The Meaning of Life

"Let instinct trump logic" - bad advice. Instinct is simply pattern matching current conditions against memory. Without experience, instinct is a poor criteria and logic should be employed. Read Kahneman for the supporting research into that.

For the vast majority of people, constantly thinking about the meaning of life and dwelling on the fact that you&#x27;re going to die seems like a recipe for anxiety. Trying to adopt a set of contradictory rules to follow would likely only compound that anxiety. To summarize the formula laid out by the author:<p>1. Remember, you&#x27;re going to die!<p>2. Plan for the future, but not too much or you&#x27;ll have multiple divorces and no friends.<p>3. Think about the present, but not too much or you&#x27;ll end up poor and unhappy.<p>4. Think about the past to remember how far you&#x27;ve come.<p>5. Only do work where you are in &quot;the flow&quot;, so you can be happy when you&#x27;re dying (remember, you&#x27;re going to die!)<p>I&#x27;m not saying these activities are pointless or bad in isolation, I just think it&#x27;s unrealistic and generally not practical to have all that rattling around in your head while you make decisions about how to spend your time. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride. Be nice to others, find interesting things to work on and have some fun. If you spend all your time worried about whether your current activity and state of mind is somehow optimized for achieving the meaning of life, you have a good chance of being overwhelmed and paralyzed by it.

I went to a debate about the existence of God a few months ago. Dan Barker, an atheist who has contributed to the Daily Show, had the winning quote:<p>&quot;There is no meaning of life -- and that&#x27;s a great thing: it means that there&#x27;s meaning <i>in</i> life.&quot;<p>The quote is poignant regardless of your religious affiliation. Barker was saying that the meaning of life is intensely personal. Each of us invents it through our own experiences.

Here is the meaning of life.<p>There is only one inherent value to consciousness, and it is pleasure.<p>What is the evidence for this claim? It is directly perecptible. To see the proof of this, all you have to do is look.<p>Everything else you value should be for the sake of this ultimate value. (Because there is no other ultimate value for them to be for the sake of.)<p>Now, this isn&#x27;t an endorsement of hedonism, which I take to mean &quot;doing whatever feels good.&quot; Rather, you should pursue pleasure systematically.<p>First, it must be sustainable over the long term (your lifespan). Second, it must account for the various kinds of emotions (e.g. serenity, self-esteem, etc.). Third, it must account for the fact that these emotions are effects that have specific causes.

I can&#x27;t understand how any comment that posits the existence of God or objective morality has been downvoted to oblivion, yet comments that suggests that the only meaning (and thus morality) lies in increasing one&#x27;s own pleasure are rising to the top.<p>I&#x27;d also like to add that michaelsbradley&#x27;s comment way down at the bottom of the page sums up my Christian belief on the meaning of life pretty nicely even though I&#x27;m not Catholic. (and I suspect I have a different interpretation of &quot;the Church&quot; when I read that statement)

In summary, finding the meaning OF life (to quote Dan Barker - thanks @hawkharris) is to find the meaning IN life, for you personally.<p>A the end of the day, we look for the meaning of&#x2F;in life to ultimately be happy, or at least content. For that, we need a &quot;purpose&quot;, and the philosopher Daniel Dennentt has some good advice here:<p><i>“Find something more important than you are, and dedicate your life to it.”</i><p>So, how do you find your purpose - something that is &quot;more important than you are&quot;? For many people, the answer is based in religious belief. Others may find value in a letter penned by 20 year old Hunter S. Thompson:<p><a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thompson-letters-of-note-advice/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.brainpickings.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;04&#x2F;hunter-s-t...</a><p>Key quote:<p><i>&quot;In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.<p>As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES.&quot;</i><p>I would add that the DESIRES need to be aligned with, and perhaps subservient to, that thing which is &quot;more important than you are&quot;, otherwise ==&gt; hedonism.

Nice to be reminded of this. I&#x27;m researching Stoic philosophy, and a core question is &quot;what is your life about?&quot;. Nice to be reminded that any meaning in my life is what <i>I</i> choose to place on it, not what it intrinsically has.<p>Similar: the value of something is what someone will pay for it. Intrinsic value is a mirage.

It&#x27;s just a subjective take on the age-old question that doesn&#x27;t add anything to what you already know from philosophy classes.

Then again there are Nietzsche&#x27;s three terrible truths:<p>1. Existential: death and suffering are inevitable.*<p>2. Moral: life is amoral.<p>3. Epistemic: most of what we think we know about the world is illusory.<p>*I include being downvoted on HN, especially under the new voting regime, under the category of suffering.<p>Edit: a reference, with additional clarification and justification for those who dispute the abbreviated claims.<p>Leiter, Brian, The Truth is Terrible (February 22, 2014). Daniel Came (ed.), Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming). Available at SSRN: <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2099162" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ssrn.com&#x2F;abstract=2099162</a> or <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2099162" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.2139&#x2F;ssrn.2099162</a>

&quot;People at the end of their life who claimed to be the happiest with their life were the ones who had spent the most time in this state of flow.&quot;<p>I can certainly believe this.<p>If you are not familiar with the concept of &quot;flow state&quot; (Samadhi in Hindu cultures [1]), I&#x27;d recommend reading the wonderful &quot;Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art&quot; by Stephen Nachmanovitch [2] over the more famous &quot;Flow&quot; by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Samadhi</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874776317" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;aw&#x2F;d&#x2F;0874776317</a>

Riffing off of Robert Wright&#x27;s book <i>Non-Zero</i> [1]:<p>* Consider the apparent self-assembling of the universe over the last 13.8 billion years.<p>* Consider the seeming overall long-term trend (certainly not a monotonic one) of &quot;improvement&quot; in life. Adapting Gregg Easterbrook&#x27;s thought experiment [2]: Would you <i>permanently</i> trade places with a <i>random</i> person who lived 1,000 years ago? How about 10,000 years ago? Would <i>anyone</i>, at any time, do so?<p>It&#x27;s a defensible proposition that, as theologian Philip Hefner put it, we are created co-creators [3]. To what end? Who knows. But if past performance is <i>any</i> indication, it&#x27;ll be pretty neat.<p>From this perspective, conducting one&#x27;s life in accordance with (a weak version of) Pascal&#x27;s Wager [4] seems like a reasonable course of action.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny&#x2F;dp&#x2F;067...</a> (not an affiliate link)<p>[2] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Still-Waters-Searching-Meaning/dp/0688160654" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Beside-Still-Waters-Searching-Meaning&#x2F;...</a> (ditto)<p>[3] <a href="http://currentsjournal.org/new_currents_ed_06_01.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;currentsjournal.org&#x2F;new_currents_ed_06_01.html</a><p>[4] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal&#x27;s_Wager" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Pascal&#x27;s_Wager</a>

I see little point in trying to ascertain the &quot;meaning&quot; of life. From what I see, life itself gives birth to the concept of meaning not the other way around.<p>But I guess it would be hard to get speaking engagements saying &quot;you are born, then you die, and what you do in between is a waste of time&quot;....<p>Even if this were the case in reality. (Which I&#x27;m not saying it is).

I thought life is all about launching a minimal viable product, tweaking it to narrow in on product&#x2F;market fit, and then scaling up. You mean there&#x27;s more to life AFTER that ?! oh brother. I&#x27;ll worry about that once I get there

tl;dr: We choose to give life meaning. It is our choice of assignment of meaning (or not), that is the only thing to be discussed here. (Yay existentialism!)<p>When you think about the incredible number of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, having untold habitable planets, existing for tens of billions of years? Then we think about our one planet Earth, and how each of us lives only 50-100 years and then we&#x27;re gone?<p>We have the question backwards. In the grand scheme of things, we&#x27;re much less than a speck on a mote somewhere, a fruit fly. We&#x27;re completely inconsequential. It&#x27;s not for us to ask what life is about. We have the question backwards. Instead life -- that thing that has existed for eons before we were ever a possibility and that will exist eons after our memory is gone -- is asking us &quot;What is the meaning of you?&quot;<p>Life sets us up with initial conditions and gives us various challenges as we go through our minuscule little part of it. It is during these experiences that Life is asking us what our meaning is. Our choices provide the reply.<p>Being alive is answering the question: what is my meaning? We could no more judge the meaning of life itself than we could begin to count the habitable planets in the sky. To phrase the question in this way is just to provide busywork instead of dealing with the reality in front of us.

Very good video and ideas.<p>&quot;You must have worked really hard at it&quot;<p>Just want to correct the line &#x27;Life is Suffering&#x27; when you brought up Buddhism. That sounds sadistic. Buddhist&#x27;s idea is suffering exists. Which is presented as a fact that can be seen with a rational mind. And life is to be lived in pursuit of eliminating suffering for yourself and others. Just thought, I point this out.

My take is that there is no meaning of life. We impose our own meaning to get by.

This is like a skin cell asking what is the meaning of life. The meaning of life is larger than our individual selves, and is found in the totality of life: we are either the recursive self creation of God, or the creation of some super intelligence seeking answers to questions it can not. Either way, our purpose is clear: create heaven, create time travel, teleport all living entities at the moment of their death to heaven, and then provide comfort, care, and understanding. Yeah, not my idea: read &quot;The Light of Other Days&quot;, Arthur C Clark&#x27;s last novel.

If you are seeking meaning, consider attending an alpha course. It is a forum for atheist, agnostic, and Christian alike, on the topic of Christianity and faith. <a href="http://www.alpha.org/about" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.alpha.org&#x2F;about</a><p>From the site: Alpha really is for anyone who’s curious. The talks are designed to encourage debate and explore the basics of the Christian faith in a friendly, honest and informal environment.

Some people postulate the meaning of life resides in God. So I wonder then, what the meaning of God&#x27;s life would be?<p>Simply adding recursive complexity doesn&#x27;t solve the question, but now you have two problems.<p>For the record, I think the real problem is the question. It supposes that &quot;meaning&quot; can be something outside of what we experience and I don&#x27;t believe it can be.

There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide - Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus.<p>Yes we can invent stupid justifications for life like &#x27;life is about love&#x27;, &#x27;life is helping others&#x27; and a million other equally bizzare justifications but in the end its just a pointless absurdity.

Life is a gift of God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, who in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in God&#x27;s own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.<p>Adapted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It reflects my own belief and answer to this question, and I am happy to be numbered among billions over the centuries who would have answered Siver&#x27;s question in the same way.<p><a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2.HTM" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vatican.va&#x2F;archive&#x2F;ENG0015&#x2F;__P2.HTM</a>

I also try to enable the dreams of others, but this ultimately makes me happy, too.<p>[ Taken from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo</a> ]

I&#x27;m late to this, but I thought we had some philosophers on HN that pretty actively participated in discussions.<p>Why wasn&#x27;t there a discussion on how what Sivers is explaining is the concept of NIHILISM?<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nihilism</a><p>What Sivers said has an underlying message: there <i>is</i> a meaning to life: it is that there is no objective&#x2F;inherent meaning. This is important to note because of the huge ramifications this has and has had in philosophy since Nietzsche.<p>Unfortunately, nihilism is circular and presupposes moral relativism.

Beautiful video by the way, a must see: <a href="http://youtu.be/7d16CpWp-ok" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;7d16CpWp-ok</a>

For me the meaning of life is: To reach one&#x27;s full potential and to be excellent to each other.<p>So basically self-actualization while being awesome. :)

When the video showed the slide saying &quot;Life is ____&quot; I paused and thought about it for a minute.<p>For me life is producing output when presented with some kind of input. If we are alive and that&#x27;s pretty much what we do, life must be it. (not only man, but every animal I can think about)<p>Now, how are we alive and a computer problem isn&#x27;t, I don&#x27;t know. Maybe because our input comes directly from the natural world?<p>What is the meaning of life? As others said here, it&#x27;s a question that seems illogical to be asked.

Life is overcoming entropy.

Seems like it ended up at the same conclusion I&#x27;d drawn long ago, nice.

Derek Sivers is <i>so wrong</i> in his video.<p>The Talking Heads were active until 1991!

42

The part about &quot;old&quot; and &quot;new&quot; brain in the instinct section is wrong. The brain is not compartmentalized like that.

&gt; What does it mean that all of your previous attempts at something have failed?<p>&gt; Nothing! Nothing at all.<p>Don&#x27;t try skydiving.

<a href="http://www.formakers.eu/media/1.857.1372411075.nature_3d_print_recity_11.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.formakers.eu&#x2F;media&#x2F;1.857.1372411075.nature_3d_pri...</a>