Aside from 42, there is no "meaning" of life. The "purpose" of life is to keep the species intact; this means having offspring and staying alive until they are self-sufficient so they can keep the species going. This is true for all lifeforms, but some do not have to stay alive to insure the self-sufficiency.

Any meaning or other purposes of human life are besides the point, intended to make us feel better while we wait to die.

The answer is 42... Douglas Adams defined this in his books. 42 is ascii code and 42 stands for the * which is short for whatever you want it to mean....

If you don't include all the other animals in an answer to "what is life" then you're not paying attention. We are animals, mammals and just because we believe we are more intelligent, schooled, or whatever our arrogance happens to be, life for us has the same meaning as life for a mosquito, dog, rat, cat whatever.

What if the human race turns out to be cosmic planetary decomposition organisms which either jumps from planet to planet or develops organically throughout the universe? Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

I got all my answer to the Meaning of Life from Monty Python..

One can simply say that the purpose to life is to breed and multiple. It just happens that some animals find it more enjoyable to do other things along the way. Lots of animals play, some are curious, and a few seem to find pleasure in just being. Humans have a complex brain that is highly creative - we seem to think having that means more to life.

The notion that there is a Universal meaning to life is absurd.

There is no "meaning" of life. It just is.

There is no meaning of life except for what you yourself designate as meaningful.

Your born to live and you live to die.

This is the meaning of life, you're born, you grow, you try to make and leave this world better than you received it, you try to enjoy life and then you die. Simple but true.

Very good. Here for what they are worth, ( Not much.) are my views, which all end in a joke.

When we realize that there are no big, god given, purposes in life, demanding our obedience. And the many completely contradictory purposes, offered by the many different religions, prove that to be so. Then we can easily see, that wanting any big purpose at all, is merely a vanity and narcissism. The failings which are the weakness that all religion feed off. For if you build up the vanities of people, then they will, obey you, pay you, and praise you, for as long as you keep flattering and confirming those vanities, over and over again.

Yet atheists often say in reply to the theist's question. “What is the purpose of life, if there is no god ?” That, by being none religious, we are free to choose our own purposes. Though admittedly they must by definition be small personal ones, for a transcendent purpose is just another god, meaning that in the deepest sense, atheism, agnosticism and deism are inevitably, by their nature, mainly philosophies of humility.

Yet here for fun is the irony. Suppose for one second, hypothetically, for arguments sake, that there is a creator, an intelligence behind the universe, though one who has not revealed any purpose to us yet, perhaps a deist creator at most. Then what can we discern, if anything, is most likely to be pleasing to it, if pleasing it has any value at all ? Well after the usual if doubtful, givens, such as, be kind, the only thing I think that seems likely, is that we should appreciate its creation as much as possible, down to the smallest detail. Valuing and treasuring all that we are given. And what are we doing when we create our own small purposes, whether, we climb mountains, garden, paint pictures, entertain our pets, make a coffee for a friend or help in a charity shop, if not appreciating that creation, or nature, down to the smallest detail, and valuing it enough to care for it ? Practical environmentalism. Perhaps therefore being an atheist could after all, be the most pleasing of all things to the hypothetical creator.

Now forget the hypothetical creator, since it has now done its job, and what are you left with ? That the small things are the biggest things there are, because they demand the greatest appreciation of you, and it is when you turn your back on the idea of great purpose that you come nearest to your greatest purpose. And when you forget god that you are most likely to please god. So you see that in the end, my deepest thoughts lead to an ironic joke. Nice joke perhaps ? Yes, but I was also never more serious.

And is this my original philosophy ? No, I don't think so, for at the very least the Greek philosopher Epicurus more than twenty centuries ago wrote. “Bring me a pot of cheese and I will feast.” And. “Don't over think it.”

The question is invariably wrong. Life should be written and understood in it's real context to include all life not just one, arrogant species. The meaning of LIFE is to evolve and individual humans evolve through knowledge and learning. Once one scrapes away all the hubris the answer becomes clear.

Meaning of life. What ever works.

For me, simplified, simplified and simplified by mean of work and love. Work is love made visible.

Meaning is something that we as human beings attribute to life and not something that life inherently possesses. Life existed on earth long before the appearance of human beings and I daresay it would continue without us.

As for Aristotle he said that women have more teeth than men but it never occurred to him to look into his wife’s mouth to verify whether or not such statement was true.

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced." Soren Kierkegaard. He is considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.

Voltaire: “Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.”

The excessive analysis of Antione in Sarte's La Nausea ends up in a philosophical cul-de-sac in his search for meaning.

Albert Camus considered life to be absurd and preferred life despite it's absurdity until his tragic death in 1960 in a car accident.

Philosophy is just someone's opinion.
It really doesn't mean anything.
Life has whatever meaning I decide it does. Only applicable to me.
I detest the whole "purpose-driven life" thing. I think it's absurd for anyone to insist that our lives must have meaning or purpose.