It’s intrinsic to that creature, eat, survive reproduce though they don’t know that’s their meaning. Same applies to human beings, but we want more or specifics to which the computer replies: 42

I’d imagine if I was an African man struggling to eat this would be the last question on my mind. It’s the spoilt westerners that have this sort of nihilistic outlook about life. Life’s too easy or comfortable is why this question gets asked — simplyG

You don’t have to travel that far. Being a habitat journeyman from a lower tier Stockholm suburb one to an academical one will see that meaning question multiplied. Where I grew up we just lived on without too many questions asked. No meanings of life, no wants to do with our lives. We also became, imho, not less valuable for mankind, doing what we do best to put milk on tables, and to get some comfortability.

I’d imagine if I was an African man struggling to eat this would be the last question on my mind. It’s the spoilt westerners that have this sort of nihilistic outlook about life. Life’s too easy or comfortable is why this question gets asked. — simplyG

The starving man might think, "This is it? This is life? Pain and misery? Life is meaningless." He might think that, because he can. No other animal can. To our knowledge, nothing else in the universe thinks, searches, contemplates, wonders. I can’t fault anyone for wanting to go to the Zen route, and do less of those things. But neither can I fault anyone for doing the thing that is uniquely ours, the thing that defines us more surely than anything else.

Same applies to human beings, but we want more or specifics to which the computer replies: 42 — simplyG

Right. So, we ask: "What does it mean?" and somebody - anybody at all - replies "Love" or "King and country" or "42" or "MAGA", and we put that on a flag and march together. 'Cose we're so much smarter than the average lemming.

I said in my heart with regard to the sons of men that God is testing them to show them that they are but beasts. For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again...

All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains for ever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south,
and goes round to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already,
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to happen
among those who come after.


I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be numbered.

I said to myself, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Amen!