Why are we here? The question has preoccupied humanity since the dawn of consciousness (a bit dramatic but it works). However, to that I would respond, why does it matter? If you belong to the asylum of thought that believes that God (who or whatever that is, don’t ask) has a plan for us, then of course it matters. God wants us to love each other, God wants us to honor and worship his majesty, God wants us to put the needs of the poor above our own needs. Whatever God wants, that is our purpose. Without dealing explicitly with each and every one of the obnoxious doctrines expounding the deigns of deity, let’s take a look at what it means to have a purpose.
However, before diving headfirst into what it means to have purpose, let’s test the waters first. Why are we here might not even be the right question. It might even be flat out wrong. In the vein of logical positivism, it is important to note that not every question is necessarily meaningful. Theologians systematically disregard arguments against God’s omnipotence hinging on her ability to do the logically impossible, such as creating a square circle. Rightly so, a square circle is nonsense and proponents of arguments of that form are inane.
Now, back to determining the meaningfulness of the purpose question. No one in their right mind would ask what is a square circle or why do blue unicorns eat fruit loops? The questions in themselves are meaningless. One typically doesn’t compare questions of this variety to questions regarding the sacred meaning of life, if only because square circles and blue unicorns are objects of our imaginations. However, the two families share more blood than it might first appear.
Just because one can phrase a question correctly in English does not make it meaningful. A question could still be a bad one even if it doesn’t include fantastical or logically impossible elements. No one foists a purpose on the radioactive decay of carbon 14 to carbon 12. No one claims that this process occurs because God wanted us to experience the wonders of carbon dating. Carbon 12 exists because it came from carbon 14. Just because carbon 12 has an origin outside of itself does not mean that it has a life purpose. Some might object to the comparison of human beings to the carbon nucleus. But we know where carbon comes from. It’s science. This is the business of souls!
Although the discussion of whether or not humans have souls is a good one, I choose to not take it up entirely here. It should suffice to say that until we knew what happened in gunpowder or how to predict eclipses, high priests who used knowledge of those powers as evidence of magic or God to oppress the uneducated peasants around them. Attributing God to processes we don’t yet understand is a bad move for theologians, which many recognize and no longer continue to do, because science may at some point clarify what is going on and what is going on probably won’t be God (see young earth creationism, story of Adam and Eve, and the time when God ‘stopped’ the sun so that the Israelites had more daylight to fight in). The point is this, comparing carbon decay or any other known process to human existence is not a bad claim.
To return to the discussion of good and bad questions, I propose that a better question than why are we here might be why do we need to know why we are here? Before continuing with that question, let’s take a moment to preemptively anticipate an argument against this new (and in my opinion better) question. It is possible that someone might try to apply logical positivism in the same way I did above to say that asking why we ask why we are here is equally meaningless to just asking why we are here. On the surface this argument may be appealing to those who have been fuming as I tell them that their life doesn’t really matter. It is true, both are questions and both start with the word why, however only one could have universally testable answers. Although religious revelation is for many the source of meaning in their lives, it is not applicable to all for many reasons, most obvious being the fact that not everyone ascribes to the same paradigm of myth. One might claim that belief in reason is dogmatic in its own right. However, there are two problems with that claim. One, reason never hesitates to discard old beliefs, no matter how old or cherished. Secondly, those who claim revelation as a separate form of knowledge only disregard reason when it buts up against revealed truth. There is no one who completely discounts reason. That is, reason, even for the most ardent revelationists, is applicable in at least some respect. You dry the dishes after you wash them. No one regards that as dogmatic.
With that out of the way let us return to the better question: why do we ask why are we here? One solution, although I am not an expert in sociology or anthropology, might be the task-oriented nature of human, and really all animal, life. Everyone is familiar with the basic needs of survival; food, shelter, water and warmth. In survival level animal societies the only way to be successful (survive) is to continually fulfill those needs. Any time one of these necessities of life disappears; life itself is liable to disappear. The success of conscious organisms depends in large part on their ability to recognize a need, and then to fulfill that need. Once that need is taken care of, the organism must look to the next. The meticulous preparation of squirrels for hibernation is an excellent example of this sort of task conscious behavior. The collect nuts day in and day out until they have enough to last the winter. Since we don’t see any squirrels sitting around reading the New Yorker it is presumable that they continue to prepare even to the point of excess. This is the nature of task-oriented organisms in survival mode.
The connection to humans is that although we are by nature task oriented (clearly we don’t come from squirrels, this would be a massively anachronistic and incorrect interpretation of natural selection, however for the sake of argument the analogy holds well enough) we are past the point of survival. Not only are we secure in our confidence of survival, we know it. We have the luxury to ponder other things. Once we have collected all the nuts we ask now what? What is our purpose? There has to be more to life than nuts! But why should there be? Nobody claims that squirrels have a grand purpose outside of themselves to life. Nobody claims that the tree in his or her front yard photosynthesizes for a reason. So what makes humans so special?
In light of evolution we know that there is no clear dividing line between humans and our ancestors. There is no point were all of a sudden collecting nuts and photosynthesizing just doesn’t cut it anymore. If one accepts that single cell ameba and dandelions have no purpose to life, it seems unwise to assume that their derivatives should be any different. Granted humans are more sophisticated than our rodent friends, the road to humanity is a level and continuous one indeed. There is no point in the evolutionary history of humans that we can say there, right there! That is the point where we become different. All of earth’s inhabitants are of the same life-giving substance, and none of us are really that different (considering evolutionary histories) from the other. Thus, we cannot give our own lives special purpose or meaning without doing the same for every single microorganism that we know of. It’s the same problem parents face when their kids ask: do dogs go to heaven? Many parents answer that yes of course dogs go to heaven, in which case I would respond with the chilling yet more revealing question, does the AIDS virus go to heaven? I doubt that the AIDS virus does much soul searching into morality, truth or any of the other virtues we typically associate with life’s purpose, but if St. Peter’s gates are open to humans, dogs and cats, the AIDS virus is really just one good letter of recommendation short of entry to eternal bliss.
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7 comments:
This is very well written. I forgot how well you can write.
Referring to the second paragraph, I like to use the phrase, "God cannot actualize contradictions."
why are we here vs. why we need to know we are here:
If we do not have an explanation for our existence, it is only that- existence. If we have any reasons beyond that, I say that we do not only exist but we are living. For humans, living includes an awareness of our own existence as part of the bigger picture. We have the ability to shape our own existence into something which acts upon and is acted upon by the surrounding world. This is our life. It may be that this is the sole purpose of life- to LIVE. To do more than simply exist. By existing in such a way that works to fulifill human desires, we are living. Desires to love and be loved, to achieve, to learn, to grow. So to really LIVE, there is more than existence. And this something more is purpose. So do dogs have purpose? Do they know there is more than existence? Do they have desires like humans which drive them to do more than survive? This does not have to be a yes or no answer. I would say that dogs know love and happiness, sadness and jealousy, all things we experience. Though they don’t discuss Plato in the kennel, they learn new skills just like our toddlers do. They don’t think about the meaning of life (as far as we know) but I would say they are LIVING. Then why do we ask? Maybe just because we can. We are aware of our lives being more than survival wonder why.
I wish I had the answers too.
PS I am sad I was not the first one. Sometimes moms need to type it in a word doc and think about it for a day before posting. All this new fangled blogging riff raff...
wow! this is very well thought out and very well written. however, i would love to talk this over sometime and maybe i'd understand some of the language a little better.
wow...always wondered what you were doing on your computer in your room... thought i knew... but now i know.. you are deep
"There is none." How presumptuous. ;-)
Here's another angle. The answer to the meaning of life might lie in simply looking at what we all do whilst living. We EXPERIENCE. More importantly, we learn and grow through experience. That is as close I personally can come to the meaning of life.
To say that these gains amount to nothing when we die is renders that meaning null and void. Therefore (and I realise this is a massive condensation of a lot of thought), such a thing ain't true. We go on after death - to what I have no idea.
You fall into the trap of scientific "materialism," the view that everything can be understood purely on the terms of this five-sense reality. That's why I called you presumptuous ... affectionately. :-)
And scientific materialism is presumptuous - and arrogant. It says you are a biological accident. And then it has the audacity to demand the God reveal himself (as if the universe owes anything to a biological accident). So, when the proof of God's existence doesn't happen, that means God definitely doesn't exist. And this is called rationality.
Open your mind a little, mate.
Darryl,
First of all, thank you for the affection.
Secondly, allow me to clarify myself. My position can best be simplified this: life does not derive meaning outside of itself. I would actually agree with your point that the meaning of life is to "experience." That however, does not require a meaning outside of itself, no one has to tell me 'hey you. I demand that you experience!' I can do that on my own, and that is the point I make.
Now, regarding my closed scientific mind. As I said in my post, even the most ardent fundamentalists use reason throughout their lives. They always wash the dishes before they dry them, shampoo before conditioning and put the horse before the cart. And in those tasks reason never fails them. At the risk of speaking presumptuously of what I do not know, I assume that even you Darryl must have used reason to execute the argument in your comment (unless of course you were unconscious at the keyboard typing the revealed word of God).
But here you, like many others, bemoan the failings of reason because it contradicts the intellectual coup staged by a handful of ancient writers and their followers who demand that their words be taken as truth. And you call me presumptuous? I don't claim to be spreading the 'word of God.'
As to your final paragraph, I did not say any of those things, make any of those claims or ever use that line of reasoning.
Hi, Brandon.
My final paragraph is not a criticism of you, but of the type of thinking you appear to have embraced, e.g. I can't find the meaning of life, therefore there is none.
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