In a previous blog post I threatened to inflict my opinions on Big, Serious and Complicated topics onto the blogosphere. And I thought that I would start the ball rolling with a post on “Meaning”.
The questions that I think we face as individuals or as communities are:
1. Is it important that life, and human life in particular, has meaning?
2. What would constitute meaning in this context?
And it is my opinion that our answers to these questions underpins most of our views on topics as far ranging as “what consitutes cheating in a online Scrabble game?” and “what is the best way to deal with the whole global warming thing – is it even my problem?”. It especially affects whether we see issues as being “black or white” (and hence uncomplicated?), “Shades of grey between blocks of black and white” complicated?), or “shades of grey with no black or white endpoints” (so complicated it is almost better to ignore it and do something else?).
My comments on question 1
Life does not have to have meaning.
Life is meaningless in itself – for it to have it meaning we need to “do effort” to either give it meaning or search for a meaning that satisfies us (which may boil down to the same thing).
A no answer to this question may free many people to be happy and guilt-free.
For a lot of people the idea of life not having meaning is not something that they would be prepared to consider.
A sense that life is meaningless without concomitant happiness might lead some people to self-annihilation in one form or another.
I would prefer that life, and my life in particular, had meaning, but am coming to believe that happiness is more easily achievable (in the same sense that love is more achievable than fairness).
My comments on question 2
There are too many answers to this question!
I cannot even make up my mind about whether meaning is the “motivator” or the “action”.
E.g. 1
God loves me. (Motivator)
I will devote my life to comforting the sick. (Action)
E.g. 2
I am worried about global warming. (Motivator)
I will devote my life to improving the efficiency of solar panels. (Action)
My opinion is that Action is an important part of a meaningful life, but the Motivator needs to be strong enough for us to overcome the necessary “activation energy” (there we are – I have used a scientific term, therefore this is a scientific blog!). A problem, of course, is that this meaning-driven action can take the form of flying into buildings or forcible redistribution of land.
(The “me” in the two examples, is not really me – in case you were wondering. I work at Nature Protocols, and while this is fun, I would have difficulty arguing that doing this constitutes meaning in any Big Serious sense of the word.)
