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Martin.

"At St. Martin's eve and on the feast day, people ate and drank very heartily for a last time before they started to fast.This fasting time was later called "Advent" by the Church and was considered a time for spiritual preparation for Christmas.

On St. Martin's Day, children in Flanders, the southern and north-western parts of the Netherlands, and the Catholic areas of Germany and Austria still participate in paper lantern processions.Often, a man dressed as St. Martin rides on a horse in front of the procession.The children sing songs about St. Martin and about their lanterns.

The food traditionally eaten on the day is goose, a rich bird.According to legend, Martin was reluctant to become bishop, which is why he hid in a stable filled with geese.The noise made by the geese betrayed his location to the people who were looking for him.

In the east part of the Belgian province of East-Flanders (Aalst) and the west part of West Flanders (Ypres), traditionally children receive presents from St. Martin on November 11, instead of from Saint Nicholas on December 6 or Santa Claus on December 25.They also have lantern processions, for which children make lanterns out of beets.In recent years, the lantern processions have become widespread as a popular ritual, even in Protestant areas of Germany and the Netherlands.

Most Protestant churches no longer officially recognize Saints.In Portugal, where the saint's day is celebrated across the country, it is common for families and friends to gather around the fire in reunions called "magustos," where they typically eat roasted chestnuts and drink wine, "jeropiga" (drink made of grape must and firewater) and "aguapé" (a sort of weak and watered-down wine).According to the most widespread variation of the cloak story, Saint Martin cut off half of his cloak in order to offer it to a beggar and along the way, he gave the remaining part to a second beggar.

As he faced a long ride in a freezing weather, the dark clouds cleared away and the sun shone so intensely that the frost melted away.Such weather was rare for early November, so was credited to God's intervention.The phenomenon of a sunny break to the chilly weather on Saint Martin's Day (11 November) is called "Verão de São Martinho" (Saint Martin's Summer, "veranillo de san Martín" in Spanish) in honor of the cloak legend.

Many churches are named after Saint Martin of Tours.St Martin-in-the-fields, at Trafalgar Square in the centre of London, has a history appropriately associated with Martin's renunciation of war; Dick Sheppard, founder of the Peace Pledge Union, was Vicar 1914–26, and there is a memorial chapel for him, with a plaque for Vera Brittain, also a noted Anglican pacifist; the steps of the church are often used for peace vigils.Saint Martin's Cathedral, in Ypres, Belgium, is dedicated to him.

St. Martin is the patron saint of Szombathely, Hungary, with a church dedicated to him, and also the patron saint of Buenos Aires.In the Netherlands, he is the patron of the cathedral and city of Utrecht.He is the patron of the city of Groningen; its Martini tower and Martinikerk (Groningen) (Martin's Church) were named for him.

He is also the patron of the church and town of Bocaue.St.

Martin's Church in Kaiserslautern, Germany is a major city landmark.It is located in the heart of the city's downtown in St. Martin's Square, and is surrounded by a number of restaurants and shops.

The church was originally built as a Franciscan monastery in the 14th century and has a number of unique architectural features.St.

Martin is the patron saint of the Polish towns of Bydgoszcz and Opatów.His day is celebrated with a procession and festivities in the city of Poznań, where the main street ("Święty Marcin") is named for him, after a 13th-century church in his honor.

A special type of crescent cake "(rogal świętomarciński)" is baked for the occasion.As November 11 is also Polish Independence Day, it is a public holiday.In Latin America, St. Martin has a strong popular following and is frequently referred to as San Martín Caballero, in reference to his common depiction on horseback.

Mexican folklore believes him to be a particularly helpful saint toward business owners.San Martín de Loba is the name of a municipality in the Bolívar Department of Colombia.Saint Martin, as San Martín de Loba, is the patron saint of Vasquez, a small village in Colombia.

In Finland, the town and municipality Marttila ("S

He is also credited with introducing the Chenin blanc grape varietal, from which most of the white wine of western Touraine and Anjou is made.Martin Luther was named after St. Martin, as he was baptised on November 11 (St. Martin's Day), 1483.Many older Lutheran congregations are named after St. Martin, which is unusual (for Lutherans) because he is a saint who does not appear in the Bible.

(Lutherans regularly name congregations after the evangelists and other saints who appear in the Bible but are hesitant to name congregations after post-Biblical saints.

)Martin of Tours is the patron saint of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, which has a medal in his name.The Church Lads' and Church Girls' Brigade, a 5-7 age group, was renamed 'Martins' in his honour in 1998.

Many schools have St Martin as their Patron, one being St. Martin's School (Rosettenville) in Johannesburg.The Dutch film "Flesh and Blood" (1985) prominently features a statue of Saint Martin.A mercenary in Renaissance Italy, named Martin, finds a statue of Saint Martin cutting his cloak and takes it as a sign to desert and rogue around under the saint's protection.

Meaning of life The meaning of life, or the answer to the question

Many other related questions include

There have been many proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds.The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history.Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question.

The meaning of life as we perceive it is derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness.Many other issues are also involved, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, the existence of one or multiple gods, conceptions of God, the soul, and the afterlife.Scientific contributions focus primarily on describing related empirical facts about the universe, exploring the context and parameters concerning the "how" of life.

Science also studies and can provide recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality.An alternative, humanistic approach poses the question, "What is the meaning of "my" life?

"Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including the following

Many members of the scientific community and philosophy of science communities think that science can provide the relevant context, and set of parameters necessary for dealing with topics related to the meaning of life.In their view, science can offer a wide range of insights on topics ranging from the science of happiness to death anxiety.Scientific inquiry facilitates this through nomological investigation into various aspects of life and reality, such as the Big Bang, the origin of life, and evolution, and by studying the objective factors which correlate with the subjective experience of meaning and happiness.

Researchers in positive psychology study empirical factors that lead to life satisfaction, full engagement in activities, making a fuller contribution by utilizing one's personal strengths, and meaning based on investing in something larger than the self.Large-data studies of flow experiences have consistently suggested that humans experience meaning and fulfillment when mastering challenging tasks and that the experience comes from the way tasks are approached and performed rather than the particular choice of task.For example, flow experiences can be obtained by prisoners in concentration camps with minimal facilities, and occur only slightly more often in billionaires.

A classic example is of two workers on an apparently boring production line in a factory.One treats the work as a tedious chore while the other turns it into a game to see how fast she can make each unit and achieves flow in the process.Neuroscience describes reward, pleasure, and motivation in terms of neurotransmitter activity, especially in the limbic system and the ventral tegmental area in particular.

If one believes that the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure and to ease general life, then this allows normative predictions about how to act to achieve this.Likewise, some ethical naturalists advocate a science of morality—the empirical pursuit of flourishing for all conscious creatures.Experimental philosophy and neuroethics research collects data about human ethical decisions in controlled scenarios such as trolley problems.

It has shown that many types of ethical judgment are universal across cultures, suggesting that they may be innate, whilst others are culture-specific.The findings show actual human ethical reasoning to be at odds with most logical philosophical theories, for example consistently showing distinctions between action by cause and action by omission which would be absent from utility-based theories.Cognitive science has theorized about differences between conservative and liberal ethics and how they may be based on different metaphors from family life such as strong fathers vs nurturing mother models.

Neurotheology is a controversial field which tries to find neural correlates and mechanisms of religious experience.Some researchers have suggested that the human brain has innate mechanisms for such experiences and that living without using them for their evolved purposes may be a cause of imbalance.Studies have reported conflicting results on correlating happiness with religious belief and it is difficult to find unbiased meta-analyses.

Sociology examines value at a social level using theoretical constructs such as value theory, norms, anomie, etc.One value system suggested by social psychologists, broadly called Terror Management Theory, states that human meaning is derived from a fundamental fear of death, and values are selected when they allow us to escape the mental reminder of death.Alongside this, there are a number of theories about the way in which humans evaluate the positive and negative aspects of their existence and thus the value and meaning they place on their lives.

For example, depressive realism posits an exaggerated positivity in all except those experiencing depressive disorders who see life as it truly is, and David Benatar theorises that more weight is generally given to positive experiences, providing bias towards an over-optimistic view of life.Emerging research shows that meaning in life predicts better physical health outcomes.Greater meaning has been associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease, reduced risk of heart attack among individuals with coronary heart disease, reduced risk of stroke, and increased longevity in both American and Japanese samples.

In 2014, the British National Health Service began recommending a five-step plan for mental well-being based on meaningful lives, whose steps are

At the end of the 20th century, based upon insight gleaned from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists George C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, and David Haig, among others, concluded that if there is a primary function to life, it is the replication of DNA and the survival of one's genes.This view has not achieved universal agreement; Jeremy Griffith is a notable exception, maintaining that the meaning of life is to be integrative.Responding to an interview question from Richard Dawkins about "what it is all for", James Watson stated "I don't think we're "for" anything.

We're just the products of evolution.

"Though scientists have intensively studied life on Earth, defining life in unequivocal terms is still a challenge.Physically, one may say that life "feeds on negative entropy" which refers to the process by which living entities decrease their internal entropy at the expense of some form of energy taken in from the environment.

Biologists generally agree that lifeforms are self-organizing systems which regulate their internal environments as to maintain this organized state, metabolism serves to provide energy, and reproduction causes life to continue over a span of multiple generations.Typically, organisms are responsive to stimuli and genetic information changes from generation to generation, resulting in adaptation through evolution; this optimizes the chances of survival for the individual organism and its descendants respectively.Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are generally not considered to be organisms because they are incapable of independent reproduction or metabolism.

This classification is problematic, though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are also incapable of independent life.Astrobiology studies the possibility of different forms of life on other worlds, including replicating structures made from materials other than DNA.Though the Big Bang theory was met with much skepticism when first introduced, it has become well-supported by several independent observations.

However, current physics can only describe the early universe from 10−43 seconds after the Big Bang (where zero time corresponds to infinite temperature); a theory of quantum gravity would be required to understand events before that time.Nevertheless, many physicists have speculated about what would have preceded this limit, and how the universe came into being.For example, one interpretation is that the Big Bang occurred coincidentally, and when considering the anthropic principle, it is sometimes interpreted as implying the existence of a multiverse.

The ultimate fate of the universe, and implicitly humanity, is hypothesized as one in which biological life will eventually become unsustainable, such as through a Big Freeze, Big Rip, or Big Crunch.Theoretical cosmology studies many alternative speculative models for the origin and fate of the universe beyond the Big Bang theory.A recent trend has been models of the creation of 'baby universes' inside black holes, with our own Big Bang being a white hole on the inside of a black hole in another parent universe.

Many-worlds theories claim that every possibility of quantum mechanics is played out in parallel universes.The nature and origin of consciousness and the mind itself are also widely debated in science.The explanatory gap is generally equated with the hard problem of consciousness, and the question of free will is also considered to be of fundamental importance.

These subjects are mostly addressed in the fields of cognitive science, neuroscience (e.g.the neuroscience of free will) and philosophy of mind, though some evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists have also made several allusions to the subject.Reductionistic and eliminative materialistic approaches, for example the Multiple Drafts Model, hold that consciousness can be wholly explained by neuroscience through the workings of the brain and its neurons, thus adhering to biological naturalism.

On the other hand, some scientists, like Andrei Linde, have considered that consciousness, like spacetime, might have its own intrinsic degrees of freedom, and that one's perceptions may be as real as (or even more real than) material objects.Hypotheses of consciousness and spacetime explain consciousness in describing a "space of conscious elements", often encompassing a number of extra dimensions.Electromagnetic theories of consciousness solve the binding problem of consciousness in saying that the electromagnetic field generated by the brain is the actual carrier of conscious experience; there is however disagreement about the implementations of such a theory relating to other workings of the mind.

Quantum mind theories use quantum theory in explaining certain properties of the mind.Explaining the process of free will through quantum phenomena is a popular alternative to determinism.Based on the premises of non-materialistic explanations of the mind, some have suggested the existence of a cosmic consciousness, asserting that consciousness is actually the "ground of all being".

Proponents of this view cite accounts of paranormal phenomena, primarily extrasensory perceptions and psychic powers, as evidence for an incorporeal higher consciousness.In hopes of proving the existence of these phenomena, parapsychologists have orchestrated various experiments, but successful results might be due to poor experimental controls and might have alternative explanations.The most common definitions of meaning in life involve three components.

First, Reker and Wong define personal meaning as the "cognizance of order, coherence and purpose in one's existence, the pursuit and attainment of worthwhile goals, and an accompanying sense of fulfillment" (p. 221).In 2016 Martela and Steger defined meaning as coherence, purpose, and significance.In contrast, Wong has proposed a four-component solution to the question of meaning in life, with the four components purpose, understanding, responsibility, and enjoyment (PURE)

Although most psychology researchers consider meaning in life as a subjective feeling or judgment, most philosophers (e.g., Thaddeus Metz, Daniel Haybron) propose that there are also objective, concrete criteria for what constitutes meaning in life.Wong has proposed that whether life is meaningful depends not only on subjective feelings but, more importantly, on whether a person's goal-striving and life as a whole is meaningful according to some objective normative standard.The philosophical perspectives on the meaning of life are those ideologies that explain life in terms of ideals or abstractions defined by humans.

Plato, a pupil of Socrates, was one of the earliest, most influential philosophers.His reputation comes from his idealism of believing in the existence of universals.His theory of forms proposes that universals do not physically exist, like objects, but as heavenly forms.

In the dialogue of the "Republic", the character of Socrates describes the Form of the Good.His theory on justice in the soul relates to the idea of happiness relevant to the question of the meaning of life.In Platonism, the meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea (Form) of the Good, from which all good and just things derive utility and value.

Aristotle, an apprentice of Plato, was another early and influential philosopher, who argued that ethical knowledge is not "certain" knowledge (such as metaphysics and epistemology), but is "general" knowledge.Because it is not a theoretical discipline, a person had to study and practice in order to become "good"; thus if the person were to become virtuous, he could not simply study what virtue "is", he had to "be" virtuous, via virtuous activities.To do this, Aristotle established what is virtuous

Aristotle's solution is the "Highest Good", which is desirable for its own sake.It is its own goal.The Highest Good is not desirable for the sake of achieving some other good, and all other "goods" desirable for its sake.

This involves achieving "eudaemonia", usually translated as "happiness", "well-being", "flourishing", and "excellence".Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates, first outlined the themes of Cynicism, stating that the purpose of life is living a life of Virtue which agrees with Nature.Happiness depends upon being self-sufficient and master of one's mental attitude; suffering is the consequence of false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a concomitant vicious character.

The Cynical life rejects conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, by being free of the possessions acquired in pursuing the conventional.As reasoning creatures, people could achieve happiness via rigorous training, by living in a way natural to human beings.The world equally belongs to everyone, so suffering is caused by false judgments of what is valuable and what is worthless per the customs and conventions of society.

Aristippus of Cyrene, a pupil of Socrates, founded an early Socratic school that emphasized only one side of Socrates's teachings—that happiness is one of the ends of moral action and that pleasure is the supreme good; thus a hedonistic world view, wherein bodily gratification is more intense than mental pleasure.Cyrenaics prefer immediate gratification to the long-term gain of delayed gratification; denial is unpleasant unhappiness.Epicurus, a pupil of the Platonist Pamphilus of Samos, taught that the greatest good is in seeking modest pleasures, to attain tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia) via knowledge, friendship, and virtuous, temperate living; bodily pain (aponia) is absent through one's knowledge of the workings of the world and of the limits of one's desires.

Combined, freedom from pain and freedom from fear are happiness in its highest form.Epicurus' lauded enjoyment of simple pleasures is quasi-ascetic "abstention" from sex and the appetites

It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish, and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.

"The Epicurean meaning of life rejects immortality and mysticism; there is a soul, but it is as mortal as the body.There is no afterlife, yet, one need not fear death, because "Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us."

Zeno of Citium, a pupil of Crates of Thebes, established the school which teaches that living according to reason and virtue is to be in harmony with the universe's divine order, entailed by one's recognition of the universal "logos", or reason, an essential value of all people.The meaning of life is "freedom from suffering" through "apatheia" (Gr

The Stoic does not seek to extinguish emotions, only to avoid emotional troubles, by developing clear judgment and inner calm through diligently practiced logic, reflection, and concentration.The Stoic ethical foundation is that "good lies in the state of the soul", itself, exemplified in wisdom and self-control, thus improving one's spiritual well-being

The Enlightenment and the colonial era both changed the nature of European philosophy and exported it worldwide.Devotion and subservience to God were largely replaced by notions of inalienable natural rights and the potentialities of reason, and universal ideals of love and compassion gave way to civic notions of freedom, equality, and citizenship.The meaning of life changed as well, focusing less on humankind's relationship to God and more on the relationship between individuals and their society.

This era is filled with theories that equate meaningful existence with the social order.Classical liberalism is a set of ideas that arose in the 17th and 18th centuries, out of conflicts between a growing, wealthy, propertied class and the established aristocratic and religious orders that dominated Europe.Liberalism cast humans as beings with inalienable natural rights (including the right to retain the wealth generated by one's own work), and sought out means to balance rights across society.

Broadly speaking, it considers individual liberty to be the most important goal, because only through ensured liberty are the other inherent rights protected.There are many forms and derivations of liberalism, but their central conceptions of the meaning of life trace back to three main ideas.Early thinkers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith saw humankind beginning in the state of nature, then finding meaning for existence through labor and property, and using social contracts to create an environment that supports those efforts.

Kantianism is a philosophy based on the ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical works of Immanuel Kant.Kant is known for his deontological theory where there is a single moral obligation, the "Categorical Imperative", derived from the concept of duty.Kantians believe all actions are performed in accordance with some underlying maxim or principle, and for actions to be ethical, they must adhere to the categorical imperative.

Simply put, the test is that one must universalize the maxim (imagine that all people acted in this way) and then see if it would still be possible to perform the maxim in the world without contradiction.In "Groundwork", Kant gives the example of a person who seeks to borrow money without intending to pay it back.This is a contradiction because if it were a universal action, no person would lend money anymore as he knows that he will never be paid back.

The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability (and thus contradicts perfect duty).Kant also denied that the consequences of an act in any way contribute to the moral worth of that act, his reasoning being that the physical world is outside one's full control and thus one cannot be held accountable for the events that occur in it.The origins of utilitarianism can be traced back as far as Epicurus, but, as a school of thought, it is credited to Jeremy Bentham, who found that "nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure"; then, from that moral insight, he derived the "Rule of Utility"

He defined the meaning of life as the "greatest happiness principle".Jeremy Bentham's foremost proponent was James Mill, a significant philosopher in his day, and father of John Stuart Mill.The younger Mill was educated per Bentham's principles, including transcribing and summarizing much of his father's work.

Nihilism suggests that life is without objective meaning.Friedrich Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world, and especially human existence, of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, and essential value; succinctly, nihilism is the process of "the devaluing of the highest values".Seeing the nihilist as a natural result of the idea that God is dead, and insisting it was something to overcome, his questioning of the nihilist's life-negating values returned meaning to the Earth.

To Martin Heidegger, nihilism is the movement whereby "being" is forgotten, and is transformed into value, in other words, the reduction of being to exchange value.Heidegger, in accordance with Nietzsche, saw in the so-called "death of God" a potential source for nihilism

Camus writes of value-nihilists such as Meursault, but also of values in a nihilistic world, that people can instead strive to be "heroic nihilists", living with dignity in the face of absurdity, living with "secular saintliness", fraternal solidarity, and rebelling against and transcending the world's indifference.The current era has seen radical changes in both formal and popular conceptions of human nature.The knowledge disclosed by modern science has effectively rewritten the relationship of humankind to the natural world.

Advances in medicine and technology have freed humans from significant limitations and ailments of previous eras; and philosophy—particularly following the linguistic turn—has altered how the relationships people have with themselves and each other are conceived.Questions about the meaning of life have also seen radical changes, from attempts to reevaluate human existence in biological and scientific terms (as in pragmatism and logical positivism) to efforts to meta-theorize about meaning-making as a personal, individual-driven activity (existentialism, secular humanism).Pragmatism originated in the late-19th-century US, concerning itself (mostly) with truth, and positing that "only in struggling with the environment" do data, and derived theories, have meaning, and that "consequences", like utility and practicality, are also components of truth.

Moreover, pragmatism posits that "anything" useful and practical is not always true, arguing that what most contributes to the most human good in the long course is true.In practice, theoretical claims must be "practically verifiable", i.e.one should be able to predict and test claims, and, that, ultimately, the needs of humankind should guide human intellectual inquiry.

Pragmatic philosophers suggest that the practical, useful understanding of life is more important than searching for an impractical abstract truth about life.William James argued that truth could be made, but not sought.To a pragmatist, the meaning of life is discoverable only via experience.

Theists believe God created the universe and that God had a purpose in doing so.Theists also hold the view that humans find their meaning and purpose for life in God's purpose in creating.Theists further hold that if there were no God to give life ultimate meaning, value, and purpose, then life would be absurd.

According to existentialism, each man and each woman creates the essence (meaning) of their life; life is not determined by a supernatural god or an earthly authority, one is free.As such, one's ethical prime directives are "action", "freedom", and "decision", thus, existentialism opposes rationalism and positivism.In seeking meaning to life, the existentialist looks to where people find meaning in life, in course of which using only reason as a source of meaning is insufficient; this gives rise to the emotions of anxiety and dread, felt in considering one's free will, and the concomitant awareness of death.

According to Jean-Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence; the (essence) of one's life arises "only" after one comes to existence.Søren Kierkegaard spoke about a "", arguing that life is full of absurdity, and one must make his and her own values in an indifferent world.One can live meaningfully (free of despair and anxiety) in an unconditional commitment to something finite and devotes that meaningful life to the commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so.

Arthur Schopenhauer answered

For Friedrich Nietzsche, life is worth living only if there are goals inspiring one to live.Accordingly, he saw nihilism ("all that happens is meaningless") as without goals.He stated that asceticism denies one's living in the world; stated that values are not objective facts, that are rationally necessary, universally binding commitments

In absurdist philosophy, the Absurd arises out of the fundamental disharmony between the individual's search for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe.As beings looking for meaning in a meaningless world, humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma.Kierkegaard and Camus describe the solutions in their works, "The Sickness Unto Death" (1849) and "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942)

Human knowledge comes from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis (the scientific method), and not from supernatural sources; the nature of the universe is what people discern it to be.Likewise, "values and realities" are determined "by means of intelligent inquiry" and "are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience", that is, by critical intelligence.

"As far as we know, the total personality is [a function] of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context."

People determine human purpose without supernatural influence; it is the human personality (general sense) that is the purpose of a human being's life.Humanism seeks to develop and fulfill

It is based on the premises that the happiness of the individual person is inextricably linked to the well-being of all humanity, in part because humans are social animals who find meaning in personal relations and because cultural progress benefits everybody living in the culture.The philosophical subgenres posthumanism and transhumanism (sometimes used synonymously) are extensions of humanistic values.One should seek the advancement of humanity and of all life to the greatest degree feasible and seek to reconcile Renaissance humanism with the 21st century's technoscientific culture.

In this light, every living creature has the right to determine its personal and social "meaning of life".From a humanism-psychotherapeutic point of view, the question of the meaning of life could be reinterpreted as "What is the meaning of "my" life?

"This approach emphasizes that the question is personal—and avoids focusing on cosmic or religious questions about overarching purpose.

There are many therapeutic responses to this question.For example, Viktor Frankl argues for "Dereflection", which translates largely as cease endlessly reflecting on the self; instead, engage in life.On the whole, the therapeutic response is that the question itself—what is the meaning of life?—evaporates when one is fully engaged in life.

(The question then morphs into more specific worries such as "What delusions am I under?

"; "What is blocking my ability to enjoy things?

"; "Why do I neglect loved-ones?".)

"See also

Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists said

Bertrand Russell wrote that although he found that his distaste for torture was not like his distaste for broccoli, he found no satisfactory, empirical method of proving this

In a scientific question, evidence can be adduced on both sides, and, in the end, one side is seen to have the better case—or, if this does not happen, the question is left undecided.But in a question, as to whether this, or that, is the ultimate Good, there is no evidence, either way; each disputant can only appeal to his own emotions, and employ such rhetorical devices as shall arouse similar emotions in others ...Questions as to "values"—that is to say, as to what is good or bad on its own account, independently of its effects—lie outside the domain of science, as the defenders of religion emphatically assert.

I think that, in this, they are right, but, I draw the further conclusion, which they do not draw, that questions as to "values" lie wholly outside the domain of knowledge.That is to say, when we assert that this, or that, has "value", we are giving expression to our own emotions, not to a fact, which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.Postmodernist thought—broadly speaking—sees human nature as constructed by language, or by structures and institutions of human society.

Unlike other forms of philosophy, postmodernism rarely seeks out "a priori" or innate meanings in human existence, but instead focuses on analyzing or critiquing "given" meanings in order to rationalize or reconstruct them.Anything resembling a "meaning of life", in postmodernist terms, can only be understood within a social and linguistic framework and must be pursued as an escape from the power structures that are already embedded in all forms of speech and interaction.As a rule, postmodernists see awareness of the constraints of language as necessary to escaping those constraints, but different theorists take different views on the nature of this process

According to naturalistic pantheism, the meaning of life is to care for and look after nature and the environment.Embodied cognition uses the neurological basis of emotion, speech, and cognition to understand the nature of thought.Cognitive neuropsychology has identified brain areas necessary for these abilities, and genetic studies show that the gene FOXP2 affects neuroplasticity which underlies language fluency.

George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive linguistics and philosophy, advances the view that metaphors are the usual basis of meaning, not the logic of verbal symbol manipulation.Computers use logic programming to effectively query databases but humans rely on a trained biological neural network.Postmodern philosophies that use the indeterminacy of symbolic language to deny definite meaning ignore those who feel they know what they mean and feel that their interlocutors know what they mean.

Choosing the correct metaphor results in enough common understanding to pursue questions such as the meaning of life.Improved knowledge of brain function should result in better treatments producing healthier brains.When combined with more effective training, a sound personal assessment as to the meaning of one's life should be straightforward.

The Mohist philosophers believed that the purpose of life was universal, impartial love.Mohism promoted a philosophy of impartial caring—a person should care equally for all other individuals, regardless of their actual relationship to him or her.The expression of this indiscriminate caring is what makes a man a righteous being in Mohist thought.