The Meaning of Life

Tonight we are going to consider possibly the biggest question considered by philosophy - what is the Meaning of Life ? I'm not brave enough to suggest we might find the answer - but at least we might get closer to considering what the real question is. I will start by considering several questions associated with the meaning of life. I will then give my own answer to the question - if only indirectly, in the shape of a playlet which I hope you will help me perform.

 First, the questions ...

 

1. Is human life absurd ?

Are all human lives like that of Sisyphus. Remember the myth of Sisyphus ?

The gods condemned Sisyphus to repeatedly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain at which point it would fall down the mountain and Sisyphus would trudge back and push it back to the top. Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher ( as well as part-time Algerian goalkeeper - it's not known what other goalkeepers think about the meaning of life, though I expect David Icke has some interesting views) asked whether all human life was like this. We get up, we get the train to work, we work, we go back by train to home , we get up ..... etc. Camus described our life as absurd, and the contemporary American philosopher Thomas Nagel has developed the theme. He points out we can take two views of our lives - the objective and the subjective. According to the objective view we are collections of atoms randomly put together and existing for a short while in a certain formation in a tiny insignificant part of the universe. Yet from a subjective point of view we are the most important things in the world - we care passionately about what happens to us, what people think about us etc.

It is this enormous gap between how important we think we are and how important we are from a more global perspective that makes Nagel say our lives are absurd. According to Nagel, this still be very significant if God existed.

 

 

2. Does the existence of God make a difference ?

 

Tolstoy's Confession

At the height of his literary fame Tolstoy seriously contemplated suicide. This wasn't because he was unhappy but because he couldn't see what the point of life was. A leads to B, he reasoned, B to C -but what is the point of C ? Death destroys e

verything. Anyone who thinks about life must regard it as futile. Faith is the only escape. It gives infinite point to our otherwise pointless existence. "Without faith one cannot live" said Tolstoy.

 

Monty Python's Meaning of Life

In their film "The Meaning of Life" two fish in a restaurant fish tank are discussing the meaning of life. The joke is on them of course- their life has got a purpose and its to be eaten by a hungry diner. But if the universe does have a purpose might not the joke be on us too if its purpose isn't quite what we might imagine ?

 

Tolstoy v Monty Python - not really a contest is it ?

 

3. Should we be concerned about finding meanings to our lives rather than finding one meaning to everyone's life ?

 

The suggestion is that it is a logical mistake to think that there must be one thing that gives meaning to all lives. What we should be doing is finding our own meaning to life.

 

4. How important is meaning, compared to other values, for example happiness.

The paradox of parenthood may have the answer. A lot of research shows that whilst couples are happier than single people, those without children are happier than those with children. So why do people want to have children ? One suggestion is that having children enhances meaning in life, and that meaning is just as important as happiness, if not more so.

 

5. What is the meaning of life ?

 

For me the best - well certainly the funniest - discussion of some of these issues in recent times has not been in academic philosophy but in the popular radio show, book and then TV programme, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

 

Arthur Dent finds himself on a space ship after the Earth has been destroyed to make way for an interplanetary bypass. Seeing most of your friends die and your planet destroy is likely to provoke questions about the purpose of it all anyway, but the book suggests aliens built a giant computer, Deep Thought to find out the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Seven and a half million later it came up with the answer 42 - so they had to build an organic computer, the Earth to determine the question. Since the earth was destroyed just before it was about to finish computing, we never find out what the question was.

I always felt a teeny bit cheated with this answer - so I wondered what would have happened if Arthur Dent had met some real philosophers.

 

Is the Meaning of Life really  

 

 

NARRATOR

 

Five seconds after flicking the Infinite Improbability Drive to Maximum Wisdom, Arthur is amazed to find himself in Philos, the mythical planet where all the great philosophers of the past live in eternal contemplation.

ARTHUR

Here, at last, I shall finally get the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Who shall I visit first - maybe Socrates or Plato, or how about Bertrand Russell ?

NARRATOR

But before Arthur has time to decide, a thickly-moustached man wearing a superman outfit with a huge letter "N" emblazoned on it, noisily interrupts his train of thought.

NIETZSCHE

The aim of life is be to be a superman. Rise above the herd, unless you are a sheep ! 

NARRATOR  

Outraged, refutations of stunning wit and logic citing the essential equality of man before God start to form in Arthur's mind. Which makes it all the more sad that the sound that actually emerges from his lips is a very sheep-like ...

ARTHUR  

Baaa ... Oh well, maybe I should turn to modern philosophers for the answer. That looks like Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein over there - I'll ask them.

WITTGENSTEIN 

The meaning of life ? You must be joking ! We can't even agree on the meaning of the word "meaning". We've got a programme of a thousand years of linguistic analysis before we can get round to that sort of question.

ARTHUR  

Hmm, they're not going to be much help to me . But who's that hippy chap in the distance wearing a "Don't Worry - Be Happy" T Shirt surrounded by attractive female disciples ? That's more like my scene- and that tune sounds strangely familiar..

BENTHAM

( singing to the tune of "Blowing in the Wind")

"The answer, my friend, is pleasure without pain

The answer is pleasure without pain"

GIRL

Hi, come join us. Like to try some happy pills ?

 

ARTHUR

Well, it does sound rather more fun than I'd have with Wittgenstein. But hang on -

if I took your advice I'd end up like Zaphod, and I wouldn't want that. I remember when he stole Robert Nozick's Experience Machine which makes you feel perfectly simulated pleasure. It was quite entertaining for a day or two - well, alright, a millennium or two - but there's got to be more to life than pleasure - hasn't there ? No, you philosophers are either eccentric, irrelevant or else ... both. I'm going to get the

first space-taxi out of here.... ( walks away from Bentham's crowd)

I wonder if that scruffy-looking bearded man over there wearing a toga knows the way back to the airport - or is he going to try to sell me a copy of the Big Issue ? 

SOCRATES  

Ah, a stranger in our city. I don't get many new people to talk to these days.

ARTHUR

Can you tell me the meaning of life ? Either that or the way out of this place.

 

SOCRATES

We should investigate the question together. Two heads are often better than one.

 

ARTHUR

You obviously haven't met Zaphod Beeblebrox.

 

SOCRATES

But first tell me how you found us here in Philos.

ARTHUR

It's a long story. Basically I was rescued from Earth shortly before it was destroyed, which coincidentally was just before it was about to reveal the ultimate question.

 

SOCRATES

Don't you mean the ultimate answer ?

ARTHUR

No, you see they'd already built a massive computer to find the ultimate answer, which had rather disappointingly pronounced it to be 42. So they had to build an even more expensive, organic computer - the Earth - to discover the question. I never did find out what it was, so I used the Infinite Improbability Drive to come here to see if you lot could help. Simple

SOCRATES

But it's clear what the meaning of life on Earth was - to find the ultimate question.

ARTHUR

But ... that's like saying a turkey's life is meaningful because it is going to end up as someone's Christmas dinner. I want my life to satisfy things I value.

SOCRATES  

So being part of some great plan isn't the meaning of life. What then do you make of the answer the computer gave, 42 ?

ARTHUR

Maybe it was saying that the question was meaningless and should be "unasked''.

 

SOCRATES  

Very good, Arthur - I suspected that you really knew the answer all along. Instead of worrying about the meaning of life, you should be enhancing meaning in your own life. Tell me, what would you like written on your gravestone ?

 

ARTHUR  

How about "Arthur Dent yet to be buried "?

 

SOCRATES

But one day you will be buried, so you should make the most of your time and ensure that what you would like written on your gravestone becomes reality. Be the author of your own life. Become more aware of what you value and learn how to attain it. As I never tire of saying, the unexamined life is not worth living.

 

ARTHUR

Socrates, you are very convincing and I would believe you if only I hadn't heard of the Total Perspective Vortex That's where you see the whole infinity of creation and a tiny speck showing yourself in relation to it. The shock of one's insignificance is enough to kill most people.

 

SOCRATES

Well it wouldn't kill me. If I am insignificant from another perspective, why shouldn't that perspective or what it thinks about me be equally insignificant to me ?

 

ARTHUR

A typical philosopher's answer. But isn't it unnerving that the things you think are incredibly important are trifles to someone else ?

 

 

SOCRATES

Of course. Why do you think we philosophers spend so much time trying to convince people about what matters ? But if you are worried about not being as important as you would like I suggest you visit Psycho, the planet of psychotherapists and psychologists. It's only a twenty minute ride in a space-taxi.

ARTHUR

But what about cosmic meaning, God and all that ?

SOCRATES

Even here on Philos we don't have all the answers. Maybe the universe has an ultimate meaning, maybe it hasn't. If you want to know the absolute nature of the universe you could always pop along to Cosmo, where all the great scientists live. But surely your own experience with Earth must have taught you that being part of some grand plan isn't necessarily a good thing.

ARTHUR

It has, and from what I remember of Earth I'm not very keen on relying on anywhere called Psycho or Cosmo.

 

 

NARRATOR

 

So Arthur left Philos with the firm intention of gaining meaning in life by becoming the author of his own life. Like Socrates, he was really fed up with being the mouthpiece for other people's opinions ....

 

 

 

 

 

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