The Meaning of Life - Part II

In my previous post, I concluded that when people ask about the meaning of life what they normally want to know is whether an individual person's life can have an ultimate and objective meaning of a sort that could matter to that individual. In this post I want to consider what that meaning might consist in.

First, for an individual's life to have meaning in the specified sense there must be the possibility of an enduring afterlife. Why? Well, if my death results in my ceasing to exist, it's hard for me to see how my life could be objectively meaningful in any way that should give me consolation. Perhaps during my life I live nobly and make many others happy and so they remember me, for awhile. But why should I care if I won't be around? What's more, one thing cosmology seems pretty clear on is that eventually the universe will undergo either a Big Crunch or a Big Freeze, depending on whether the universe keeps expanding or not. In either case, the human race and all other sentient life in the universe will become extinct sooner or later, at which point (assuming materialism is true) there will no longer be anyone to care whether I or anyone else every existed at all. No mere perishable legacy can give life an ultimate meaning.

Second, there must be the possibility of a conscious afterlife. After all, if I don't cease to exist at death but continue eternally in an unconscious state, it's hard to see how as far as I'm concerned that could be any better than ceasing to exist. I certainly won't notice a difference.

Third, there must be a differential afterlife. If there is some end to which I am destined and cannot avoid, then none of my choices ultimately matter in that respect. If I have no control over my eternal destiny, if it's simply chosen for me by some combination of nature and nurture and I'm just along for the ride, so to speak, then there doesn't seem to be any sense to speaking of my choices or my life. Hence, there doesn't seem to be any sense to speaking of the meaning of my life. On the other hand, if I do have some say in my final destiny, if I'm not simply the resultant effect of nature and nuture but am to some extent a self-determining agent, then we can speak of my choice, my life, and the meaning of my life.

Fourth, there must be the possibility of a intrinsically desirable afterlife. After all, even if I do have some say in my final destiny, if my only choice is between, say, eternal solitary confinement in a small box or annihilation, then I'd say that someone's playing a really sick joke on me. I'd probably opt for annihilation in that case, but that would be to acknowledge the ultimate futility of my existence. Add to my choices something intrisically desirable, say eternal bliss in heaven, and now my choice is truly significant and matters in an ultimate sense.

The above may not be exhaustive, but they all strike me as necessary conditions for an individual's life to have meaning in an ultimate and objective sense that could matter to that individual. There are other conditions, however, that, while they don't seem to be strictly necessary, do seem to enhance the meaning of life. I'll discuss these in my next post.