The Meaning of Life
“What is the meaning of life?” is a well known question that when interpreted literally is not the question we are trying to ask. I would rephrase the question as “What is the mental framework I should use to guide my life decisions?”
A different and distinct phrasing is “What is the purpose of my life?”. I do not prefer this phrasing because I do not believe there is a higher purpose in life from a higher power or the nature of the universe.
Returning to my preferred phrasing, my answer to the meaning of life is that life is a period of opportunity where you can make decisions and the rational response is to try to make the best decisions possible before you die. Life provides deeply meaningful opportunities. Use self introspection to understand your personal preferences among these opportunities. Pursue these opportunities as best as you can.
The vision I am proposing is likely similar to how you are already living your life today. My hope is to help you refine your current approach. I am not necessarily proposing an inspiring and grand vision for your life. If your personal preferences don’t require that, then there is no need to waste energy searching for something grander or worry that you are missing out on some deeper life adventure.
First I will explain why I believe this is the correct mental framework, and then how to use this framework in practice.
I believe that treating life as an opportunity to make the best decisions possible because of five assumptions.
- We exist in a universe.
- The universe is governed by rationality.
- There is no higher power or any other considerations besides rationality and our personal preferences needed in guiding our decisions.
- In life we are continuously given decision to make until we die
- Some decisions are better according to rationality and our personal preferences.
Therefore, the rational response is to try to make the best decisions possible before you die.
This argument relies on five assumptions. I am not going to argue for any of these assumptions. I agree that if any of these assumptions are not true, then there is a hole in my argument.
Regarding assumption (3) a natural question is why I don’t include morals among the considerations that we should use to guide our decisions. This is because I believe that morals are just strongly held personal prefences. I believe the argument holds up equally well if everywhere I put “rationality and our personal preferences” you substitute “rationality, morals, and personal preferences”.
Now let’s discuss how to apply this framework in practice.
The rational process to making a decision is to consider all possible options and to pick the option with best expected outcome. This begs the question “how do I decide which outcomes I want?” My answer is that you need to do introspection and decide what you feel. The key point is that you have to decide. You can ask a guru if you want, but it isn’t correct because the guru says it is correct. It is correct if you decide to agree with the guru. I don’t believe that rationality itself has that to much say about what your preferences should be. On the other hand, I believe that due to being (biologically) human all have certain outcomes that we find deeply meaningful which I have categorized in All that Life Offers. There are five categories and twenty-one subcategories. It is a bit unwieldy to think though all the categories, but manageable. Everything that anybody would fine meaningful should be listed. The remaining work for you is to decide how important each category is to you.
Since we can’t know exactly what will happen in the future we can’t plan up front all the outcomes we would like to achieve. Furthermore we probably will never fully decide how important each category is, but gather insights over time. Therefore the rational response is to continuously consider our present options and try to pick the best option according to our personal preferences.
This is likely very similar to how you have been approaching life already except in a more haphazard way. My hope is that you will now pursue this in a more deliberate way. Life provides deeply meaningful opportunities.
