Does life really have a meaning?

Personally I believe life is ultimately meaningless in it's essence. I think it is up to ourselves to find a purpose for our life and find the idea of being guided/forced by a set of rules created by an entity that may or may not actually be there far from appealing. How does it give life any more meaning not being allowed to eat pork or to have to wait until you're married to have sex. Why is it that you have to be good so that you don't go to hell, why not just be a good person for the simple reason of being good? This is what I really find baffling about religion.

But that's just like, my opinion man.

It depends on the person. It has meaning if you give it meaning.

Technically, all life in the univers is pointless. It doesn't matter what we do, or how hard we try, we'll never be able to affect the universe on any single little thing about it. If human the human race dissappear from the universe, nothing will change of it. And we'll never be able to change something about it. But well, for animals is "Born, survive, procreate, die". It was like that until we humans started to think things on a different way... but that really depends on you and every person to find the meaning of their own life.

For me, the meaning of life is love (sounds cheesy, I know). But think about it. Love is the most powerful and rewarding of emotions. Now consider the fact that everything that we do is for the resultant emotion. If we are greedy, it's because we like the emotion of ego or satisfaction in knowing that we have stuff. If we are selfless, it's because we feel good when we are selfless. If we are altruistic, it's because our love of someone is that great that we would do anything for them. When you consider all of this, it's no surprise that I find the ULTIMATE meaning of my life to be love, in that it is the most rewarding of all emotions.

Quote from Preserve

It depends on the person. It has meaning if you give it meaning.

you gave the best answer,nothing i can add

Of course it does.

life
/līf/
Noun
The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional...
Living things and their activity: "some sort of life existed on Mars".
Synonyms
existence - lifetime - living - being - spirit

This isn't just me being obtuse. I challenge the notion that "the meaning of life" is a meaningful thing to ask for. Under what conditions would you accept something as being an answer to that question? You could possibly ask for the "purpose" of life, but that implies both that someone created life in the first place (highly debatable) and that this creator had an objective.

I agree with what you're saying Zed, I simply use what I said (love) as sort of a personal, ultimate goal for my life. Its cause is me, and only me.

However, I was wondering, do you think that it's a part of human nature to believe in an overall purpose? It's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. It got me wondering as to whether or not atheism, although rational, is a counter-intuitive position. We perceive everything that we know in terms of cause and effect. We cannot imagine something happening without a cause (sure, you can point to things like Quantum Mechanics, but most would admit that, whilst true, this too is counter-intuitive). Therefore, it is within our nature, naturally, to "feel" as if there must be an ultimate cause/purpose for our lives and the universe. It's for this reason that I sympathise with people that believe in a God, or subscribe to the cosmological argument(s) etc; it's simply within their nature (and all of ours) to feel inclined to believe in a cause, and where no cause is provided we feel lost, and as such the invention of a god (or, in this case, a "meaning of life") occurs. I still think that this view is WRONG, however. Just because something is counter-intuitive doesn't mean it's not the truth, and not the most logical and rational explanation (or lack, thereof).

Do you agree with this? It's just something that's been in my head as of late when I think about this stuff.

It's difficult to say. I [we] 've grown up in a culture which tends to lean towards there being a purpose and that could well influence us to thinking there is one. It would be interesting to see whether other cultures have a concept of this question.

But surely, no matter which culture you come from, you still interpret everything in terms of cause and effect? Our whole universe is a continuous occurrence of chain reactions. We see how causes cause effects from the moment we are born until the moment we die, empirically. Something without a cause is inherently foreign to any human, which is probably why I still get the sense that my life has purpose, even though my rational mind tells me to ignore this 'gut' feeling and accept that that may not be the case.

Quote from Automaton

Something without a cause is inherently foreign to any human, which is probably why I still get the sense that my life has purpose, even though my rational mind tells me to ignore this 'gut' feeling and accept that that may not be the case.

Why do you think a cause is the same as purpose/meaning? We obviously exist as a result of a long chain of causality, but is that the "meaning" of life? Is that your "purpose"?

We can explain the scientific phenomenon that led to the sun being formed, but we don't attempt to claim "The sun exists to warm the earth" outside of mythology. Cause and effect just explains how something was created. It doesn't explain why it was created, which is what we're looking for when we search for a meaning to life.

I guess the idea of there being a cause (in our understanding of it) of the universe leads us to assume some sort of purpose, because the idea of an infinite regression of causation is hard to grasp, and a first cause that is arbitrary/without a purpose is also hard to grasp.

Even if I accept that causation isn't linked to meaning/purpose, I would still say that there seems to be some part of human nature that naturally gravitates towards seeking purpose and meaning. I mean, the whole reason science is interesting is because we discover more pieces of the puzzle in the search for meaning.

Quote from Automaton

I guess the idea of there being a cause (in our understanding of it) of the universe leads us to assume some sort of purpose, because the idea of an infinite regression of causation is hard to grasp, and a first cause that is arbitrary/without a purpose is also hard to grasp.

I completely disagree. What's the alternative? That the first cause had a purpose behind it? What caused that purpose, then? It might be hard to accept that the entire universe spontaneously arose for no reason, but there's no good reason to assume anything else, especially when it leads to logical inconsistencies.

Even if I accept that causation isn't linked to meaning/purpose, I would still say that there seems to be some part of human nature that naturally gravitates towards seeking purpose and meaning. I mean, the whole reason science is interesting is because we discover more pieces of the puzzle in the search for meaning.

Biological science might answer some "why?"s when we better understand the motivations driving the behavior of living organisms and systems. But purpose and meaning are concepts that only exist in the mind, everything else in the universe simply follows the laws of physics. And so do we, if you're a fan of predeterminism.

But I do agree that we're naturally inclined to search for meaning when there is none. Accepting that our entire lives and everything we will ever experience is completely meaningless is an extremely uncomfortable thought, I don't blame anyone for seeking comfort through belief. But that's all it is.

Quote from Exilement

I completely disagree. What's the alternative? That the first cause had a purpose behind it? What caused that purpose, then? It might be hard to accept that the entire universe spontaneously arose for no reason, but there's no good reason to assume anything else, especially when it leads to logical inconsistencies.

You're missing my point if you say that believing in an ultimate, purposeful cause of the universe has obvious logical flaws. I know this, which is why I said I don't agree with it. But what I was saying was that our gut instinct is to gravitate towards that. The alternative is God. God has all of those flaws (e.g. infinite regress of creators), and yet I see a God being more easy to believe in than lacking belief in him, until your reasoning overpowers your gut feeling that is.

Biological science might answer some "why?"s when we better understand the motivations driving the behavior of living organisms and systems. But purpose and meaning are concepts that only exist in the mind, everything else in the universe simply follows the laws of physics. And so do we, if you're a fan of predeterminism.

So are you saying that most people enjoy science for discoveries sake (as a description of this universe that we live in), and NOT in the hopes of some sort of further meaning (besides the obvious practical applications of sciences' discoveries)? Because to me, I'd always seen science as exploring the unknown in the hopes that purpose is revealed. I mean, it's gratifying to discover for the sake of discovery, but that is ultimately pointless if we didn't have some hope that we will find a unified theory of everything that will give us some sort of deeper meaning behind everything.

But I do agree that we're naturally inclined to search for meaning when there is none. Accepting that our entire lives and everything we will ever experience is completely meaningless is an extremely uncomfortable thought, I don't blame anyone for seeking comfort through belief. But that's all it is.

Hmm I agree with this, but I guess I was thinking of searching for meaning on a more fundamental, subconscious level as a part of our nature, rather than consciously doing so for comfort's sake.

Quote from Automaton

You're missing my point if you say that believing in an ultimate, purposeful cause of the universe has obvious logical flaws. I know this, which is why I said I don't agree with it.

I realized that and that's why I added that last paragraph, sorry.

Quote from Automaton

So are you saying that most people enjoy science for discoveries sake (as a description of this universe that we live in), and NOT in the hopes of some sort of further meaning (besides the obvious practical applications of sciences' discoveries)? Because to me, I'd always seen science as exploring the unknown in the hopes that purpose is revealed. I mean, it's gratifying to discover for the sake of discovery, but that is ultimately pointless if we didn't have some hope that we will find a unified theory of everything that will give us some sort of deeper meaning behind everything.

The reasons people dedicate themselves to scientific pursuits are irrelevant. You said science allows us "discover more pieces of the puzzle in the search for meaning", when it's simply a pursuit of knowledge. I don't think that's equitable to a "meaning". Like I said, if you looked up at the sun and wondered "why is that there?", a scientific explanation wouldn't provide a sense of purpose.

Quote from Automaton

Hmm I agree with this, but I guess I was thinking of searching for meaning on a more fundamental, subconscious level as a part of our nature, rather than consciously doing so for comfort's sake.

Sorry, I typed that reply from a phone so I guess I wasn't explaining myself effectively. I was trying to say it's subconscious and human nature because it's comfortable. If it were a conscious choice, that'd take a lot of the comfort away, wouldn't it?

That, and we tend to view macroscopic events through the lens of our own experiences, which are entirely microscopic (relatively). That's why most people wonder "what happened before the universe was created?". That question makes absolutely no sense, but people can barely comprehend it since it goes against everything we experience. I think the meaninglessness of life is difficult to accept for the same reasons.

Well that was kind of what I was getting at. If the meaninglessness of life is difficult to accept for those reasons, then it's counter to human nature to accept it, and accept atheism. I guess my reasoning was flawed though with the whole equating causes to meaning thing.