.

This is the part that I don't understand.

Just sitting quietly, seems inherently worthwhile.

I don't think so.

[simplicity]

Thought of as the central inquiry of philosophy [essentially the same as, "Who am I ?"], this question alone paints an accurate picture of the human ego.

When one considers the enormity of the Universe, how is it possible that some insignificant species on a planet out in the middle of nowhere could have, "a purpose," AND, if [by some miracle] there was some sort of purpose, that we have the cognitive ability to understand such?

For your first question, I know what you are saying but that is not a good argument. Your second question however is valid.

The fact that we know nothing and are not capable of knowing anything is not a good argument? What exactly is your idea of a good argument?

I say we spend our time figuring out why the vast majority of humanity spends so much of its time attempting to procure something for nothing. Now that would be something worth figuring out! Imagine a world where the vast majority was involved in productive activity [like every other species] instead of sitting round and doing God-knows-what all day long.

That is not an attempt to procure something for noting. Our life significantly changes if we become sure that one day we procure meaning.

How do you figure? Is that like buying a lottery ticket every day?

[Walker]

42

-Imp

All you hear in the news is Title 42. Title 42. That's no accident. It's the next sky is falling. It's a monolith. Drop the red herring and just close the border until further notice. Temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement.

[Walker]

I am asking for something objective, the meaning of life, without it life is meaningless.

Life is meaningless without the next moment. The next moment begins with the next inhalation.

You are kidding. Don't you?

You're requesting objectivity. That can only be recognized physically.

The longer the span of time between inhalations, the fewer inhalations in a lifetime. Paradoxically, the fewer is more. Each moment, defined as the space between inhalations, expands. At some point each of us breaths the last inhalation, and time stops.

[bahman]

Thought of as the central inquiry of philosophy [essentially the same as, "Who am I ?"], this question alone paints an accurate picture of the human ego.

When one considers the enormity of the Universe, how is it possible that some insignificant species on a planet out in the middle of nowhere could have, "a purpose," AND, if [by some miracle] there was some sort of purpose, that we have the cognitive ability to understand such?

For your first question, I know what you are saying but that is not a good argument. Your second question however is valid.

The fact that we know nothing and are not capable of knowing anything is not a good argument?

No, the fact that there is only life on this single planet and nowhere else does not mean that there is no meaning to life.

What exactly is your idea of a good argument?

An argument that there is no gap between different parts of it.

I say we spend our time figuring out why the vast majority of humanity spends so much of its time attempting to procure something for nothing. Now that would be something worth figuring out! Imagine a world where the vast majority was involved in productive activity [like every other species] instead of sitting round and doing God-knows-what all day long.

That is not an attempt to procure something for noting. Our life significantly changes if we become sure that one day we procure meaning.

How do you figure? Is that like buying a lottery ticket every day?

winning money cannot give meaning to your life. I don't know how to get meaning to my life. I don't know if there is any. I am just wondering. Perhaps meditation?

[simplicity]

winning money cannot give meaning to your life. I don't know how to get meaning to my life. I don't know if there is any. I am just wondering. Perhaps meditation?

Meditation is a wonderful practice. It has [by far] been the greatest influence in allowing me to achieve what I have in my life.

Today is your lucky day because the following seems pretty solid and is advice passed down by sages over the millennia,

It is the assumption of personal [as well as higher forms of] responsibility that gives meaning to life.

The more responsibility you take on, the more meaning your life has.

This means a meaningful life is NOT an easy one, and this is where contemporary culture has it so wrong, that is, going all-in on the something for nothing philosophy of life, a path that causes nothing but heartache and emptiness [regardless of how good you are at the game]. Look at the entire class of elite individuals in the West who are corrupt to the core. These are not happy campers.

[bahman]

winning money cannot give meaning to your life. I don't know how to get meaning to my life. I don't know if there is any. I am just wondering. Perhaps meditation?

Meditation is a wonderful practice. It has [by far] been the greatest influence in allowing me to achieve what I have in my life.

Today is your lucky day because the following seems pretty solid and is advice passed down by sages over the millennia,

It is the assumption of personal [as well as higher forms of] responsibility that gives meaning to life.

The more responsibility you take on, the more meaning your life has.

This means a meaningful life is NOT an easy one, and this is where contemporary culture has it so wrong, that is, going all-in on the something for nothing philosophy of life, a path that causes nothing but heartache and emptiness [regardless of how good you are at the game]. Look at the entire class of elite individuals in the West who are corrupt to the core. These are not happy campers.

I don't think that responsibility can give meaning to life.

[simplicity]

winning money cannot give meaning to your life. I don't know how to get meaning to my life. I don't know if there is any. I am just wondering. Perhaps meditation?

Meditation is a wonderful practice. It has [by far] been the greatest influence in allowing me to achieve what I have in my life.

Today is your lucky day because the following seems pretty solid and is advice passed down by sages over the millennia,

It is the assumption of personal [as well as higher forms of] responsibility that gives meaning to life.

The more responsibility you take on, the more meaning your life has.

This means a meaningful life is NOT an easy one, and this is where contemporary culture has it so wrong, that is, going all-in on the something for nothing philosophy of life, a path that causes nothing but heartache and emptiness [regardless of how good you are at the game]. Look at the entire class of elite individuals in the West who are corrupt to the core. These are not happy campers.

I don't think that responsibility can give meaning to life.

May I ask how old you are?

[Age]

Whatever it is it cannot be in the thought and feeling category.

WHY NOT, EXACTLY?

What is experienced can become thought and/or feeling, and so lay within the thought or feeling category.

Well, if there is such a thing as the meaning of life then one should be able to experience it.

EVERY one, literally, does experience the meaning of Life.

[bahman]

Meditation is a wonderful practice. It has [by far] been the greatest influence in allowing me to achieve what I have in my life.

Today is your lucky day because the following seems pretty solid and is advice passed down by sages over the millennia,

It is the assumption of personal [as well as higher forms of] responsibility that gives meaning to life.

The more responsibility you take on, the more meaning your life has.

This means a meaningful life is NOT an easy one, and this is where contemporary culture has it so wrong, that is, going all-in on the something for nothing philosophy of life, a path that causes nothing but heartache and emptiness [regardless of how good you are at the game]. Look at the entire class of elite individuals in the West who are corrupt to the core. These are not happy campers.

I don't think that responsibility can give meaning to life.

May I ask how old you are?

55.

[Age]

Whatever is the meaning of life, it is within the period from the Big Bang to the current time in 2022.

WHY was the meaning of life NOT within the period before the so-called "big bang"?

After all the meaning of life was obviously NO different back then.

To find the meaning of life, one need to find the core trends and patterns within the activity of that period.

One does NOT need to do that at all.

Finding and KNOWING the meaning of life is reached and achieved through a much SIMPLER and EASIER process.

Therefrom one can give weightages to the various elements and represent them in a hierarchy.
You use the fishbone technique or others.



One of the core pattern of life for any normal human is to stay alive at all cost till the inevitable. Thus this is one meaning of life.

Considering the length of 'time' between the "big bang" and when human beings came to exist compared to how long human beings have been existing for, hitherto when this was being written, your claim that "one needs to find the core TRENDS and PATTERNS within the activity of THAT PERIOD from the "big bang" to the year called 2022" seems a VERY SHALLOW and NARROWED PERSPECTIVE of things.

But this is the MAIN way adult human beings tend to LOOK AT and SEE 'things', in the days when this was being written.

There are many other meanings of life and they can be ranked in terms of criticalness and other factors.
Thus if one were to flow and align with these primal meaning of life, one will be in a state of greater peace.

It is only the pervert and suicidal who do not want to stay alive.

Well this is one way to introduce one's OWN BELIEFS into a discussion.

[Age]

Whatever it is it cannot be in the thought and feeling category. Well, if there is such a thing as the meaning of life then one should be able to experience it.

This question is man-made, it's a human subjective idea....not actual reality.

The meaning of one's (my) life would basically be to fulfill their own existential needs and to have a reason to live.

And the fact that none of us who are alive today chose to be alive makes any meaning totally meaningless.

Is there a 'day' when one can 'choose' to be alive?

[bahman]

Whatever it is it cannot be in the thought and feeling category.

WHY NOT, EXACTLY?

What is experienced can become thought and/or feeling, and so lay within the thought or feeling category.

Not everything can be categorized as thought and feeling.

Well, if there is such a thing as the meaning of life then one should be able to experience it.

EVERY one, literally, does experience the meaning of Life.

Seriously? I have never experienced it and I don't think that anybody in this forum did experience it in the past.