Letter to the Editor of Philosophy Now

Published in Issue 163 - August/September 2024

Meaning of Life
 
Dear Editor:

In issue 162 of Philosophy Now various possibilities are proposed as to what is meant by ‘the Meaning of Life’. The concept has however been around since before the time of the ancient Greeks and so surely we ought by now to have found the answer. Maybe the reason we haven’t is that there is a fundamental problem with the whole question. To illustrate the point, we could ask other similar questions: what is the colour of life or the weight or the radius of life? All of them make perfect grammatical sense. The problem is that they make no actual sense. And so although ‘the meaning of life’ is one of the ‘big questions’, we need to look at whether it is simply a meaningless combination of words.

As if trying to tell us something from ‘beyond’, the obituary of the recently departed Professor Daniel Dennett appeared in the same issue. Dennett himself took an evolutionary view of philosophy. All can be explained by natural selection between mutations - our wishes and desires and, especially, religions which, incidentally, purport to answer the question of life’s meaning. Dennett however considered religion to be merely a self-replicating meme, one which had had millions of variations most of which had failed to take hold, leaving the religions which are now in place - until they in turn are replaced. He saw the brain as a supercomputer where everything was located, from intelligence and consciousness to the sense of self. He also said that the brain/mind was constantly evolving. In our huge population there are vast numbers of variations to all aspects of our lives which can be selected from. So there is no meaning of life from an evolutionary standpoint – unless by distorting language you count simple survival as ‘meaning’.

Bill Gates has said that, in an AI-driven post-work future, our biggest challenge would be a “lack of purpose”. I suppose we could try to substitute ‘purpose’ for ‘meaning’, but I’m not sure that it works any better in providing us with an overarching explanation for our lives. We all have different purposes at different points in our lives. As little children, we want to grow older more quickly, encouraged by the prospect of birthday cake, whilst as adults we would prefer time to slow down. As teenagers, we have different wants as compared to our more ‘mature’ selves. As societies, we change our wishes and aims, not just over millennia, but from one decade to another. And not only are there different customs in different areas of the world, but the morality asked of us (and our ancestors) by the many religions which exist (and have existed) varies both with the religion and the particular variant of it to which we subscribe (or don’t).

So then, to believe that there is some higher 'meaning' or 'purpose' to life seems a bit irrational. Perhaps there is after all no great philosophical question to resolve. Maybe we can just get on with living our lives as we see fit?

Kind regards,

Paul Buckingham

6 chemin de la Puya
Annecy 74000
France