The Past, Present, and Future of The Meaning of Life

My latest submit, Why Does the World Exist?, elicited some terribly considerate feedback from readers. Kevin wrote

Been by means of the desert on a horse with no title trying to find solutions in locations referred to as metaphysics and epistemology. Even handed by means of W. James’ “Styles of Spiritual Expertise” and located as a lot consolation in Joseph Campbell’s myths as I’ve discovered within the Massive Bang concept. Does it matter if I consider the Universe is a large thoughts, dreaming us into existence each 15 billion years like Vishnu and Brahma, and whose synapses are mild years aside?

In the long run, I arrive again [at] …  understanding/overcoming that First Trigger. Perhaps it’s an issue with our linear considering that desires a starting and an finish. Maybe we’ll finally spherical off Pi and provide you with a unified concept, and possibly not. Within the meantime, I’ll admire what I found after I left the shadows within the cave and skilled the aesthetics … the one actuality I do know. This, alone, has made my search rewarding. If we’re the stuff made in stars then that’s the place I would like us to return, to cease constructing partitions and preventing interspecies tradition wars. I consider the perfect is but to come back if we don’t annihilate ourselves first.

Kevin is true. We’ll stay and die in a world we hardly perceive however we are able to, hopefully, get pleasure from our journey. And I additionally hope, with Kevin,  that the cosmic journey we’re embarking on might be higher than the previous.

The connection between the previous and future additionally arose in a remark by Samuel Halpern who wrote,

Relatively than responding to the query “Why?”, I problem its unspoken assumption, I.e., that existence requires a proof or cause. Maybe the query “why” is barely a kind that takes form within the human mind— towards the fullness of cosmic time, a brief phenomenon.

I learn that purple dwarf stars might proceed burning for trillions of years and that the James Webb telescope is seeing again merely to almost the Massive Bang, some 14 billion years in the past. However that previous—14 B — is an infinitesimally paltry period of time in comparison with a way forward for Trillions. On this scale, the human thoughts appears a particularly primitive phenomenon.

So the very query “why” might finally be deemed an archaic relic because the universe continues to unfold over unimaginably huge vistas of time.

So not solely are our greatest solutions unsatisfying, however our questions themselves could also be trivial or incoherent. I’ve written many occasions about how primitive our minds are in contrast to people who “have been, or are being, advanced.” For our descendants, or for different extra advanced beings within the cosmos, our questions are these of straightforward minds. People at the moment could also be like canine and cats making an attempt to know relativity and quantum concept in relation to asking and understanding potential solutions to massive questions. This could humble as all and in response, we must always have epistemic humility. As I’ve beforehand written relating to any of my supposed insights,

My considering is sluggish, my mind small, my expertise restricted, and my life quick. But the universe strikes extremely quick, is inconceivably massive, unimaginably mysterious, and extremely previous. We’re modified monkeys dwelling on a planet that spins on its axis at 1600 kilometers an hour, hurls across the solar at greater than 100,000 km an hour, as a part of a photo voltaic system that orbits the middle of its Milky Method galaxy at about 800,000 km an hour. The Milky Method itself strikes by means of area at greater than 2,000,000 km an hour and the galaxies transfer away from one another sooner than the pace of sunshine. (Though nothing can transfer by means of area sooner than mild pace the area between galaxies expands sooner than the pace of sunshine. That’s why within the far future we gained’t be capable to see different galaxies.)

However there’s extra. Our galaxy incorporates greater than 100 billion stars and there are greater than 100 billion galaxies in a universe that’s practically 14 billion years previous and virtually 100 billion light-years throughout. And we are able to solely see part of the universe—the observable universe. Some galaxies are ceaselessly past our commentary as a result of they’re receding away from us sooner than the pace of sunshine—tinheritor mild won’t ever attain us and we are going to by no means be capable to see them. Furthermore, there could also be an infinite variety of universes, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics could also be true, we might stay in a pc simulation, or …? Evidently, most of that is incomprehensible to my easy thoughts.  

Given this immense backdrop of pace, area, time, and thriller shouldn’t we be humbled by our limitations and obvious insignificance? Who apart from the ignorant or delusional would declare to know a lot of final reality? I make no such claims; I’m fallible. My philosophical concepts emanate from a restricted perspective and they’re, at finest, relevant solely to a sure time and place.

I want to thank Kevin and Samuel for taking the time to touch upon my weblog. We’re stimulated and enriched by the encounter with different good and considerate minds. I’m fortunate to have encountered their deep and considerate minds. My honest due to them each.

John Messerly, August 2022, Seattle WA.