What is this all about?
What is one meant to do with their life?
I wonder why I do things. Why I work, why I go to school, why I go to the gym. Why do I do anything?
Work and school to make money and buy nice things. Gym to be in shape and look good. Why do I want nice things, look good, or be happy? Aren’t these all just chemical reactions happening in my brain? Is that the purpose of life? To satisfy those chemical reactions.
I think if you recursively ask someone why they are doing something, you always hit the impenetrable wall of “I do ‘x’ because it satisfies some urge in my brain”. This claim can probably be disproven but I’m yet to think of a good counterexample.
Why do you study maths?
Because I find it interesting and it’s what I’ll do in my career.
Why do you find it interesting?
Because understanding abstract concepts and seeing it all fit together is fascinating.
Agreed. Why is it fascinating?
I don’t know, maybe some series of neurons activating in just the right way, making me feel good.
Ok. Why do you want to pursue math in your career?
Because I can tolerate doing it for the rest of my life and I need to make money.
Why do you want to make money?
So I can buy nice things, and provide for my family.
Why do you want to buy nice things?
Makes me happy.
Why?
Neurons.
Right. Why do you want to provide for a family?
It’s my responsibility.
Why is it your responsibility to provide for your family?
It’s how I feel inside. Whether that comes from growing up in a world that values that, or if it’s a circuit that evolution wired up over millions of years, or both, I don’t know.
Kinda sounds like everything our person here is doing is motivated by some deeply ingrained desire in their brain. Desires that probably formed over millions of years of evolution. If satisfying those desires is the meaning of life, then life’s grim. That can’t be all there is to it.
I once heard on Lex Fridman’s podcast that “Life is the universe understanding itself”. I really like that. What’s the purpose of life? Maybe we are a product of the universe’s effort to answer that very question.
The following few sentences are likely to be very reductive. But I am not writing to be correct, I am writing to express what I feel.
If you are anything but an atheist, then you must believe in god, reincarnation, spirits or something like that. I believe in God. So maybe the meaning and origin of life is a spiritual one. One that cannot be explained.
If you are an atheist. Then you probably believe we are a product of evolution. Why does evolution happen? Why does the engine of life claw and fight as much as it can to sustain itself? I’ve seen entropy as a proposed answer. Life increases entropy[1]. And the universe wants to maximize entropy. Which is how life emerged.
I’m not qualified to reason through these big ideas of religion, evolution and entropy, I need to do some homework.
Although, I wonder if my homework would make a difference. If there existed a text that held the truth and undeniable proof of it, be it religious or scientific in nature, would we not all agree on it? The same way we agree that 1+1=2? It would be embarrassing if the answer already existed and we’re just hung up on getting consensus.
Science offers the Big Bang as the explanation. WTF is that? We have no idea why the Big Bang happened and what came before it. If not Big Bang then some other theory that makes just as many assumptions.
Religions often say God created the universe. So where does God come from? “We don’t know, and we don’t ask. Even if we were given the answer we wouldn’t understand it.” Fair enough. Maybe our simple tools of logic and linear perception of time cannot make sense of the answers to our own questions.
Regardless of what ideology I flee to in search of meaning, I hit a wall of unanswered and seemingly unanswerable questions. So for the time being, maybe that’s it. That’s the purpose of life. Answer these questions. Make some goddamn sense of it all. The purpose of life is to determine the purpose of life.
One human in one measly lifetime cannot make much progress in this grand mission. However, generations of knowledge passed down can. So I think that’s it, play my part in advancing humanity to be sufficiently technologically and ideologically advanced to contend with these questions, and I’ve lived a purposeful life. That’s the meaning of my life.
I want to work hard to advance humanity, whether that be by making better AI, or educating the next generation, or serving pizzas at a restaurant, I want to contribute meaningfully and to the best of my ability. Along the way, I’ll satisfy plenty of my seemingly pointless desires so that I can have what feels like a great time.