what is the meaning of life?

Hmmm....nope, dead is dead, so I'll settle for peaceful, neat and timely if I have to. Life is about compromise after all...

truth
Notice, folks, how silly this thread has become. Why is that? I think I've been very consistent in trying to be serious, both in my contributions to A2K and Abuzz, over the last few years. But in THIS thread I just fell apart. I think part of the answer is that our responses have been "silly" because the question, the very theme of the thread, is silly.
Now, if anyone opposes this conclusion the thread will then have a chance of getting back on (serious) track.

I oppose this conclusion: when I resort to silliness, I am deadly serious.

Maybe *that's* the inherent knowledge of the meaning of life we've been looking for -- that we can't take it too seriously?

Or is it the mental equivelent of stretching because thinking about the possible meaning of life makes our brains cramp after a while?

JL-when discussing anything as anthropocentric as "meaning" , I have to harken back to the biological imperatives of life, ie "to create more l;ife in the image of the progenator" , Ernst MAyr never had any thing more (or less) deep to say than that, and since , as you know by now, Im a passionate student of evolutional mechanisms , I can go no further than he.
"he da man"

I may have been jokey in my posts there, but I do think there is something to be said for the theory that life, if it has a meaning at all, does come down to certain compromises, should you choose to live it. Ultimately, our lives come down to a duality: We must be able to live with ourselves, and we must be able to live with others. Somewhere inbetween, we find our meaning. Perhaps the true meaning of life is problem solving and forging relationships of one sort or another...for example, here we are, in cyberspace, ruminating over everything regarding the meaning of life except for the fact that for some reason, we all feel the need to communicate with others, and discuss the question.

I'll paraphrase what I said earlier: We don't even know if there is a meaning of life. How the hell can we know what the meaning is?

Frank, The only option is, we do the best we can with what we've got or think we have. c.i.

Sounds good to me. Sounds better than good to me.

It is the way I live my life.

Sex is the purpose of life: These are the reasons.

"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome
things that money can buy." (Tom Clancy)

"You know "that look" women get when they want sex? Me neither." (Steve Martin)

"Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand." (Woody Allen)

"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual
arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes Benz 500SL." (Lynn Lavner)

"Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope." (Camille
Paglia)

Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant." (George Burns)

"Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole
relationships." (Sharon Stone)

"My girlfriend always laughs during sex ~ no matter what she's
reading." (Steve Jobs Founder, Apple Computers)

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." (Jack Nicholson)

"Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is." (Barbara Bush-former US First Lady, and you didn't think Barbara had a sense of humor!)

"Ah, yes, Divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's
genitals through his wallet." (Robin Williams)

"Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place." (Billy
Crystal)

"According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful." (Robert De Niro)

"Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I
don't like and just give her a house." (Rod Stewart)

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." (Robin Williams)

Huh. I think that Barbara Bush and Rod Stewart may be the same person.

truth
C.I., those are precious. I've always thought it was more like golfing with a rope. But, nevertheless, while I think you should have the last word here, I can't resist one "serious" note.
When we talk about a person suffering from a feeling of meaninglessness of life, ennui, we say he must find some meaning. We do not usually mean that he should DISCOVER meaning existing objectively in the world; we think of it as something he must CREATE. Abstractly, I do not think that objects, events and situations come with meaning. They require us to ascribe meaning to them.
This principle is well illustrateted by the joke in which a farmer (pardon me Farmerman; it's not my joke) tells an astronomer how impressed he is with astronomy's discoveries, but what amazes him most of all is how the astronomers managed to discover the names of the planets.

yeh that wonders me too. I never see the signs through a telescope

great lines ci , Ill have to use the one about a penis and a brain b'ut only enuff blood for one at a time

the apocryphal story about the teacher watching the moon landing on a television at her school while a janitor cleans up around her.

"I still can't believe they did that," the janitor says.

"That they put somebody on the moon?" the teacher asks.

"No," says the janitor, pointing at the television. "That they got all those people in that little box."

(awww, a lovely classist story, that probably once had racist overtones, to boot.)

For those who aren't totally sick of this subject, there is an interesting website:

http://www.aristotle.net/~diogenes/meaning1.htm

The website offers a variety of responses to the question by asking why you want to know. Is it because you are unhappy, because you feel useless, because someone has died, because you want to flex your intellectual muscles, etc. Although it is amusing, I thought the writer also had a gentle manner and is sincerely trying to help people cope with their lives.

ci

Those lines were hilarious. Thanx for the laugh. I really needed it.

JLN -- Your line about how people ought to think about how to "create" meaning in their lives rather than trying to "discover meaning" -- is top drawer. Good notion; good phrasing.

JLN, That's been my philosophy of life for a very long time; but my life has been very short, because I'm enjoying it so much! c.i.

truth
C.I., you mean that time seems to be flying by so fast because you've been enjoying your life so much? I hope so.
Thanks, Frank. I needed that.