Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The meaning of life.

Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903).
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897-98.

Do anybody will ask themself "Why are we here? ...Why do the human beings will exist in this world?" I think everybody did ask themself with this question before? And yet, we still do not have any convincing facts to accept it whether the scientific way or the philosophy way. Its all depends to the individual's mindset and belief.

The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of human existence. The concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as Why are we here?, What's life all about? and What is the meaning of it all?. It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history and there have been a large number of answers from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds.

The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the existence of God, the soul and the afterlife. Scientific contributions are more indirect; by describing the empirical facts about the universe, science provides some context and sets parameters for conversations on related topics. An alternative, human-centric, and not a cosmic/religious approach is the question "What is the meaning of my life?" The value of the question pertaining to the purpose of life may be considered to be coincidal with the achievement of ultimate reality, if that is believed by one to exist.