Even since I graduated, I have been becoming increasing troubled by a question. I've become consumed to finding the answer to it. I think about it every time and I find it very difficult to be happy knowing that I do not have the answer to the question. The question is: "What is the meaning of life?"
It's a classic question asked by everyone. At first, this seem unanswerable. Then, as you think about it, answers start to appear. At first I was happy. I had an answer. But over time, more and more answers appeared. The more answers I have, the further I am from answering the question. Each subsequent answer seems as good as any of the previous answers. And thus I am becoming more and more confused and I start realizing how difficult - and simple - this question truly is.
The first answer to this question, and the one that is most supported by science - is based on evolution. I am not saying that this is the right answer. In fact, I think this is the worst answer. It is an answer that makes us lose hope and makes life a meaningless exercise of desperation that is the result of chance and the whims of the universe. But it is the most logical answer. Logic and science - being the only organized system in which correct predictions of the future can be made consistently - cannot be discounted. Because of its predictive behaviour, this is the only system we can currently rely on to give us answers to questions.
The simple answer based on science and evolution is: "To reproduce." "To reproduce" is really an oversimplification of the answer. If you follow the line of logic back even more, the answer becomes "The meaning of life is to be," or "The meaning of life is meaningless," or "There is no meaning to life." But of course, this is an answer that deserves an explanation since it can be interpreted in many different ways. Here is a summary of that explanation:
The meaning of life is to reproduce, since if we did not do so, there would be no life. We have the ability to reproduce because of evolution. But it is because we can reproduce that there is evolution. The combination of the two is due to the rules of this universe that allows for certain chemicals to combine, and certain molecules to act together to create a system that is able to reproduce and carry out evolution. Life developed over billions of years due to a coincidence in the rules of this universe. If we are the product of chance which has produced organisms that are intent on reproducing, then there really is no point to reproducing because everything is just a coincidence anyway. We only have the desire to reproduce and for the human race, and life in general, to continue because of a series of coincidences and the process of evolution - survival of the systems that can self-propagate the best. If this is the case, there is no meaning of life, and what we might attribute to be the meaning of life is actually meaningless, since it is only due to a series of coincidences that resulted in us thinking that the meaning of life is meaningful. So depending on how you see the situation, the meaning of life can be "meaningless" - since life is a product of coincidence anyway, "to be" - since that is the way the universe intends it to be, or "to reproduce" - since without reproduction, there would be no life.
Well, I'm sure that by now you either think that I make no sense at all, that I'm crazy, or some combination of the two. But think about it. It took me a while to understand this answer even a little bit. I'll probably elaborate on specific parts of this answer in more detail in the future, and of course, we'll move to some more up-beat answers to the question of what the meaning of life is!
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Hey Mark,
I'd like to add a bit to your existentialist inquiry. I have a similar point of view on the matter as you, I think, in that evolution and the rational description of the universe essentially voids all arguments that there is a supernatural God and afterlife. Nonetheless, I don't believe that this leads to nihilism, necessarily. Here's the present state of my beliefs/reasoning.
It's the oldest, most complex, most frustrating question: the meaning of life. I started thinking about it in HS after becoming very disillusioned regarding religion. I was raised catholic, but when I began asking questions and thinking about the definition of God, I became uneasy and dissatisfied with the answers all religion, not just catholicism/christianity, gave. Learning about evolution was like a eureka moment; everything just fell into place. Evolution and the rationalism on which it was based was a brilliant guiding light out of the autocratic, self-serving, ambiguous jungle of religion. But alas, God was dead. For years, this distressed me a great deal: the idea of no afterlife, no caring watchful entity, no ultimate justice. These were dark times and I began to slip into depression in college as a result of these ideas, among other things.
I often wondered why religious people could be so deluded in the face of rationalism. I knew that it was probably because religion lent them some comfort and stability to their minds. But I grew to realize that to many, it didn't even matter that religion was so thinly-stretched an argument and made no sense and had nothing backing it up than medieval tradition and a dubious 2000 year-old book. They had faith that what they believed was TRUE. And that faith absolutely defined their universe.
So, one day I realized that the greatest freedom one can ever experience is to choose one's beliefs. Our faith... not necessarily our religious faith, but simply our faith in logic, in the things we experience, in whatever it is we believe.... is what defines us and the way we perceive the world... including its meaning. Simply, I realized that life could have meaning simply because we believed it did. In my eyes, there was no need for an external logical construction of meaning. Our perspective defines our universe. And since it is the universe we observe that ultimately matters to us, it doesn't really matter what anyone else believes... or even what is really True, since we see and shape our world through our faith. We find an analogy in quantum physics, where an observation will define the state of the system. I realized later that this was called relativism in philosophy and led down a slippery slope in terms of reasoning. But this didn't matter much to me, since i believed I had discovered something I could be at peace with; the idea that the meaning of my life depended on me.
So I began to think seriously about what I believed. And I built on that by thinking about how my beliefs shaped my daily behavior and whether or not some behaviors correlated with those beliefs. Some, of course, didn't; but I aimed to strive to correct them. In essence, I began to live by my own moral code, which I felt was more reasonable than many religious ones. Religion to me became an excuse the rest of the world used to avoid solving real problems in society and even in our daily lives.
I replaced adoration of God with an adoration for the complexity and beauty of the rational universe. I replaced ultimate justice with the idea that ultimately our behavior is what shapes the experiences of our lives (criminals go to jail, good people live fulfilling lives, luck treats everyone the same... on average). I replaced the idea of an afterlife with the following thoughts: 1. "how boring would eternity be, anyway? even blissful eternity gets old!" 2. "all stories must have an ending; wouldn't life be disappointing if it went on forever?" 3. "shit, i have only one life: i better make the most of this one. carpe diem." (this thought reinforced the idea that religions just offered people too convenient an excuse to ignore the problems of the current world by focusing on achieving the next one). and finally, just in case: 4. "all the really interesting people are in hell, anyway"
I still long for some of the comforts of religious thought, but I am more comfortable with the idea that we are ultimately in charge of our own fate, our own happiness/misery, and our own beliefs.
Perhaps this is unsatisfying and comes across as too egotistical and too skirting of a rigorous logical argument. Frankly, I don't think anyone short of God could ever mount a rational argument for meaning in life. It's just too relative! Everyone defines "meaning" for themselves! Purpose? Same thing. So what if all Life does is reproduce? It's as good an end as any: to go on, to be, to experience, to live and then die. There's beauty in that, if not necessarily much reason. Also remember that rationalism (science) can explain "how", but it can never explain "why".
I don't know if that helped. I found that existentialist questions (in my case) more often than not lead to nihilism when one wanted them to. Clinical depression often underlies such thoughts (as it did with me), and I encourage anyone that feels they need to inject meaning into their lives by searching for it in abstract philosophy to first find it in the form of friends, family, and satisfying work (and if need be through clinical help, a good therapist, and some lifestyle changes). More often than not, if one's life is full of close friends, spouses, family, satisfying work, and a positive attitude... well, meaning just seems to manifest itself without the need for philosophy.
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