The meaning of life
What is the meaning of life? That's been a question pondered by philosophers, theologians, and laymen for ages. The answers, it seems, are many. Some of the more popular responses are:
You could call me a moral relativist, though not in the sense most MR critics think of it in. But it's not the reason I don't believe in any universal or pre-ordained meaning, at least not entirely.
I suppose if you look at life from a strictly genetic viewpoint, a strong case could be made that the meaning and purpose of life is simply replication. Our bodies are no more than vessels for the genetic coding contained within. Indeed, in much of the animal kingdom (and in humans up until the invention of medicine) there are not many physical adaptations for living significantly longer than the time needed to reproduce and successfully raise young. (There are exceptions, of course, but they are mostly that--exceptions.)
But even those of us who don't believe in gods would argue that we are more than the sum of our genetic material. Sentience and self-awareness may have arisen as a survival technique, but through evolutionary pressures or sheer accident (or Design, if you're of that thinking) it has blossomed into something much more, especially in humans. As clever, tool-using creatures we've become so successful as a species that we now have the luxury of devoting a significant portion of our time and energy into efforts that have nothing to do with survival or reproduction. Blogging, for instance. :-) What we choose to do with this surplus of ability, is up to us.
Even for theists (at least those not of a Calvinistic persuasion), the idea of self-determination and self-invented purpose should follow, at least roughly, from the concept of a god who created humans with free will. Free will, and sentience itself, would only detract from being able to use us as part of some Divine Plan. For a car engine to run smoothly, all its component parts need to perform as intended. If a spark plug decides it would rather study opera or an intake manifold is more interested in starting a business, your car isn't going to run very long, if at all.
Some theists may respond that we have a choice as to whether to accept god/religion or not, but this is not the same as being able to say, "there is a universal plan and this is what it is." Indeed even among people who believe in preordination or a universal plan, there is little agreement as to just what that would be. Seems to me if god wanted our lives to have some meaning external to any meaning we may create for ourselves, he should have been a lot less ambiguous about it. Or better yet, just not have free will in humans at all. Perhaps if there was a god though, he might just realize that our lives can only have meaning with free will, i.e. with the ability to create that meaning for ourselves.
One argument used in favor of a "divine plan" or some other external meaning to life, is that without it, life would have no meaning, and thus no value. This assertion simply denies any possibility that humans can create meaning and purpose for themselves. I would respond that without any ability to create meaning for our own lives, this is when our lives really don't have much value. Whether your life's meaning is "assigned" to you by some greater authority (a god or dictatorial gov't), or simply has no meaning at all, how can it have value to you? For our lives to mean something and have value, we have to create it ourselves.
This is also why I place so much value on personal freedoms. When we live unfree lives, we lose the ability of self-determination, the ability to create meaning for, and value in, our lives. Loss of freedom is a loss in the value of life. When the purpose of our lives is not our own, then neither is the value of our lives; we are reduced to interchangeable cogs in someone else's purpose.
For another blog perspective on meaning and purpose in our lives, check this out.
- To serve others
- To serve god
- To live a good life
- To live a meaningful life
- To create a legacy for yourself, either through offspring or your accomplishments
- 42 (Trivia fact: 42 is also the ASCII code for the asterisk [*], which in computer jargon is aka the wildcard character, meaning it can represent anything and everything.)
- There is no "universal" meaning of life, it's something we each have to create for ourselves
You could call me a moral relativist, though not in the sense most MR critics think of it in. But it's not the reason I don't believe in any universal or pre-ordained meaning, at least not entirely.
I suppose if you look at life from a strictly genetic viewpoint, a strong case could be made that the meaning and purpose of life is simply replication. Our bodies are no more than vessels for the genetic coding contained within. Indeed, in much of the animal kingdom (and in humans up until the invention of medicine) there are not many physical adaptations for living significantly longer than the time needed to reproduce and successfully raise young. (There are exceptions, of course, but they are mostly that--exceptions.)
But even those of us who don't believe in gods would argue that we are more than the sum of our genetic material. Sentience and self-awareness may have arisen as a survival technique, but through evolutionary pressures or sheer accident (or Design, if you're of that thinking) it has blossomed into something much more, especially in humans. As clever, tool-using creatures we've become so successful as a species that we now have the luxury of devoting a significant portion of our time and energy into efforts that have nothing to do with survival or reproduction. Blogging, for instance. :-) What we choose to do with this surplus of ability, is up to us.
Even for theists (at least those not of a Calvinistic persuasion), the idea of self-determination and self-invented purpose should follow, at least roughly, from the concept of a god who created humans with free will. Free will, and sentience itself, would only detract from being able to use us as part of some Divine Plan. For a car engine to run smoothly, all its component parts need to perform as intended. If a spark plug decides it would rather study opera or an intake manifold is more interested in starting a business, your car isn't going to run very long, if at all.
Some theists may respond that we have a choice as to whether to accept god/religion or not, but this is not the same as being able to say, "there is a universal plan and this is what it is." Indeed even among people who believe in preordination or a universal plan, there is little agreement as to just what that would be. Seems to me if god wanted our lives to have some meaning external to any meaning we may create for ourselves, he should have been a lot less ambiguous about it. Or better yet, just not have free will in humans at all. Perhaps if there was a god though, he might just realize that our lives can only have meaning with free will, i.e. with the ability to create that meaning for ourselves.
One argument used in favor of a "divine plan" or some other external meaning to life, is that without it, life would have no meaning, and thus no value. This assertion simply denies any possibility that humans can create meaning and purpose for themselves. I would respond that without any ability to create meaning for our own lives, this is when our lives really don't have much value. Whether your life's meaning is "assigned" to you by some greater authority (a god or dictatorial gov't), or simply has no meaning at all, how can it have value to you? For our lives to mean something and have value, we have to create it ourselves.
This is also why I place so much value on personal freedoms. When we live unfree lives, we lose the ability of self-determination, the ability to create meaning for, and value in, our lives. Loss of freedom is a loss in the value of life. When the purpose of our lives is not our own, then neither is the value of our lives; we are reduced to interchangeable cogs in someone else's purpose.
For another blog perspective on meaning and purpose in our lives, check this out.
posted by Unknown at
4/14/2006 12:37:00 PM
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