Talk:Meaning of life/Archive1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Early discussions

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

afraid not. They built the computer Deep Thought to calculate the answer, and after working on it for 7.5 million years Deep Thought grandly pronounced that the answer was 42 - and it was only _then_ that the mice realized that they didn't know what the actual question was in the first place, since the answer didn't make any sense on its own. They built the Earth to calculate the question, so that the answer would make sense.

Earth was destroyed by a Vogon demolition ship fifteen minutes before it was supposed to output the question. An early readout of the almost-complete question was "what do you get if you multiply six by nine," but it's not known how close this would have been to the actual question had Earth been able to finish its computation as planned. The arrival of the Golgafrincham colonists on Earth may have corrupted its program in unforseen ways too.

Unfortunately, LMS is probably right that this is too "serious" an article to mention these particular deep truths here. Perhaps a "the exploration of the meaning of life has been the subject of a number of many works of fiction, including..." :)

In reference to the popular comedy book series The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the meaning of life is sometimes said to be 42, but this is not actually correct. Rather, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything. Unfortunately, the actual question itself remains unknown despite much effort by the mice to calculate it.

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

Also note that Douglas Adams stated in an interview that the number 42 was the first thing that popped into his head. --Thoric 20:14, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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.

I think this needs support or rewording. The laws of thermodynamics don't imply that the universe somehow "wants" to convert all its energy into entropic forms, they just describe the fact that it does. In any case, life isn't exactly contributing in any significant way to the process; you might as well say that stars were created for this reason instead. Bryan

I agree. My (probably flawed) understanding of science's answer to the question is that life wasn't "create", it just "happened", and so it has no particular meaning at all; there is no overarching objective goal or purpose. Wesley

OK. I'll remove that last part until I (or someone else) comes up with a better way to rephrase it. Drew

You could perhaps say that life is a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. Life tends to form into energy dissipating structures, "feeding" off of an environmental entropy gradient, which might be what you were after. But you should also note that science doesn't actually have anything to say on the "meaning" of life, one way or the other; that's outside of its subject area. It just describes and models it. Bryan

"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?

I'm more thrilled with it than the previous version, and I think it's accurate to boot. :) Bryan

It's a good start. The word "why" needs some explanation; it must be distinguished from the "why" in "why do apples fall". FvdP 22:44 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

Well...I don't have a particular predisposition for or against scientific answers to the meaning of life. If there's a theory about it based on science instead of religion, then I'll treat it with the same amount of scepticism and such as a religious theory. However, I did notice this written in a science journal and thought it would make a worthy addition - if worked into the article properly. Drew

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

I lengthened it a bit, because the answer WAS found in the end! --there_is_no_spoon 13:00, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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.

Arthur Dent's Scrabble letters

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)

Would the Real Meaning of Life Please Stand Up?

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)

Hmmm. Purpose is just as subjective as Meaning when it comes to life. While I would agree that the sentiment expressed in your purpose is fine and upstanding, I couldn't possibly agree that it applies to myself (or anyone else for that matter). The world is full of examples of people who clearly don't subscribe to it. Furthermore, speaking as a biologist, your purpose is very anthropocentric. What about all those other living creatures for whom mutually beneficial relationships with other living creatures play no part in their lives? Let alone "bettering oneself". Anyway, just felt I couldn't let you get away with the above. ;) --Plumbago 13:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Of course, now reading your posting properly, I realise that it was posted in 2004, not 2005. And here was me thinking I was hot on your trail. Doh!

I beg to differ, and being a biologist you should clearly realize that no forms of life can exist solely on their own. Even predators rely on the existence of prey. It is to the advantage of predators not to hunt their prey to extinction, otherwise they will also become extinct. No man is an island, and neither is any other form of life. We are all connected. There are no living creatures for whom mutually beneficial relationships with other living creations play no part in their lives. Please provide some examples of said creatures which do not consume nutrients provided by some other lifeform in even an indirect way. You must be talking of some sort of toxic sludge consuming bacterium... but was this sludge not provided by humans? Do we not benefit from them? --Thoric 21:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Biologists are aware that there's no teleology -- purpose -- in biology. And they know that predators (with the occasional exception of humans) are not conscious that hunting prey to extinction will lead to their own extinction, don't care about such things, and certainly don't act upon them. Many populations (including human) and even species have in fact become extinct due to exhausting their food supply (the dinosaurs are not among them -- most dinosaur species became extinct primarily due to a meteor plowing into the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, but at least one branch survives, having evolved into birds). As for the fact that all living things function within a dynamic ecology -- of course, but this has no bearing whatsoever on either the "purpose" or "meaning" of life. These phrases are in fact incoherent or malformed (which is one of the reasons why analytical philosophers generally have nothing to do with them). "life" is the object, but "purpose" and "meaning" require subjects to have the purpose or intend the meaning, and no such subject has been specified. The phrase "the meaning of life" is literally meaningless. -- 68.6.40.203 22:34, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The will to live is evidence enough of a purpose. I know full well that the reason that current predators did not become extinct is due to natural selection. That does not negate the fact that their existence is codependent on a mutually beneficial relationship with other life within their habitat. Biology may not provide an answer to the questions of meaning and purpose, but it does provide evidence to support that a purpose exists. One must make observations to come to conclusions, and provide evidence to back up claims. Basically what I'm saying is that observation of natural selection draws the conclusion that the purpose of life is to better oneself through forming mutually beneficial relationships. Life that evolves and survives is life that follows said purpose. Life that is completely destructive without limits will eventually become extinct. What is incoherent about that? --Thoric 16:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

This is very confused. "Life that evolves and survives is life that follows said purpose." -- no, all life evolves, and that which survives is that which happened to have survivable traits relative to its environment; it was "fit" in biological terms. Dinosaurs dominated the world for 150 million years but gave way to mammals 65 million years ago not because mammals were better, but because they were much smaller and happened to be able to survive the consequences of a massive meteor strike. "bettering oneself" is a concept foreign to modern evolutionary biology, which rejects teleology (purpose, goals). -- 68.6.40.203 02:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

To evolve is to better oneself. It may not be conscious or intentional, but it is consequential. One trait necessary to survival of a species is some form of cooperation -- a mutually beneficial relationship with others. My argument is that to better oneself through forming mutually beneficial relationships best sums up our observation of evolution, and to take that statement further, I propose that it is also a hint to the original purpose of life. --Thoric 16:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

As I have already noted, in biology "to evolve" does not mean to better oneself. Your "argument" is an unsubstantiated claim that has no support from biological science, and in fact has been explicitly rejected by evolutionary biologists. -- 68.6.40.203 07:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

To evolve does imply improvement -- betterment. Evolution is the change from lower/worse state, to a higher/better state. How is that not bettering oneself, or one's species? I never said it was a conscious effort, but it certainly is the end result -- that species who evolve cooperativeness are the species that survive in the long run. --Thoric 19:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

HHGTTG

(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".

Suppose someone was looking for an investigation of the question...

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

The saviours of existence?

The ultimate purpose of life is to survive not just this planet's finite capacity to support life but the universe's too by finding a way to either escape it or prevent its end.

We should act to secure the long-term survival and prosperity of our species not merely for its own sake but for the very preservation of existence.

Could it be that our destiny is to save the world?

This provides a truly plausible focal point for our entire existence by taking to its logical extreme the notion that there is nothing more to it than survival and procreation.

We must do whatever it takes to achieve it. Preserving the earth's habitability for as long as possible should be regarded as a means to an end. We must accept, however, that it isn't going to be there forever with or without our input. We're long overdue both a major asteroid/comet impact and supervolvano eruption.

Life struggles for survival against natural forces. Therefore, we should regard nature as our enemy. One that we must aspire to enslave, to control completely without waste or damage. After all, natural causes is the most common cause of death.

As the things our hunter-gatherer ancestors hunted and gathered became increasingly scarce as the climate changed they took control of the situation by starting to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. We must follow their example and intervene. Not keeping the space program at the top of the agenda, for example, is a crime not just against humanity but existence.

Perhaps the universe has produced a method of saving itself.

-Justin Anstey.

6 Mar 2005 edit

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 tells us that life on earth was created by a lightning bolt that electrified a mix of molecules and turned them into a very primitive cell. This cell was capable of copying itself, and by that, life had started. The elements these molecules consisted of, (by us named "organic") are the only elements that could create such complex objects. Thus, life started with a coincidence, and also developed by coincidences, and it will continue this way, unless we fumble with genes too much. Since everything which has got to do with life is based on accidental circumstances, there is reason to believe that life has no reason at all, from a scientific point of view.

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)

It's about 4 things

For most people the Meaning of Life is fundamentally about 4 things: love, sex, money and happiness. Here's why:

Love because, among other things, it drives parents to care for their children
Sex because it drives us to spread our DNA and propagate the species.
Money because so much of our time and energy is devoted to earning it or spending it.
Happiness because even if you have love, sex and money, that doesn't necessarily make you happy. Happiness, spirituality and a sense of well being is something we all strive for.

--Peter 02:43, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

These may be what most people value (although I think that's a very truncated view), but value and meaning are two very different things, and neither have much to do with "life", per se. The problem with "the meaning of life" is that it's a ludicrous grammatical construct, as ludicrous as "the meaning of height" or "the meaning of snow". Words and sentences are the sorts of things that can have meaning; life, height, snow, and most other things are not. -- 68.6.40.203 23:08, 13 December 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

Is this article really necessary in this dimensions?

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)

It's not clear /what/ "the meaning of life" is meant to address, because the phrase is literally meaningless. What many people seem to mean by it is "why was life (specifically, the questioner's life) created?", which a) has nothing to do with ethics and b) radically begs the question c) can only be answered by further question begging. -- 68.6.40.203 23:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

An emerging but yet unclassified school of thought in philosophy addresses the quandary in a humanistic manner. Rather than seeing it as a deterministic quest for the entire humanity, it treats the MOL or the Meaning of Life at an individual level. The MOL simply is a meaning that one derives from getting between A and B, and the essence is the journey itself. The criteria to the understanding of this simplified philosophy is to come up individually, what one believes to be one's starting point "A", and what are one's goals "B". The process one goes through will become the meaning of life for this individual. Naturally within this reasoning it is predicated that all of us must be protagonistic and positive about life to begin with, to be able to view carpe diem, or carpe vivere about one's destiny.

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.

Undefined question

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.

To ask the meaning of something assumes it has meaning. On the other hand, it could just be a cry for help to understand something. An idiom for "I'm confused, somebody please sort this out for me." 24.18.171.99 05:23, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Simple Explanation

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.

The above offers three different claims as to what meaning is, none of which are correct. The meaning of something is that which is signified by it. But life is not a signifier, so the question is meaningless. The above also makes several other erroneous claims; for instance, solar cells and cow dung preserve energy given off by the sun, but they aren't alive. And complexity is not a form of storage; the complexity of something is usually defined in terms of the information required to describe it, which has nothing to do with solar energy. -- 68.6.40.203 23:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

42

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)

"Attention"

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)

Plenty of Attention

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.

Removed Large Section 11/29/05

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)

But Those paragraphs were correct as to what atheism is, whereas the current article is not.

--Above comment unsigned by 68.6.40.203 (talk)

The article is not describing atheism, it's describing atheists' views on the meaning of life. Even the paragraph that remains talks too much about what atheism is and too little about what atheists have said in verifiable sources on the meaning of life. It's just uncited conjecture at the moment, and pretty bad conjecture at that. For describing atheism, the article should just defer to the atheism article. For describing atheistic views on the meaning of life, the article should cite sources. Right now it does neither...but adding those paragraphs back in certainly won't help. --Michael ^(talk) 02:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that they should be added back, but removing them and leaving an inaccurate paragraph was even worse. As for "uncited conjecture", I fear that that's what the whole article mostly is. It starts out with "Many people believe that the meaning of life is:", but that already begs the question; it's not clear to me that anyone believes that any of those things is "the meaning of life"; the meaning of something cannot be to do something -- that's a category mistake. -- 68.6.40.203 02:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice article

Just want to say that his article is pleasant to read:-) dan

Science section needs attn

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)

Wait a minute!

nobody knows the meaning of life. I think there should be more emphasis on this.

How do you know "nobody knows the meaning of life"? --nirvana2013 11:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK, but there is no way of ascertaining if anyone knows the meaning of life. So perhaps more could be made of the fact that some people believe there isn't one, and the related observation that there appears to be no objective criteria for discerning if anyone knows the meaning? Or something ... ;) --Plumbago 12:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

That's just silly. Everyone knows the meaning of life. Some people just don't know it. -Silence 07:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary

You wanna know the meaning of life? Just look it up at wikt:Life! lol

FLaRN2005 03:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

a little help...?

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 agree with you the dissection of the question does not really help the article. It is very much a philosophers way of going about the meaning of a question or word (see the article truth, for example, and their 8 archive talk pages!!?). Philosophers have been forcibly airing their complicated theories on truth for over 6,000 years and still have not got anywhere. Anyway, one of the interpretations of the question "What is the meaning of life?" should be, as pointed out by FLaRN2005 above, what is the meaning of "life"? (i.e. wikt:Life). I know this is simple and obvious, but we should cover this basic question in the article. After all some things are alive (humans, plants, animals etc) and some are dead (a corpse, petroleum, rocks etc). With an afterlife, the explanation would have to go into greater depth. --nirvana2013 12:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Personal Appeal

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.]

a little help, please

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

GOD

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

If you are Catholic, which I doubt, you are not being the greatest advertisement for your faith. But I suppose you never thought of that. Here are some good promoters: Philip Berrigan, Dorothy Day and John Dear. --nirvana2013 13:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

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

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