What is the meaning of life? (Page 2) Neuromancer_2: Here's one way of looking at it, the teleological formulation of the Parasimplicity Principle: "Everything that exists, exists in order to exist more." In other words, the meaning of life is to stay alive. If you try to stop doing the things that are keeping you alive, at a certain point your body will override you. Hold your breath, and you will eventually gasp and seek air. Starve yourself, and you will eventually put unthinkable things in your mouth in obedience to your basest hungers. Abraham Maslow developed a model called the Pyramid of Needs that lists a kind of hierarchy of needs, starting from those base physical requirements and moving up to quite abstract notions such as approval from peers and self-actualization - he's not saying these are the ultimate goals we need to strive for, just that you have to get the lower tiers of the pyramid in order before you climb the ziggurat. If you believe you have free will, then you are blessed or burdened with the choice of how to develop and deploy your talents. My advice to you would be to operate as if you are supposed to be here, and the skills and experiences you bring to each moment are not accidents but necessary tools. Seek your own inner voice, and its harmonic in the universe, and walk the path that has them in tune. It is my considered opinion that all lives have meaning, that each of us is a bit part in a million other plays, a cell in a vast organism, a note in an unimaginably complex symphony of Life. And yeah, that sounds like flowery nonsense, but I have my reasons. The meaning of life is what you make it, but not necessarily what you understand of it. We are all essential, trival, cogs in the Machine. "in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni" theHating: "i hope someday a divine miracle will manifest itself and reunite the brotherhood of mankind" Yeah, flowery. With hints of fruity. thor1112010: To believe you have a soul without faith. You must experience it. Find the path. The Buddhists did long ago. To see the face of God........... David Nathaniel: When you are dead you are dead, man does not have an immortal spirit in his mortal flesh. "Immortal-soulism" is not biblical and makes a mockery of the resurrection. rainsgame888: I really don't think life has a meaning..I think we are what gives meaning to life. .. We're all parts of the same infante consciousness, experiencing this moment in time, we're all one... (Edited by rainsgame888) (Post deleted by rainsgame888 ) theHating: Here goes: the meaning of life. Natural selection and random mutation. Survival of the fittest. | Philosophy Chat Room 8 People Chatting Similar Conversations |