What is the meaning of life? THAT is the question — not “to be or not to be.”
The usual answers boil down to category mistakes, an idea first coined by philosopher Gilbert Ryle. I don’t take that notion as far as some modern philosophers have taken it, namely to reduce all questions to the meaning of words. But the concept can be helpful.
For example: You walk into your family room where your two young dogs have eaten through the couch and spread the white, fluffy innards around the room. They are sitting in the midst of this “snow,” looking very pleased with themselves, their tails wagging. You are livid.
“What is the MEANING of this?” you shout. Their tails stop wagging.
You do not expect to find what we consider “meaning,” of course. You do not expect to find any hidden significance or explanation for what you see blowing around the room. “Meaning” in this circumstance really has no meaning. It refers to nothing. It requires no explanation. It’s like an expletive. You could have said, “What IS all this shit?”
However, we do seem to require some hidden significance or explanation when we ask, “What is the meaning of life?” We are not asking a question like “What is the meaning of this word?” or “What is the meaning of these test results?” We are not satisfied with the dictionary definition of “life,” which is “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter.”
The category mistake is to search for something – anything – beyond this definition.
NASA’s definition of life is a good one: “Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” Living things demonstrate order, use energy for metabolism, maintain stable internal conditions, react to the environment, increase in size and complexity, create new organisms and change over generations to fit the environment.
This is not the definition that philosophers want. But (need I add?) it’s all there is.
The question, properly stated, should be: “What is the purpose of MY life?” We want to know the REASON for our own existence as our cells move, evolve, etc. And we think – probably without good evidence – that the reason has to be something different from other animals and plants because of our brains. We don’t think we have to show a hidden meaning for the coloring of zebras vs. horses. We don’t insist on a reason for a rose not being a sunflower. But we insist on finding the answer to why “I” exist, even though I’m an ordinary person and not Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr.
The answer is still cause/effect. I exist because my parents’ sperm and egg succeeded in finding each other. Lincoln and King existed for the same reason. Their contributions to mankind came because of their interactions with the environment. They weren’t programmed to free slaves, in fact or in effect. Their programming came from parents, teachers, bosses, cultural conflicts and personal ambitions.
Th-th-th-that’s all, folks. Porky Pig was a great philosopher!
