Meaning of Life – Your Step By Step Guide – ArtChester.net

Meaning of Life – Your Step By Step Guide

The Best of Science, Ethics & Philosophy, With Some Warnings Thrown In

Meaning of Life - starry night

Meaning of Life: A practical guide for how to find the meaning of life, employing science, ethics, philosophy & religion. We consider immortality thru faith, legacy & memory, and also offer some warnings!

This is the Meaning of Life Cornerstone or Hub Page. It’s a step-by-step guide to a meaningful life, with links to supporting ArtChester.net posts on how to find the Meaning of Life.

Here are tools to help you establish the only Meaning of Life that counts. That’s the one that uniquely fits you. The one that explains why you are here, where you are going and how to enjoy every moment along the way.

How do you find the meaning of life principles that suit you? Here’s how:

1. Learn to ignore the sales pitches that bombard you every day. (see Section I)

2. Understand the most important tool you are equipped with: your brain. (see Section II)

3. Reach out and strengthen relationships with the people in your life. (see Section III)

4. Need ideas? Consider answers proposed by faith, science and philosophy. Many of these value immortality as a major meaning of life. (see Section IV)

5. Test the result against your personal ethics and values. (see Section V)

What This Blog is Not:

This blog is not a one-size-fits-all recipe to construct a meaning of life philosophy. Rather, it provides steps that may help you find your own meaning of life basis. At each step I reference articles from ArtChester.net that are directly or indirectly relevant.

Meaning of Life - warnings & cautions

I. Warnings & Cautions

We are bombarded with information all day. Therefore, we are usually on guard when we see product advertising. However, even when there’s no visible product, someone sent us those images and appeals for a reason. And the information they provide may be exaggerated or simply untrue.

The following articles discuss ways that data can deceive or mislead us. They can encourage us to have a healthy caution about what we see and hear. However, it would be foolish to jump to the extreme and become skeptical of everything. That would cut us off from the richness life around us. In addition, skepticism also predisposes people to embrace false and distracting conspiracy theories.

The most productive path is a middle ground. We want to strive to find the real truth in what we see and hear. The articles below help give a foundation of reality on which to construct our meaning of life principles.

– Brand Charisma: Offers We Can’t Refuse

– Drug Ads & Food Labels: Don’t Be Suckered”

– Medical Skeptic Warns Us: Don’t Believe It!

– “Tells” in the Poker Game of Life

Meaning of Life - how the brain works

II. How the Brain Works

The most important tool for finding our meaning of life basis is our brain. This amazing organ gives us selfhood. That is, the awareness of being ourselves, regardless of our circumstances and of our genetic heritage.

Also, however, it’s important to understand what the brain can do and its limitations. These articles touch upon the habits that evolved with our prehistoric ancestors, and how our brain uses memory and sleep. And to keep us from being too conceited about our humanity, there’s also an article about the amazing feats that even “bird brains” carry out.

– Human Nature 1: Lazy Teens, Wakeful Seniors

– Memory – Four Crazy Things We Get Wrong

– Why do we sleep? And what is sleep, anyway?

– Smart Birds Make Vitamins, Sculpt Tools

Meaning of Life - how we treat others

III. How We Treat Others

The primitive world was a remarkably dangerous place. As a result, we would not be here today if our ancestors had not cooperated to fend off outside threats. Relationships with other people were fundamental to our humanness and became built into our psyches. For those reasons, our own meaning of life ethics are incomplete if they do not account for, and gain from, those near to us.

The following articles touch on ways that we interact with others, for good or ill. Several include tools for fending off hostility, both individual and social. In addition, other articles show that harmful behavior today may replicate habits from long ago, even though the reasons for the behavior no longer exist. Furthermore, this is a science blog, so the last two of these articles discuss the way scientists are both perpetrators and victims of social blunders.

– Ethics Research & Vampire Destroyers

– Gaze Tracking: Yes, he IS looking at your chest

– Human Nature 2: Sexual Harassment

– Personal Preference: Lust, Avarice and Schadenfreude

– Popular Culture, Media and the Scientist

– Science of Women Scientists, plus Big Bang Theory

Meaning of Life - wise old man

IV. The Meaning of Life

At this point, we have shut out much of the useless noise that distracts us from our own meaning of life principles. And we have come to terms with our mental capacity and our relationships with others. We now understand our personal priorities and goals, which together will provide much of the meaning of life dreams and understanding we are seeking.

It is helpful to see what others have thought and felt about life, and about death. You already know people whose opinions you value, whether or not they are personal acquaintances. Consider their actions, which may be wiser and more authentic than their words. Also, how are those people spending, or how did they spend, their lives? What effect did they have on others and the world around them?

The following articles provide perspective on how others have dealt with their own meaning of life faith or philosophy. A recurring theme when discussing the meaning of life is whether we can in some sense live forever. For that reason, these articles spend some time on immortality in its various forms. These forms may include dreams, legacy, memory, science, technology and even doggerel and jokes.

– End-of-Life Dreams: A Comforting Gateway

– Invisible Body or Out Of Body – You Choose

– Meaning of Life and Immortality Through Technology

– Immortality, Doggerel & Bill Gould

Does Immortality sound like too much of a good thing? Then perhaps you’d settle for simply a long healthy life:

– Radical New Approaches to Long Life

V. Finding the Meaning of Life for Yourself

When you reach this step, you may feel that your insights about the meaning of life are complete. Nevertheless, it’s still valuable to double-check them against your personal ethics and values.

The following articles discuss ethics and values. They appear here because they touch upon intensely personal issues: social conscience; selfhood; sanity and dementia; and life and death.

– Nerds, Empathy and Social Conscience

– Suicide, Personal Freedom & Values

– Self, Dementia & Sanity

I hope you have found this discussion useful in constructing and in reflecting on your own Meaning of Life philosophy. I welcome your comments and suggestions to improve and extend these ideas (send me a note on the Contact page). To see more great blogs, sign up here:

 

Drawing Credits: From openclipart.org: Starry Night by Magnesus; Wise Old Man New by j4P4n; Fish Kissing by Pulliver; adaptation of Silhouette of a Brain by laobc; Miss Kool by GDJ; Magnifier, Search, Zoom by Diamonjohn

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