The Human's Life

Almost all of us have at least once asked ourselves: "What is the meaning of life? Why do I exist?" and questions as such. Most of us claim to find answers to that, through philosophy, through religion, through revelation, or through faith. I venture to call them all false, and as hollow as the question itself. What I actually aim to claim is that, contrary to what people tend to think, there is no answer to the question; simply because the question itself is a product of the imperfect human awareness.

I do wish to begin by explaining what awareness is in my opinion, and for that, I believe it is best to explain where awareness comes from. Being dualistic by nature, we tend to think of ourselves as a soul separated from our bodies, and that awareness comes from our soul. I don’t wish to go on talking about the evolutionary advantages of dualism. What I mean to express is, just because we are dualistic doesn’t mean dualism is true. We are not a soul separated from our bodies.

Then where does our awareness come from? I have come to the conclusion that it comes from the countless systematic interactions between the some hundred billion neurons in our brains. I think that is convincing enough to explain why we are the only animals with a high level of awareness: because of the much more complex system of interactions between our neurons. Dualism simply can't answer that if a soul gives one awareness, then why does there seem to be different levels of awareness among animals, ascending from the almost nonexistent awareness in cnidarians (i.e. corals) to us, humans? The idea of awareness arising from nervous system complexity, however, is convincingly explanatory: each level of nervous system complexity could more or less mean a higher level of awareness, with higher complexity forming gradually from lower complexity.

The human brain is the most complex system known in the entire world, Nevertheless; it is imperfect. Its astonishing abilities don’t seem to be put together by an all knowing deity; in fact, it seems more like a lousy aggregate of them. The reason behind this must be that these abilities arose during our evolution, each serving a purpose; and also because the simpler systems, which were more crucial (i.e. the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum) have persisted until now. The result is the lousy aggregate our brains are, with different systems of different complexities within them, and with these systems most often facing conflicts. To understand this, simply try to stare at the midday sun: you can't do this because as though you try to keep your eyes open, the lower systems in your brain command your eyes to close. This is, in my opinion, one of the reasons we are prone to be dualistic: there is a large gap between the systems that regulate everyday body functions, and the higher systems in our brain, the systems that make us know we exist, the systems we define as ourselves; the systems our awareness is based upon.

Another reason why these systems are imperfect is that they seem to be systems that associate the functions of other systems in the brain. As brain complexity sounds to ascend during the course of evolution (I absolutely do not aim to claim that evolution follows trends of any kind, I only put my sentences in this way to make them more tangible), association areas arise. The human brain has a unique tertiary association area, which might be linked to the unique human awareness. So why do I insist it is imperfect? Simply because we can imagine a species in the outer space with quaternary association areas in their brains. To them, we would be as aware as a chimp is to us. It might be hard to imagine such a thing, just because it is hard for a chimp to imagine how our awareness is like.

Now that I have explained briefly what my views on awareness are, I shall go back to the main topic: how this imperfect awareness produces such questions.

One of the imperfect systems present in our minds is the system that makes us feel everything has a purpose.  The stance is called teleology. This means that we tend to think nonhuman (or more generally, nonliving) things have purposes the same as humans do. We tend to think that if, for instance, an earthquake happens, it had a purpose. Thus, teleology can be one of the main reasons why we look for purposes behind things that are simply the result of the laws that govern the universe. We exist because the length of the evolutionary time has permitted us to come to existence, and that is because our planet has permitted life for millions of years, and that is because there are simple physical laws governing the universe that permit these circumstances.

And there we come to conclude that it's meaningless to ask ourselves why we exist, because there is no reason behind it at all, and so is asking ourselves what the meaning of life is.

But now, we come to another question: why would we keep on living, if there is no purpose to life? I think there is more than one answer to that. The first answer is the same answer one would give if asked why any animal, or living being, kept on living. It lies in the roots of life: how living systems have come to exist in the first place. To answer that, first we must know what distinguishes living systems from nonliving ones. The thermodynamic answer would be the fact that living systems use energy to maintain their entropy in levels lower than that of their surroundings. Another answer would be the replicating DNA. Life exists because DNA managed to replicate itself sometime, with imperfect fidelity. With natural selection added, an evolutionary system forms. I do not wish to go on talking about what evolutionary systems are like, I only mean to explain why we exist, and that we are merely the result of an evolutionary system, only living by the instincts written in our DNA telling us to do so. Instincts such as sex drive, fear, hate, greed, etc. the same reason why other living beings keep on living.

But this answer is not satisfying enough, because we, in contrast to other living beings, can know that it is only our DNA that tells us to do so. We can know that life is actually meaningless.

Another answer, which is uniquely human, lies in memes, which are the equivalent of genes in the cultural space. A very powerful example known to all of us is god. Just like genes made of DNA, memes are pieces of information, with the difference that they don’t exist as nucleotides, but as synapses between neurons, written words in books, in computers, paintings, etc. almost everything that is self-replicating which exists in the human cultural space. Back to the god example, god is a meme that replicates itself in the cultural space, with no other reason to exist but the fact that it has successfully parasitized the minds of people, regardless of whether it benefits them or it costs them. But yet, there are many people who live their lives as the god meme commands them to, and even lose their lives for it. There are other memes that can have the same effect, such as patriotism.

But, what is clear is, memes are just as hollow as genes. Pieces of information that enslave us into doing what they are aimed at.

In my opinion, there is something that still remains: awareness can dispel the enslavement.

Take joy as an instance: it is an emotion that exists in the space of our lower brain systems. Yet, it affects us, us in the context that defines us as our awareness. It somehow finds a way into us. In my opinion, this is a result of our brain being a lousy aggregate of interconnected systems, an off-shooting of the evolutionary aims behind the selection of these systems. Awareness takes emotions like these, and turns them into something apart from what they were really meant to be. This is a new meaning, something exclusive, something different from the enslaving memes and genes. It is awareness finding something and taking it to its own level. It is a redefining of meaning itself. It is a human's life.