The Meaning of Life - Is it happiness? (No, seriously) - General

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88jj6PSD7w[/media] I disagree with you OP. This is why

Life has no inherent meaning. Living things are, at the core level, just bundles of material that can metabolize and reproduce. Meaning, like morality, is subjective. Meaning is personal, it depends on who you are, what you do, and what fulfills you. Meaning is also a psychological construct that (as far as I know) is almost exclusively human. Most other living things exist and behave the way they do because it is a genetic imperative; they are not evolved to question their imperatives, as we have ended up doing through the development of civilization.

Life really doesn't seem like something you can establish a single, unchanging meaning to, considering it's so infinite and various. On "meaning" may apply to some, but it surely wouldn't matter to all. When talking about life in general you can restrict yourself to just humans. From an instinctual standpoint, the meaning of life is to continue to make offspring and keep the race alive. From a moral standpoint, maybe it'd be to spread as much happiness as possible. The list can goes on. Ultimately, I feel there can't be a meaning to life for two reasons. One, what I previously stated, and two, because the chances of a series of billions of years of random events simply can not lead to one unchanging, everlasting, goal or meaning or whatever it is. Just my two cents. Although I do kind of follow the "everything is pointless forever, have fun" kind of philosophy.

Lev Tolstoi, author of War and Peace wrote how Pierre Bezukhov, a very nice and extremely rich man was depressed from the fact that he didn't know what to do. Despite joining the Mason Brotherhood (which at the time counted as the highest honor possible in the entirety of the world) he still found himself confused and un-sure of anything. Tolstoi wanted to teach people that the meaning of life is like an objective, some live for others, some live for their work, etc. Pierre had none of that.

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the meaning to life is to complete your life goals so your gravestone will be bigger.

Everyone has a different meaning of life, different interests, different ideas. I think "happiness" is the closest you can get to a simple, short answer that fits for most peoples idea of what they want in life, why they live.

Meaning of life? Life has no meaning itself. That would mean we are mindless drones controlled by a higher object or person, like ants. Everyone has a meaning of their own life, because they make one for themselves, if not they are probably braindead

The meaning of life is to continue the existence of life. What is the one aspect of existence that all life shares with all other forms of life without exception? The ability to reproduce. Whether it be birds, ants, trees, or humans, all life's main purpose is to ensure their species' continued survival.

life is the end result of a long chain of random mutations--it has no intrinsic meaning

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;41937073]Yes and we are talking about what the meaning of life is, not the meaning of sociology. Because of that, even the small minority counts. [editline]23rd August 2013[/editline] A psychopath is happy when he is contantly killing. A dictator is only happy when he is the dictator. A rapist is only happy when he rapes. A banker is only happy when he is making tons of money. etc.[/QUOTE] A moral action is one that leads to the greatest overall happiness not an action that leads to the greatest happiness for the individual in the short term that's selfishness

[QUOTE=Virtanen;41936694]Hi Confucius, thought you died like 2000 years ago[/QUOTE] Aristotle actually and it was about 2300 years ago.

[QUOTE=RobbL;42010195]A moral action is one that leads to the greatest overall happiness not an action that leads to the greatest happiness for the individual in the short term that's selfishness[/QUOTE] You talk like happiness is objectively good. Just take this age old hypothetical situation: Let us say you are a doctor. You have 10 different patients with 10 different organ problems (one has a bad liver, one a bad intestine, etc.), but there are no organ donors available. If these 10 people don't get transplants within a couple days they will all die, there is no question about it. Now, all you have to do to save those 10 people is quietly kill one other patient and take all their organs (let's assume the are all the same blood type, etc.). One person dies and 10 people live full lives because of your actions. You have undeniably created more happiness, but does that make the murder of this innocent person the moral choice?

[QUOTE=Midas22;42010516]Aristotle actually and it was about 2300 years ago.[/QUOTE] Thanks, René. I think really it'd vary from person to person. For me, I want to find somebody to spend my life with, have a family and settle down. For someone else, it might be to be successful and big, someone else may just want to see the world. I don't think you can just define it for everyone.

the meaning of life is to be happy

[QUOTE=sgman91;42012255]You talk like happiness is objectively good. Just take this age old hypothetical situation: Let us say you are a doctor. You have 10 different patients with 10 different organ problems (one has a bad liver, one a bad intestine, etc.), but there are no organ donors available. If these 10 people don't get transplants within a couple days they will all die, there is no question about it. Now, all you have to do to save those 10 people is quietly kill one other patient and take all their organs (let's assume the are all the same blood type, etc.). One person dies and 10 people live full lives because of your actions. You have undeniably created more happiness, but does that make the murder of this innocent person the moral choice?[/QUOTE] Aside from it being likely such a choice would never present itself to someone (there would be other choices in reality to minimize suffering, and the fact you've presented a contextless and closed situation is a fallacy) and ignoring the possible "slippery slope" consequences of choosing to kill a guy, if honestly those were the only two possible choices the latter would be the 'best' one, but not necessarily moral. Morality isn't relative to a single situation

The meaning of life is honestly whatever you want it to be. This is such an open ended question. Some people will insist that it is simply to reproduce and die. Some people will argue it isn't even that, but rather that there is absolutely no meaning. Some will assert it is to advance mankind, humanity, etc. It is whatever you want it to be. Whatever essentially drives you is your meaning. That is the best thing about life, you get to decide it's meaning.

[QUOTE=RobbL;42015704]Aside from it being likely such a choice would never present itself to someone (there would be other choices in reality to minimize suffering, and the fact you've presented a contextless and closed situation is a fallacy) and ignoring the possible "slippery slope" consequences of choosing to kill a guy, if honestly those were the only two possible choices the latter would be the 'best' one, but not necessarily moral. Morality isn't relative to a single situation[/QUOTE] Okay, lets try a different example; There is a planet somewhere in the universe where the inhabitants ritualistically murder every second infant. They all revel in the display and draw 'happiness' from it. To not kill the infant would make them all terribly sad. Is it "Moral" what they are doing? Morality in the sense that I, and perhaps others, speak of is one which is objective.

Moral is self defined. To them, this is moral and right in every way possible. To us, it woluldn't. This question is similar to the argument of Chinese eating dog meat.

[QUOTE=RobbL;42015704]Aside from it being likely such a choice would never present itself to someone (there would be other choices in reality to minimize suffering, and the fact you've presented a contextless and closed situation is a fallacy) and ignoring the possible "slippery slope" consequences of choosing to kill a guy, if honestly those were the only two possible choices the latter would be the 'best' one, but not necessarily moral. Morality isn't relative to a single situation[/QUOTE] You claimed that a moral action is what leads to the most happiness. If murdering the innocent man caused more happiness than the alternative of letting the 10 die then it must be moral based on your argument. Hypothetical situations are a great way to understand the fundamentals of an ethical theory.

I think a lot of people in this thread are actually focusing on different questions. This, I think, is because we understand differently what "the meaning of life" stands for. I will give some definitions on what I think people here are discussing about in these thread and then give arguments for or against the existence of something that fulfills the definition. I will focus on 'the meaning of life' for humans, because I find it far more plausible in humans that applied generally to the rest of living things, just because we have a fairly intuitive grasp of what people like us are looking for. The first 'definition' people are using in arguing about the existence of 'the meaning of life' is something like [quote](1) If every human being looks for x, then x is the meaning of life.[/quote] About this definition. I don't think that there is something every single living thing (or, in any case, every single human being) 'is looking for'. Some people in this thread had given arguments for the position that there is such one thing. I will focus on two alternatives and argue against them: happiness and reproduction. About happiness, it is not clear what one means by 'happiness'. It is some sort of feeling? If it is, then I seriously doubt there is only one feeling everyone is looking to experience. People generally want to experience different feelings. For example, when I watch a horror movie I want to experience fear, when I practice an adventure sport I want to experience the thrill of putting your life at risk, etc. To this you could reply "but then that makes you happy, because otherwise you wouldn't want it". There are some problems with this answer. First, [b]I think people who would answer this are confusing the fact that 'someone [i]wants[/i] x' with the fact that 'x [i] makes that person happy[/i][/b]'. Those are different facts, and if you hold that they are the same fact, then saying that people want what makes them happy would be to say that people want what they want. That's just tautological. Moreover, people want different things, so 'being happy' would not be [i]that single thing[/i] that every human being strives for. There are some people that will want to hold that happiness is not a feeling, but a more complex state of mind (or that is it not a state of mind at all). But if it is not a feeling then it is not clear what it is, hence defining it is more difficult, and until we don't know what is 'happiness', we cannot know if everyone is looking for it. About reproduction, I really doubt every single human being is looking to reproduce. I mean, you could disprove this simply by making an interview and finding someone who doesn't want to have children. It's not that difficult. The second definition could be [quote](2) If every human being [i]should[/i] look for x, then x is the meaning of life.[/quote] I find this more plausible for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, I will try to argue against it first. The first thing I think when reading (2) is "How can you know that we should all look for x?", generally, under what grounds one can say that there is one thing everyone of us should look for? At first glance, there doesn't seem to be that one thing. However, if one holds that there are universal moral laws he/she could argue for the existence of universal laws like, for example (L) You should aim to maximize happiness. and that, [i]as the are universal[/i] they apply to everyone of as, so statements of the form (L') Every human being should follow (L). are true. So, in this case, following (L), or, more generally, a set of rules (R) would be the meaning of life according to the definition (2). However, if you hold that there are no moral statements of that they are not the kind of things which are true or false, then I wouldn't see how one could argue for there being a 'meaning of life' while holding definition (2). This is my case: I, and non-cognitivists do not believe that moral statements are things which can be true or false, so that (L') for example cannot be true. Moreover, (2) seems a moral statement itself, so, according to this way of seeing moral statements, you cannot present arguments for or against (2).

There must be a law giver for laws to exist. If a set of objective moral laws independent of human society exist than there must be some god who is the moral law giver.

[QUOTE=sgman91;42017028]There must be a law giver for laws to exist. If a set of objective moral laws independent of human society exist than there must be some god who is the moral law giver.[/QUOTE] It is not the case that there must be 'a law giver' for moral laws to exist. Why couldn't they just exist (like everything else, aka. the universe)?

[QUOTE=matsta;42017127]It is not the case that there must be 'a law giver' for moral laws to exist. Why couldn't they just exist (like everything else, aka. the universe)?[/QUOTE] Laws, including moral ones, aren't made of matter and energy. They don't exist independent of conscious thought that creates and recognizes them. If there is a moral law that goes above humanity then the thought that created the law must be above humanity.

there is no meaning just be in my opinion (i know i have to throw this in because here people think in finals and everything is final)

I think it is hard to extrapolate the "meaning of life" out of life due to the fact that we do not know all the variables. I often find myself asking the basic questions but applying them to life "what is existance" "where is existance" "how did existance" "why is existance" "what is no existance" After asking yourself these questions, and you don't need to formulate an answer, it get's you in the correct mindset to go even further. Now, I'm not a religious person, but everyone understands the idea of heaven. If the meaning of life was happiness then one could deduce that we were all in heaven. We are not living in heaven. I believe the meaning of life is knowledge and understanding. The universe is a very self contained sandbox with finite rules. Within these rules there are a set number of tests that one organism can be put through. Again, I'm not a religious person, but assuming we have a "soul" or some other form of energy that when the body dies this energy stays intact then continues on elsewhere in some other form of consciousness, then assuming life is a huge test, and finally assuming the universe is finite in its infinite appearance we can finally come to the conclusion that, life, is a test, and when consciousness has finally lived through all of these tests they have finally gained the knowledge and wisdom of the universe. At this point, if it ever occurs. This consciousness is finally ready to move onto what ever is next for them and they are finally born into a new world what of which we can possibly have no understanding of.

In all seriousness, reproduction. It's the main goal of any living being.

[QUOTE=sgman91;42017028]There must be a law giver for laws to exist. If a set of objective moral laws independent of human society exist than there must be some god who is the moral law giver.[/QUOTE] And who is to say humans can't be those who eventually set up a universally comprehensible set of laws?

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;42019601]And who is to say humans can't be those who eventually set up a universally comprehensible set of laws?[/QUOTE] Because man can't agree, is fallible and prone to temptation.