A
few days ago, a reader sent me an email and asked, “as a fellow
atheist, I've been struggling with a super cheesy but important
question: what is the meaning of life?”
This
is possibly one of the most difficult questions that has been posed
by humanity since we have been capable of thought; and people are
still seeking answers to this question. By tackling this question, I
am in no way saying that I have the definitive answer to that
question that will end the debate once and for all. My answer is
mine alone.
However,
before I begin, I have to state that I am, indeed, an atheist.
Therefore, the answer that I am about to give will not deal with the
supernatural or anything else that cannot be scientifically verified.
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As
such, I am not entirely sure if the question itself is appropriately
phrased. Concepts, the basic ideas that people carry in our minds,
can have meaning precisely because we give them meaning. The fact of
the matter is that existence exists. What that means is that even if
humans were to become extinct some day, and there was no more
sentient/teleological/intelligent beings left on the planet, it will
not change the fact that existence will still continue to exist.
Matter, though changeable, is indestructible; but life, and
subsequently thought, is fragile and always caught on the precipice
between existence and non-existence.
Whereas
concepts can have meanings, I do not think that it is possible for
non-concepts, such as life, to possibly have any objective meaning.
For instance, can a rock have any meaning? A rock is a rock. True,
people can mold a rock into something useful but that is a different
thing entirely. To change a rock into a tool or an ornament that
people value is the process of our minds being able to conceptualize
and taking the necessary actions that are needed in order to
transform the rock into something else that is useful to us.
However, that does not change the fact that until an intelligent
being comes along to change a rock into something else of value to
the intelligent being, a rock is nothing more than just a rock.
Therefore,
the only answer that I have to the question, “what is the meaning
of life,” is this – “Life can have no meaning. It simply is.”
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Of
course, I am being very literal with the word “meaning.” I have
to be. As I said, I am an atheist. I do not believe that some kind
of supernatural being invented life. If it could be objectively
proven that life were an invention that was created by some kind of
mystical entity, then I could apply the word “meaning” in a more
non-literal way and say, “The meaning of life is love” or some
such nonsense. However, I cannot and will not do that.
So,
I never liked the way the question is phrased. Logically, there can
be no answer; at least none that is satisfying. Therefore, in order
to have a meatier answer than “it just is,” it is necessary to
change the question. I prefer to ask “What is the purpose of
life?”
Once
asked that way, then the question can be answered with a bit more
thought. And my answer to that question is this: “The purpose of
life is simply to live.”
However,
that answer breeds more questions. Firstly, what then does “to
live” mean? Secondly, what is the point of it all? After all, the
fact of the matter is that all living organisms inevitably die. It is
the ultimate change in condition. To live is complex. There are
innumerable things that a person has to do in order to maintain and
improve one’s life. Death, on the other hand, is that permanent
state of being where one simply ceases to live. With that ultimate
goal hanging over all of our heads, what then is the point of it all?
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Wondering
what the point of life is when we will all inevitably die, however,
lies the assumption that, like death, life is a condition – a state
of being. Though it is certainly true that life is, indeed, a state
of being, it is an answer that has never satisfied me. That is
because life is more than just a state of being. Life is also a
process; a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action.
The
important word here is “process.”
Life
is not merely a state of being people achieve (by pure accident) and
simply maintain until the day we meet the proverbial Boatman, but the
process of reaching it. Life is action. It’s the things we do.
It’s the process of accomplishing goals, not just the end results
of the goals. It is the things that we do and accomplish.
For example, everyone needs money. However, none of us, with perhaps the exception of the genuine miser, makes money simply for the sake of making money. We make money in order to be able to better afford the things that we need and want to live comfortably. And living comfortably may be the end goal, but it’s the process of producing goods and services that we wish to buy and sell, the act of loving and being loved, that I would call life. Life is not simply the ends. Contrary to what Machiavellians might think, the means matter.
For example, everyone needs money. However, none of us, with perhaps the exception of the genuine miser, makes money simply for the sake of making money. We make money in order to be able to better afford the things that we need and want to live comfortably. And living comfortably may be the end goal, but it’s the process of producing goods and services that we wish to buy and sell, the act of loving and being loved, that I would call life. Life is not simply the ends. Contrary to what Machiavellians might think, the means matter.
So,
for example, if we are talking about money, it matters a great deal
how we make the money we made. Did we earn it? Or did we steal it?
Or did we come across it simply by sheer dumb luck? In
other words, values matter because the values that we cognitively
decide upon as being good are there not just to maintain life, but
also to improve our ability to live our lives.
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So
what values must we pursue? Life is the end in itself. As such, the
values that we must pursue are the values that help to maintain our
lives. What is considered good and evil must therefore be measured
by how it affects our lives. The most basic way to understand what
is good and evil is Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian principles, which
recognizes the fundamental role of pain and pleasure in human life,
and equates good with pleasure and evil with pain. However,
utilitarianism alone is insufficient.
That
is because utilitarianism fails to define what “the
good” is. When taken to its logical extreme, utilitarianism
eventually boils down to majority rule whereby the majority can do
whatever it damn well pleases at the expense of the minority.
Furthermore, it fails to take into consideration how people reach the
conclusion about what is good. Do they use reason, or do they resort
to base epicurean whim? Although Bentham’s succesor, John Stuart
Mill, later on built upon Bentham’s foundation by dividing pleasure
into “higher” and “lower” forms of pleasure, utilitarianism
still says nothing about reason.
Beyond
pleasure and pain, we also have to take reason into consideration.
A
good example of this is farming and storing food. Hunger is
certainly painful and the best way to alleviate hunger is, of course,
by eating. But how do we get the food?
“Why
can’t we simply steal the food?” a utilitarian might ask. “After
all, as long as our goal is to live, isn’t the willful decision to
steal food – the choice made to end pain and promote pleasure – a
result of us using our reason?”
No,
it is not. Firstly, we must separate reason from logic. When I
was in middle school and I first learned about computer programming,
a phrase that I came to learn was GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If our reasoning is faulty, we can still take our faulty reasons to
their logical conclusions. That does not change, however, no matter
how logical, that the reason (and the most likely outcome) is bad.
Secondly, that is because we have to remember that before anything
can be stolen, it must first be produced. Furthermore, we have to
remember that human action does not take place in a vacuum. For
every human action, there tends to be a direct and opposite
overreaction. If we resort
to violence to steal food (or anything for that matter), there is a
very good chance that our actions will come back to haunt us in a
myriad of ways.
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After
we have reaped and sowed our crops, what then? Do we then eat
everything that we produce? It will certainly end hunger. But then
what happens next year? If we eat everything now, including the seed
stock that is needed for planting next year, yes, we will be full
now. But we will not stay full for long.
However,
before all that, does anyone imagine that it would even be possible
to farm without using reason? If we tried
to grow a crop without the necessary knowledge that is required for
farming, we would not be able to grow anything. This applies to the
production of anything else. That is because our minds are the root
of all production and therefore, the root of our survival.
It
bears repeating that our minds, our reason, are the root of our
survival. As the purpose of life is simply to live and our survival
depends on our ability to use our reason, the barometer that is used
to gauge our values is measured by how those values, which are
defined by reason, help us to live. Values by themselves are not
axiomatic. They must be of use to our lives in order to be
considered virtuous or vicious.
From
here on out, then we must weigh the options that are in front of us
in regards to which values that we keep or toss. What are the values
necessary to be respected and loved? Which are the ones necessary to
become wealthy? Which are the ones needed to be happy? It is only
through a process of reason and rational decision making that we can
achieve those values that are good so that we may enjoy our lives.
In
order to enjoy our lives, then what we need to pursue are the things
that make us happy. So what makes us happy? I personally do not
like to pose the question that way. That is because when
the question is posed that way, it takes us away from the position
that life is a process. For example, people assume that if we have a
lot of money or if we find someone who will love us it would make us
happy. However, my position is that that is not the way to look at
it. The better way to look at happiness is to ask ourselves a series
of questions such as “Am I excited about my
future? Do I love the people in my life? Am I proud of
who I am, and what I have done?”
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Essentially,
happiness is an emotional response to a rational evaluation of my own
life. Friendships and love are not mere ornaments that we collect.
They are meant to be enjoyed.
“However,
seeing how death is inevitable, then what is the point of it all?”
some may (and do) ask.
I
have often thought that this was a ridiculous way to look at life.
Life is “meaningful” precisely because we will all die some day.
We have to go back to how we define values.
Our
values are the things that we uphold in order for us to live.
However, let us assume for the sake of argument that we are immortal;
like some kind of omnipotent and omniscient god, we are immune from
disease or pain or death. Only then would we be able to honestly say
that we have nothing to lose or gain. Any action that we take or
thought that we entertain will be meaningless. There would be no
need to have values. There would be no need to be reasonable or
unreasonable. There simply would be no reason to be. An eternity
(itself a terrifying concept if any serious thought is given to it) of
meaningless existence is far too evil to wish upon our worst enemies.
None
of us can ever achieve immortality and despite Ray Kurzweil’s
passionate arguments in defense of immortality in the form of the
Singularity, I am disinclined to believe in its supposed merits.
However, we can be immortal until the day we die. What I mean here
is that we can remain true to our values; to ourselves. With every
passing day, people die just a little bit. Try meeting that
piss-and-vinegar filled idealist friend whom you had in college after
not having met him for ten years. I can guarantee that he/she will not
be the same person that you met last.
I
don’t mean a change in tastes or the way we look or even the way we
think. I mean the way people compromise, deny, and contradict their
values – because it is supposedly the adult thing to do – until
one day, they can no longer recognize themselves. That
is
something that we can avoid. That
is how we achieve immortality. Not by avoiding death but by remaining
true to our values, which are intended for us to enjoy our lives.
And that
is what the point of it all is – to last forever now.
One of my favorite plays that I have ever read is Goethe’s Faust and at the end of the play, the eponymous character recognizes at the “highest moment” that “the last word of wisdom” is:
No man deserves his freedom or his life
Who does not daily win them anew.
Once we understand that, then we can begin to understand what our purpose in life is and, perhaps, find meaning, too.
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