The Search for Relevance - 1

1. THE NEED FOR RELEVANCE

Rel·e·vance [rel-uh-vuhns] 

Noun

The condition of being relevant, or connected with the matter at hand

We are born, live for about 60, maybe 70 years and then die. That's it! What is the point of our lives? For in the grand scheme of things (the 13.8 billion year old universe for example) what do those 60 - 70 years of your life count for? Or what do all our human lives put together count, for that matter?

The search for relevance is quintessential of the human experience. After all, to know the relevance of our lives is to know why it matters or how it is important. It is to understand why we are alive, where we fit in; it explains the reason for our existence. The search for relevance drives our lives, making us strive hard to find our niche. It is the reason for everything we have done, do or ever want to do. We spend our lives in such search; yet have no clue why we need to find the relevance of our lives in the 1st place. How are we to understand this need for relevance in our lives? Better still, we could start by asking do we need to understand it at all? After all, as Arthur Clarke is known to have said, "If we waste time looking for life’s meaning, we may have no time to live - or to play."

My wife and me have a 4 year old. Over the last year there has been one question he asks more than others - Why? He wants us to explain to him why were telling him to do / not do something, why some events played out a particular way, etc. In essence he keeps asking us the reason for things that concern / affect him in some way. It is part of our human nature to be curious. Curiosity is the only reason the human race has progressed so far. Edmund Burke would say, "The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity." To not try and address our deep seated need to find relevance in our lives would be to kill our most fundamental emotion. Colorado State University's Psychology Professor Michael Steger studies meaning, how people find it in their lives and whether it matters. He found that people in general who find some overarching meaning or foundational purpose supporting the things they do and their beliefs - tend to better withstand the things life throws at them. It is therefore that i believe we need to understand it; for Socrates couldn't put it better when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

The need for relevance in our lives stems right from our childhood where we feel the need to identify why we are doing / not doing a particular set of things. Robin Sharma said about the same, "The purpose of life is a life of purpose." This deep seated need for relevance doesn't come from a life altering event alone as much as from within ourselves. Viktor Frankl, an Austrian existential psychologist surmised that our dominant driving force is to find meaning in life; as he put it, "He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how." It was Baumeister who suggested that the search for relevance in our lives is in order to address the need for self-worth. Steger's research showed a direct correlation between one's sense of self worth and the perception that their life had meaning. As my wife and me watched our son grow, there was a phase where he loved looking at himself in the mirror and admiring himself. Child psychologists will tell you that this is how children get accustomed to their reflection and find a sense of worth as a distinct human being. It is at precisely that moment (usually when a child is around 15 months old) that we find the beginnings of the need for relevance in our lives. So closely knit is this imagery of self-worth to our being that as we continue to grow (and explore the world around us), this search for relevance grows to become a need for relevance; the need to be us!

The need for relevance more or less peaks by the end of our (exploratory) teen years which having been spent trying to define and express ourselves so that others would take notice; moves on (in most) to settle down into a more passive form of 'this is me and this is my life' mode. When questioned, most people tend to look back at this mindset of their 20's sculpted look, as the basis of the relevance of the remainder of their lives. However the truth is, most people in their 60's would have a good laugh about what they thought their lives would be in their 20's. Goes to prove that our need for relevance is not a milestone reached; rather is a process of exploration and discovery over the period of our lives. This is because our need for relevance is not in one action or thought that lasts a lifetime; rather it manifests itself in short and widely spaced quantum leap growth patterns of learning and developing. This never ending search for relevance as long as we live, is what defines our lives and edges us on to achieve. For ultimately it is this same relevance that defines our human experience and sets us apart from other the species on earth.

Make no mistake, this quest for relevance is a frightening one. Yet, the truth is we as humans only fear meaninglessness more. It is probably this fear that drives me to write. But if you are somebody who takes literally the satirical writings of Kurt Vonnegut when he said, "We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different;" well this series is not for you. Curiosity did kill Schrodinger's cat; but there is much we can achieve if we do not limit our curiosity. A case to the fact is everything the human race has achieved. So, if you are anything like me - a normal thinking human being wondering about our search for relevance, i ask that you embark on this journey of discovery with me.

Even as we begin this journey, ask yourself - "Am I relevant?" May it be that we find more answers than questions along this journey. I also sincerely hope that we will be wiser (and therefore happier) by the end of this literary journey to discover relevance in our lives.

Sources:

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/relevance

2. http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/relevance

3. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-why-are-we-so-curious

4. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/curiosity.html#E6gPJQgWzqIgSdA1.99

5. http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/17/the-meaning-of-life/
6. http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-you-need-to-live-a-life-of-purpose/

7. http://www.strangenotions.com/if-atheism-is-true-does-life-still-have-meaning/
8. http://www.denverpost.com/ci_19754476
9. http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/do-you-want-a-meaningful-life-or-a-happy-one/
10. http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2004/sep/20/features11.g2
11. The Experience of Meaning in Life
12. http://www.whattoexpect.com/toddler/toddler-growth-and-development/self-recognition.aspx#
13. http://www.iep.utm.edu/mean-ana/
14. http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/08/the-meaning-of-life-in-under-300-words.php
15. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9152.pdf
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User:Truth_is_relative,_understanding_is_limited/Meaning_of_life
17. http://www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vol.4-2Diehl.pdf
18. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/why-create-meaning/
19. http://www.rationality.net/meaning.htm
20. http://www.lunacoaching.com/DragonPower/how-being-curious-brings-aliveness-in-your-life.html
21. http://www.iep.utm.edu/emerson/
22. http://appliedsentience.com/2013/11/08/4-ways-philosophers-answer-children-that-keep-asking-why/
23. Schrodinger - What is Life?
24. http://www.umatterucanhelp.com/index.php/the-need-for-meaning
25. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/january/meaningful-happy-life-010114.html
26. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

What is Life?

What is Life? It is a question that philosophers, theologians and scientists have been trying to define and answer for a long time. You might ask why should we care? Well to begin with, we are living beings, and that fact distinguishes us from most things in the Universe. Further still, we are among the few living beings in the Universe, so understanding the nature of life might be an important step toward understanding ourselves. And no, we are not talking about the meaning of life, the purpose of life or the philosophy of life. We are talking about the concept of life itself.

The Oxford Dictionary defines life as "the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity and continual change preceding death or the existence of an individual human being, plant or animal". NASA's working definition of life states, "life is a self-sustaining system capable of Darwinian evolution." While there are a multitude of definitions for the questions about the meaning, purpose and philosophy of life, it remains a challenge for scientists and philosophers to define life in unequivocal terms. This is difficult partly because life is a process, not a pure substance; especially "since life is such a ubiquitous and fundamental concept, the definitions of it are legion." as John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler espoused in The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. The nature of this problem can be understood by comparing this semantic task to the ancient Hindu story of identifying an elephant by having each of six blind men touch only the tail, the trunk, or the leg; what answer a biologist might give can differ dramatically from the answer given by a theoretical physicist, a philosopher or a theologian. 

Yet none of these issues stop us from trying to define life itself and understand its meaning, purpose and philosophy. The philosophical question of the definition of life has increasing practical importance in this age of science where almost all extra-terrestrial deep space probes (including Rosetta) seem to have 1 main fundamental purpose - to find, understand and explain life as we know it. While most of these efforts continue to take to biology, chemistry or physics; for the purposes of this blog post lets try to postulate a definition of life from a philosophical standpoint. 

There have been three main philosophical approaches to the problem of defining life that remain relevant today; namely Aristotle's view of life as animation; Descartes's view of life as mechanism; and Kant's view of life as organization. To briefly summarize and contrast the 3: Aristotle viewed life as any body / object / thing that is animated as a result of its soul which cannot exist by itself and has little to do with individual identity. According to him, each living being / object / thing is different because it / he / she is composed of varying compounds of form and matter. That is, different bodies / objects / things are animated by the same set of capacities, by the same (kind of) soul for each kind of object / thing / body. The soul therefore differentiated a living from a non-living thing / being. Descartes argued that the human body works like a machine and it follows the laws of physics. The pieces of the human machine, he argued, are like clockwork mechanisms. The mind or soul, on the other hand, is a non-material entity that lacks extension and motion, and does not follow the laws of physics. He went on to say, "I think, therefore I am;" that is to say that life is the object / thing / body being aware of its own being. Kant argued that all living beings / things exist in a self-organized fashion due to an internal purposiveness that accounts for the specificity of the structure of an organized being. As such, in contrast to a mere machine; organized and self-organized beings have formative force rather than just motive force; because of their soul or their being self aware. Thus life according to Kant, is an object / thing / body that has the ability to self-organize and produce within a set of process laws actualized by an external agent.

In short, these theories tell us that life is either a soul in a being / a self-aware being / a being able to self-organize and fend to keep itself alive. At the risk of being labelled as somebody who is pretty dumb, but acting smart, i posit an alternative definition for life as a unison of some aspects of the above 3 theories and more. Life is an organic being with a soul, that is self-aware, has the ability to self-organize and fend to keep itself alive in order to find and accomplish its purpose for being alive - which is to keep all other organic life going in its own way. This purpose becomes prime to all that is living and without it life doesn't exist; further this purpose doesn't come from being itself because it would mean having the ability to change the reason for its being - something no life is capable of doing. If life has died it is because it has exhausted its purpose contributing to ongoing life. A plant for example exists in order for it to multiply itself, while also providing of its produce to animal and man alike. Further it dies when it has played its part in keeping itself and other life going on - by ensuring that other life has been sustained by it in the past and will continue to be sustained by its multiplied forms in the future. A man / woman is alive in order to reproduce and also live out their lives in an attempt to keep other lives going around them. This causal action makes for the cyclical nature of life. So, in essence the purpose of life is inherent to life itself. As such, any definition of life should encompass such purpose.

Therefore, i would define life as a caused self-aware being with a soul, that has the sure ability to self-organize, produce and fend to keep itself alive with the purpose of keeping all other organic life going on; in its own way or form. This would then limit bots or humanoids as being counted for life because they do not have a soul nor an ability to produce. On the other hand, a bacterial form on a distant planet is definitely life; also the unborn fetus in the womb is also definitely life because both fulfill each of the above criteria. Hence a life as a legacy is a life that given more to the rest of life around it. Robert Frost is known to have said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." This truly is the essence of life - going on and hence i choose to characterize all life in this way as the on-going goings-on.

Though simplistic sounding, what do you think of the above as a philosophical definition of life?

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/life

http://baharna.com/philos/life.htm

http://www.edge.org/conversation/what-is-life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/life's_working_definition.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life/

http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/~janot/aga0316/artigos/DEFINING%20%20LIFE.pdf

https://suite101.com/a/aristotles-definition-and-levels-of-soul-a101071

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/psyche.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_(philosophy)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/

http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_descartes.html

http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/#H4

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/17th.html

Kant and the Unity of Reason By Angelica Nuzzo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-development/

http://celestiallands.org/library/Mindvsbody.htm

http://staffweb.hkbu.edu.hk/ppp/top/top07

That Ever Elusive Happiness

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know," said Ernest Hemingway. It is interesting that Hemingway would observe thus; but come to think of it, for a large part of the intelligent population this is true. The question is why? For it is not like they choose to be unhappy. Why is happiness that ever elusive component of an intelligent thinking human life?

Kant proposed the following rules for happiness, "something to do, someone to love, something to hope for." By that definition, most intelligent thinking humans have something to do and someone to love; albeit these might be in brief spurts of their life span. The problem then probably lies with something to hope for.

Living in the postmodern existential world that we do, our deepest sense of longing seems to be eternally hoping that something worth hoping for comes along. For as it has long been said, to hope is to be human. Yet the unspoken concept imbibed in all our minds seems to be as Aristotle declared, "Hope is a waking dream." It would seem that being stuck in the midst of this deep chasm, between the deep seated need of our human self to find hope to live and the bellowing want of our minds to strip ourselves of an unseen reality; more often than not as a sublimation to keep ourselves from bring ravaged by the reality of non-events in the form of failed hopes - we seem to be naturally inclining ourselves towards the void and bitter pessimism of having nothing that holds any meaning in our lives. We seek to alleviate our suffering by choosing death over life. We choose to live with the notion that Nietzsche proposed "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." 

Yet, by doing so we rob ourselves of our own happiness and in turn try to fill such void in our lives with everything other than hope; only to perpetuate the cycle to infinity. For all the while, we do not realize that without hope or the need for it, our lives as humans can never be truly lived. Our failed hopes are but a blip on the screen of the grand scale of our lives and in trying to shield ourselves from the ever possible danger of another failed hope, we degrade our own lives to merely an existence. Jürgen Moltmann would write about the same, "Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: "Leave behind all hope, you who enter here." "- Theology of Hope.

But what does one hope for and how? In the world full of hatred, despair, pain and hurting, where do we turn to draw our courage; courage for our heart to hope and our mind to dream? Living as we do, forlorn as we are in the absence of true happiness and joy from our lives; our need to find hope was never greater. 

Cicero noted that While there's life, there's hope. Carl Sandberg would go on to say, "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on." Our hope lies in life itself. Ellen Hopkins could not have captured it better when she wrote, "in a woman's womb. another chance. to make the world better." There is hope as long as we live. The reason for our hope is life itself. "As long as there's life, there's hope" - Tamora Pierce.

Regarding the how we could find hope J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, "Oft hope is born when all is forlorn," in The Return of the King. When we see pain, destruction, suffering our emotion to it is quite naturally forlorn, but our reaction to it ever ought to be hopeful. Michael Jackson is known to have said, "In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe." For as Chesterton observed, "Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate." After all, "Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up." like David Orr said. We find hope in our ability to change - ourselves and the world around us.

Regarding the where we find hope, "We carry within us the wonders we seek without us” observed Thomas Browne. For many of us a logical conclusion leading from how we find hope becomes being hopeful of finding hope within us. Sadly, i propose we couldn't be more wrong. For when a creature so desperately longing for the need for hope to live tries to find hope within itself; it voids itself of its own store of hope, thus pummeling itself into another bout of hopelessness - when the hope within has been spent on the world without. This then brings us back eventually to the same existential state of life, as we try in perpetuity to refill our store of hope from ourselves. No. The answer to where we find our hope is not within. We find joy within. We find peace within. But we cannot find hope within alone. Finite that we are, we are ever in need of refilling our portion of hope from without.

So where then do we find our refilling of hope? I propose we find it in love. When we have someone to love who loves us back, our portion of hope is always full. We let go of our existential pessimism, being pumped up with the hope of happiness we have before us. We are driven to do and be our best for our hope drawn from the love we share with this person, drives and feeds us. For some, this is even true of the love they share with their pets. For some like me, it also stems from the metaphysical love i share with God. But regardless of the person or being, a shared love fuels our hearts to hope and gives our minds the courage to dream. And in that sweet spot we find happiness.

For as humans, we are driven by 3 forces - an appetite, the need for security and the need to belong or feel loved. Where something to do fulfills our appetites, someone to love provides us with a sense of security; the love we share gives us something to hope for, long for and dream about. It is then that we find ourselves truly happy; in the perfect collusion and fulfillment of all the fundamental forces that drive our being as humans.

I therefore posit that the ever elusive happiness we find ourselves yearning for in our lives as intelligent thinking humans can only be found from finding our hope in the love we share, with the someone / life / being we love. It gives us a hope for our future and a happiness as its present. That ever elusive happiness if very much within our grasp; should we only find our hope in the love we share.