Krishna asked:

Dear sir, I want to know the purpose of life. I am of the opinion that, if anyhow we're going to die, then
why such anxiety to work while living?.Why don't I die, instead of living? Is it my basic human nature
or some other mysterious principle that commands me to exist like this? Please provide a solution. I
have been worrying about it for the past 2 years.

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First, an important disclaimer. I am a realist/ materialist. I am not an idealist or a dualist. So my
answer to your question will exclude any reference to religious or spiritual concepts. For answers
from those perspectives, you will have to seek guidance from your friendly priest, minister, or spiritual
advisor. I am sure you will have no problem finding a suitable representative of whatever religious
faith appeals to you (or that you happen to stumble across). And they will tell you that your purpose in
life is to unselfishly and altruistically dedicate your existence to the glorification of whatever notion of
God they propose. You will have to take their word for it, of course.

On the other hand, if you are seeking an answer that you can check out for yourself, then you are
seeking a materialist answer where science and evidence have a meaningful role to play. The answer
I provide here will not be met with agreement by many. It does, however, have the advantage of
being consistent with all that we currently know about biology, evolution, and psychology.

The first step in answering your question from this perspective is to acknowledge that you are a
member of the species Homo sapiens. As such, you are a primate, a mammal, an animal, and a living
organism with a 3 to 4 billion year evolutionary history behind you. (I refer you to any of the numerous
works on evolutionary biology for further argument on this point). The argument goes like this:

Life is Action. "Life" is characterized by the unique fact that living things change and move — "act" —
through the directed application of internally collected, stored, converted, and channeled energy. >
Life's Actions are Teleological (Goal Oriented). At a very fundamental level, the goal of all living
behaviour is the maintenance of the life that is behaving.

The second step is to acknowledge that the "thing" that has been evolving over the myriad of
generations that have lived since the dawn of life on Earth, is the genetic code and not the individual.
You, yourself, are but a bio-chemical machine. You were constructed by the fertilised cell that was the
result of the union of your mother's ovum and your father's sperm. And you were constructed in
accordance with the recipe encoded in your genes. You are a survival machine for the genes in your
DNA. (I refer you to the works of Richard Dawkins for further argument on this point.) The argument
goes like this:

The Gene is the Unit of Life. It is that (not necessarily contiguous) stretch of the DNA (or RNA)
molecule that can be labelled as a Gene that is what must be recognized as the entity that survives
and proliferates — continuation of which is the goal of Life's Actions.

The Reproductive Imperative. The actually observed behaviour of all living creatures, both in general
and individually, is highly flexible and variable but within the broad genetically defined limits of
continued genetic survival. > Our Purpose. As an example of life, as an example of the species Homo
sapiens, and as an individual consciousness, our purpose is to ensure the continued survival and
proliferation of our genes.

The Definition of Good. To be "Good" at anything is to do a quality job at fulfilling the purpose of that
thing. A good Human Being is efficient and effective, and fulfils with quality, the purpose for which the
Human Being was built — to ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes. > Better is
Never Enough. To ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes is a never ending
struggle. There is never enough assurance that the job is complete. There is always something extra
that can be done, some marginal increase of assurance that can be found.

And Finally, the struggle continues whether or not the individual is consciously aware of why they are
striving, or what they are striving for. Even if they are striving under misconceptions, misinformation,
or mistaken assumptions, the human animal is built to strive. The best situation is to be consciously
aware of why you are striving, and employ the best of your intellectual abilities to make conscious
rational choices of what to strive for. Happiness comes from knowing you are doing a good job.

That then, is your answer. The meaning of your life, your function, your purpose, the reason you exist,
is to ensure that your genes get transmitted to the next generation. The point of it all is the welfare of
your genetic descendants (over the long run, of course). Go to work because it is the best means
available to you at this time, and in this place, to prepare you to do well by your children. You are not
here to be good for society. You are not here to become whatever God might have intended. You
wake up every morning and tackle the day because you have a function to perform. Friends, family,
and society matter only to the extent that they can contribute to your ultimate purpose in life.

Many people will object to this answer, including many professional philosophers and of course
anyone with a religious/ spiritual bent. But any alternative they offer to my answer will come either
from their religious or spiritual premises (which I have specifically disavowed), or from out of thin air.
As humans we are gifted with the ability to choose alternative goals in life. And you are free to pursue
whatever ends tickle your fancy.

However, regardless of what other goals may be offered instead, if you are not successful at fulfilling
this evolutionary meaning of your life, then your genetic codes (and their 3 to 4 billion years of
ancestry) will vanish from the future. You are here to ask the question you asked because your
parents (and their parents, and their parents, etc.) were good at their job. The future will be populated
by individuals whose ancestors were successful at this evolutionary purpose. Are you going to be an
ancestor, or a dead end?

Stuart Burns

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