The Meaning of Life

(A Humanities Course Term Paper)
(Some lines are direct rip-offs from sources, hopefully no-one will complain. I couldn't think of framing them better)

A natural characteristic of conscious and rational minds is to try to explain its own existance. Deconstruction the statement, 'meaning' implies intention, aim or design, typical features of intelligent life. 'Life' is tough to explain philosophically, it automatically implies a period of existance, and non-existance(i.e death) of a consciousness. Further, the essense of life as implied in the 'Meaning of life' question, is in the first person. Of what significance is my life?

Humans have struggled for millennia to tackle this question, various philosophical and religious interpretations appearing over the years. Wars have been fought over them. But as much as these questions cause people to lose their heads (sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally), the bottom line is that these are very practical questions. The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the soul, and the afterlife. If we could claim ascertaining the true meaning of life, we could possibly answer other questions like 'What does it mean to be alive?' and 'Do I have free will?'.

The beliefs, principles and memories of an individual form his personal reality, and in our personal belief system, we attempt to find motivation for going about everyday tasks. However, this mirage is shattered, when one tries to takes an perspective from outside oneself, a view of our actions at a cosmic/philosophical stage. This starts an open discussion on the significance of anything we do, of going about life itself, if as soon as two hundred years in the future, our life and most traces of it will cease to exist.

We might try to derive meaning of our lives by association with something inherently bigger. Like, considering we influenced the lives of others(our friends and relations), were a part of an ecological system, played one generation of evolution, or were a part of a social, ideological movement. But then the question of meaning just switches to this bigger phenomenon. What makes this more meaningful with respect to true reality? Case in point , what is the point of human generations? All of human history? We might try to explain in terms of still bigger associations, but they continue to pose the same question. Now either we chance infinite regression, or we satisfy ourselves at a point where we consider reason not necessary. Where an act just exists, and no meaning is required for its existance. Since the claim of knowledge of true reality is itself dubious, we will have to settle for an answer which satisfies just our concept of reality. And hence, the justification of 'no reason required for phenomenon P' is satisfactory for anyone who truly believes it. But if no reason was required for P, why not for an earlier iteration, or for the first iteration, i.e our individual life. Why did that not satisfy us in itself, and this does?

This is exactly the attribute which makes religion very appealing, in its seeming ability to give automatic reason to anything and everything. The idea of God seems to be the idea of something that can explain everything else, without having to be explained itself. No one asks “What is the reason for God?”, but following the path of God, and God as the ultimate explanation, always makes sense. Some religions outrighly, while others subtly declare the methods of God beyond human comprehension, and thus beyond question. We are in essence given the retort to the meaning of life as that we can't understand it. However, a tentative analysis gives the following as the aims of life as described commonly in religion includes:
a) Worship of a supreme transcendental God, or
b) To serve as a training ground for a higher reality
c) To help and support his fellowmen,
d) Attainment of skills and knowledge.
All these can be thought of as attaching oneself with a higher noble goal, which as discussed, still leaves the meaning question unsettled.

It seems remarkable that people, experiencing this dilemna as a natural followup of their existance, find it in themselves to go about their daily activities. The trick, so to speak, is to keep our field of perspective narrow, and focus on what's in front of us, and see their existance as their justification. The fact that our existance might be pointless if overwhelmed by the fact that we exist. We can also argue that “Does it matter that it doesn't matter?”, which is perfectly acceptable. The perpetual discussions might be depressing or maddening, but are seldom satisfactory.


Bibliography
1)“What Does It All Mean?” Oxford University Press, by Thomas Nigel.
2)Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life
3)http://aristotle.net/~diogenes/meanmind.htm