![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000QMREGK\")
.\u2026the joy you experience when you see your child\u2019s smile.
\u2026the filling of the cathedral with the sounds of the choir.
\u2026the taste of acacia honey and butter on freshly-baked bread.
\u2026the expression on someone\u2019s face when you deliver good news.
\u2026feeding the hungry.<\/p>\n
I could go on, but I suspect some may already object that none of the things mentioned above is a satisfactory explanation of our existence. I would go further than that: they aren\u2019t explanations at all.<\/p>\n
Part of the confusion we experience when thinking about \u201cthe meaning of life\u201d is that we fail to distinguish between meaning<\/i> and explanation<\/i>.<\/p>\n
However true this might be, it may be besides the point in an important respect. Even if it turned out, as Douglas Adams suggested, that the answer to the ultimate question is \u201c42\u201d, such an answer should not be entirely surprising if we are dealing with the realm of explanation<\/i>. Scientific explanations will point to causes and produce formulas and equations.<\/p>\n Meaning is something else entirely. I was not altogether happy with Keith Ward\u2019s references to God (in his book Pascal\u2019s Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding<\/a> For me, God is about meaning<\/i> in an ultimate sense. Even when life seems meaningless to us on our level, I am persuaded that it is not genuinely meaningless, because it is part of something greater.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, meaning is in principle something that is produced in concrete actions and events. It is a product of how we live, rather than an explanation for why we are alive. We could all point to individuals, whatever religious or philosophical tradition we might belong to, who assented on some rational cognitive level to the teachings of that tradition, and yet lived lives that did not seem meaningful either to them or to those around them. They may find meaning within the big picture, or in relation to others, but this does not change the fact that, for all the \u2018right beliefs\u2019 they may hold, they are not themselves living and acting in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n I am in favor of seeking explanations. But saying that God made human beings by molding dust with his hands, or that God created us through evolution, or that evolution gave rise to us without there being any reason to mention God, we are still focusing on attempting to offer explanations<\/i>. But whichever account of our origins one may subscribe to, it does not automatically lead to one living, or not living, a meaningful life.<\/p>\n For our lives to be meaningful, we must make<\/i> them meaningful, by filling them with meaningful experiences, and engaging in meaningful actions.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/news\/n0108\/25hubble\/hubble.jpg\")
<\/a>Physicists are seeking an explanation for the way the universe is. As we discussed Philip Kitcher\u2019s book<\/a> today in a faculty reading group, one of my colleagues mentioned the concept of \u201cunexplained explainers\u201d. Goedel\u2019s famous theorem demonstrated that no equation or system can be entirely self-contained.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1851684468\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.widerange.org\/images\/large\/plitvickaJezera.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-287628185186591529?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")
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