There is a complaint that is commonly lodged against science. It's been expressed in many different ways, but the general idea is usually, "Science can't tell us the meaning of life." I completely agree, but I don't see this as a failure of science, but rather an expectation beyond its scope. It's like blaming a cardiologist for his failure to mend your metaphorically broken heart. That's just not what he does.
As physicists pursue their dream of a grand unified theory, as evolutionary biologists try to trace the spontaneous generation of the DNA molecule, as neurologists attempt to map the brain and psychologists attempt to map the mind, as medical science tries to increase the longevity of the human body, none of this brings us any closer to the answer of "why?" Science can tell us where we are, it can, to some degree, tell us what we are, and it's working as we speak on the answer of how we came to be that way, and how we came to be here at all. Yet despite all that, it can not tell us why we are here and exactly what we're supposed to do about it. But I think the real question we need to consider is: why does anyone expect it to?
Although not exclusively, it is quite often religion which lodges this complaint, so perhaps it would be best to start there. Religion is a field which is very much concerned with the meaning of human life. It generally provides a narrative in which the human being has a role to play, a destiny to fulfill in the grand scheme of creation. It usually promises us a destination, a life beyond this one where our struggles are validated, or a series of lives which progress towards some purpose greater than ourselves. It often proposes a creator, whose love and concern for us is enough to justify our existence.
Religion lodges its complaint with science not because science doesn't offer any of these things, but precisely because science makes no attempt to offer these things. Implicit in science's refusal to commit itself on the issue of the meaning of existence is the idea that the issue is irrelevant to the object of its study. When a scientist attempts to carbon-date some fossilized remains, they aren't expecting the results to give meaning to their place in the universe. They're simply expecting to find out how old the fossil is.
This attitude is mystifying to the religious mind-set. They tend to see everything in terms of its significance to the human being. The heliocentric theory was once considered a heresy by the Catholic church, because it dethroned the Earth as the centerpiece of creation, and contradicted the established narrative. From a scientific standpoint it was just a conclusion coldly drawn from the data, whether it promoted or demoted our place in the universe was none of its concern.
In modern times we run into this same conflict over evolution. The theory is the object of rabid hysteria among some fundamentalist groups. They object to its contradiction of Genesis. They object that it blurs the line between us and the animals. They object to idea of distant simian ancestors. They object to the denial that man was directly formed by the loving hands of the creator for a divine purpose. But beyond all this, they are outraged by science's absolute indifference to these objections. It isn't just that science is undermining their most cherished beliefs, but also because science is doing so without an apparent agenda of its own.
It's frustratingly disarming. It's hard to vent your rage at a computer that is simply crunching numbers and returning a result that declares you are in error. Some try to saddle science with a secret agenda. Evolution is a "Satanic" plot they say, or a conspiracy to deny God. Others concede the lack of agenda and make that the focus of their complaint. "Science", they say, "can't tell you the meaning of life."
They seem to imply by this that the meaning of life is to be found somewhere in the data that science is handling, but science is just too blind, too cold to see it. They seem to imply that science is viewing the universe on a flat two-dimensional plane that lacks a crucial emotional dimension. They seem to lament that if only science would filter their findings through the human need to feel special, the human need to have purpose, then surely a far more beatific vision would emerge.
A similar complaint is also often lodged against reason, albeit on a broader and more abstract level. "Reason", they say, "can not give you emotional fulfillment." Much the same implications are at work here. Just as the scientist, in his studies and his experiments and his observations, is confronted with data, we are all in our personal lives confronted with a variety of information. The person making the above complaint seems to imply that emotional fulfillment is to be found somewhere in this information, but reason is just too cold and too calculated to see it. They seem to declare that only by processing this information in light of what gives us comfort, what makes us feel good, can we find emotional fulfillment.
The mistake in all of this, I believe, is the assumption that meaning and fulfillment are something out there beyond us, or that they are a tone and a texture with which we need to shade our perceptions. It is the assumption that science needs to gaze among the stars with the human variable in mind in order to find meaning. It is the assumption that we need to consider facts in the light of what we want them to be in order to find fulfillment. It's a failure to understand that we need to consider the facts in the light of what they are, if we are to have any hope of actually pursuing our dreams. It's a failure to understand that our emotions can have an honest relationship with the world; it doesn't have to be one build on lies.
As for meaning, I wholly concede that science can not provide it. But I don't believe that religion or philosophy can either. I believe that the meaning of life can only be found in the experience of living it. It is a thing in motion. Beautiful. No formula can express it. No creed can contain it. No theory could ever do it justice. It is the dancer's brief hour on the stage. I stand by science and reason not because they give my life meaning, but because they give me what I need to live, and then they let me go. They give me the freedom and the means to explore and discover and even create that meaning on my own through the sheer exuberance of living.
