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Following on from our previous podcast in which we talked about Nihilism, Existentialism and Absurdism we now take the opposite view that the meaning of life is not only findable but inherent within us, within our very cells, our DNA, we are the meaning of life expressed in human form. Let me explain.
In the beginning was the big bang, what followed on from that was the unfurling of the universe, the development of life, the processes of evolution that produced the myriad species that populate the globe, all of which have different life cycles and behave in accordance with their evolved nature.
The animals are products of their ecology, and their behaviour reflects this, it forms a type of morality for them. The ethics of the lion is different to that of the gazelle for instance.
This is also true of the human animal. We too are products of the ecologies that shape our nature, not just our evolutionary nature but our social and cultural one too. We are formed of star dust, animated into a life process that demands of us that we live and continue to live, so much for Albert Camus’s ‘should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee,’ statement.
The nature of the human animal is a product of culture, which in turn is a product of ecology and ultimately biology. We’re the product of our parents and the environment in which we were raised, the community that we call home and the nation that underpins that.
This means that wherever we go upon the surface of the earth we’ll always be a product of our biology, ecology, culture and nation, because we inherit these values through family and friendship circles, and this leads us to our understanding of virtue and vice. We can’t be anything else.
Virtue is to live well in accordance with our inherited values, themselves an ensemble of the principles transmitted to us through friends, family, culture, ecology and ultimately biology, vice is the opposite of that.
Good and evil, right and wrong doesn’t vary in any major way from place to place, but culture does you may argue, doesn’t that mean that all morality is arbitrary, manmade and as such not inherent in the cosmos, to which we answer ‘no,’ culture is the result of ecology on biology. Behind all of this are the fundamental values that come with being a human.
We all understand that children must be protected, for instance and given every possible advantage and made fit for society so that they too can earn a place within the community and contribute cooperatively to the family, to their friends and ultimately to their Nation. These values give us strength. That is the human way and these rules of biology, tempered by ecology and culture are the products of our DNA and can be traced back in an unbroken line through our ancestors to the very first life forms that emerged on this world.
This means that morality is not arbitrary, it’s an emanation of the cosmos, the universe is a place that allows lots of different life forms to exist with their own moralities and codes of conduct that are instantly understood by each other and only dimly comprehended by us, these rules of behaviour, these ‘rights,’ and ‘wrongs,’ are encoded into the DNA of every species, and this means that morality, ethics, right and wrong are a product of the cosmos and are not arbitrary when compared to the vast scale of it in space and time.
Instead, it shines a light revealing to us that the purpose of the universe may be to allow different ethical systems to exist, cohabit and compete. Physics describes chemistry, chemistry describes biology, and biology describes life, making the universe an engine of morality that gifts all species with their own conceptions of right and wrong, virtue and vice. In the midst of this all we can do is to live like a human being in accordance with nature, because our nature compels it.
Morality can be found everywhere, but what are we to do as human animals? All that we can truly do is live in accordance with our inherent values, it’s too late to try and get rid of them or to change them, we have no other psyche than our own!
We are our DNA, our culture, and influences, all of which scream at us daily as to what is right and wrong, proper and just! We feel good and are rewarded whenever we act with courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance to the members of our community, and we chastise ourselves whenever we fail to live up to their expectations and our own.
We have no control over this, we can’t smash this apart, but we can dampen it through repeated applications and in doing so lose our place and value in the community and the world beyond. A good life is one of service to the community that gave you everything you need to live a good life, a bad life is the opposite.
How do we know if we’re living a good life? Well, that’s easy! Do you chastise yourself whenever you make a mistake or do something wrong. If you do, that means that you are on the right path and are a good person, willing to accept faults and to improve yourself. If this is not the case, well, what needs to be done is obvious.
So, what is the meaning of life, it’s to live in accordance with human virtue, to seek out and embody the highest ideals of your life, your family, your friends, your community and nation, all the virtue that you have inherited, you are a living embodiment of it all. You can be nothing else! That means that wherever you go you are your biology, culture, country, family and friends in whatever place you find yourself to be. You can be nothing else!
