Discovering Meaning in Your Life

By MD PhD Morris

Humans have always searched for ways to lead a meaningful and purposeful life filled with contentment, happiness, and a sense of flourishing. Today the hallmarks of our societies are drug and alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, stress-related illnesses, suicide, terrorism, and racial conflicts. Something has gone wrong. This book reviews the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratic philosophers and early Eastern philosophies through existentialists and postmodern philosophers. There is a short but important review of Darwinian science and modern physics as it relates to our philosophy of life. The scientific fields of physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology show that there is increasing order, complexity, and consciousness in the universe. This has led to what has been called “the law of consciousness and complexity.” Using this evidence, a new “evolutionary theory of meaning” shows us how a rational philosophy that reflects truths from science and spirituality can allow us to fully embrace a path that lets us discover our own meaning and purpose in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640824614

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Discovering Meaning in

Your Life

Edwin Morris, MD, PhD

Copyright © 2017 Edwin Morris, MD, PhD

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-64082-460-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64082-461-4 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Introduction

The Search for a Meaningful Life

Humans have always searched for ways to lead a meaningful and purposeful life filled with contentment, peace, joy, happiness, and a sense of flourishing. Just the opposite seems to have happened with our cultural soul. Drug and alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, stress-related illness, divorce, suicides, racial conflict, terrorism, and crime are the hallmarks of our society. What has happened? Something has gone wrong as we have pursued our quest for the good life.

In my family medicine practice, I became aware that a huge percentage of the patients I was seeing had stress-related illnesses. These ranged from headaches to heart attacks. As I observed and talked with these patients, it seemed they often had similar stories. They were very busy, but busy in a scattered, unfocused manner. They had no sense of direction, no purpose of where they were going with their lives. I began to repeatedly have the feeling that these patients had neglected to either ask or find the answer to one extremely important question. The question seems so basic and yet also so overwhelming that it is often never seriously asked, and answers are never seriously sought. As Socrates said, we often spend all our time on the unimportant, but neglect to focus on what is most important. This essential question is, what is the meaning of life? And more particularly for each individual, what is the meaning of my life? Monty Python, a British comedian group, made a hilarious film entitled The Meaning of Life. It was ninety minutes of poking fun at this question. A comic approach to the subject, however, seems to be the only way our culture is willing to examine this question. Why is it at this time this basic question is being seriously discussed by our society less than at any other time in history? I believe that the philosophic undercurrent that runs deep in the heart of our society has been set by the nihilistic existentialist philosophers beginning with Nietzsche in 1899 and continuing with Camus, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers. Even though existentialism is not the current philosophic rage, this philosophy that there is no meaning in life has never been adequately answered to the satisfaction of our collective unconscious intellect.

Even the modified view that there is no intrinsic meaning in the universe but that we as individuals can create meaning in our life by our creative work leaves us with a deep void. Is a meaningful life possible only for those who are the brightest and most creative? Infants or mentally handicapped who do not have the intellectual capacity to create any type of meaning for themselves would have to be considered to have a meaningless life. Many of us begin to feel no matter what our efforts are that our individual life is just another meaningless part of a meaningless universe.

One alternative that has generated some genuine interest in our culture is the view of the fundamentalist Christian (or other religious fundamentalists). In this view, we take a leap of faith that the theistic view of God is our only source of meaning. By full acceptance through faith, we can find meaning through this theistic God. For many people, this viewpoint has been very valuable in their lives, giving them a true sense of meaning and purpose. The problem is that we are living in the twenty-first century. We have gone too far in our intellectual development to discard all our scientific and rationally based knowledge. We cannot with honesty accept the view of the Christian fundamentalist creationist over that of the overwhelming scientific information supporting evolution. With the scientific understanding we have of our universe, it becomes almost impossible to believe in an anthropomorphic God sitting on a throne in heaven, judging our lives. Some fundamentalists would make us choose between our modern scientific view of the world and this conceptualization of God as an all-powerful, superhuman being, a personalized deity that is separate and external to us as humans. Can God be real for us if this is the only image we are allowed to accept for God?

Are there perspectives from other religions and philosophies that we have never considered that may make science not only compatible but supportive of a redefined image of God? If we take time from our incessant activity to reflect on the possibilities of a spiritual dimension of the universe, we may be able to conceptualize God in a new and more meaningful manner. The distorted images of an external anthropomorphic, theistic God would be put to rest as we discover a perspective on God or spirit that has a validity we can fully accept, not only with our heart and emotions, but also with our intellect and reason. Is there an unrealized paradigm of God and humanity that can give us meaning, fulfillment, and satisfaction in our life? I believe there is such a paradigm that is not based on unbelievable superstitions or unrealistic conceptions of a god that modern culture can no longer accept.I believe there is a conception that can be scientifically and intellectually advanced and still reach the deep, transcendent spiritual values that can allow us to have a true sense of meaning in our personal lives—a conceptual paradigm that can give meaning to the life of every single human born on the planet. This book will trace some of the thinking of past philosophers and teachers on the idea of meaning. It will then show how we as a culture found ourselves on the dead-end road of the philosophies of nihilism and meaninglessness. The nihilistic philosophies have a deep hidden effect on all of us, resulting in the violent, depressive, joyless cultural atmosphere we exist in today. Finally, the book will show how a shift in our paradigmatic view of life can lead on a road that can take us on our personal journey of joyful self-realization, allowing each of us to participate fully in the meaningful life we are meant to have.

Chapter I

Pre-Socratic Philosophers and Meaning

Meaning is defined as having significance or importance, and meaningless is having no significance or importance. It seems that our lives have become saturated with a sense of meaninglessness. Since we have no sense of purpose in our life, we scurry from one activity to another to avoid examining whether we as humans have any significance or importance in the universe in which we live. Of course, this question of where we fit into the scope of things within this vast universe in which we find ourselves has been raised in the past. The earliest, even most primitive religions sought to give us meaning in this seemingly chaotic world.

Early humans must have felt so utterly insignificant compared to the overwhelming forces of nature. Storms, floods, drought, famine, blizzards could cause immediate suffering and death. As humankind achieved success in conquering these forces of nature by developing tools that could supply shelter, food, and clothing, the question of the meaning, the importance of our individual lives beyond finding our next meal developed deep within us as our human consciousness and awareness developed. The fundamental nature of humanity that separates us from other animals is our awareness or consciousness that we have a sense of self, of being a separate individual. Once this awareness was formed, we as humans began to question what is the importance or meaning of our life, our self.

Religions sought to find meaning in our lives by connecting us with gods that are more powerful than ourselves. People believed that there must be some force that created and controlled these natural phenomena that were beyond human powers. By connecting with these gods, we were given an extra measure of meaning and importance in our own lives. Sacrifices, rituals, and sacraments were attempts to form an alliance with these transcendent forces. When these specific practices were taught, and passed from one generation to the next, religions were formed. Everyone could find a sense of meaning in their life by having an association through these specific religious practices with the most important entity—the creators of the universe and controllers of all natural forces.

Those persons called philosophers perhaps were the ones who began to have the idea that we must not blindly accept someone else’s idea of who or what God or gods are, but that we need to use our intellectual power of thought to decide exactly how we can find meaning in our life, whether it is by association with a god or by some other means. If we can find the meaning in our life by the belief in a god, exactly who is this god, and how do we come to know who this being is?

Philosophers noted that often superstitions and outrageous ideas of gods and the rituals necessary to please the gods had been formed and then established as unquestioned authority. This authority then was assumed to be the right beliefs but had never been examined in any rational manner. Philosophers were committed to the idea that we could gain wisdom and insight by using our intellect into the nature of our world, our place within this world, and what is meaningful in and about our life.

This philosophic inquiry thus started in the Western tradition with the pre-Socratic philosophers around 500 BCE and perhaps as early as 3000 BCE in the Eastern tradition of Hindu thought. This book will trace some of these philosophic thoughts in both Eastern and Western tradition concerning one of the most crucial of philosophical issues: meaning in our human life. Tracing this theme of the concept of meaning in human life will allow only an overview of the most important concepts of specific philosophers. The historical tracing of this concept may give us some perspective on the current paradigm of this question in our society and allow us to examine what direction our beliefs about meaning may direct us.

Pythagoras was perhaps one of the first philosophers to realize that we as humans may be part of an orderly universe that had principles of harmony that guided all within the universe. These principles are not mere whims of capricious gods, but are constant and consistent and everywhere present. This insight into the nature of reality was a major advance in Western intellectual thought. Before the pre-Socratic philosophers, those who questioned human nature did