Response to an article on the meaning of life

I've just read most of the following article by a certain Frank Martela, PhD:

How Can Life Be Valuable in a Cold and Mechanistic Universe?

I made 3 responses underneath the article. Hopefully they won't be deleted since I disagree profoundly with the author and I'm more strident than I tend to be in my blog posts. I'll reproduce my replies below (perhaps slightly expanded to include links to relevant blog posts of mine).

Frank Martela says:

As Thomas Huxley observed already in 1874, although we might feel our actions as volitional and emanating from our own will, such “volitions do not enter into the chain of causation,“ as doing that would break the laws of physics.

Why do all these silly people think there are "laws of physics"? Such "laws" are merely a description of what occurs (see this post by me). And part of what occurs are our actions as produced by the voluntary movements of our bodies. If your description ("law") doesn't accommodate such voluntary behaviour, then dream up a more encompassing description (I argue that our consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious here).

Frank Martela says:

For example, there is not really a thing called "temperature" in the world — it is just our way of experiencing the average amount of kinetic energy of the molecules around us. Similarly, the color "red" doesn’t exist for real. It is just our way of experiencing and describing light of a certain wavelength. Temperature and redness don’t exist in the world.

I do not subscribe to any of this. Where are the arguments, where is any evidence that red is not out there in the world? And Carroll simply presupposes our scientific theories depict literal states of affairs (see this post by me). Temperature is how hot it is, not anything else. To reiterate, physics merely describes the world, it doesn't tell us what it is in and of itself, that's what metaphysics deals with.

It's interesting how utterly crazy our modern conception of the world is. Most educated people are brainwashed into believing that colours, sounds, smells have no reality outside our minds, but mysterious stuff such as "kinetic energy" does. Testimony to the power of "education" to mould and shape peoples' beliefs to readily embrace preposterous notions.


Frank Martela says:

What then is the meaning of life? Depends on what you mean by that question. Are you asking about an overarching purpose to all human lives, some externally imposed commandment and justification for how we all ought to live our lives and find value in them? Then I am afraid that we must conclude that based on this naturalistic understanding of human values, there is no meaning of life.

Naturalism hasn't been argued for. Nor could it be since the problems inherent to it are insurmountable (see this post by me).

Naturalism cannot explain the ability of human beings to have goals, exhibit intentionality, have a causally efficacious consciousness. Indeed, it cannot even accommodate the very existence of consciousness. Since naturalism cannot accommodate the facts, then it is incorrect.


Frank Martela says:

The emergence of life was an accidental by-product of natural laws. The emergence of human beings as a form of life was an accidental by-product of the mechanisms of natural selection. The emergence of values was a by-product of human intentionality and reflectivity. There is no justification for life, no external purpose to it. Life just is. An accident — but from our own point of view, a very lucky accident indeed.

All unsubstantiated assertions. How do you know that "natural laws" aren't innately teleological?

Let's assume you're right and there's no afterlife and we are mere biological machines. If so, I agree life has meaning. I find it absurd for people to suggest that if there is no "God" etc we might as well just kill ourselves now.

But, nevertheless, it remains the case that the Universe and our lives are ultimately to no avail. Whatever goals are achieved, whatever satisfactions are attained, whatever pleasures we experience, ultimately it is all pointless in the grand scheme of things. Eventually, the last human being will die, the last sentient being on Earth will die and eventually the earth will be swallowed up by the Sun when it ends its life as a red giant.

With the death of the Earth we might legitimately conclude that the whole history of the human race -- every thought, every action, every emotion experienced -- might as well never have occurred.

If we gravitate towards materialism (or more loosely that the brain produces consciousness) perhaps it is best to put aside such thoughts and lose ourselves in our day to day lives; care about the concrete things in life such as making a living, forming relationships, and just marvel at our fortune to be privileged to have this brief spark of sentience before the veil of forever nothingness descends upon us.

However, we are not in a position to conclude there is no transcendental meaning. The author presupposes that we are mere biological machines and we will cease to exist when we die. If this is untrue, then a possibility of some ultimate transcendental meaning is opened up.