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The meaning of life, for life Well I will write about truth not lies, about a God that is not strait-laced or boring, who is not going to kill you, or send you into hell unless you meant to. And refuse goodness, well let me tell you what is goodness, it is not a big “no”, if you want to follow the great, God “do not change” stop doing the stuff that do not give you enough pleasure, let me break another illusion, if Jesus came to the great majority of churches called christian, today. He would make out a whip, a nice one and whip those guys out of there, and say something as, shape up or what are you doing in my house. Look gays are not less of a person, or even worse than me, if I think what they are doing is right or wrong is out of the question, but that they are as good as me in virtue. Well why did I say God is not strait-laced, only because we are not strait-laced and he is like us, he likes what we like, well check on bible go to americanbiblesociety.com do a bible search do your thing, if want to stop reading who cares, I have my life made, and I do trust my God. Also let me tell you some more good news churches do not know but they should, sex is not wrong and as long as you do not desire another person’s wife you are free to think about it, or whatever you can search the whole bible as I did and the only thing you are going to find denying something about sex is “not to lust” which means intensively desiring sex which in a simpler way means not to want the want of sex, or desire the desire and (not to have pre-marital sex, unless you ask her to marry right after) but sex should be celebrated , do not misconfuse anything about the bible, have your own thought about it truthfully search if you want with normal critical thinking you are not going to find anything to say against what I am saying and intensive study of it will prove it to be so. God is not a big no, in Jew history we see a God who allowed many wives and for at the time allowed thousands of non-belivers to be massacred and also is the same God who had his son, who is himself die for you so you will find a way to have better pleasure in life, truth to God I tell you so.You are not going to hell unless you want to live for pleasure blindly, but if you want the most pleasure in a life you live now, and not doing something as being abusing to have pleasure or humiliate someone to feel well, you will find the best pleasure which is to have tough love, words that look mean sometimes but means good or whatever it is that makes you feel better together with a community that wants to do you good; touched by your own goodness. Basicly if you want to act blindly you are already dead or as I say, you act as if not a human but someone who loses oneself, loses its soul awareness, but I think most of humans in earth today are bound to heaven they just need to know that, and live well. Why for sure churches would be whipped out of it, only because a third of humanity call themselves christians and they are not drawn to churches which they should, because there are children who intuitively know they are going to die of hunger, or heard about it. And church goers where are they well maybe having tea coffee and trying to weep, smile and have a good time while praising, as if knowing that they want to do something about the bad but not doing it warms their heart into a heart softning good feeling. I know it is tough to hear that maybe some church goers are reading this, but in my case my fellow church goers deeply insulted my family, physically harassed me by trying to hold my arm and yell at me, and told me I am not welcome there only the two of them (high-up in church, deacon and leader of young people), have one say I am sorry because he was obviously insulting my family and the other to say I am sorry much later. Being that I only gave a suggestion about a hole the son of one of them made on a wall, and he asked me who did it and I did not want to be rude and tell him it was his son, also while they were yelling at me after complaining of why he harassed me, I said, leadership is not about telling people what to do, but to serve. As Jesus showed what is it to be a leader when he was saying the same thing and washing his apostles feet. Well story said, being that I did preach in my church a little while before the occurring a little bit before there was a church division and I guess I stayed with the worst half. But this said it is not even that, if all the church goers were Jesus disguised as one church goer, or even maybe those third of humanity there would be no hunger, in Africa or in my home country Brazil, or in India or in every country, also there would not be the mistreating of animals which the bible not the church comdemns, or the abusing of so much people, and all of us do know what is bad and what is good, it is a simple message, I will die trying, I promise, to change things, never allow by omission poverty of five years year olds, unto hunger disease or even old people with countries so rich why do the poor have to suffer. Why?
Every time that I did things completely for God and acted rightfully, I was immensely happy as if I was having the drug ecstasy, but that 24/7 with no side effects, and I give you my word if you do things correctly and try your heart completely to it you will also. As I am "now".
I deleted Ayn Rand from the list of great philosophers because unlike the others she is not uncontroversially a great philosopher.
I suggest that the section re Wittgenstein does need work. Surely the point about Wittgenstein (and I am not sure he is the most relevant person to be referring to in this context) is that he believed that language had its limits and specifically that language was out of its depth when discussing some subjects eg the meaning of life. Of course Ludwig valued eg music and sculpture highly....and doubtless valued life highly....so he undoubtedly thought that life had relevance, importance, value...dare I say meaning. He was talking about the limitations of language.
King Brosby
LMS: I originally wrote "it is one that professional philosophers comparatively tend to avoid." I still think thats true. Certaintly professional philosophers have had plently to say about the meaning of life, but it is less important than the popular image of philosophy would have it. And even some of the philosophers you pointed to as addressing it, tended to avoid phrasing the question as "what is the meaning of life?". (Which isn't to say that no philosopher has ever considered that question, phrased that way; some have.) -- SJK
This much is true: philosophers do not ask the question, specifically, "What is the meaning of life?" nearly as much as someone without a college education might expect. Re "it is one that professional philosophers comparatively tend to avoid." I don't really quite know what that's supposed to mean: compared to whom? The average person? That would be quite obviously false. Anyway, the rest of what you say here is true enough, but that wasn't in the original article. Don't save the details for the talk page! :-) -- LMS
Someone added "Unfortunately, the actual question itself remains unknown despite much effort by the mice to calculate it." IIRC, the mice knew what the question was, and then built planet Earth to calculate it, but then by the time it came up with the answer 42, they couldn't remember what the question was... -- SJK
I removed the above; no offense intended, but this is not a humor website, and references to the wisdom of one work of fiction on this question are, basically, not justified here. -- Larry Sanger
Damn it! Why'd you have to spoil the fun? :)
Could it not be that the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything to which the answer is 42 is: "At what age will Douglas Adams first become a father?"?
One might also mention the Monty Python movie of the same title.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life--mercifully, the movie title is different from the title of the page... --Humorlessly, LMS
It has been recently postulated from the laws of thermodynamics that life has been created in an attempt for the universe to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium more quickly by expending more energy, i.e. to bring about the heat death of the universe more quickly.
" Science is sometimes criticized for not providing an answer to "the meaning for life", but it does not attempt to do so. Science addresses questions of "what" and "how", but does not attempt to answer "why"." -- I'm not thrilled with this myself - what do y'all think?
42 section shortened, and "It has been noted that 42 when read upside down is "2b", or "to be"." removed: 2 is 2 upside down only in the typical digital watch font, and the 4=b is too much of a stretch, especially with the digital watch font. I am Jack's username
Insert contents from The meaning of life: (by snoyes 18:34 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC))
The meaning of life is a philosophical question.
Some psychologists consider it a mental illness.
See also:
I don't remember reading the word "evolution" or "replicator" once here... nothing in science can be 100 percent certain, but the answer to the broad question "what is the meaning of life?" has been answered to a great degree of certainty. Richard Dawkin's most economically compact equation for life is "life Results from the Non-Random Survival of Randomly Varying Replicators". Read "the Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.
Suggestion: Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers ;-)
-- APL
I have just sent a letter to every philosopher in the UK asking for their answers.. the responses I've received so far are covered moderately well on this page.. but in due course I will add a summary of any extra insights that I glean - caspar
true story I was sitting in math class, and realized the meaning of life! it was so incredabally simple, that as soon as someone heard it, they would say "oh... and the universe would make sence"
after class I went to my friend to tell him... and I had forgotten...
why are you all looking at me like I'm crazy?
Pellaken 11:39, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I don't recall the previous version (The meaning of life is to live) being in the film at all (which in any case I would argue is a serious, rather than non-serious, contender, but I stand to be corrected in which case put it back. The three hypotheses I have added are certainly in the movie. Shantavira 12:33, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've added a comment pointing out that Arthur Dent could not have drawn "What do you get when you multiply six by nine" from a standard English Scrabble set as there are not enough letters (for example, there are only two Y's, and the sentence contains four). However, this sentence (or any other English sentence, for that matter) is possible if each tile is returned to the bag after it has been drawn and noted. Does anyone know if this is what Arthur Dent did, or did Douglas Adams use a bit of artistic licence here? — Paul G 16:30, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I seem to recall (I don't have the book with me) that Arthur's scrabble set was a self-made one. Afterall, he was stranded in prehistoric earth at the time. Therefore it is quite possible that he might have remembered the number of letters incorrectly. YY, 14:35, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Seems there's more on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here than anything else ;)
Anyways, the meaning of life is simple...
The purpose of life is, and I quote, "To better oneself through forming mutually beneficial relationships". The actual meaning of life is a personal thing, and is for each individual to discover.
If an eight word summary is too wordy for you, it can be summed up with a single word -- live. Think of this not just as a simple verb, but as a command (either from God, for those who are religious, or from the entire Universe for the atheists). The all important will to live that drives all forms of life.
The statement on the purpose of life is obvious, and based completely on how life exists and evolved on this planet.
Meaning cannot truly be imposed upon the masses. There will always be someone who doesn't agree. The purpose, however is clear. If society fails to establish and maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with each other and the entire planet, then we will go the way of the dinosaur. -- Thoric 20:14, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(Douglas Adams' answer was "42").
True, but that was not the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?", which the current first paragraph implies. Those who have read the book knows that the question remains unknown, and 42 is NOT the meaning of life, but the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything".
I included a 'see also' to 3 starting points in wikipedia. Each of these contains 'see also' connections to any other 'see also' that anyone could want. I would be against expanding the 'see also' beyond 3 entries Loxley 12:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC).
There Can Ultimately Be Only One True Meaning To Life
I think the most realistic meaning of life comes from science. It is to replicate our DNA as much as possible and to try to spread the human race throughout our solar system and then possibly the universe through the pursuit of technology. If humans remain here on earth then in about 6 billion years (if we're not extinct) our sun will begin to die and our planet would become uninhabitable. Therefore, if the meaning of life isn't the pursuit of scientific knowledge then it ultimately becomes the pursuit of death and extinction (assuming there's no afterlife).
G.Savva
I re-wrote the following paragraph to be less "sure of itself." That is, "science" doesn't 'tell' us this, but some theories 'suggest' it. I also updated the theory to cover some more recent theories regarding what the event was (i.e. a comet rather than lightning bolt?), and IMO improved the flow substantially. -- Jacius 03:52, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Science doesn't even suggest it; the notion that a lightning bolt (or comet? good grief -- perhaps you're thinking of panspermia, which is a different hypothesis for the origin of life) could turn a mix of molecules into a cell is ludicrous; it took millions or billions of years from the time the first self-replicating molecule arose until the first cell developed. And there's no reason to think that there was an "event" -- it was an ongoing process. The language in the article is still ignorant nonsense that reduces our current scientific knowledge to something below the level found on a cereal box. See the Origin of life article for a far more accurate discussion. But really, none of this is relevant to "meaning", and it quite mixes up things that are orthogonal -- there are plenty of scientists who are religious and whose views on meaning and purpose run the spectrum; science itself is mute on such issues. -- 68.6.40.203 22:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
For most people the Meaning of Life is fundamentally about 4 things: love, sex, money and happiness. Here's why:
-- Peter 02:43, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-- People have to find their own meaning in in life.
I do not know if others share my oncerns, but I believe that this article trivalizes the actual philosophical roots and implications of the issue at hand. There are countless works that present their perspective on this issue and I believe that they are understated in exchange for what is ulimately trivial 21st century media. I would definitely vote for multiple amaendments to this particular article and welcome more insightful pieces.
j.bancroft
I do not know if others share my concerns, but I believe that this article trivalizes the actual philosophical roots and implications of the issue at hand. There are countless works that present their perspective on this issue and I believe that they are understated in exchange for what is ulimately trivial 21st century media. I would definitely vote for multiple amaendments to this particular article and welcome more insightful pieces.
j.bancroft
I just did quite some shortenings in the article - mainly I removed the attempts to analytically devide the question into its components, as well as any parts that attempted to give a conclusive answer.
While it might be an interesting idea to do pioneer research on the wiki platform, that is not the purpose of wikipedia. Instead an encyclopedia should try to summarize the knowledge which is already accepted as such by large portions of humanity. As I wrote in the introduction to the changed article, the question of the "meaning of life" as an attempt to answer the basic question of ethics. Most of the content of this article should thus, imho, be integrated in the article about ethics and related.
-- Ados 08:20, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
This sounds like existential philosophy - sort of. It seems like someone has put their own theory up here. Better to put 'existential philosophers beleive the individual must find their own meaning in life' or whatever.
It's a dumb question because it lacks definition. If you're asking why you were called into existence, your parents just wanted to show each other a good time. If you're asking what you're expected to do while you're living, you should first ask who would care. Just relax, get naked once in a while, live a little. It isn't as difficult as some try to make it seem.
The meaning of life is growth. Life is preservation of energy given off by the sun. We're here becuase of complexity being a form of storage. That complexity led to sentience. Sentience is meaning. Meaning is a bunch of patterns, which brain cells form to each other as we interact with our environment through our senses.
I question why 42 is listed under "Popular views". One, it is listed already under "Humorous and miscellaneous views". Two, it is only one man's POV (i.e. Douglas Adam's) and a joke at that (I agree it is quite funny). Three, if we are to list all significant numbers which individuals interpret as the meaning of life then the list would be endless; 2012, 33, 666 for instance are not listed. I have deleted the reference. -- nirvana2013 11:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I think he was just trying to be being funny, like me and that slogan from the old Superman TV show. 24.18.171.99 05:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about listing '42' under popular views-- had not made it around to the discussion page. -- Valve 18:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The article is in desperate need of a thorough overhaul. I've made a (largely negative, though including a copy-edit) start, but oh dear... The section science was obscure, and anyway largely irrelevant. The section on philosophy is almost as bad, covering some of the most important philosophers who actually wroote something interesting on the issue in a single sentence. The section on religion is also thin, and the section on "spirituality" was three paragraphs devoted to popular writers of new-age/spiritualist books. The section humour, though a bit bloated, is the fullest. I'll try to attract attention from other editors, and will (when I can) start work on the bits about which I'm knowledgeable: science, philosophy, and religion. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 22:59, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
This article has been and is still getting plenty of attention. One look at the history reveals that. As the interested editors become more familiar with this subject, the article continues to improve. I believe it has been a learning experience for all of us.
Just because one opinionated viewer freaks out about what he sees is no reason to muck up the article with a useless template. It detracts from the article. I'm removing it.
I welcome recruiting efforts to bring more editors to this article. But the article already does a pretty good job of that on its own.
24.18.171.99 02:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
although i'm too lazy to change it myself, i'd be wary of leaving the only mention of Nietzsche under "Nihilism", when that's clearly not any accurate descriptor for what his philosophies ASSERTED. While he did talk much of Nihilism, he was warning us against it, not promoting it. Besides, IMO, Nietzsche was an existentialist.
I removed the following:
But atheism is also a relative term. Most people would consider themselves atheists with respect to the ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman Gods. Most Christians, Jews, and Muslims are atheists with respect to the eastern religions Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism for this very same reason, and vice versa for the Buddhists, Hindus, and Taoists in relation to the western religions. Though “atheist” is most commonly applied to those who do not believe in the God nor Gods represented in any of these religions, even though they also claim that these “mythos” are just as silly and were just as obviously made up. Though many atheists who disbelieve the contempory religions, consider themselves agnostics with respect to the issue of the existence of a superbeing in general, arguing that the existence or non-existence of such a being cannot be verified, while you can see the obvious influence of the hand of man throughout history on the creation and development of the various mythoi (contemporary religions included).
It can be observed that, because atheism is defined by the absence of a god, atheists are defined by what they do not believe rather than what they do believe. In this context, many non-believers see atheism as a derogatory label applied to them by theists. Many atheists, therefore, consider their atheism secondary to their primary philosophical position, whatever that may be, preferring to be defined by what they do believe. Atheism is a component of many other philosophies and origin theories, including evolutionism, existentialism, Darwinism, humanism, nihilism, and transhumanism, to name but a few. After all, if there is no God, then the meaning of life is left up to Man, to discover or define.
I removed these two paragraphs because while they may be fairly accurate and well-written, they are strictly the philosophy of atheism -- not the philosophy of atheism with respect to the meaning of life, which is what belongs in the article. The preceding paragraph (which remains in the article) covers all the ground that these paragraphs talk about. -- Michael (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
--Above comment unsigned by 68.6.40.203 (talk)
Just want to say that his article is pleasant to read:-) dan
Thx for the work on this good article. I made a couple easy edits to the science section, but IMO it needs an overhaul and i'm not the person to do it. The 1st par sounds like philosophers agree on mechanism, which isn't true. There are general flow/clarity problems about whether and how science addresses the m o l, and the 2nd par seems pretty contradictory to other par's. The 3rd paragraph ended in total confusion for me -- hope my change expresses the intended point. Perhaps par 4-7 could be much shorter, simply telling/linking what fields of science address what aspects of m o l questions. No need for (incomplete) lists of theories, as in par 5, which privileges physics. And i think the semiotics connection is too much of a stretch; lots of other areas (linguistics, neurology) address aspects of how we perceive our world and make 'meaning' of it in very general ways, but thats more than needs to be addressed in an article about the philosophical m o l. Hope that helps, "alyosha" 21:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
nobody knows the meaning of life. I think there should be more emphasis on this.
You wanna know the meaning of life? Just look it up at
wikt:Life! lol
FLaRN2005 03:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey all, interesting page. A bit busy, perhaps, but considering the SCOPE...anyway, I felt compelled to tinker a bit with esoteric/other, (the phrase "to have purpose" struck me as somehow, well, lacking) Having done this I went back to the first paragraph, as something there had caught my eye. It was the claim that "the vagueness of the query is inherent in the word meaning". It seems to me that the word is may be an equally, perhaps even more likely culprit for any vaguery (not to mention the definition of vaguery!). I thought about making a note, and linking it, but this required...finagling. (see talk: is) Now, having arranged for that, I came back and found the word in the next half-dozen or so questions in the paragraph, and, well, I think I can see why the page needs trimming. However, being a newbie I ain't about to hack up the intro, though I'm certain it needs clarification, so, little help? I am just curious, 'cause this may really be the first opportunity this world has had to conceivably come to an actual concensus on this subject, and I for one would love to see this article whittled down to one sentence,(Not likely, I know, but I for one also like to see ALL concepts whittled down to single statements, or aphorisms, if you will) and, well...I'm curious. Awaiting a reply, TLM posted 01/29/06
I removed the personal appeal of Alan MacDonald, how interesting it may be: wikipedia is clear, do not publish own research: here is what it read:
PLEASE READ - [I am Alan MacDonald, a 6th year student at Wick High School, I have thought deeply about this question and contery to the protests by a physics teacher, i believe the meaning of life is X (X meaning nothing or emptiness). This sounds stupid, but if you think aboiut it, every piece of MATTER has an ANTI-MATTER, when antimatter and matter meet, they anihilate each other, therefore every thing can be destroyed including theories. so X and anti X meet and anihilate each other leaving nothing. Life is just a lucky chance that can be taken away at any time.Dont take it for granted.]
I expounded on the "purpose" thing again, but could someone please tell me why the word is posesses less potential for confusing the question than meaning. I can tell at first glance what meaning "means", but is "is " a silly word, and largely serves to render the question unanswerable, no? TLM
THE MEANING OF LIFE IS TO BE A GOOD HUMBLE CATHOLIC AND MAKE SURE YOU ALL OTHER DENOMINATIONS AND RELIGIONS CAUSE THEY ARE WRONG AND BE GOOD AND KIND AND BELIEVE IN JESUS IVE BEEN A GOOD CATHOLIC GIRL FOR 17 YEARS AND THEN I FIND THIS PAGE QUESTIONING LIFE
I don't think the purpose of this page is to promote your own faith... Encyclopedic articles must maintain an air of neutrality and skepticism. If you want to come and share what your perspective is, being catholic, that is perfectly fine. For myself, being a member of the LDS church, we have taught that the purpose of life is to come to earth, gain a body, gain experience in choosing the good from the evil, and reap the fruits of our faith and our works in the next life. BUT that is only one side of the story. There being a million different religions out there, we all have our beliefs, doubts, and questions. - user jpagel
I see a couple of statements approximating this, but I believe this is worth adding.
I think it (Meaning of Life) is a non question theoretically but seemingly the most important question emotionally! Asking the question seems to imply that there IS a meaning EXTERNAL to human existence but if that meaning IS truly external to human experience, it cannot be understood by humans! Gary
This article doesn't belong for 2 reasons... 1. The meaning of life is opinion not fact which has no use in an encyclopedia 2. I'm not going to lie to you, I find some parts of this article very offensive
I edited the 'replish' bit in the Genesis quote, that theory has been mostly discredited.
Under "Spiritual views", there are two long paragraphs labeled "The designed Universe", which are apparently quoted directly from The Science of Soulmates by William Henderson. Besides not making much sense, I worry that they may be too long to qualify as "fair use" and suspect that they ought to be removed.
The following big section moved from the article for discussion:
Concerns:
This section needs summarizing into an "Author X's view is", and reflect both views, that most of the above facts stated by the author are not representative in fact of science or scientists views, and are strongly contested by many. FT2 ( Talk) 21:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
the notion of a designer is attributed to the notion of god, and hence understainding the meaning through relgion. this has already been disccused, and so it adds nothing to the article but the author's name.-- 84.228.165.214 08:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
It seems that Bernard Haisch added a citation to his own book to this and many other articles. See also
for other edits apparently pushing the scientifically highly controversial POV of Haisch. --- CH 10:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
You mention the appearance of 47 in Star Trek:
I did not know about this until I read your article. However, some sources suggest 47 did not begin to appear regularly in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" until season 4. See here: The 47s -- La Loir Noir 09:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
A lateral view of the problem, 'The Meaning of Life', may result in the following explanation - Death. From a philosophical point of view, the end result - for which no alternative exists - of life is but death. Every person is born into this world, and will inevitably die irrespective of what life they lived; rich, poor, upper class, clever, disabled etc. There is only one constant in the existence of a human being.
The above paragraph is very poorly written, and under closer observation doesn't make much sense. Here's my take on this hunk of text:
Because the passage makes little if any sense, I'm for removing it altogether. If it can be rewritten (or its source citation provided), then it should be moved to the Philosophical views section, since it poses itself as a philosophical point of view. --
Medulla oblongata 19:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I moved the following extract here, because complete source information was not provided, and because I couldn't track down where it came from.
What if human beings were simply animals? Then by observing other animals it might be possible to uncover meaning from their life patterns. Such as the requirement to ensure the survival of their particular species. An objective pursued through the unwitting deployment of individual variation and aptitude. In an endeavour to counter each threat to their collective existence. Such an observation might imply that the meaning of life is life itself, ensuring continuity toward attainment of an ultimate formation. In other words, the subconscious quest for an entity-form or organization, which no eventuality could annihilate.
Yet surely, the meaning of human life could not be so rudimentary? Since humans and animals differ in a vast number of respects. For example, in the ability to exchange complex information. The examination of which quickly establishes, that no two of our kind experience the nature of shared existence in an identical fashion. However, unless reality can exist in multiple states simultaneously, the majority of such perceived variation must be introduced by individuals themselves. Currently, each feels confident in maintaining a belief, that their evaluation of life derives from personal experience of actual reality. That they are wholly justified, in claiming their assessment as correct while dismissing conflicting appraisals as incorrect. But how could such a massive contradiction be plausible? Perhaps, if not a single human being experienced true reality.
Because everything that we term “experience” originates in an organ, totally encased within a sealed protective enclosure. Inside a detached device, remote from any form of tangible involvement with that which it purports to know intimately and comprehend effectively. Yet, any notion formed in isolation can be individual in nature and subjective in content. In effect then, any genuine similarity between an inner recreation of reality and the outer true reality, would be restricted. Limited to those portions of entire actual reality which our external sensory sensors were capable of accurately detecting, encoding, and re-transmitting. In addition to that dexterity which the brain would need to apply in order to interpret these transformed signals. Utilising the utmost quality of memory-maintained comparative material, required to perform a necessarily precise interpolation.
Regrettably, a lack of exactness in any of these sequential operations would tend toward the creation of erroneous conclusions. Accordingly, all manner of illogical opinion, confused conviction, or fanciful explanation concerning anything, including the meaning of life, could then result. Permitting, for instance, one to classify certain acts as either good or evil, the incontrovertible proof of a complex struggle between opposing supernatural forces. While also allowing another to categorize those same events, as the simple manifestation of diverse survival strategies. Ultimately however, selection of any alternate, in preference to continuity of life as the primary objective of our kind, risks incurring a common fatal consequence. That our species will not endure for long enough, to discover which hypothesis if any was correct. (Condensed extract from a unified theory of human existence, omitting detailed analogies, examples, explanations, and reasoning.)
Before this can be reinserted into the article, we should determine its copyright status. Also, it is a bit long. Should it go in the article, or in an article of its own? But first, we really need to resolve the copyright issue. Does anybody know where this came from, who the original author is, when it was published, and when and by whom? -- Medulla oblongata 21:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Some of the popular beliefs on the meaning of life seem to be in the wrong category, rather, is it more ethical or spiritual to become one with god? Reasons such as that are listed under ethical. "To work for justice and democracy" is listed under spiritual. Granted it can get ambiguous depending on your interpretation of the words ethical and spiritual, but considering that such beliefs should only be put into one category or the other in this article, perhaps choosing the one that is more accurate is a better idea.
I laughed so hard, I hit my head on my desk. Beliefs in the meaning of life are a SPOILER that GIVE AWAY THE ENDING? AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA.. Okay... I'm going to leave it in there without editing it out because it's just too classic. I'll let other wikipedians decide if they see fit to leave it a spoiler. --- Thoughtfix
Argh! Which idiot put a spoiler warning UNDER where it says mice are the hyper intelligent creatures? Thanks for ruining my bloody book.
The mathematical approach involves formal methods of optimization whereby the probability of death is the determining factor of the cost function. The optimization used for living organisms is the evolution strategy. The desire to live is an inherent aspect of living, for if a species did not have the desire to live they would most likely be killed off by random natural events, and would thereby cease to live. This results in all living organisms, that exist in a volatile region of space, having a strong desire to live. Extending this logic can result in explaining the existence of intelligence, cooperative group working, relationships, and numerous other human emotions. -- ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 04:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
The paragraph on atheistic views seems to create an us-them view which might be interpreted as not maintaining a NPOV. Maybe using "them" less often will improve this.
This reads like an essay, and if very hard to follow. It even prompted someone to add a clean-up tag, which I highly agree with. I don't think it fits in the article, at least not in this form. -- Chram 03:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's the section:
Recently the trial of the unification and generalization of cosmological, physical and biological concepts leads to the " Theory of necessity of people's participation in reoccurrence of sub - Universe". Its thesis, in another words is.: " People will create new sub- Universe " or "People go to be the new Demiurge".
The formulation of this theory is incited by the need to interpretation of the occurrence of the self-awareness ( consciousness ) of people, just 13 billion years after the so called Big Bang and the observed fast and permanent progress in the understanding of everything and fast technological progress. The authors of the theory argue that this consciousness as new neuro -physiological phenomenon is not random. They maintain that any of us is indispensable for the realization of an extremely important task.: " We are indispensable to succeed to reproduce the new real world ". In details, the authors of the theory argue that.:
The actual phase of the development of the Universe, characterized by occurrence of the self-awareness of people should be presented in the context of the evolving Universe. The contemporary cosmologists maintain that the Universe comes out from primary singularity, it means from a very dense bunch of matter or rather ' quantum foam '. The singularity existed above time. During the first cosmologic era the primary physical particles appeared. The early Universe was composed from Hydrogen and Helium. More heavy elements occurred inside of the older stars. We know already that many stellar systems are characterized by the presence of planets.
At the surface of the planets ( at least on our planet ) so called biological life has emerged . Recently, after 13 billion years of cosmic evolution the Homo sapiens sapiens appeared. Human beings ( as well as dolphins ) are characterized by the self-awareness. It is almost improbable that the occurrence of biological life and consciousness was random. It is rather a cosmic necessity. The existence of a galaxy is probably the indispensable condition. It would be difficult to imagine a planetary stellar system with the biological life on the surface of the planet existing in the intergalactic cosmic void . If we will admit that the biological life is a cosmic necessity the quick formation of galaxies in the expanding universe should be comprehended as an important step in the creation of the elementary conditions for the occurrence of the biological life. Probably the massive centers of Bose-Einsteincondensates existing in the spiral galaxy are indispensable for the promotion of the phenomena of life and consciousness ( see the chapter " 11.1.3. Cosmology of consciousness " in Matti Pitkanen's on line book [1]
The appearance of human self- awareness is indispensable to take decisions about important acts related to the fate of human beings. People are inquisitive and unconsciously motivated to increase the knowledge and technological abilities. It enables them to develop the communication and memorizing systems. They quickly transforms our planet in a kind of a huge global brain. It is only first step to much more far reaching goals. Just now people want to analyze, record and understand the genetic code. In fact they want to understand the code representation of everything.
Frank Tipler, the author of so called Anthropic Principle ( John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler: The Antropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986.) [2] and the author of " The physics of immortality ", who postulate in it probably unique other similar trial to search the meaning of the human life in cosmological development foresees that the descendants of people will build, in the far future, the huge macro - computer based on the matter of collapsing universe. It will enable the emulation ( reconstruction, in fact resurrection ) of all people who lived before.
Frank Tipler' s theory works good only on the assumption that the time space of the Universe is closed and that it will collapse in the future. On 1998, just after the formulation of Tipler's theory ( 1995 ) the astronomers found strong arguments that our Universe is " open " and that its time space will expand endlessly.
So, the " Theory of necessity of people's participation in reoccurrence of sub - Universe" takes into account this settlement, however the theory acknowledge the same drive to build the macro-computer and to implement the essence, especially brains and human psyche on so called second level of implementation. The development of the global Internet, the urge to construct so called virtual reality, the main postulate of all religions about further existence in ' other world ' and the recent vision of many science fiction writers ( Greg Egan, Vernon Vinge ), what give usually a good insights push us to postulate that really people will ' scan ' themselves and emulate in the cyberspace. It seems that it is necessary to obtain a much faster and intense development of the thinking and cognition.
Thus the ultimate goal of people is to do something with the sad vision of cooling, dilatating, infinitely expanded time-space of our Universe. Probably the descendant of us will try to utilize a massive black hole as a tool appropriate to begin the next offspring Universe [3] The mighty knowledge, technology and power is necessary however to program and tune the characteristics of the " next Big ( Little ) Bang in such a manner that the offspring Universe will obey also the Anthropic Principle. It would cause the similar evolution of the offspring Universe, who should lead to the occurrence of human beings, what will signify in fact the 'reincarnation' of the human species.
Thus people and their descendant of the present Universe will want to master the ability to tune the next Big Bang: Therefore they need to decode apart of the genomic information also the patterns for all reality, including the pattern of the physical and chemical characteristics of the matter. The code representation of all objects should be determined. People, who know the scientific endeavors will agree that in fact the trial of the understanding of everything have already began.
The presented theory restore the meaning of the human life. It explain why the effort of people is valuable and that this effort will be rewarded by the possibility of reoccurrence.
I'm not really sure this page is encyclopedic, as it just enumerates different groups' views on the subject. Maybe sections in the articles on Atheism, Christianity, and the other groups that explain that group's viewpoint, as well as a section at life would be better.-- Grand Slam 7 23:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Since the the word 'meaning' is too vaguely used in the sentence; its quite possible the the question "what is the meaning of life?" is a more lamen term to ask something more complicated?
Therefore can't the question be first created so that it could ask for something more specific?
Henceforth, it cannot. becuase everybody does not mean the same when they ask "what is the meaning of life?", one can ask for the meaning of thier life and the other for the meaning of the human race. plus if the answer is given, would the person be trusted enough or reveered enough to be accounted for? So, here's another question, ( in a simple term) "Who can give us the answer?".
And since that would lead into more greater research and more knowledge required, the one who can give an answer will not be found.
Yet not one has brought up the notion that 'life' is a noun, why cant the question be changed into "What is the meaning to live?" That could also be interpreted into, " why do we live?"...
Moreover, everyone who seeks for an answer, wont be satisified until it's found. So when you do find he answer, you'll accept it or deny it. Then that means everybody will search for an answer that will suite them anyways.
there should be a section included on the singularitarian veiw (where the 'meaning of life' meand the supergoal). From theis article http://sysopmind.com/tmol-faq/tmol-faq.html. Basically it goes something like this: 1)We must assume there is a meaning of life (not to do so woul be self defeating - and in abscense of certainty it is illogical to go with a self defeating possbility(one that gives no information on 'good actions". 2)We do not have enougth informaton to make a good guess at what it is yet. 3)Assumeing there is a meaning of life(a supergoal) and we do not know it. it is logical that the interim meaning of life is to find the "meaning of life"(supergoal) 4)The reason humans havn't found the meaning of life may be lack of inteligence or information. Therefore we should create superhuman inteligence(via enchancement, the singularity, AI etc) and more information (science).
(this page really needs to be protected). Douglas Adams wrote that the answer was 42. Whilst driving in central north Wales I stoped at an old tower/horse shelter which had been turned into a museum. Sure enough in the museum there was an artifact that said the meaning of the univers was 42. Can anyone refresh my memory as to the name of the town? It was on a major ( well for Wales!) road going from Hay on Wye towards the north east.
It isn't encyclopedic at all. The entire premise of the article is based on an extremely vague ponderance of a nature probably only common in the English language or the western world. It is a pointless mish-mash of popular views, completely NPOV, and not representing a world-wide perspective. It is too long and opinionated and should be split up into seperate articles or removed altogether.
-- Weldingfish 12:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
The meaning of life is not "an extremely vague ponderance of a nature." It is the ultimate concept and has not been answered completely. In laymans terms, no facts, but this does not mean it should be removed! It is difficult to form facts on this topic for obvious reasons. This is not a fact book. It's an encyclopedia. Look up the definition of encyclopedia.
I agree. this needs some attention if this is going to stay-serious modifications need to be done to at least the 'Popular beliefs' section. It was so upsetting [just reading that section] that I couldn't bear to read the rest of the article. An article of this quality (or lack thereof) doesn't belong in any encyclopedia-especially Wikipedia. Here is a list of things wrong with the part of this article that I could (barely) bear to read.
The "Popular beliefs" section needs serious review, of at least three different types.
1.Format
This is a list. Shouldn't it be prose? [Would that be considered part of formal tone?]
2.Redundancies
Even in list form, which is extremely bad enough, there are several redundancies: e.g.
3.
Almost everything wikipedia ISN'T
original research/unverified claims
see also:"Wikipedia is not a crystal ball [and] Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation."
NPOV? and "Wikipedia is not a soapbox" -even if you could say these lists have a reasonably able-to-be-picked-out point of view
see also:"Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information"
"When you wonder what should or should not be in an article, ask yourself what a reader would expect to find under the same heading in an encyclopedia."
I agree to a large extent...this article should not try to document the "meaning of life" as that is not fact, but opinion. The article should be an objective and brief sociological analysis of the quest for the meaning of life, with a few various beliefs that have occurred in different parts of history(must be referenced and well supported). The "popular beliefs" section should be removed...i will do my best to clean it up, but I have no expertise in this this area of history. Will someone help? The emphasis is on being shorter!-- Vox Rationis 03:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the article as a whole is legitimate, but the "popular beliefs" section is not at all encyclopedic. As entertaining as it is, I think it should be removed. Are there any objections to doing so?
If the section needs to be retained, I would change the title to "popular ideas." (The word "beliefs" implies that there is factual material involved.) I would also cut it down to a handful of examples in each category, with the notation that these are merely examples, not a comprehensive list to be expanded. Joel Justiss 02:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
there should be a section included on the singularitarian veiw (where the 'meaning of life' meand the supergoal). From theis article http://sysopmind.com/tmol-faq/tmol-faq.html. Basically it goes something like this:
I'll take a crack at your points above, in the context that you are referring to "meaning of life" as "purpose in life":
I hope this helps. — The Transhumanist 16:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah that does help. "Transhumanists argue that improved people will necessarily have improved capabilities to seek out and answer questions regarding "the meaning of life" as they see it, more so than even humans do currently." Already sums the above up nicely.
(Michael)
DimitriRU, your removal of the original science section lacks consensus. If you'd like to remove large sections of an article, you should propose it on that article's talk page first, and express your reasons for desiring the removal. Please refrain from blanking it again until consensus has been reached. Personally, I'm against removing it, as it is geared towards beginners, whereas the Schrödinger stuff is quite advanced and may leave younger readers (or those new to philosophy and science) scratching their heads. The passage also complements the article's lead section by treating each of the five questions presented there. Note that I've left your additions in place, for the sake of more advanced readers. Please don't unilaterally chop articles down without prior discussion. Keep in mind that other people on Wikipedia have put in a great deal of time and effort on the various articles here. None of us like to see our work erased unless there is good reason to do so, determined by the wisdom of the community. — The Transhumanist 11:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
If there is some commonly held joke or reference among philosophers please explain. Chivista 19:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
In The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42. by the end the mice decide that the Question for Life, the Universe and Everything is "how many roads must a man walk down". I think it should be included somewhere as it is very well known.-- ANDY+MCI=Andy Mci 19:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't matter, it's mentioned anyway.-- ANDY+MCI=Andy Mci 19:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
A couple of criticisms:
This entire section, and much of the Schrodinger section as well, are lifted directly from a book by Erich Schneider. There is a copyright notice on the page linked at the end of the Schneider section, so this appears to be a violation of copyright. The section should probably be removed entirely, though I wanted to give people a chance to discuss that before doing it myself.
Also, assuming the section does stay, it comes across as unreasonably POV to me, particularly the first sentence. "Linking our purposeful behavior to life's function as a gradient-reducing complex system is another move in the scientific tradition of increasing our knowledge while deflating our arrogance." Whether or not "the scientific tradition" deflates human arrogance is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. If the section stays, it needs to be reworded from an NPOV, not simply a direct quote from Schneider. 74.114.148.69 00:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Not really sure how to get rid of the "MEANING OF LIFE IS GLORIOUS COMRADE STALIN," which, while mildly amusing, doesn't belong here. -- StarKruzr 10:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)\
I find this article 'Meaningless'. It once again expounds the philosophical opinions of the many people who have pondered it. It should be renamed ‘Meaning of life philosophy’ or similar until an actual meaning is found.
I could add that the meaning of life is knowledge or the pursuit of knowledge. Be it for God or the endless universe that surrounds us. However this would indeed be yet another answer to an otherwise pointless question. The meaning of life is LIFE.
This site is, and should be based on facts or fiction. And be separated by some kind of mark identifying such.
It is clear that the meaning of life will not be answered any day soon.
Although I hasten to add that it may never be answered if we don't all put our heads together to expand our understanding of an infinite universe with endless possibilities as to what we are and why we may be here.
Beginner;) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Johnmcmaster ( talk • contribs) 13:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC).
Due to the apparently overwhelming "knowledge" of the MSN Messenger chat bot SmarterChild, its creators have claimed that the meaning of life is one of the most common requests from its users. The algorithm has since been tweaked so that instead of responding with a generic message, it replies with a humorous "ask Ken Ma" and a smiling emoticon. There has been speculation as to whether or not Ken Ma is a real person, whilst one common theory is that the name is an inside joke amongst the developers of the chat bot.
Nope, doesn't work.
blip: what's the meaning of life? SmarterChild: GeekHelper can give you helpful computer tips and play fun games. Add GeekHelper as a buddy!
I don't know. What do you think?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.252.73.101 ( talk) 20:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC).
I added {{cleanup-section}} to popular beliefs because it is in need of pruning. This section seems to be the beliefs of Wikipedia users, not the public. Some truly are popular beliefs, but many ("...to be a magician"? Where's that from?) are not. I suggest citations are added, and those without citations be deleted. P.L.A.R. 00:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
If anyone has a strong objection to the philosophical section of this page being used as the start of a new page, please express that objection and give reasons for it here. Anarchia 21:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but the begining of this article is terrible. Instead of making a lis, why not actually write a decent paragraph, and cut out all the nonsense and redundancy of the list.
I deleted the Conan the Barbarian quotation. I somehow felt that Conan's views were not the precisely most important or relevant in this context. I love the film.
Hey, as a determinist, I think plot details are very relevant to the meaning of life. Jussen 02:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Do NOT continue to add this. It is impossible to make it encyclopedic under WP:N WP:RS WP:SOAP WP:NOT#INFO List Criteria, and I'm sure I could find even more if I wanted to. There is the pop culture section for references in entertainment media, but ANYONE could add their opinion to that section and it would be equally important as the others. If I said that the meaning of life was to see how far you could kick babies, there's no reason that wouldn't be included compared to the other ones. Beyond that, it adds NOTHING to the actual content of the article, which is sketchy enough as it is. There's NOTHING in it that it adds to the article, be it showing what certain groups believe, showing the history of the question, or anything else that would make it encyclopedic.-- L augh! 22:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Another strong argument for the retention of the section is the links it provides. Most if not all of those links are highly relevant as they help to illuminate various common life purposes, such as survival, the pursuit of happiness, serving God, doing good, accumulating wealth, fame, power, etc., and they help to answer one of the interpretations of the meaning of life, namely "What is the purpose of (or within one's) life?" A better approach to axing the section would be to refine it, or better yet, allow editors to continue refining it as they have been doing for the past year or so. — The Transhumanist
User:The Transhumanist stated that sources could easily be found for most of the items. That seems like a positive direction to move, and one required by Wikipedia guidelines. After finding sources a decision can be made to determine the most appropriate section for an entry. User:L makes a strong argument with regard to WP:RS. Entries should be based on reliable sources. Otherwise, not only is there no way to make a distinction between an acceptable entry and an unacceptable (even ridiculous) one, but the whole enterprise would become a free-for-all, not at all encyclopedic.
I suggest that the section be moved here to the talk page, and entries put back in the 5th section (moved down) as sources are found. - Do c t orW 01:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Stepping in with size nines... I applaud that you are both moving away from edit-warring and looking to build a consensual piece of copy. However, under the terms of the GFDL, I believe that the cut-and-paste job to the sandbox page is inappropriate, to the extent that I considered speedying it unilaterally. I'd prefer it if L would request this deletion. I agree with L that there are elements there that are redolent of OR issues and also with The Transhumanist that L could have trodden more daintily in a large piece of text that's long been in an article. I suggest:
I hope that this process will quickly deliver a better article and editor harmony, without causing problems with the GFDL. -- Dweller 13:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Items need to be referenced. No prob.
But where will the items go once they're referenced? Many seem to fall under more than one category, especially ethics and religion, with some items fitting both science and philosophy. What would be done with those? — The Transhumanist 19:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The article is in serious need of cleaning up...
There are so many attribution and citation tags that they make the article almost unreadable.
If the citation tags can't be replaced with actual citations, then the attributions and uncited facts should be removed or commented out. (I prefer the latter, for tracking purposes).
Two weeks should be enough time to replace the citation tags, for those interested in keeping those currently unverified claims/facts in the article. Any objections?
— The Transhumanist 23:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
How about you check the page history before you go making accusations? This is the only edit I've made since we agreed to restore the article content for sourcing- I haven't reverted any tags, as far as I can see. anyway, I agree with your point of view on this, however the references should be in the paragraphs, not the headers, although I suppose leaving them temporarily is alright. I'm kinda concerned about how much of the content it looks like will be getting the axe, not so much because it's good, but because rewriting the article without it could be quite a chore- and keeping it from sneaking back in will be hard -- L augh! 06:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I think this is one of the most significant articles on Wikipedia, and think it should be improved to featured article status. But it doesn't have a hope of getting approved until all of its content is properly referenced. — The Transhumanist 20:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I hope it's going well and everyone is agreed on the course of action. If I can be of further help (bearing in mind I know nothing about this topic!) please drop me a line at my talk page. -- Dweller 16:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
The latest link put into this page [6] does not connect happiness and the meaning of life. I don't want to delete it without checking first what the link is supposed to be for.
Re: looking for references, have you checked out Meaning and the Void- it is a psych book rather than a phil one, but it would provide useful references for ideas for the science seciton, and link some of the things on your list to that section of the article. It isn't in the library at my uni (I have had to request it from another library in the past), and I am having problems keeping up at work atm, so I can't do more than wave you towards it. Anarchia 01:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Some of the references that have been added into the article are problematic.
Since the dispute has been resolved (thanks to Dweller), does anyone mind if I remove the mediation cabal tag from the top of this page? — The Transhumanist 00:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
An obvious first step, is to replace all the citation tags with references. Then the article will probably be ready for WP:PR.
I've gotten started on the life purposes section, as that was under dispute above, and to remain in the article it needs to be referenced as per the solution arrived at above. To find references, Google can be used to search for the entry plus "life purpose"; and/or the entry plus "meaning of life", and any other related phrases you can think of. If you think of any other phrases that work, please report them here, so the rest of us can make use of them. — The Transhumanist 00:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Some of the fact tags look pretty spurious to me. Surely it is common knowlege that humanists reject "supernatural influence" 1Z 10:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
How about converting these ref tags to section tags. What do ya think. This article is aesthetically absurd. That's right. You heard me ;) the_undertow talk 04:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Most of this article is unreferenced and not encyclopedic. Deleting inappropriate and unsupported material will, with a little luck, lead to a shorter, more considered, appropriately referenced article. Anarchia 00:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)