Using meaning defined as the thing one intends to convey or the thing that is conveyed, to find the meaning of life you have to hear it out first. You can’t catch the meaning of a sentence until you’ve read it. Its reasonable to assume you wont figure out the meaning of life (at least its full meaning) until its over. Havent gotten to the end yet myself but im betting on 42.
An excellent first post, SpittingLettuce! Welcome to Straight Dope.
Just a coupla questions SpittingLettuce.
“The thing one intends to convey” seems to require an intentional conveyor.
“The thing that is conveyed” somewhat more ambiguous. I would argue that unintended “messages” are perceived rather than conveyed.
And figuring anything out after one’s life is complete would require continuing sentience.
Deny - or even seriously question the existence of - God/gods and an afterlife, and your statement becomes about as meaningful as something my dog might bark. While it might sound a little more pleasant, it’s not really more informative. In fact, it might not even let me know you need to be let out into the back yard! 
Welcome to the boards.
The enitire point of life is to live, enjoy whats there and do your own thing while not conflicting with others. Its very simple. Try and stay healthy and dont stress out over things you cant control. I feel to many people want a great ethereal meaning or purpose and really overcomplicate thier lives trying to figure out why they exsist. It brings struggle and strife. The closest definition I can come to about my view of the meaning of life is this: Enjoy it and dont hurt anybody.
The enitire point of life is to live, enjoy whats there and do your own thing while not conflicting with others. Its very simple. Try and stay healthy and dont stress out over things you cant control. I feel toomany people want a great ethereal meaning or purpose and really overcomplicate thier lives trying to figure out why they exsist. It brings struggle and strife. The closest definition I can come to about my view of the meaning of life is this: Enjoy it and dont hurt anybody.
Enjoy it and dont hurt anybody.
I’ll drink to that!
Dinsdale wrote:
Consciousness. Not necessarily sentience.
Actually, outright denying God’s existence a priori is a substantive denial of a positive ontological proposition, and is therefore a logical fallacy.
In other words, to assert that it is not possible that God exists, you must assert as well that your statement is meaningless since the term “God”, avered as representing something nonexistent, is nonsensical.
Perhaps the point of life is to figure out the point of life.
(there’s more than one way to read that)
I don’t suppose we’re going to see anything close to agreement on this one; I have an idea what my purpose is, but this is GD, not IMHO; I’ll enjoy watching the debate.
If existence is a first-order property.
…that was @ Libertarian.
Good point, Eris. Thanks.
Perhaps I’d be better off if I stuck to communicating with my dog! You sure you didn’t make up them big words son?
Sorry, but I fear I lack the vocab to engage you (and eris) on these grounds.
Would it work better if I said reject instead of deny? And is the problem as real for seriously question as for deny?
And why is it nonsensical to state that something nonexistent does not exist? Maybe tautological. Maybe circular. But nonsensical?
Like I said, this manner of debate is not one in which I have any skill or experience.
Does this mean I can’t finish off the beer I hoisted in OfBlinkingThings’s honor?
In order to address the question do you think your life has meaning? you have to assume there is a conveyor. Without a conveyor of a message there is no meaning The “thing one intends to convey” is a dictionary definition of the word meaning. Denying the existence of that conveyor does not make the answer meaningless it make the question meaningless.
“A”, not “the sole” def. Can also mean “significant quality.”
And convey can mean “to impart … by appearance.”
The question of whether I think my life has meaning, strikes me as different than whether - in the abstract - all life, or human life, or the uniiverse and all it contains, has meaning.
I could imagine someone suggesting the “meaning of life” or “life acquires meaning” through something such as self maximization.
But, if the question necessarily presupposes the existence of a supernatural being/force, then I have nothing to add here.
I consider the question “why are we here” to be analogous to the questions “why is that joke funny” or “why is the sunset beautiful” – you don’t need to know why you’re alive in order to have a meaningful life any more than you need to know why a joke is funny in order to laugh at it.
I know jokes are funny because I laugh at them. I do not know life is meaningful because I live it, any more than I would know it has a point because it ends.
I still don’t see how that’s scary. How is NOT having to fulfill a purpose more scary than HAVING to fulfill a purpose?
“Is that joke funny” is an informative question, as is “is your life meaningful.” It’s the “why” part that I don’t consider to be very helpful.
I would consider it to be helpful, in the case of a meaningful life, if it could be answered. I don’t even know that the answer to, “Is life meaningful?” is “Yes.” I can answer the latter question about jokes easily enough: I laugh. But I can live without meaning (presumably).
Is there an ultimate meaning to life? I say yes. The meaning of life is - to live. Any more meaning than that is unique to each individual.