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That has been my exact point all along,when the PR's start rolling,watch out.This guy (Hayter) is a PRO at manipulation of non-reporting pinksheets,and the history here is proof,ignoring history is dooming oneself to repeat it.
The gagged TA is the key,Eddieboy at his old antics,this may amaze some,then again.......
The personification of ICAN/IBCX,add dilution to get closer to the truth.
I would say it talking the truth about the stock,unlike what most other posts say.
I'm not perfect,lol.
Let me add this,at the risk of getting"the boot".You have allowed IHUB to become the biggest pumping site in the Universe,allowing pumpers and board mods total control over what is posted.You used to run a great stock site,no longer,imo.You approached me to help get Niz's people over here from RB,well,here they are,lol.
In the beginning,spam was not tolerated,I got warnings for posting the same message on over 3 boards,even though they were boards I frequented often,and it was only a news release.The three message thing is no longer enforced,we have people spamming the same message innumerable times.with no enforcement.All I want to see is some balance in posting,and if a CEO is a POS of a POS company,let it be said,especially when it can be proven by the history of the CEO,and the stock.That's all.Is that too much to ask?
Maybe he just doesn't like to let his meatloaf.
I just had some Venison meatloaf that was delicious.
OK Mark,this vaca has been way too long,what's up?
I don't post like that on the IBCX board,I try to remain civil,though I do have a tremedous dislike of unabashed pumping posts allowed while those that point out the facts get deleted.This board seems to have no parameters re behavior other than Q***,and personal sexual comments.So I thought I could post what I really think of those pumping pos posters.It's not like I haven't tried to be civil,but deletions continued for the reason I had posted it before,and board mods considered it to be repetitive.Here is a board I can supposedly say what I really think,or so it seems.I can call them out,can say what they truly are,according to the IBOX.Or is that not what this board is about?
"42" is simple,getting there wasn't,lol.
Not IBCX/ICAN,that's pure gold,imo,despite the history.
Whaaaaaaaaaat?I just invested all my $$ in IBCX/ICAN,lol.
Haha,wait 'til I lay into the pos scammers posting on the IBCX board,then you will have something to say "shut the fuck up" about,lol.
By what I've read in the IBOX here,only Q*** is unmentionable,and any post is allowable if no sexual reference is made.
Oh boy,I'm going to have fun on this board,hehehe.
"42" works for me-
Meaning of life
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This article is about the philosophical concept. For the Monty Python film, see The Meaning of Life.
The philosophical question "What is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.
These questions are separate from the scientific issue of the boundary between things with life and inanimate objects.
Look up life in
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Contents [hide]
1 Popular beliefs
2 Scientific approaches and theories
2.1 Science and the five questions
2.1.1 What is the origin of life?
2.1.2 What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?
2.1.3 What is the significance of life?
2.1.4 The remaining two questions, and the social sciences
2.2 Entropy
2.2.1 Schrödinger
2.2.2 Erich Schneider
2.2.3 Self-organization
3 Philosophical views
3.1 Value as meaning
3.2 Atheistic views
3.3 Existentialist views
3.4 Humanist views
3.5 Nihilist views
3.6 Positivist views
3.7 Pragmatist views
3.8 Transhumanist views
4 Theistic beliefs
4.1 Relationship to God
4.2 To "be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it"
4.3 To love God and neighbor
4.4 Reformed theology: glorify and enjoy God
4.5 Worship God
4.6 Sapiential meaning of life
5 Spiritual and mystical views
5.1 Mystical views
6 Humorous and popular culture treatments
7 See also
8 References
8.1 Additional references
8.2 Philosophy
9 Further reading
10 External links
[edit] Popular beliefs
"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the many potential answers to this perplexing question. The responses are shown to overlap in many ways but may be grouped into the following categories:
Survival and temporal success
...to live everyday like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...to be always satisfied
...to live, go to school, work, and die
...to accumulate wealth and increase social status
...to survive and reproduce
...to participate in natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future of intelligent life
...to compete or co-operate with others
...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
...to die having succeeded in your purpose
...to gain and exercise power
...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
...to live
...to be holy
...to prepare for death
...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction (alike to participating in evolution)
...to protect and preserve one's kin, clan, or tribe (akin to participating in evolution)
...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to observe the ultimate fate of humanity to the furthest possible extent
...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)
...to complete your list of life goals
...to find something to believe in
...to attempt to have many sexual conquests (as in Arthur Schopenhauer's will to procreate)
...to succeed in our dreams, and live at your best and satisfaction.
...to think, and open the other 85% of our minds.
...to have fun, and enjoy life the way you desire.
...to be a part of history
Wisdom and knowledge
...to be without questions, or to keep asking questions
...to try to discover and understand the meaning of life
...to expand one's perception of the world
...to explore, to expand beyond our frontiers
...to learn from one's own and others' mistakes
...to seek truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom
...to understand and be mindful of creation or the cosmos
...to lead the world towards a desired situation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by man about life
Ethical
...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule"
...to give and receive love
...to live in a way such that you do not harm yourself and do not harm your environment
...to work for justice and freedom
...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds
Religious and spiritual
...to find perfect love and a complete expression of one's humanness in a relationship with God
...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
...to become like God, or divine
...to be experience personal justice (i.e. to be rewarded for goodness)
...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. to seek objectivity)
...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
...to turn fear into joy at a constant rate achieving on literal and metaphorical levels: immortality, enlightenment, and atonement
...to understand and follow the "Word of God"
...to worship, serve, or achieve union with God
...to discover who you are
Other
...to be emotionally fulfilled
...to find true love
...to live, love, and laugh
...to achieve self-actualisation
...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
...to live, and enjoy the passage of time
...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable (see nonconformism)
...to participate in the chain of events which has led from the creation of the universe until its possible end (either freely chosen or determined, this is a subject widely debated amongst philosophers)
...to relate to, connect with, or achieve unity with others
...to resolve all problems that one faces, or to ignore them and attempt to fully continue life without them, or to detach oneself from all problems faced (see Buddhism)
...to seek and find beauty
...to contemplate "the meaning of life"
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)
...all possible meanings have some validity (see existentialism)
...death is the meaning of life
...to know yourself
...a combination of any of the above
... to be as redneck as possible.
... wikipedia.
No purpose, and therefore...
...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
...just a series of events
...just nature taking its course
...just the wheel of time keeps on turning
...just the cycle of life
...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory (see solipsism or nihilism)
...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"
See also
Evolutionary psychology origin of life - Evolution of life
abiogenesis- the origins of biological life
cosmogeny- the origins of the universe
gene-centered view of evolution
semiotics- relationship of life to its environment
[edit] Scientific approaches and theories
Where scientists and philosophers converge on the quest for the meaning of life is an assumption that the mechanics of life (i.e., the universe) are determinable, thus the meaning of life may eventually be derived through our understanding of the mechanics of the universe in which we live, including the mechanics of the human body.
There are, however, strictly speaking, no scientific views on the meaning of biological life other than its observable biological function: to continue. In this regard, science simply addresses quantitative questions such as: "What does it do?", "By what means?", and "To what extent?", rather than the "For what purpose?".
[edit] Science and the five questions
But, like philosophy, science doesn't rest when it comes to asking and answering questions, and scientists have tackled each of the five interpretations of the meaning of life question head-on, attempting to answer each from the perspective of what exists, or in relation to the human being (for which science itself serves), offering empirical answers from relevant scientific fields...
[edit] What is the origin of life?
Thus, the question "What is the origin of life?" is answered in the sciences in the areas of abiogenesis (for the origins of biological life) and cosmogeny (for the origins of the universe). Both of these areas are quite hypothetical, cosmogeny because no existing physical model can accurately describe the very early universe (the instant of the Big Bang), and abiogeneis because the environment of the young earth is not known, and because the conditions and chemical processes that may have taken billions of years to produce life cannot (as of yet) be reproduced in a laboratory.
However, general consensus is that an early protein replicator was formed by the gradual build up of amino acids in the oceans, and then proceeded to dominate the primeval soup, occasionally mutating into a more (or less) successful form. Eventually a primitive cell was formed, and life continued to evolve by the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection. Based on these or similar theories, some philosophers say that because life was entirely coincidental, one cannot expect life to have any meaning at all, other than its own self-perpetuation — reproduction.
[edit] What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?
Toward answering "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", scientists have proposed various theories or worldviews over the centuries, including the heliocentric view by Copernicus and Galileo, through the mechanistic clockwork universe of Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton, to Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, to the Quantum Mechanics of Heisenberg and Schrödinger in an effort to understand the universe in which we live.
Meanwhile, countless scientists in the biological and medical fields have dissected the human body to its very smallest components to acquire an understanding of the nature of biological life, to determine what makes us tick. Near the end of the 20th century, equipped with insights from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists began to suggest that in so far as there may be a primary function to life, it is the survival of genes. In this approach, success isn't measured in terms of the survival of species, but one level deeper, in terms of the successful replication of genes over the eons, from one species to the next, and so on.
[edit] What is the significance of life?
The question "What is the significance of life?" has turned philosophers toward the study of significance itself and how it is derived and presented (see semiotics). The question has also been extensively explored by those who attempt to explain the relationship of life to its environment (the universe), and vice versa. Thus, from a scientific point of view, the significance of life is what it is, what it does, and what mechanisms are behind it. In psychology and biology, it is evident significance only exists within human and animal minds; significance is subjective and is an emotional function of brains, making it impossible to exist outside of people's thoughts and feelings.
[edit] The remaining two questions, and the social sciences
The questions "What is valuable in life?" and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?" are staples of the social sciences. These questions are explored by scientists every day, from the perspective of the life forms being studied, in an effort to explain the behaviors and interactions of human beings (and every other type of animal as well). The study of value has resulted in the fields of Economics and Sociology. The study of motives (which reflect what is valuable to a person) and the perception of value are subjects of the field of Psychology.
[edit] Entropy
For details see Entropy and life
[edit] Schrödinger
Schrödinger’s book What Is Life? was a major influence on Watson and Crick, the discoverers of DNA's helical structure. Schrödinger second theme was a "stream of order," thereby resisting the universal tendency for things to fall into disarray, into thermodynamic randomness and atomic chaos (Schrödinger 1944, 20-21)…. …Life's ability to maintain itself, expand, and reproduce in a world subject to the second law of thermodynamics is a paradox explained by the fact that live beings, open to and dependent upon energy via light or chemical reactions release heat and other thermodynamic wastes into their environment. Organisms do not maintain their complexity, and become more complex, in a vacuum. Their high organization and low entropy is made up for by pollution, heat, and entropic export to their surroundings. Although the proportion of entropy they add, and which would not be there without their intervention, is small compared to the vast quantity that would be produced in any event, and ultimately without them, their ability to behave as natural entropy-producing machines helps explain their—our—existence…. Like other NET (nonequilibrium thermodynamics) systems, life's complexity is a natural outgrowth of the thermodynamic gradient reduction implicit in the second law of thermodynamics: where and when possible, organizations come cycling into being to dissipate entropy as heat. Gradients, such as that between the sun and space, may be huge, and draining them may take literally eons. Nonetheless, the complex systems that come swirling into being near gradients are natural. Although they may sometimes seem to be organized by an outside force, no "agent deliberating is needed" as Aristotle put it over twenty centuries ago (Physics 2.8 [McKeon 2001, 251]).
Schrödinger warns us here to take this mechanism idea with a grain of salt. Throughout his lecture, he reminded his audience time and again that life was not a mechanism, like a clock or the motions of the planets. We now recognize that intelligent mechanisms, technology, flow outward from intelligent, gradient-reducing life. Machines are not "built-in" to life in some superhuman way. Rather, the more-than-mechanical equilibrium-seeking intrinsic intelligence of energy-based material flow systems produces living matter in all its cunning, including the machine-making global consumer society of modern humanity. "Yet I know by incontrovertible experience," writes Schrödinger in What Is Life? that I am directing its motions of which I foresee the effects, that may be fateful and all-important, in which case I feel and take full responsibility. The only possible inference from these two facts is I think that I—I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt "I"—am the person, if any who controls the "motion of the atoms" according to the Laws of Nature . . . it is daring to give to this conclusion the simple wording that it requires. In Christian terminology to say "Hence I am God Almighty" sounds both blasphemous and lunatic. But please disregard these connotations for the moment and consider whether the above inference is not the closest a biologist can get to proving God and immortality at one stroke.
As one can well imagine, such a Vedic epilogue shocked the Catholic Church and Schrödinger's sponsoring institution, Trinity College. He was asked to remove his private subjective thoughts from the manuscript. With his characteristic stubbornness he refused to change the epilogue; in turn the publisher refused to publish the book. The small green book of ninety-one pages was published the following year, in 1944, by Cambridge University Press, in a much more secular England.
[edit] Erich Schneider
... Linking our purposeful behavior to life's function as a gradient-reducing complex system is another move in the scientific tradition of increasing our knowledge while deflating our arrogance. Copernicus's view that Earth was not the center of the solar system was upsetting to those wed to the notion of humans as literally at the center of the universe. Making the sun central was a blow to our ego but a mathematically more elegant description of our position and movement in space. Darwin did not help matters when he pointed out that we evolved from common ancestors with the apes. This was another blow to our ego. Molecular biology and microbiology continue applying pressure by showing, with genetic evidence that is difficult to dispute, that our "animal" cells contain remnants of bacteria—symbiotic bacteria that merged to form the cellular basis of all amoebae, algae, plants, fungi, and animals, including, of course, humans. Our end-directedness, our planning can be seen in this same light. NET (nonequilibrium thermodynamics) systems organized to reduce ambient gradients and funnel their energy into our own growth, we are like nonliving NET systems that increase their complexity in areas of energy flux. Just as the matter of life (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus atoms) has been found distributed throughout the universe, so the process of life (local pockets of increasing organization) is not unique. We are connected to other energy-flow systems that have functional organization....
Does life, scientifically viewed, have an overall function? Our answer is yes. A barometric pressure gradient in the atmosphere, the difference between high- and low-pressure masses, leads to a tornado, a complex cycling system. The tornado's function, its purpose, is to eliminate the gradient. Life has a similar natural purpose. Only instead of quickly destroying a pressure gradient and then disappearing, it tends to reduce, over billions of years, the huge solar gradient between hot sun and cold space, growing in complexity as it does so. The growth of complex, intelligent life can be directly traced to the effectiveness of life as a cycling material system adept at reducing gradients. The original and basic function of life, as of the other complex systems is to reduce an ambient gradient.
Culture critic C. P. Snow, disapproving the increasing gap between the sciences and the arts, suggested that any educated person should know the second law of thermodynamics. Not knowing the second law was, he said in his Two Cultures and Second Law (1969)--an early warning shot in the ever-changing battlefield of the culture wars-equivalent to not having read a work by Shakespeare. The second law is neither a guarantor of cosmic death nor an arcane mathematical equation of interest only to polymer chemists. Rather, the second law helps explain the creation and elaboration of complex systems run by energy flow. The second law also directs our attention toward the directional processes we see in many sorts of developing complex systems, including those of our own evolution in short, the natural phenomena of the second law not only destroy, but create-by destroying gradients…. [1]
[edit] Self-organization
[edit] Philosophical views
[edit] Value as meaning
In that they attempt to answer the question "What is valuable in life?", theories of value are theories of the meaning of life. Famous philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and many others had clear views about what sort of life was best (and hence most meaningful).
[edit] Atheistic views
Main article: Atheism
Atheism's strictest sense means the belief that no god or supernatural overbeing (of any type or number) exists, and by extension that neither the universe nor we were created by such beings. Atheism pertains to three of the five interpretations of the meaning of life question: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?" Because most atheists reject supernatural explanations for the existence of life, lacking a deistic source, they commonly point to abiogenesis as the likely source for the origin of life. As for the purpose of life, some atheists argue that since there are no gods to tell us what to do, we are left to decide that for ourselves. Other atheists argue that some sort of meaning can be intrinsic to life itself, so there is no need for any god to instill meaning into it. Some simply believe that life is nothing more than a byproduct of insensate natural forces and has no underlying meaning or grand purpose.
[edit] Existentialist views
Main article: Existentialism
The 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer offered a bleak answer by determining one's life as a reflection of one's will and the will (and thus life) as being an aimless, irrational, and painful drive. However, he saw salvation, deliverance, or escape from suffering in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and asceticism. Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher of the 19th century, invented the term "leap of faith" and argued that life is full of absurdity and the individual must make his or her own values in an indifferent world. For Kierkegaard, an individual can have a meaningful life (at least one free of despair) if the individual relates the self in an unconditional commitment to something finite, and devotes his or her life to the commitment despite the inherent vulnerability of doing so.
[edit] Humanist views
Main article: Humanism
To the humanist, life's biological purpose is built-in: it is to reproduce. That is how the human race came to be: creatures reproducing in a progression of unguided evolution as an integral part of nature, which is self-existing. But biological purpose isn't the same thing as human purpose, though it may be a factor thereof. Human purpose is determined by humans, completely without supernatural influence. Nor does knowledge come from supernatural sources, it flows from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis preferably utilizing the scientific method: the nature of the universe is what we discern it to be. As are ethical values, which are derived from human needs and interests as tested by experience.
Enlightened self-interest is at the core of humanism. The most significant thing in life is the human being, and by extension, the human race and the environment in which we live. The happiness of the individual is inextricably linked to the well-being of humanity as a whole, in part because we are social animals which find meaning in relationships, and because cultural progress benefits everybody who lives in that culture.
When the world improves, life in general improves, so, while the individual desires to live well and fully, humanists feel it is important to do so in a way that will enhance the well being of all. While the evolution of the human species is still (for the most part) a function of nature, the evolution of humanity is in our hands and it is our responsibility to progress it toward its highest ideals. In the same way, humanism itself is evolving, because humanists recognize that values and ideals, and therefore the meaning of life, are subject to change as our understanding improves.
The doctrine of humanism is set forth in the Humanist Manifesto [2] and A Secular Humanist Declaration [3].
[edit] Nihilist views
Main article: Nihilism
Friedrich Nietzsche, though he himself was not a nihilist, characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. The term nihilism itself comes from the Latin nihil, which means "nothing". Nietzsche described Christianity as a nihilistic religion, because it removes meaning from this earthly life, to instead focus on a supposed afterlife. He also saw nihilism as a natural result of the idea that God is dead, and insisted that it was something to be overcome, by returning meaning to the Earth.
Martin Heidegger described nihilism as the state in which "there is nothing of Being as such", and argued that nihilism rested on the reduction of being to mere value.
Nihilism rejects claims to knowledge and truth, and explores the meaning of an existence without knowable truth. Though nihilism tends toward defeatism, one can find strength and reason for celebration in the varied and unique human relationships it explores. From a nihilist point of view, the ultimate source of moral values is the individual rather than culture or another rational (or objective) foundation. The characteristic that distinguishes nihilism from other skeptical or relativist philosophies is that, rather than merely insisting that values are subjective or even warrantless, nihilism declares that nothing is of value, as the name implies.
[edit] Positivist views
Main article: Logical positivism
Of the meaning of life, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists said: expressed in language, the question is meaningless. This is because "meaning of x" is a term in life usually conveying something regarding the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or that which should be noted regarding x, etc. So when "life" is used as "x" in the term "meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive and therefore nonsensical.
In other words, things in a person's life can have meaning (importance), but a meaning of life itself, i.e., apart from those things, can't be discerned. In this context, a person's life is said to have meaning (significance to himself and others) in the form of the events throughout his life and the results of his life in terms of achievements, a legacy, family, etc. But to say that life itself has meaning is a misuse of language, since any note of significance or consequence is relevant only in life (to those living it), rendering the statement erroneous. Language can provide a meaningful answer only when it refers to a realm within the realm of life. But this is not possible when the question reaches beyond the realm in which language exists, violating the contextual limitations of language. Such a question is broken. And the answer to a broken question is an erroneous or irrelevant answer.
Other philosophers besides Wittgenstein have sought to discover what is meaningful within life by studying the consciousness within it. But when these philosophers looked for a holistic definition of the “Meaning of Life” for humanity, they were stone-walled by the Wittgenstein linguistic model.
Logical positivism asserts that statements are meaningful only insofar as they are verifiable, and that statements can be verified only in two (exclusive) ways: empirical statements, including scientific theories, which are verified by experiment and evidence; and analytic truth, statements which are true or false by definition, and so are also meaningful. Everything else, including ethics and aesthetics, is not literally meaningful, and so belongs to "metaphysics". One conclusion is that serious philosophy should no longer concern itself with metaphysics.
[edit] Pragmatist views
Main article: Pragmatism
Pragmatic philosophers suggest that rather than a truth about life, we should seek a useful understanding of life. William James argued that truth could be made but not sought. Thus, the meaning of life is a belief about the purpose of life that does not contradict one's experience of a purposeful life. Roughly, this could be applied as: "The meaning of life is those purposes which cause you to value it." To a pragmatist, the meaning of life, your life, can be discovered only through experience.
Pragmatism is a school of philosophy which originated in the United States in the late 1800s. Pragmatism is characterized by the insistence on consequences, utility and practicality as vital components of truth. Pragmatism objects to the view that human concepts and intellect represent reality, and therefore stands in opposition to both formalist and rationalist schools of philosophy. Rather, pragmatism holds that it is only in the struggle of intelligent organisms with the surrounding environment that theories and data acquire significance. Pragmatism does not hold, however, that just anything that is useful or practical should be regarded as true, or anything that helps us to survive merely in the short-term; pragmatists argue that what should be taken as true is that which most contributes to the most human good over the longest course. In practice, this means that for pragmatists, theoretical claims should be tied to verification practices--i.e., that one should be able to make predictions and test them--and that ultimately the needs of humankind should guide the path of human inquiry.
[edit] Transhumanist views
Main article: Transhumanism
Transhumanism is an outgrowth of Posthumanism, which is an extension of Humanism. Like its ideological ancestors, it proposes that we should seek the advancement of humanity and of all life to the greatest degree of differed feasible equation. Although transhumanism makes no distinctions regarding anything as grandiose as "the meaning of life", it is different from humanism and posthumanism in its emphasis on the proposition that science should take the foremost role in the improvement of life. To the transhumanist, the meaning of life is necessarily indefinite and ambiguous, and should be left to the philosophical inclinations of the individual. Nevertheless, whatsoever an individual chooses to believe, transhumanism insists that there does exist a moral imperative common to all intelligent agents to improve their lives and, moreover, to advocate for the universal recognition of freedoms regarding an individual's choice of life enhancement. All living things should be free to choose, to the extent of their capacities, to improve themselves or not in any way they so desire, and no living thing should ever be given the opportunity to interfere in the personal development of any other living being unless for that being's own good (such as if the being's ignorance of some otherwise well understood principle or fact were driving it to unwitting self-injury).
To transhumanists, these principles extend greatly beyond more conventional lifestyle choices and freedoms of thought, and encompass such experimental and highly controversial subjects as morphological freedom and procreative beneficence. These are, respectively, the freedom to choose the shape and function of one's body and mind, and the freedom to do the same for one's descendants, excepting when to do so would in some way injure the descendants or the descendants' freedom to make the same choices (which are considered to be the same thing in certain senses). Transhumanists therefore advocate that all life forms have the freedom to access the tools and knowledge necessary to improve their lives however they see fit (and that these things must be made universally available), whether this be in simple manifestations such as the options of meeting basic medical and dietetic requirements, or more complex examples such as the options of genetic engineering or cybernetic augmentation. Transhumanists argue that improved people will necessarily have improved capabilities to seek out and answer questions regarding "the meaning of life" as they see it, more so than even humans do currently. The transhumanist programme, then, is essentially the programme that insists that all living things be granted the basic option to inquire after their own personal or social "meanings of life" (including meanings that human beings are currently incompetent to comprehend) as much as it is physically possible to do so, and no less.
[edit] Theistic beliefs
Main articles: Religion and Religious humanism
There are many different interpretations to the Word of God, and therefore many interpretations to the meaning of life. However, reaching Heaven in the afterlife can be seen as a universal meaning of life or goal for followers of Abrahamic religions. Also universal teachings, or meanings, to be followed in virtually all religions are The Golden Rule and simple living.
[edit] Relationship to God
Most people who believe in a personal God would agree that it is God "in whom we live and move and have our being". The notion here is that we respond to a higher authority who will give our lives meaning and provide purpose through a relationship with the divine. Although belief is also based on knowing God "through the things he has made," the decision to believe in such an authority is called the "leap of faith", and to a very large degree this faith defines the faithful's meaning of life.
[edit] To "be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it"
An example of how religion creates purpose can be found in the biblical story of creation in the Old Testament of the Bible: the purpose for man comes from his relationship to God and in this relationship he is told to "Be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it" Genesis 1:28. This indicates that subsequent to the goal of being in personal relationship with God, the propagation of the human race, the care and population of the earth, and the control of the earth (but as man sinned, he lost the full ability to do so, characterized by the fact that animals are not under full control) are the first three commandments God has set for man.
Another Biblical example is given in Micah 6:8, which states "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." However, instructions given by God and the meaning of life (or the purpose of one's existence), are not necessarily the same thing.
[edit] To love God and neighbor
Another example, this one also from Judaism and Christianity, which agree broadly on two of their most important imperatives for life:
"The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength'." This is the 'first commandment' according to Jesus (Mark 12:28-31), and is also a quote from the central prayer of Judaism, known as the Shema (Deut 6:4-9).
"And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'." (Christianity: Mark 12:28-31). Judaism records this both in the positive sense (Leviticus 19:18: "Love thy neighbor") and the negative sense (Hillel, ""What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole Law; the rest is just commentary")
Both of these commands are relational and are primarily concerned with knowing God in order to equip the believer to maintain a loving relationship with other members of the human race. According to Benedict XVI, the ultimate reason for loving God and men is that "God is love" (Deus Caritas Est) and men are made in his image. The Christian God, he says, is the Logos, (the Word: meaning and reason).
[edit] Reformed theology: glorify and enjoy God
The Westminster Shorter Catechism looked at the history of what God has taught man, and summarized it at its outset: "man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever". [4]
[edit] Worship God
Islam's viewpoint is that God created man for one purpose only and that is to worship God: "I only created jinn and man to worship Me" (Qur'an, 51:56). Worshiping in Islam means to testify to the oneness of God in his lordship, names and attributes. All acts of worship should be exclusively for God, not through any intermediary nor with a hidden worldly intention. The term worship may be divided into two categories. That is the partaking of religious rituals, sanctioned by God or through working, producing, innovating and improving the quality of life, thus striving for the Creator. To Muslims, life was created as a test. Patience is seen as an integral part of the Muslim faith and character. How well one performs on this test will determine whether one finds a final home in Jannah (Heaven) or Jahenam (Hell).
[edit] Sapiential meaning of life
In many esoteric strands of world religions, one encounters the meaning of life as "play".
The most notable of this is Hinduism's notion of lila (literally, "play"). This is the suggestion that the meaning of life is not a final goal which can be arrived at in time, but rather a sort of game in which every being is unwittingly playing. Although it is pleasurable or fulfilling to 'win' the game of existence (at the end of one's life or at the end of time), the game itself, like music, dance, or sport, creates meaning as it moves through time.
Similar ideas are contained in the hidden treasure referenced in hadith qudsi: "I (God) was a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known. Therefore, I created creation in order that I might be known". In this esoteric Muslim view, generally held by Sufis, the universe exists only for God's pleasure. However, because the happiness of God is not dependent on anything temporal, creation works as a grand game with the Divine serving as the principle player and prize.
The Book of Job begins with God applauding over the piety of Job. Satan, one of the heavenly host, says to God that Job is only faithful because he is rewarded accordingly, and asks permission of God to test Job. In his tribulation, Job suffers again and again without ever finding out the cause of his life's horrors. Instead, only God and the reader are allowed to know that the sorrows of life are merely a game played on the cosmic level. The game itself is incidental, yet at the same time the will of God in the creation of life.
A contemporary example of the sapiential approach to the meaning of life can be found in an online essay: "Soon You Will Understand...The Meaning of Life"
[edit] Spiritual and mystical views
Spirituality Portal
Mitch Albom wrote about his dying professor Morrie and their last lessons together in the bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie in which some interesting questions were raised. Albom's life as a writer was until then in vain because he chased the wrong things in life: bigger houses, bigger cars, and bigger paychecks. No matter how big they were, they still could not fill his emptiness. The reality that we all have to confront eventually is the same thing Morrie realized when he learned he had Lou Gehrig's disease: that the world was as green and as alive as before he contracted the terminal illness. The world does not stand still nor come to an end just because you do. The professor's experience haunted the author in his ego-centric view of life, and inspired him to change. Albom learned from Professor Morrie that the true meanings in life are in the giving, the loving and the sharing of what you've had, which in turn live on by being passed down from generation to generation.
The Book of Life [1] presents the nature of God and the purpose of creation. According to Michael Sharp, God is consciousness and the purpose of creation is to have fun (alleviate boredom). Creation exists "as a dream inside the mind of God" and we are all Sparks of the One Creator Consciousness. The Book of Light is a copyleft and available from [5]
The Urantia Book offers a point of view on the vast meaning of life by reconciling humankind's innumerable problems with discrepancies between creationism, evolution, cosmology, modern science, philosophy, history, theology and religion.
James Redfield gave his perspective on the meaning of life in his book The Celestine Prophecy, suggesting that the answers can be found within, through experiencing a series of personal spiritual insights. In his book God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution (2002), co-written with Michael Murphy, he claims that humanity is on the verge of undergoing a change in consciousness.
Another answer was given by Neale Donald Walsch in his trilogy Conversations with God, in which he asserts that the purpose of this present creation is for That-which-Is (God, Spirit) to know itself experientially rather than merely conceptually, by creating of itself a billion billion individuals who interact, and learn, and thus can rediscover, through actual experience, their divinity by experiencing and exploring it in this world.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell, in his famous The Power of Myth interviews with Bill Moyers, answered the question in the following way:
People say what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive so that the life experiences that we have on the purely physical plane will have resonances within, that are those of our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive..
The purpose of life in the words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, renowned spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation:
One who knows, will not tell you! And anyone who attempts to tell you, please know that they don't know! But this much I can tell you... this very fact this question has arisen in your mind, you are lucky! Many people just live life without asking what is the purpose of life. This question itself is like tool, a vehicle for you to go deep into life... the quest for reality!
[edit] Mystical views
The view of mysticism varies widely according to how each speaker describes it. In general the view is broadly that life is a happening, an unfolding. There is no duality, it is a nondual worldview, in which subject and object are the same, the sense of doer-ship is illusionary. This view is central to Buddhism, and is also found in certain non-dual sects of Hinduism. Atheists such as Susan Blackmore and Sam Harris have recently advocated mysticism through rigorous meditation as the only reliable way of attaining sure knowledge of our subjective experience.
For a clear summary of one mystic's view on the meaning of life, see the article on Ramesh Balsekar, or the article on Mysticism.
[edit] Humorous and popular culture treatments
The very concept "the meaning of life" has become such a cliché that it has often been parodied, such as in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, later released as a novel, a television series, a film, and a computer game. As the story goes, an advanced race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings (mice) builds a gigantic computer called Deep Thought to find The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Seven and a half-million years later, the computer gives the answer: "42". After giving the answer to an (unsurprisingly) underwhelmed audience, Deep Thought explained that the problem with the answer was not the answer, but that no-one really knew what the question was. (It may be worth noting, that later on it is revealed to Arthur Dent, that the answer and the question cannot be known at the same time. In the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it is found that the question is: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine." The answer would be 54 in base ten, but 42 in base thirteen.) In reference to this series, "42" is commonly provided as an honest answer if someone feels the word "meaning" is too vague. Joe Bob Briggs miscommunicated this in one of his columns as "43". In one strip of the parody comic "Sev-space" it is inquired "why the number 47 constantly shows up on the monitor?" it is then stated that "42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything... But you get 47 if you adjust it to the inflation." This is an obvious reference to the "Star Trek" series where the number 47 is heavily featured [6].
Or maybe there is no meaning to life; that is, "What you see is what you get", as portrayed in the comedy film The Meaning of Life: you are born, you eat, you go to school, you have sex, you have children, you grow old (if someone doesn't kill you first), and you die, and in Heaven every day is Christmas. At the very end of the film, Michael Palin is handed an envelope, opens it, and says nonchalantly: "Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."
In The Simpsons episode "Homer The Heretic" God himself tells Homer what the meaning of life is, but as usual the one who really wanted to know (the viewer) is left disappointed. The dialogue goes as follows:
Homer: God, what's the meaning of life?
God: Homer, I can't tell you that.
Homer: Why not?
God: You'll find out when you die.
Homer: Oh, I can't wait that long.
God: You can't wait 6 months?
Homer: No, tell me now...
God: Oh, OK... The meaning of life is...[Theme music starts and the show ends. The creator's original idea was that a commercial would come after this scene and before the credits, thusly having the commercial interrupt God's explanation to humorous effect]
In the Peanuts comic strip Charlie Brown explains he thinks the purpose of life is to make others happy, to which Lucy responds that she doesn't think she is making anyone happy, and—more importantly—no one is making her happy, so someone isn't doing their job.
Paul Gauguin's interpretation can be seen in the painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Bill and Ted end up meeting God. Before being admitted into his presence, St. Peter (billed as The Gatekeeper on IMDb) asks them what the meaning of life is, and they reply "Every rose has its thorn. Every night has a dawn. Every cowboy sings a sad sad song.". These are the lyrics to a song by Poison, a 1980s glam rock band.
Another popular belief is that the meaning of life is to die, according to comedians and other types of media. In a similar vein, antagonist Smith in the final part of The Matrix trilogy, Matrix Revolutions, tells the protagonist Neo that "it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end."
In the movie Judge Dredd (1995):
Warden Miller: So tell me, Rico, what is the meaning of life?
Rico: It ends.
Conan the Barbarian, in the film of the same name, when asked, "What is best in life?" responds, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."
In several different media, the theme of finding one's individual path is revealed. For example, Coelho's "Alchemist" and the movie City Slickers both present a similar theme: the meaning of life is an individual journey to find one's own "path". In this context, the "path", similar to what is defined in Buddhism as the "4th Noble Truth", and is best explained simply as the overall way one chooses to lead their life. It is a different answer for each person, and the only obligation one has in life is to find his or her path.
Due to the apparently overwhelming "knowledge" of the MSN Messenger chat bot SmarterChild, its creators have claimed that the meaning of life is one of the most common requests from its users. The algorithm has since been tweaked so that instead of responding with a generic message, it replies with a humorous "ask ken" and a smiling emoticon.
In his book "A Man Without a Country", Kurt Vonnegut sums up life with the words: "We're all here to fart around. Don't let anyone tell you any different!" Although it could be said that he believes the meaning of life was stated best by his son Mark whom he quotes in two books, stating, "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."
George Carlin has once said that the meaning of life is "to find a place to put all your stuff". In another skit he speculates the meaning of life is that the earth wanted plastic which humans pollute the world with.
One popular phrase is "The meaning of life is 'to live': it's in the dictionary[7]" which, although technically incorrect ("life" is a noun while "to live" describes a verb), has both a humorous meaning, and a more serious one, implying that the answer is to enjoy the ride.
[edit] See also
Perennial philosophy
Simple living
Simulated reality
The Urantia Book The Urantia Book, Parts I-IV; esoteric narratives on the meaning of life.
World view
Cosmological meaning of human life
It's a Wonderful Life
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
How to be Saved
[edit] References
^ The Book of Light: The Nature of God, The Structure of Consciousness, and The Universe Within You e-book accessed July 2006
[edit] Additional references
Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfilment, Jane Roberts, Amber-Allen Publishing.
Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement; by Anthony Robbins. Random House Publishing Group, 1987. ISBN 0-449-90280-3
The Science of Soulmates, By William Henderson, Booksurge 2002. ISBN 1-58898-611-X
[edit] Philosophy
Hanfling, Oswald [ed.] Life and Meaning: A Reader 1987, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-15784-0
Nozick, Robert. The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations 1989, New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-72501-7
Wiggins, David. "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" in Proceedings of the British Academy LXII (1976); reprinted in his Needs, Values, Truth (Aristotelian Society Series, Volume 6) 2nd edition, 1991, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17555-5
Andrew Kernohan. A Guide for the Godless: The Secular Path to Meaning 2006, Ourmedia: Open Archive.
Thaddeus Metz. Several professional journal articles on life's meaning [8]
[edit] Further reading
Haisch, Bernard The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What's Behind It All (Preface), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006, ISBN 1-57863-374-5
Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life, University of Chicago Press in March 2005, ISBN 0-226-73936-8 (cloth)[9]
[edit] External links
World Center for the Study of Kabbalah
Looking for the Meaning of Life, by James Leonard Park - A probable answer.
The Purpose of Life, by Hashi Mohamed - An Islamic perspective.
What is Life’s Purpose? The Meaning of life in Judaism
The FAQ of life -- by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, transhumanist
The Meaning of Life, or, What's it all About? -- a world view, by anonymous
The Way home or face The Fire - The Meaning of Life - A deeply religious view.
Why Life Extension or Why Live at All? Desire for life extension is rooted in the valuation of life.
Erwin Schrödinger "What is Life?"
Exploring Meaning through Modern Myths
Hedonism & Meaning of life
The Logic of Existential Meaning
Michio Kaku homepage [10]
Frank Tipler homepage [11]
Matti Pitkänen homepage [12]
Website for philosophical counseling supporting
the treatment of depression[13]
"In Love with Wisdom and The Meaning of Life"
The Answer to the Question Fred C. May Jr.
Where Is Meaning Found? - A Christian perspective.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanin
Isn't the edit feature a great thing?LOL
I don't think IHUB is pumper sensitive.;)
If there were,would you believe them?
Hmmm,how does that explain the latest deletions?I think you need to take a different approach,and follow the thread,what is going on is totally absurd,imo.Sorry to have to bother you with this,but you really should ignore what is the TOU,and the reading of individual posts without reading all connected posts,that will put everything in context.Your opinion that this board(IBCX) has one of the better Moderators is imo,an absolute disgrace to IHUB,to allow this type of manipulation of a board goes way beyond the pale,it borders on collusion with stock manipulators.That's what I think of what goes on re the IBCX board,enlighten me if your opinion differs,but be well informed before you try to argue,I am armed and ready,lol.
Exactly Susie,and it is done for good reason,to stifle any negatives.Btw,I like the way you put invest in parentheses,we don't "invest" in these pos stocks,we play them,as you know.
LOL,it has absolutely everything to do with the stock,and what is allowed to be posted.IMO,it is your type of response that is so typical of what is wrong with the board.The disallowance of negatives re Hayter is the key issue here,it is the single most important issue re IBCX stock,and if we are not allowed to post the facts regarding Hayter,we may as well send all our money to Sterling/Stervc to invest in CMKX.
I think this says it all,regardless of what you think of the board mods-http://www.investorshub.com/boards/replies.asp?msg=16022148
Sheesh,the BS continues,reapingprophets response to my post(deleted,of course),was also deleted.How long will this go on?
I see you never responded to my complaints about post removals.I think honesty re a company/or CEO is a required part of the discussion,no matter how repetitive it may seem to the board moderators.It is in the best interest of shareholders,or potential shareholders,to know the truth about a company,and the history of a company is part of the story.Any Astrom or Hayter stock is imo open to full discussion re the history,they are cut from the same cloth.
Just another reason to own gold,IMO,the end is far down the road,some of us may not be here,but it is coming.Also,jmho,the world has a vested interest in the dollar,which will delay by years any collapse,unless China decides on another currency.IMO,China is key,everyone else,including Iran,Japan,the EEU,are just minor players,but like dominoes after the first falls.......
I don't know about your response re "the blame game",however,I do know trading.It's why I said what I did about loading up @ .0022,it's what I did on the IDNW run from .0024.
Could be,I think anyone buying @ .0022 will make some serious $$.
OK,now I'm really pissed,this deletion over on the IBCX board of my posts is out of hand,imo.No reason,other than it's me.
It's good to see you here,I know you have a lot to catch up on,I hope you can find the time to look into my situation.
JMO,but the SEC finally got it right in not allowing IBCX to be electronically traded,it would only allow much easier dilution.The SEC may have denied IBCX for the wrong reason,but it will benefit shareholders in the long run,imo.
I'll do you,and every potential investor a favor,and continue to post every reason not to buy this stock.
The IBCX board is a mess,pumpers running rampant as usual here,and any disagreement deleted,reminds me of RB.
As a long term shareholder here,I will continue to post what I think of this stock,,what I think of the company,and what I think of the executives in charge of this company,positive,or negative.It is my right as a shareholder to do so.Those of you that think constant negative postings hurt the SP are wrong,constant dilution by the company is what hurts SP,constant lies by company execs are what hurt the SP,constant PR's promising AF's never delivered are what hurts the SP,constant gagging of the TA are what hurts SP.Not reporting about it is a disservice to any who may be interested in IBCX,deleting posts that are negative re IBCX is also a disservice to any potential investor.We need to have the truth posted,nothing else,not wild projections re market cap based on un-audited financials,or based on PR's that state incomes with no AF's to back them up.Let's see the AF's,if good I'll be the first to say this is an awesome investment.Unfortunately,they haven't come out,and imo,they never will,again,based on Hayter's history,check it out for yourself.
Restore the post,it was not "off-topic".
Dspetry,it is obvious that any negative posting re IBCX is under intense scrutiny for any reason to delete.Why not just allow all posters a voice?Negatives need to be posted,and read by all,rather than all this deletion crap.
Tell me one thing that warrants deletion of that post.Is it the fact that Ed Hayter has a bad history,or is it that he lied while diluting 11 billion shares while totally denying it?Maybe it's the fact that again he is saying AF's are going to be released,as he did before,while diluting the crap out of ICAN.Is this something that's not allowed to be discussed?Do you want to go into Hayter's history with other pinksheets?
I'm tempted to go the same way,let them lose all their money on pos scams,but not quite there yet,the incessant pumping still drives me crazy,as does the fact it's allowed.
LOL,I did the same on Christmas Eve,a $1,000.00 winner,bought a ticket at the gas station during a fill-up.I had good luck once before,on Christmas Day,played my birthdate,4/8/50,and hit all four exact for $3850.00,Merry Christmas,lol.