This is without a doubt the toughest question ever asked. The answer will forever elude us, but I am satisfied with the answer I now believe to be true.


Namely, recently I had a conversation with a friend of mine about the subject. He believes that love is the meaning of life (finding a soul-mate). I believe that friends are the meaning of life. What do you think?

My meaning of life until now is enjoyment.

Personal enjoyment and satisfaction is my greatest value.
To feel fine and be self-assure is the best :D

Thats all i remember right now

Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism, Hedonism

Hedonism:

1. Work which yields enough money to live, but does not suck life away.
2. Good eating, good drinking, good *****.
3. Having always enough computer games at home (which I have not at this moment)

Friends share all 3. (Except 2.3, that only needs two)

Actually, today I was wondering if I should post this topic too, for me..

The meaning of life is living, enjoy it while it lasts, you get no other...

But we might all drop back to the question, what exactly is life? Who are we?
Is life that special that it has to have a reason?

42

That is about as close and far away, we'll ever get to that meaningless question. Why isn't the universe upside down?

Anyway one meaning of life is to do what you feel is right. Simple, efficient and fruitfull. Isn't as easy as it sounds. Still. Just do what you feel is right. quote Danish movie.

[ May 08, 2003, 00:30: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

Ah... the ultimate question, which nobody can really answer, so neither can i. :D

I do have a goal in life though..... drink as much beer as possible in my time on earth. :D

the meaning of life.. well, the question is elegant and simple, as is the answer.

The meaning of life is an individual thing, you just have to find out what it is for yourself :) No one, but yourself can really tell you.

Yup, 42.

Sometimes I think that you can have it be whatever you want it to be, sometimes I think its just to do stuff.

If you think about it, the meaning of life could be to die; without death, there couldn't be life. Like the way there has to be ugliness so you can compare beauty to it, and good and evil, ying and yang, etc.

life and death are just the absense of the other. Just like light and darkness. Light as a concept would still be light even if it swarmed the universe totally. And Life as a concept would still be life even if death was not an option.

I agree on the good-evil. And ying and Yang. And Ugly and pretty. It makes no sense to say that the one is the absense of the other. They exist and make sense only in co-existance. For instance it makes no sense to say Ugly as a concept would still be ugly even if Pretty did not exist. It sounds like ramble. Impossible to make coherrent in our minds, right?

I hope we can agree on which of the two categories to put Life/death in. "The absense of" or "the co-existance with". It isn't hard to seperate the two once we know them :)

[ May 08, 2003, 03:46: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

There are two ways to answer the question: First, happiness, what gives the most pleasure. For that you have had many answers already on this thread -- everything from beer and sex, to books and computer games. No doubt pleasure makes life sweet, and those who would deny it are usually austere, petty individuals who reside in misery.

But the question is also one of meaning -- what is meant by life. To that I can add nothing original either, for I am not that great or original a thinker. But in my opinion, the closest I've seen answer the question of meaning is Dante. He journeyed from the depths of hell to the pinnacle of heaven and discovered the answer to the meaning of life, which of course he knew all along. For him, Love was God's greatest gift to mankind and there resides its meaning.

His work is infused with this theme. From its beginnings with the romantic love of Beatrice, and his "new life," his ongoing dialogue with Love finally culminates in heaven where Beatrice resides in the third part of the _Divine Comedy_.
To be sure, Dante was heir to a rich tradition of romance/lyric poetry, but with him its meaning is transformed into something greater.

That is why it is the most important poem in Western Literature. Along the way Dante encounters heroes, philosophers, religious leaders, poets, artists, with all the ideas up until his time of what is meant by life. He leaves them, each to the fate that God has left them. There is nothing else like it. Petrarch and the Renaissance are heirs of what Dante wrought. What drives Man emotionally changes because of Dante and his poem, and that emotion is Love.

So, I believe your friend is right after all.

[ May 08, 2003, 13:39: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

I'm probably very pessimistic by saying that life has no meaning. We live and we die. It is as simple as that. There is no meaning in life, unless you have achieved something special, by which you are remembered after your death. Something that will make people in a hundred years say: "that guy/girl was great". That is the only way to give your life meaning, else it is just your name on a tombstone.

Rephrased it a bit.

[ May 08, 2003, 11:05: Message edited by: Silverblade ]

Hmm, 42.

Methinks that there is no reason (besides 42). Just as Silverblade said, though possible not with all of the last bit attached to it.

The meaning of life is to reproduce and help carry on the exsistance (spelling?) of the human race. Its that simple people.

About Dante.
If the period that came after him was so influenced by him (and I am not saying it wasn't), how can anyone explain the poetry of the baroque period (especially in Italy). Baroque poetry was all about this very subject and 2 men in particular come to mind- Giambatista Marino and Pedro Calderon de la Barca (a spaniard). De la Barca wrote: "Ruze u cvatu svanuse iz mraka, i procvale su zato da uginu," which is a croatian translation of the original. If I paraphrase it to English, it reads :Roses in full bloom dawned from the darkness, and they bloomed to whither and die." So is the meaning of life really - death?

I'll take RotKU one step further - the meaning of each generation's collective life is to leave the world just a little bit better for the next generation. What motivates us to do that is Love.

So we're back to Dante. :)

What's this "42"? I don't understand.

it's answer to all the question, the meaning of life, and everything else.

At least if you read hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

I'm torn between Ragusa point of view and Rallymana's and one other option to learn ourselves better in order to learn to respect the great miracle of life in this world and any other it might exist.

Funny how much one can think about when a question like this hits you on the right day. All I can say is that we all die some day, so whatever the mysterious purpose is, you're blessed in not having to think about it forever.

Other than that, I can think of no better answer than the good old Darwinistic breeding.

42 is the answer to the Great or Ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

The actual question is: What is 9 times 6.

Is there a meaning of life? I lean towards the perpetuation of the human race to be honest. Personal meaning? Dunno. For me being content, having enough, enjoying myself etc I suppose.

"To crush your enemies, to see them run before you, and hear the lamentations of the women." -Conan

"The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." - Solomon

"Glorify God by enjoying him forever" - John Piper on what he calls "Christian Hedonism" (www.desiringgod.org)

Those three pretty much sum up my take on the meaning of life.

It's amazing to know that I know so many people who know the meaning of life. I feel like a dimwit.

At Malaqai

You just made me realize how Baroque I am. But Baroque isn't as pessimist as that. Carpe diem, memento mori.(roughly) -> Seize the day, death is waiting around the corner. Most of the Baroque artwork contrast the finer side of life with death, like: Roses in bloom versus death, death and the maiden, dance of the dead and so on.
The renaissance optimism (including Dante) couldn't make it into the harsh times of the 16th and 17th centuries, with all their wars and famines. But still, seize the day is actually the Baroque massage. But sometimes they're truly more pessimist and see life only as senseless vanity affaire before death.

On the other hand, it does not surprise me, that the most famous quote of the divine comedy is:"abandon all hope, you who enter here". Chandos the red is just a typical optimist :D ;)

By the way, yes, I already had the questionable pleasure to be confused by the thing which texans call "language" :D :D

Well it all comes back to do What you feel is right wheter it be reproduction of offspring, share love and devotion or stay around waiting for death. It all comes back to that phrase.

I more or less second Nobleman here. You are always yourselves final judge. It is only you that can decide your path in life and thus to dow hat you think is right is more or less the meaning of life. This ties on to what Lokken said as well, you need to think up your own meaning of life and thus do what you feel is right.

Death has important meaning for Dante in this respect: One of the main features of his work is an ongoing dialogue which he carries on with the dead. I believe it is his way of communicating with the past, which he places so much emphasis on in the _Comedy_.


Yago -- I'm not convinced that the line you cite is the most famous. "I had not thought that death had undone so many," is of equal note, since it also appears in "The Wasteland" by T. S. Elliot. TSE admired Dante to the point of imitation. Yet, whereas the _Divine Comedy_ is optimistic, "The Wasteland" is, of course, equally the reverse: "I can show you fear in a handful of dust."

Bitte, Yago, typisch? Ich bin nicht typisch (at least I hope not).

Edit:
Also, I have to add that Boccaccio set _The Decameron_ during the plague (the black death) of the 14th Century. We can argue if it is optimistic or not. But we can agree it is a comedy and very funny.

For every action there is a reaction. The reaction to the pessimism of the 17th and early 18th Century was the Romantic work of the likes of Goethe, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelly and Whitman.

[ May 09, 2003, 07:18: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

He, he. Yep, you're right. Renaissance optimism had is own renaissance in the optimism of the Enlightment. Which I don't share. I prefer the sometimes cruel rationalism of the 17th century. But on the other hand, the pessimism, or "dark" tone of Baroque had its comback in the dark writings of romanticism.

Concerning the most quoted line. I guess that's a cultural difference between North-America and Central Europe. Because T. S. Elliot had an important impact on the Americans. So, I agree with you, that in your culture, the most cited line very well may differ. But it does not matter in the end, as you state with "the Wasteland", because the "divine comedy" is a treasure as well a treasure for pessimistic thought, like it is a treasure for optimist thought. The same applies for "Faust".

But in German literature, the second most important author is Heine, who belongs to "young Germans", a reaction to romanticism, who loved to bash romaticism in general and Goethe particular. And I guess his most famous cited line is:" Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." (There, where they start to burn books, there they are going to end up burning people). So, even the optimism of Enlightment and early romantic came to a sudden end.

I personally prefer still the Baroque thought of:" Be hedonist while you've got the chance to be, death and misery come soon enough". But obviously, that's a matter of personal taste, you're free to differ and prefer the optimism of Enlightment. :D

Does the existence of a question imply the existence of the answer?

If we are able to create the concept of an overarching meaning to life, it seems to that implies that there is one. If it was simply Darwin, how the heck is all this philosophical pondering serving evolution?

But I'd better not get started on what a weak theory evolution is.

Personally, I think that a fulfilling life is one that is spent aiding others.

Does the existence of a question imply the existence of the answer? Yes of course, because we do not see or can not grasp the answer, doesn´t mean it isn´t there.

Quote.

"He is the One who created Death and Life to see who has the best of actions."

im going to have to go along the lines of camus on this one. the meaning of life is to struggle against suffering and death.