These philosophical reflections are my thoughts on; truth, success, purpose, death, thinking, and worldview. They were written with the intention to express my initial thinking that led to my current conclusions on life. I have deliberately ended on questions rather than answers, as I wanted to provide a conceptual framework for readers who may not share my worldview, and to seek the answers for themselves. Relevant Quranic verses have been included as introductory literary devices to evoke thought and set the mental scene. This approach is a major theme in the Quran, as it frequently mentions, “Do you not reflect?”
There is an African proverb that states “He who asks questions, cannot avoid the answers”, so I hope these reflections will evoke thought and facilitate guidance for all those who seek it.
Truth
“The truth is from your Lord, so on no account be among the doubters.” (Quran 2: 147)
“Do not mix the truth with falsehood, or hide the truth when you know it.” (Quran 2: 42)
The question of truth has perplexed the mind of nearly every human being that has lived on this planet. What is truth? How do we get to know truth? Is there such a thing as truth? This type of thinking dates back to the ancient Greek Philosopher Socrates, as a young man he endlessly questioned and sought after the truth. However, in our day and age we do not really think about concepts such as truth. We may have argued, “tell me the truth!” if we suspect our friends of betrayal, or we “swear to tell the truth” in a court of law, but when it comes to our existence, and questioning what it means to be a human being, we forget about truth and adopt skepticism as a philosophy.
Skepticism answers in the negative the following question: can we know anything? It essentially implies the belief that the truth about life and the universe will never be known. Founded by Pyrrho of Elis, Skepticism was advocated and put into writing by the Greek Philosopher Sextus Empiricus who was the first to detail and codify the doctrine. This school of philosophy is common in today’s society, however, its approach regarding truth is unwarranted because we can discover it, and the only way to do that is by endless, insistent questioning. Socrates was great at questioning and by doing so he would bring his opponents to realise the truth, and this is because he believed the truth was already within us. For example, there are many universal principles that we can never deny, and to deny them would deny knowledge itself. For instance, take two planks of wood that are equal in length: do we know they are equal because they are the same length or do we know what the concept of equality is prior to our experience? It is because we have the innate, inbuilt concept of equality that enables us to see that the planks of wood are the same length. Also, we know that half of something is less than its whole, and we know the truth of the fact that all fathers are men. These innate ideas and concepts are known in epistemology as a priori, which means knowledge independent from experience.
From a practical perspective the skeptic’s position is untenable, because we know the truth of the laws of physics that enable bridges to withstand heavy loads, including the laws that keep boats afloat. If a skeptical position was assumed when building our houses, would we agree to implement the architect’s design? The Polish Philosopher Leszek Kolakowski writes,
“We might say: well, since we know nothing, what is the point of constructing theories that have no foundation? But if philosophers and scholars had seriously attempted to achieve such self-satisfied serenity, would they have been able to build our civilization? Would modern physics have been invented?”
So there are some universal truths that we can feel secure in accepting, and the way to find out further truths is to use these universal truths as a starting point, which is called epistemic foundationalism in the language of philosophy.
The importance of truth has been emphasized by many thinkers past and present. Plato the ancient Philosopher said “And isn’t it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.” So why is the search for truth important? The significance of truth is not only intuitive; it is something that gives us a sense of reality, that things are real. In absence of truth life on occasions can seem unreal and illusory in a certain sense. Additionally, many psychologists have acknowledged that human beings want to be right and seek to learn from social norms when they are unsure about things, this psychological process is known as ‘Normative and Informational Social Influence’. In this view the search for truth is very important as it has the possibility of shaping who we are or the person we want to be.
Another way of looking at this is that not searching for truth is tantamount to lying to ourselves, or even accepting a lie, because anything other than truth will be accepting it’s opposite. So the search for truth would be a means of trying to be more sincere with our own existence, as we would be seeking to establish the truth of who we are and the life we are living. Finally, holding on to the skeptical view that there is no truth is self-defeating, because the claim that there is no truth is actually a truth claim, so how can anyone claim that skepticism is true but everything else is not? This is the inconsistency of the skeptical view; a skeptic would claim the truth of skepticism but would deny all other truths! Consequently no matter what position we hold we still have to accept a truth, and in this light, let the search for truth begin!
“…they are the ones who are successful.” (Quran 7:157)
“Truly, this is the supreme success!” (Quran 37:60)
One of the best definitions I have found of success is “the completion of what is intended”. For example, if I were to intend to learn how to drive, and I passed my driving test, that would be a success. As human beings we intend to achieve things all the time; to get a promotion; to be our own boss; to be a good father and husband; to travel the world or to write a book. If we achieve or complete our aims and objectives then it can be argued we have been successful. However is this view of success meaningful? I would argue it is not.
If we live our lives to complete the things that we intend to achieve, without even questioning the intention of our own existence, we will have not found any ultimate meaning to our own lives. Therefore our view of success is almost baseless and devoid of real value. If each person completes his life by intending to achieve all of the things we mentioned, and he or she didn’t even complete the intended meaning for his or her life, then can we call their lives successful? We can even ask: does it really matter whether they ever existed at all? His or her life may be of some importance relative to the things they want to complete, but what is the ultimate significance of completing their own lives?
Let’s look at it from a scientific perspective, our children, our actions, our loved ones and everything we do are just arrangements of molecules. Carbon and other atoms in various combinations make up our lives and even the things we intend to complete. From this perspective mankind is thus no more significant than a swarm of flies, or a herd of sheep, for their makeup is all the same. Also, if we follow the scientific line of thought our end is also meaningless, we just die and that’s it. This is true for each individual person. The amazing achievements of the scientist to the advancement of human thinking, the on-going research of bio-medicine to find the cure for cancer, the efforts of the politician to establish justice and peace in the world, all these come to nothing. Even if human beings were to exist forever, the mere infinite duration of our lives would not make them any more meaningful, there would still be no ultimate significance.
Existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus understood the meaningless reality of life in absence of acknowledging the intention of our existence. This is why Sartre wrote of the “nausea” of existence and Camus saw life as absurd indicating that the universe has no meaning at all. The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued in clear concise pronouncements that the world and human history does not have any meaning, any rational order or aim. Nietzsche argued that there is only a mindless chaos, a directionless world tending towards no end.
If we found the intention of our existence, thereby giving our lives ultimate meaning, and we were to achieve and complete what was intended – that would indeed be true success. In contrast to this type of thinking someone may contend by stating that this whole discussion assumes that some metaphysical entity created the whole universe with some sort of purpose. This is true, but by removing this assumption we will only be presuming atheism to be true. Additionally, the logical conclusion of atheism is that our very existence is pointless, which is a conclusion not many atheists would like to follow through due to it being at odds with our innate nature and psychological disposition. So the following questions naturally follow, what is the intention of our existence, and what outlook would make sense of our continuous search for ultimate meaning and success?
Purpose
“So where are you going?” (Quran 81:26)
“Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose” (Quran 3:190)
“God did not create all these without a true purpose; He explains His signs to those who understand.” (Quran 10:5)
The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who inspired two of the 20th century’s principal philosophical movements, once said, “I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.” Wittgenstein did not have the answer to the perennial question of what is humanity’s purpose, but he did indicate that there must be one, even if the answer could not be discovered intuitively. However, it can be argued that the assumption that there is a purpose may be false, and if it is false, then there is nothing to be bothered about, and we should all just carry on living. As Albert Camus, the French Algerian philosopher and journalist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, explained “You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life”. Camus’ point is not ontological, it doesn’t probe into the nature of reality, and his concern seems to be an existential one, meaning that the important thing is how life works for you, the life of individual; regardless of any truth behind existence. So in light of this we must ask: is it reasonable to believe we have a purpose?
To answer this, take the following points into consideration:
You are probably reading this in your bedroom sitting on your chair, and you are definitely wearing some clothes. So I ask you a question: for what purpose? Why are you wearing the clothes and what purpose does the chair fulfill? Since these are rhetorical questions you don’t have to answer, because we all know the answer. The chair’s purpose is to allow us to sit down by supporting our weight, and our clothes fulfill the purpose of keeping us warm, hiding our nakedness and making us look good! Now from your bedroom let me transport you to a forest somewhere in the world, now this forest obviously has trees and on a particular tree there is a moth. This moth is on this tree drinking its sap, underneath that moth there is another moth and its role is somewhat bizarre, it drinks the excrement of the first moth. This is because the first moth almost instantaneously removes its waste while drinking the sap. You are probably thinking where I am going with this, well; firstly let us discuss what the purpose of the second moth is. Its purpose is to clean up the excrement of the first moth in order to prevent it trickling down the tree so that ants, and other insects, would not be encouraged to travel up the trail and in consequence eat the first moth. So in simple terms the second moth is the first moth’s insurance policy!
Now take this into consideration, you probably didn’t know anything about this moth three minutes ago, in fact if moth genocide were to occur, you wouldn’t really care – well most of you anyway. However, we attribute purpose to such an insignificant creature, and coming back to our clothes and the chair, which are inanimate objects with no emotional and mental faculties, we attribute purpose to these too! Still, we do not attribute purpose to our own existence? Is this not absurd?
Believing that we have no purpose is not only irrational, it is practically problematic because it presents an indication that a lot of the things we have achieved as humans beings most probably would not have happened as many of the people who have accomplished amazing achievements, including the discovery of penicillin, would not have had the drive to attain what they did. This is because these very people had a purpose driven approach to life, without which we would be just like animals obeying our instincts, in other words chemical robots wandering around waiting for the battery acid to dry up! The realities of a purposeless existence was also highlighted by the Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who claimed that the world is bankrupt and there is no reason to rejoice in its existence, he even argued that it would be better if it did not exist and questioned whether suicide was a plausible solution.
So why is it irrational? Well, it is irrational because if everything complex and designed that we discover seems to have a purpose, including the insignificant moth, as well as the things we develop and create, then it logically follows that we have a purpose too. To deny this would be tantamount of believing in things without any evidence, as there is no evidence to say we have no purpose, on the contrary we have evidence to say that things have a purpose and we can infer that about ourselves too. Even scientists indicate that it is irrational to assert that our universe is impersonal and the product of blind chance. Interestingly they have explained that the physical processes in the universe have some sort of purpose, for instance the Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle described the universe with the attributes of God, and the physicists Zeldovich and Novikov asked why did nature choose to create this universe instead of another?
Finally, we can argue that without a purpose we do not really have a deeper profound meaning to our life. For instance if we take the logical conclusion of an apathetic scientific view on our existence, we are on a sinking ship. This ship is called the universe, because according to scientists the universe is going to suffer a heat death, and one day the Sun will destroy the earth. Therefore this ship is going to sink, so I ask you, what is the point of reshuffling the deck chairs or giving a glass of milk to the old lady? As Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian writer and essayist said, “Without some goal and some effort to reach it, no one can live.”
Various contentions can follow from this discussion; firstly a purposeless worldview gives us more freedom to create purpose for ourselves. To further explain, some existentialists have argued that our life is actually based on nothing, and from this nothingness we can create a new realm of possibility for our lives, and therefore create purpose for ourselves. This philosophy rests on the idea that everything is meaningless and that we should create a new language for ourselves in order to live fulfilling lives. The flaw with this approach is that it uses meaning to claim meaninglessness; it also represents a self-delusion as they deny purpose but create one for themselves. Additionally it implies that there are no objective moral values and truths because an ontological foundation is absent. This is counter-intuitive and opposes our cross-cultural consensus of our moral thinking. The philosophy of war is a good example to show this type of moral consensus. For 2,500 years there was a cross-cultural agreement that poisons should not be used in war, even if you were being defeated. Although in practice people did not always conform, but they did however agree to this rule.
Another contention includes the evolutionist’s stance that our purpose is to propagate our DNA, as Richard Dawkins in his publication ‘The Selfish Gene’ states that our bodies have been developed to do just that. The problem with this analysis is that it relegates our existence to a random accident via a lengthy biological process, in essence the value of our life loses its meaning and morality is relegated to individual taste, as Michael Ruse a Philosopher of Science states,
“Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth… Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction and any deeper meaning is illusory.”
The evolutionary perspective creates more problems than it solves as it cannot provide an adequate explanation for consciousness and the presence of our rational faculties. Taking consciousness as an example, how can a subjective immaterial reality come from a material substance? Consciousness is not a physical thing; it is not contained in any cell or biological structure. The most unchallenged and intuitive reality is that we are all aware, but we cannot describe or explain what this awareness is. One thing that we can be sure of is that consciousness cannot be explained biologically or chemically, the main reason for this is that evolution doesn’t discover consciousness; it’s actually the other way round. For evolution to try and explain the truth of consciousness would be tantamount to arguing in a circle! Even scientists recognise this, the physicist Gerald Schroeder points out that there is no real difference between a heap of sand and the brain of an Einstein. If those advocating a physical explanation for consciousness, bigger questions would need answering such as ‘how can certain bits of matter suddenly create a new reality that has no resemblance to matter?’
So if consciousness cannot be explained physically then the next question must be asked, ‘how did it come to be?’ The history of the universe indicates that consciousness just spontaneously arose and language emerged without any evolutionary forerunner. Even the neo-atheists have failed to come to terms with the nature of consciousness or its source, because no physical explanation is coherent enough to convince. Even the neo-atheist Richard Dawkins admits defeat concerning consciousness, he states “We don’t know. We don’t understand it.”
In conclusion there are more reasons to believe that we have a deeper purpose rather than the other options of purposelessness and the cold valueless propagation of our DNA. Realising that we have a purpose is the best explanation via the inferences we make concerning the universe and the things around us. Even the Scottish Philosopher David Hume was attributed of saying “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence”, so in this case, it would be wiser to conclude that human beings must have a purpose, and let us not forget that it nourishes us with a more significant explanation for our existence. However, the following question naturally arises: what is our purpose?
