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What Is The Meaning Of Life?

You are trapped on a small mountain ledge that is slowly crumbling under your weight. Above you is a band of bandits who want to kill you. Below is a hungry tiger that wants to kill you. On the ledge there is a single strawberry growing.
What should you do?
Pluck the strawberry and taste it.
That, young Jedi, is the meaning of life.
 
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sorry, it had to be said.......

--kiel--
 
Here's my theory in an ultra-condensed format: Most of our behavior is conditioned by society. Most of that behavior is arbitrary...sure, it makes sense that you shouldn't kill people or steal, etc...but does it make sense that you should use the small fork for salads and not the big fork? That violence is acceptible in movies but sex is not?

We are all robots programmed to behave certain ways through conditioning, but that doesn't mean we have to let other people program us. The way I see it, the meaning of life is to learn to become your own programmer. :) It's one thing to just accept that stealing is "bad" and not do it for fear of punishment or guilt, etc. It's another thing to to work it out for yourself exactly WHY stealing may be wrong.

So basically, the meaning of life is to think for yourself, and as peewee said, to make babies. ;)
 
the meaning of life? oh my goodness what a simple question...
as an ancient philosopher (timon of phlius, disciple of pyrrho, founder of skepticism) put it,

<why? and why not? and the <why> itself, why?>
(dia ti nai, kai dia ti ou, kai auto to dia ti, dia ti?)
 
The meaning of life? Simple. To learn the secret of maintaining contentment in the direst of circumstances without compromising your dignity, your goals or your love for fellow men. And of course to have babies.
 
I think I've had all the babies I'm likely to have, so what do I do now? :confused:

And I'd like to know who said there IS a meaning to life.

And what is the meaning of 'meaning'?
 
'The answer in the centre of Disneyworld'

(attributed to Philip K. Dick, shortly after he died)
 
'Seek beauty, try to understand, survive.'

from some nouveau noir novel or other
 
Hey, folks, your answers are all HUMAN centred...except for the making babies part.

The "meaning" of life is simple.

Consume, Replicate, be Consumed.
 
Who says there is one, universal meaning to all human life? I think we give meaning to our own lives by how we live them. The meaning of my life may not be the same as the meaning of yours.

Or if we're just talking about life in general, it is sufficient unto itself and requires no external meaning. The purpose of life - is to experience life.

Nonny
 
In his masterwork, "Venus On A Halfshell", Kilgore Trout's immortal protagonist travelled the universe seeking God to ask him exactly this question. Finally as the universe dies around him he finds someone who has met God and he he says he knows the answer to our hero's question:

"Why are we Born only to Live and Die?"

God's answer was this:

"It seemed like a good idea at the time".

I believe that life is like a slice of cheesecake; you eat it and when you've finished it then it's gone. It's up to you if you enjoy it or not.

Niles "Progressing on to Two-ness" Calder
 
Definitely not original, but good ol' Frank Sinatra had it down, pat:

"Do be do be do!"

Or, as Voltaire nearly said in `Candide,' "Never mind the b*ll*cks! Just tend your own garden."
 
It's one of those plastic cheesecakes lying uncovered and dried out in the cafe of a motorway service station with gloopy dayglo "blackcurrants" on the top. :cross eye
 
I took the question to be seeking a personal interpretation.
But if we mean what is the meaning of the human race, then I don't suppose it has any meaning at all - its just a random development of species.
 
You discover yourself in an unknown place, you dont know how you got there and you got to work out what your suppose to do.
 
Not meaning to sound corny, but IMO the meaning of life is simply to make some sort of positive impact on mankind.

The last few weeks I've been teaching schoolchildren about the environment, and of the two hundred or so kids I've seen, if just one turns out to be a future David Attenborough / Bill Odie, or even just remembers to recycle their waste then my job on this planet is done, and I can genuinely die tomorrow with a smile on my face :)
 
The thought of Schnor presiding over a small army of Bill Oddie clones
is Fortean indeed. :eek:

And would an aversion to cheesecake preclude a search for the Meaning
of Life on the bizarrely named Cheesesofnazareth.com Search Engine?
 
James Whitehead said:
The thought of Schnor presiding over a small army of Bill Oddie clones is Fortean indeed. :eek:
Click to expand...

lol :D
 
Whatever it is, it is not to be found on an internet message board. Turn off the machine, open the door, walk. Eventually you'll come across it, if you keep your ears and eyes open. Perhaps it's in a smell. No, I've got it. Life is too complex for there to be one single meaning, so it's a futile exercise to try to nail it down. But then again, are we asking about the one single meaning, or meaning as an uncountable concept. The non-quantifiable is more likely, yet it would take a long time to describe it, so perhaps for convenience the one true thing is best. Mostly I'm so busy I haven't time to ponder the meaning of life. I suppose it's whatever it is that stops you thinking about killing yourself and gives you motivation to get out of bed and drag yourself through the hours until rest time comes around again. Currently, it's coffee, cake and The IT Crowd. Now I have to go and hang wet towels. Oh, it just started raining. :(

HEY! I just discovered that you can drag this text box to the margins of the browser when assembling a post. Such power! Well, that's something.


















































I think I'll just gaze at this picture until something comes to me.
559169_10151331753468084_1904808906_n.jpg
 
What if there isn't any meaning of life? I mean, does it have to have a meaning?
 
I've just learned that you have to warm tortillas before rolling them into wraps. Life-changing stuff - no more lumpy wraps for me! :D

Small things like that keep me going these days.
 
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." - Kurt Vonnegut. That's my preference.
 
Tell you what - what keeps me reasonably happy and stops me from topping myself, is that I decided long ago that life has no meaning at all. Why would it have any meaning? Meaning would imply guidance by a higher power...and I don't believe in that ol' nonsense. 8)
 
Absolutely. Hard for some to accept, but we are really only monkeys who've barely evolved past showing each other our bums and fighting over bananas.
 
Even if there is a higher power - I believe there is - it still doesn't mean that life has to have 'a meaning'. In fact, the more I think about it, I'm not sure I understand the question. Do we mean 'a purpose' ?
 
I couldn't agree more with you, Mythopoeika. There is no point to it all, so enjoy what you have, while you have it! :_pished:
 
escargot1 said:
, but we are really only monkeys who've barely evolved past showing each other our bums and fighting over bananas.
Click to expand...

And frankly much of what we as a species do, is mostly variations of those two things. Well until the government stop us looking at the former on the internet of course.
 
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