What is the meaning of life? A question I think most people have wondered about at times. The question is a general one about all people alive, but normally each individual decides what to believe according to religion, intuition or philosophy. If you are a religious person you probably think something along the lines of “God has decided on a purpose for my life” and you are confident that this purpose becomes evident in the challenges and experiences of your life. If you have a more intuitive “New Age” personality, you might believe in reincarnation and that you are on earth to learn the lessons you did not learn in your previous lives. Or if you, like me, is more philosophically inclined you have probably reached some kind of conclusion by way of arguements and counterarguements.

In this article I will try to explain my view on the meaning of life and it will be in my typical style : based on logical arguements and not on feelings or faith. I can fully accept if you have decided for yourself that your religion or your intuition is more trustworthy than logical arguements and if so, just keep in mind that I am not trying to “convert” you - I just want to present my view.

I think the question is nonsensical to begin with (and actually that many such “puzzling” questions are puzzling exactly because they are nonsensical) and that the conclusion of the question being nonsensical must be that there is absolutely no meaning of life, none at all. To see why this is so, we must first look at what “meaning” is. When we say a life has meaning, it indicates that there was some form of intent in the existance of the life, the life fulfils some purpose. Before there can be some form of intent, there must be the capability to make decisions; one thing is intentionally decided over another thing. We as humans make decisions and can have intent, inanimate objects like a rock can not. The word “meaning” is invented by humans, and describes a very human trait, having a plan with things - having a purpose for something.

Some would say that the more intelligent animal species also can recognize plans and assign meaning to things happening, but whether that is true or not does not change that the question “What is the meaning of life?” is a question about whether there is some entity outside of a human life that assigns a meaning to a life. That is the question tries to assign a human trait to something strictly not a human as we know it - and that is precisely why I deem the question nonsensical.

If you are religious this might not seem nonsensical to you, afterall you would perhaps happily assign such a human trait to God. And if you believe in reincarnation, then assigning such a human trait to a spirit might not be a weird thing for you to do. This makes it obvious that my arguements are only valid in the absence of faith in a God or spirits of some sort, but since I believe in neither of these that makes the answer clear for me : Life has aboslutely no meaning outside of the meaning we humans attach to it.

I previously wrote an article about the importance of having a purpose in life, and now in this article I have tried to argue that life is meaningless, so what is the deal? The natural consequence of both life being meaningless and meaning being important to people, is that in order to satisfy both, the meaning of your life should be decided consciously and not be left to chance. This means you should actively “invent” a meaning of your life. This might involve a God, spirits, aliens or whatever - as long as it is a purpose that resonates deeply with the person that is you. I wish you great fun in your endeavour