What is the meaning of life?

Some philosophers agree with biologists on this one.

Wait, where do I recognise her from, I'm sure I've seen her face before
- asking for a friend I see
- https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/18634401
  
  Somewhere in your area is a doorway. Please walk through that, and do not return. Thank you.

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- Well, now I should take this meme down. You've given me a counterpoint so complete I have no retort. I will now go grab my towel.
  
  If you suck on the end it's lemon flavored.
- that’s not the meaning of life, that’s the answer to the ultimate question about life the universe and everything…
  
  But what's the question?

I think almost everybody who isn't a philosopher is with the biologists.

The meaning of life is very simple: life has no meaning unless you create meaning. What that meaning is is going to differ from person to person.
The meaning I give to my life is to do everything I can to further human knowledge and to learn as much as possible myself.
For other people, it could be exploring the world, finding inner peace, helping as many people as possible, gaining power/money by any means necessary, etc.
All valid, some more well-intentioned than others. IMO if your goal is to do good by yourself and/or to others without actively seeking to hurt others, there isn't really a wrong answer.
- This was just meant to be something funny to make people chuckle and then continue on with their day. I find my meaning in being an existential jester. To laugh at everything. May I be from joy or mockery or grim determination. So much so that I've told my wife that if she feels the need to give me a memorial plaque after my death it can only have one of two quotes on it. The first is attributed to Shakespeare's Marc Anthony: "Have I played the part well? Then applaud, as I exit." Or from Darkest Dungeon: "He will be laughing still, in the end."
- life still has no meaning. life is absurd.
- Exactly. If there is a reason for our conscious existence, it is to observe and imbue with meaning. Otherwise the world just is.
- yes. agreed. also, ugh. i'll guarantee you whoever downvoted your post is some fucking theist.
  but yes. 100% agreed. and once people realize this, it comes with the understanding that there is no objectively true answer. to each their own.
  BUT, here's where we get into the freewill part of giving individual meaning to life - if you decide that your meaning is to extract your own pleasure at the misfortune of others, then i am going to decide to end your life. AND... when enough people join together to stop those that would create suffering for others, that's when humanity is on its way to my version of a glorious moral union. a moral union not based on some book of ancient goat herders but on a democratic agreement about what we want the world to be like.
  
  yes. agreed. also, ugh. i'll guarantee you whoever downvoted your post is some fucking theist.
  Nah, just a pretentious person who's calling other people pretentious because they don't like who they are as a person and they take it out on others who do. No need to feed the troll.
  The last point is just the paradox of tolerance. I don't tolerate intolerance, although I am also a strictly non-violent person except for self defense. What does work is public pressure/shame, and imprisonment in the case that they commit crimes.
- Here is to existential nihilism. That one set me free because it’s not centered on obligation toward other people aka living my false self. My meaning is inner peace by self actualization.
- You're what an internet turtle philosopher describe as "the pretentious dude at a party who thinks he's got everything figured out. Really now? You figured out the meaning of life and you're certain of it?"
  Okay, then why do you care about human knowledge and want to learn as much as possible? What about the application of that knowledge?
  Do you care about knowledge or wisdom?
  To what end do you apply that knowledge?
  To what ends will you acquire that knowledge?

Personally I feel like it is a dumb question. Life gives you meaning. By that I mean life enables the creation of symbolic truths. And what enables life is a different question.
- Funny enough, without life, your statement has no meaning.
  
  with life is still has no meaning

Monty Python.

Physicists: the meaning of life is to increase entropy. Global warming let'sssss goooll
- That's the meaning of the universe and everything, not specifically life. Easy mistake to make.
  
  It's not meaning. It's just a mechanism. It's the canvas to what we do and ascribe meaning to.
  Then again, our "meaning" might simply be a mechanism to another system

Getting your finger bitten off by a person who is wearing a lot of make-up? Pls explain, I'm not a biologist. /j
- Yes, you nailed it. You really fingered the issue.
  
  Speaking of nailing.

Objectively: It's entropy, life is part of the process for dismantling the universe.
Subjectively: It's whatever you like. Personally I find a lot of comfort in the objective view.

Bust a nut, pass your genetics and perish. Thats it. What you do in between that is up to you.
- No, social behavior has always been a party of biology. Even after you reproduce how you care for your young and your extended family has a huge impact on the species. Herd animals or anything that flocks can't function solo. If all the adults just left after they reproduced the species wouldn't survive. Reproduction is key for the individual, but it's never that simple. The version you're told in school is always a highly simplified version of the truth.
  
  We did evolve grandmother's. That was an evolutionary pressure response. Deep knowledge and long growth have lead us through doors of perception far beyond the reach of all life we have yet precieved.
  
  Honestly the entire idea that the only purpose of humanity is to make the next generation or support that process in some way just feels gross in a very eugenics adjacent way. If you start with that premise, it's just too easy to conclude that anyone who isn't working towards that end is disposable.
- How about I do something which will make life better for people who are actually alive already instead of increasing total human suffering by making new people.
  
  That's the philosophy group to the left
  
  Having kids can be extremely fulfilling, doesn't increase human suffering at all. Having kids subjectively improved my life and the lives of many people adjacent to me, e.g. the lives of my family members and friends and my kids' friends.
  I don't understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it's pretty baffling.
- If reincarnation were real, I’d hope that people who think the meaning of life entails procreation end up getting stuck as mayflies forever

Women looking at this meme: so am I supposed to be a lesbian?
- Join us!
  
  Congrats on one of the gayest usernames I've ever seen
- Way ahead of you
- women? on the internet? looking at memes?
  
  Old saying in is: In Internet men are men, women are men and children are FBI officers.
  Edit: 4chan rules of the Internet:
  Rule 29: On the internet men are men, women are also men, and kids are undercover FBI agents.
- Yes, you have to reproduced by impregnating a woman or you are an evolutionary failure.
- Yep. Sorry hetro women, the meme has spoken; you've got to be gay now.
  
  Well, at least bi.
- Yes.
- Yup, we are now gay :3
- It's not necessarily a POV...
- No you don't understand. Women don't matter.

Y'all need to look into some of the less boring fields of philosophy, plenty of philosophy says physical pleasure is good and we should be having and enjoying it!
- Yeah the great philosopher Capit'l Ism promoted that belief.
  
  That philosopher is widely debunked and is criticized for having good ideals but being a complete idiot for their prescriptions for how to implement them.

At uni the biologist parties were always the ones with the most sex. So that checks out.
The least sex was electrical or mechanical engineering. Just the couple of ay dudes had some fun.
Weirdest sex was for sure psychology student parties.
- Agreed. I was at a party and I got blackout drunk and regained my awareness as I was sitting on a log barfing. To my right is a psychology student holding my shoulders and stroking my hair. She then walks me home, invites herself in, empties the entire contents of her purse in my shared living room, then takes me back to my room and rides me for an undisclosed amount of time.
  Psychology student sex was weird that one time.
- I used to live with a biology student who would constantly have house parties. Those parties weren't the most sex-filled ones I've ever been to but they absolutely attracted the wealthiest party goers.
- Comp sci?
  
  LAN parties.
  
  NaN
- And there was me, who entrapped himself in a terrible relationship and had neither sex nor fun

TIL that we evolved opposable thumbs for feeding our loved ones
- Hungry for thumbs

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...
- What is love?

Pynchon from Gravity's Rainbow:
"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as a spectacle, as a diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks, continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hersey bars."
- I've read nothing by Pynchon, so I have no real context... Is this meant to be in his voice? Or is this a character in the novel speaking? Thx
  
  Its been years so I dont specifically recall. My guess is that it is the voice of a sort of omniscient narrator. It does seem to be a stand-in for Pynchon's perspective to some extent. It's such an exuberant novel. There is definitely a sense I recall that this (at the time) young man was stretching to the limit of his prodigious ability and wanted to show that ability off.
- ...god wants dollars, god wants cents, god want pounds, shillings, and pence; god wants guilders, god wants kroner, god wants swiss francs and god wants french francs; god wants escudos, god wants pesetas, don't send lira, god don't want small potatoes...
- It wasn't until I got to the cigarettes and cunts as currency that I realized this was not a particularly hardcore monologue from Gravity Falls, a popular show I had not watched, but Gravity's Rainbow. Great excerpt though.
- I struggle to read these days and I couldnt get through gravity's rainbow. Worth a read? Should I get the audiobook?
  
  It's one of the more difficult books to get through frankly but it is rewarding. The thing to appreciate when attempting it is that mid-30s Pynchon was inventing his own English grammar. Some sentences are a full page long and it will challenge your memory. So the best approach I think is to just let it wash over you. After a while your mind adapts. You'll miss a ton the first time through and that is OK. I think I had to start it three times before I eventually got through it and I was younger then. I have reread it a few times since, once with a companion book that annotated each chapter and offered commentary on the book's structure which is actually impressively plotted. But don't let it intimidate. Just let it wash over you and enjoy the funny parts. There are a lot of funny parts. The audiobook route sounds less fatiguing. Fickt nicht mit dem Raketemensch!

Imo, the meaning of life is to experience as much as possible. Simple as that.
- That's the meaning you imbue life with; it's not inherent to its state.
- Nihilists hate this one weird trick!
- The meaning of life is to live.
  
  And to live is to experience. 😝
- Seems like that's how you'd get murder, cannibalism, sadism, and things like that if you don't put limits on it somewhere.
  
  On the other hand, if you go with reproduction as the main goal, then that gets you to eugenics from an uncomfortable number of very different paths.
  
  No one can experience all things, and there are plenty more things to choose from than what you listed.
  Totally unrelated, but what does this ink blot look like to you...? Just curious! 😜
- Someone's channeling their inner Caligula......
  
  I swear I was just checked last week and it came up clean!
- As much of what the biologist is having as possible
  
  That's 100% valid, too! Whatever makes your motor run.

So who is that on the right
- https://www.instagram.com/itshannahowo/
  
  Seconding, source (NSFW) is an onlyfans post on 2022-05-24 titled wish it was u? ;D
  
  Ok, so who's that on the left?
- Saved this for later
- No clue. Saved it to my meme folder back when I was on Reddit and decided to put it up here to keep the community going.
  
  Thank you for your service
- Someone about to be strangled by a ghost's hand.

make up is so sexually unappealing. it's like wearing makeup to a 15k run.
- Sex shouldn't be that exhausting, you should probably consult a doctor.

Philosophers tend to avoid that question and argue about extremely niche things like Ship of Theseus problems.
- Well the sciences keeps taking all those peksy answerable questions, and religion stole half the remaining ones and is half way across town by now.
  Philosophy is just left holding the bag of all the quibbly things noone is interested in or dont have answers on purpous.
  
  Philosophy of science was big when I was still studying it. Stuff like whether the Linean System of classifying species were still fit for purpose or the gaps in our knowledge that modern physics leave.
- Source: pop philosophy?
  
  I've got two philosophy degrees, an undergrad and a masters.
- Lol what are you on about. There is an entire body of active philosophical work about the meaning of life: https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?as_ylo=2024&q=meaning+of+life+philosophy&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5
  
  My impression of it being like that is largely due to the split between analytic and continental philosophy. Anglophone universities tend to focus on the former and then the latter has a larger body of work from mainland Europe; the many French existentialist philosophers would be a good example.
- That's what makes philosophy interesting.
  I am on my seventh Ship of Thesus, my D: contains /DOSGAMES/ and has a "folder created date" of August 1996.
  As far as I'm concerned, it's the same ship because I can load up my original SAVEGAMES, they still work, and they can kiss my ass. My ship has gone through the swamp man paradox and emerged the same on the other side. :>
  
  I'm surprised the updates worked that far