The Meaning of Life

Despite its brilliant cinematic skewering, the phrase 'the meaning of Life' remains a potentially serious matter. The question 'What is the meaning of Life?' has two main senses, depending on how 'meaning' is interpreted. A 'meaning' can be either a linguistic representation of some notion, or a purpose for current activity. That Life has a 'meaning' in the first sense is a central thesis for Philosophers such as Berkeley and Jaspers, who regard experiential phenomena as elements in a Divine language to be deciphered. That Life has a 'meaning' in the second sense is a central thesis of many teleological Systems, in which some ultimate goal is posited as that to which all activity must be oriented. Now, the idle entertainment of the question might deserve its skewering, but there are occasions in which its raising is indicative of a psychological crisis. Nietzsche diagnosis the crisis as a disillusionment that is the breeding-ground of Nihilism, so he proposes a new myth to replace the decline of the power of Religion in his era. Here, the crisis is interpreted as paralysis, i. e. that a loss of Faith is a loss of motivation, for which the cure is a redirecting of attention from 'beyond' Life to the Here and Now. Hence, the Phronetic Principle 'Evolve as much as possible' is also the Evolvemental answer to 'What is the meaning of Life?'