Chapter 10
Higher purpose and meaning in life
The need for finding a higher purpose and meaning in life is at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but is there a higher purpose and/or meaning in life? If yes, what are they? If no, how do we know?
Why do we keep asking why? Good question. You must have heard a lot of 2-6-year-olds asking their parents about the reasons for all kinds of things. - Mommy, what's that? - That's a dog? - What's it doing? - Walking, dear. - Why? - Er, because it likes to walk. - Where? And why?... It goes on and on and on, till the parent gives up and says "I don't know".
Children appearently upload their relational database by asking thousands of questions about the correlations between various data. They develop a complex web of understanding about objects, animals and people in the world. We did, too, when we were young. This complex model of the world enables us humans to shape it to our advantage.
Many questions remain unanswered, most notably: where do we come from, who are we, what are we here for, where are we going? These are the key ones for philosophers. If we had good enough answers to them, we would have written them down and you could read them in books. We have some tentative answers, but they've never looked good enough to enough people, so we keep on asking the same age-old questions.
Do we need actual answers to all our why questions? Probably not. The parent in the example above could tell the child the dog is walking to a shop to buy some dog food. (Why?) Because it has too much unused credit on his credit card. (Why?) Because it won the dog food lottery. (Why?) Because it's the lottery company director's dog. (Why?) Because the lottery company director needed a dog she could give all her dog food to. (Why?) To get it to like walking. You've come full circle, which is likely to put an end to the quesions.
Maybe that's what we are all looking for: a circular answer to make us stop asking any further. Or maybe not. Let's look at two prominent examples.
- Where do we come from?
- God created us, we are God's creatures.
- Why?
- So we can have a good time on earth.
- Why?
- So we can be happy ever after when we return to God.
- Why?
- Because we want to be happy at all times.
- Why?
- Because God created us that way.
- Why?
- Because.
Notice that there is no answer to the last question. Also, you could ask if God wants us to be happy, why doesn't he keep us by his side. We'd surely be happier there than here on Earth. There is no answer to that question either. The reason is "because". God in his infinite wisdom is supposed to know what's best for us. Because. While that doesn't answer all our questions, it explains why we yearn for a higher purpose and meaning in life.
- Where do we come from?
- From tiny particles that temporarily got together to form us.
- Why?
- So we can have a good time on earth.
- Why?
- Because we want to be happy for some reason.
- Why?
- Because.
Notice that the answers stop even earlier in this case. We admit that we just don't have the answers. We can't even explain why we yearn for a higher purpose and meaning in life. The fact remains though that we do yearn for a higher purpose and meaning in life. (A potential explanation is that we have a community module in our brain that seeks what's best for the community at a higher level, and we describe this "voice from above" as God's will. Also, our intuitive concept of rationality suggests that it's better to do something for a reason than for no special reason, so we always seek a reason to motivate our actions. More on that in the chapter on morality.)
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