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American Journal of Public Health Research
DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-3

The Implementation of a Tele-Homecare System with Service Oriented Architecture and HL7 Message Transmission Standard
Ching-Sung Wang

American Journal of Medical and Biological Research
DOI: 10.12691/ajmbr-1-1-2

The Influence of Ethanol on Pyruvate Kinases Activity in Vivo, in Vitro, in Silico
Lelevich Sergey Vladimirovich, Khrustalev Vladislav Victorovich, Barkovsky Eugene Victorovich, Shedogubova Tatyana Aleksandrovna

American Journal of Medical Sciences and Medicine
DOI: 10.12691/ajmsm-1-1-1

Clinical and Histological Features in Wegener Granulomatosis
Li Cavoli Gioacchino, Passantino Rita, Bono Luisa, Tortorici Calogera, Ferrantelli Angelo, Giammarresi Carlo, Rotolo Ugo

American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
DOI: 10.12691/ajidm-1-1-2

The Curse of Lymphatic Filariasis: Would the Continual Use of Diethylcarbamazine Eliminate this Scourge in Papua New Guinea?
Anne Lanham, Lillian Mwanri

We have released issues of some journals on February 2013.
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American Journal of Medical Sciences and Medicine
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American Journal of Cancer Prevention
American Journal of Medicine Studies
American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
American Journal of Cardiovascular Disease Research
American Journal of Biomedical Research
American Journal of Mechanical Engineering
American Journal of Microbiological Research
Journal of Preventive Medicine
American Journal of Food and Nutrition
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Label_Title

Dear Label_Name,

Greetings! I hope you are well.

I am writing on behalf of an international publishing house, Science and Education Publishing, USA (http://www.sciepub.com).

Science and Education Publishing (SciEP) is a multidisciplinary open access publisher of Journals covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. All SciEP publications are subject to high-quality peer review, editorial and production processes and are freely available online.

Welcome to the April, 2013 edition of SciEP newsletter, providing monthly summaries of articles on science & education related topics of interest to scientist and professionals. The mission of our journals is to provide an open access forum for publishing new findings on issues pertinent to scientific and academic field. We also invite you to submit original research papers, review articles, short reports, or case studies are considered for publication in our Multidisciplinary Journals.

American Journal of Public Health Research
DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-1-3

The Implementation of a Tele-Homecare System with Service Oriented Architecture and HL7 Message Transmission Standard
Ching-Sung Wang

American Journal of Medical and Biological Research
DOI: 10.12691/ajmbr-1-1-2

The Influence of Ethanol on Pyruvate Kinases Activity in Vivo, in Vitro, in Silico
Lelevich Sergey Vladimirovich, Khrustalev Vladislav Victorovich, Barkovsky Eugene Victorovich, Shedogubova Tatyana Aleksandrovna

American Journal of Medical Sciences and Medicine
DOI: 10.12691/ajmsm-1-1-1

Clinical and Histological Features in Wegener Granulomatosis
Li Cavoli Gioacchino, Passantino Rita, Bono Luisa, Tortorici Calogera, Ferrantelli Angelo, Giammarresi Carlo, Rotolo Ugo

American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
DOI: 10.12691/ajidm-1-1-2

The Curse of Lymphatic Filariasis: Would the Continual Use of Diethylcarbamazine Eliminate this Scourge in Papua New Guinea?
Anne Lanham, Lillian Mwanri

We have released issues of some journals on February 2013.
American Journal of Public Health Research
American Journal of Medical Sciences and Medicine
American Journal of Medical and Biological Research
American Journal of Pharmacological Sciences
American Journal of Clinical Medicine Research
American Journal of Nursing Research
American Journal of Cancer Prevention
American Journal of Medicine Studies
American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
American Journal of Cardiovascular Disease Research
American Journal of Biomedical Research
American Journal of Mechanical Engineering
American Journal of Microbiological Research
Journal of Preventive Medicine
American Journal of Food and Nutrition
American Journal of Hypertension Research
American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine
Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment
American Journal of Zoological Research
Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology
American Journal of Microbiological Research
Biomedical Science and Engineering

We are pleased to announce that submissions are now being accepted for peer review for all the journals across all our subject areas in SciEP.

Please submit your manuscript via our online submission system:
http://www.sciepub.com/author/signin

To unsubscribe from our mailing list, please click on the following link: unsubscribe

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

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David Rain
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Science and Education Publishing (http://www.sciepub.com)

Evolutionary Perspective on Meaning of Life

Abhijit Manohar

Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India

Abstract: The paper compares various meanings of life and proposes the evolutionary perspective as a rigorous scientific understanding of the meaning of life. But evolution produces only a lower goal of perpetuation of genes. Higher goal does not exist. This article compares various philosophical perspectives and examples of survival and reproductive advantage.

Keywords: Natural selection, Evolution, Occam’s Razor, illusion of qualia, Hyper-active Agency Detection Device, Meaning of life, Philosophical perspectives on purpose of life, qualia, survival without purpose

Received October 26, 2025; Revised November 28, 2025; Accepted December 04, 2025

Citation: Abhijit Manohar, Evolutionary Perspective on Meaning of Life. World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 11 (2). 49-51. January 2025. doi:10.12691/wjssh-11-2-5

1. Introduction

Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life...life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA...life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.¹ --Richard Dawkins [1]

Living creatures "differ from one another, and those variations arise at random, without a plan or purpose." This suggests that life has no inherent purpose [2]. Natural selection and random mutations create an illusion of intelligent designer.

All our physical and mental attributes improve the survival value and reproductive success thus keeping the personal genes alive. Perpetuation of genes is the lower goal/ meaning/ purpose of life according to evolutionary theory. However, this lower goal requires ‘struggle for survival’ with the return favour of illusion of happiness, which is a quale. All qualia are illusions. There is no higher goal and like any other machine, death is the inevitable consequence of biological machine (lifeforms) too. This is due to second law of thermodynamics.

Universe as a whole does not seem to have any intrinsic purpose either. Using Occam’s Razor, it is speculated that, universe arose from ‘nothing’.

Various objections to theory of evolution

1). Fine Tuned Universe – Life evolved to survive in a given environment. Different constants would have produced different lifeforms.

2). Irreducible Complexity – It is claimed that eye would not work until all parts of an eye come together harmoniously to assist vision. This requires many required mutations to occur simultaneously. This is a fallacious argument as each part of an eye served an evolutionary purpose.

3). Specified Complexity – Natural selection, creationist claim, is a random process and a random process cannot create complexity. The counter-argument is that natural selection is not a random process but mutations are random. Natural selection is driven by given environment.

4). Incomplete Fossil Record – Every time a fossil is found chronologically between 2 fossil records 2 new gaps are created. Creationist want to find more fossils in the 2 gaps.

5). Consciousness – Consciousness, both Self and qualia can be a spandrel which piggybacked some other genes having evolutionary advantage. Temperature, taste, smell, touch, pressure, emotions may have evolved for de/motivation. Visual and auditory qualia for efficiency.

6). Second Law of thermodynamics – Creationists claim that entropy should always increase as per second law of thermodynamics. The claims have been incorrectly criticized for ignoring that the second law only applies to isolated systems. Organisms are open systems as they constantly exchange energy and matter with their environment [3]. However, the fact that no exception to the law of increasing entropy has ever been observed does not prove such a thing never happened.

If evolution is true, the claim that lower goal of perpetuation of one’s own genes is validated however evolution does not offer any higher goal- meaning or purpose.

2. Various Meanings of Life

The search for meaning of life has produced many religious, philosophical, scientific or ontological speculations. Chasing dreams [4], expanding one’s potential in life [5], seeking happiness [6] – Happiness and survival are 2 sides of the same coin and happiness is not a reason or consequence of/ for survival. We feel happy when our survival value goes up and sad when the survival value goes down (motivation). Example – Endorphins are secreted during workout or gymnasium making us feel happy but it is just the survival value (health) going up during workout, survive [7] – It is argued that survival itself is the goal or meaning of life and inquiring about the goal of survival leads to infinite regress. However, a lifeform has to struggle for survival to create an illusion of happiness (happiness such as that created by nucleus accumbens (reward centre of the brain) is an illusion [8] (there is nothing there! The paper “origins of qualia by Roger Orpwood [9] explains how re-entrant architecture or attention creates an attractor state to create qualia. Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace try to explain how brain creates qualia while opponent process theory explains why we see after image [10]) just like any other quale). Also, mere survival is a lower form of meaning unlike higher forms such as experiencing God or attaining highest wisdom, reproduce [11], seek wisdom [12], to make the world a better place [7], creating and innovating [13], seeking peace [14], experiencing God and reach highest heaven [14,15], no meaning [16] etc.

3. Philosophical Perspectives

Western Philosophical Perspectives:

Platonism – Attaining highest form of knowledge from which all good things derive value [17].

Cynicism – Living a life of virtue in agreement with nature [17].

Epicureanism – Moderate pleasures, freedom from fear, friendship, virtuous living etc [17].

Stoicism – Freedom from suffering through objectivity [17].

Enlightenment Philosophy – Focusing on relationship between individuals and society [17].

Utilitarianism – Greatest happiness to greatest number of people [17].

Nihilism – Life is without objective meaning [17].

Pragmatism – Meaning of life is discoverable only through experience [17].

Existentialism – Each person creates life meaning or essence [17].

Eastern Philosophical Perspectives:

Advaita Vedanta – Atman is ultimately indistinguishable from Brahman, and the goal of life is to know or realize that one's Atman (soul) is identical to Brahman [18]. Dualism is criticized because of the inability to explain how intangible mind interacts with physical brain/ body. Also, not all brain is conscious. People are born without cerebellum or cerebellum is surgically removed without losing consciousness. Damage to specific brain areas causes loss of ability of that brain area. E.g. Damage to V4 area may produce problems in seeing colours. Soul and creator soul are a direct creation of hyper-active Agency Detection Device (HADD). Illusion of agency is seen here [19].

4. Survival and Reproductive Advantage (few examples)

Money – money facilitated increased cooperation and saving in large hunter gather groups as opposed to biological relatives.

Power – power gives an individual advantage to influence others and access to resources before less powerful individuals.

Altruism [20]– 1) Reciprocal altruism – Help that is returned to the original donor 2) Kin Selection

Music [19] – Facilitated social bonding and cohesion among prehistoric humans.

Art/ Paintings [19] – Communication such as hunting techniques, social bonding.

Opposable thumb – opposable thumb allows griping of objects such as branches of trees.

Pheromones – chemical signals which indicate mating or danger signal to another individual/ s

Endorphins – hormones released by pituitary gland in response to pain and pleasure such as during gymnasium/ workout.

5. Conclusion

All our physical and mental attributes improve the survival value and reproductive success thus keeping the personal genes alive. Perpetuation of genes is the lower goal- meaning- purpose of life according to evolutionary theory. However, this lower goal requires ‘struggle for survival’ with the return favour of illusion of happiness, which is a quale. All qualia are illusions. Happiness is not a goal/ meaning/ purpose of survival but happiness and survival are 2 sides of the same coin. There is no higher goal and like any other machine, death is the inevitable consequence of biological machine (lifeforms) too. This is due to second law of thermodynamics.

Universe as a whole does not seem to have any intrinsic purpose either. Using Occam’s Razor, it is speculated that, universe arose from ‘nothing’.

References

[1]   | Scheff, Liam. 2007. The Dawkins Delusion. Salvo, 2:94. https://www.icr.org/content/darwinism-survival-without-purpose.
[2]   | Ibid, 119. https:// www.icr.org/ content/ darwinism-survival-without –purpose.
[3]   | Morris, Henry. (1985). "Does Entropy Contradict Evolution?". Institute for Creation Research. https://www.icr.org/article/does-entropy-contradict-evolution.
[4]   | David Seaman (2005). The Real Meaning of Life. New World Library. ISBN 978-1-57731-514-8.
[5]   | Roger Ellerton, CMC (2013). Live Your Dreams... Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You. Renewal Technologies. ISBN 978-0-9784452-.
[6]   | Lee, Dong Yul; Park, Sung Hee; Uhlemann, Max R.; Patsult, Philip (June 2000). "What Makes You Happy?: A Comparison of Self-reported Criteria of Happiness Between Two Cultures". Social Indicators Research. 50 (3): 351–362.
[7]   | Lopez, Mike (22 September 1999). "Episode III: Relativism? A Jedi craves not these things". The Michigan Daily. Archived from the original on 11 August 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
[8]   | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yfx096UnKQ.
[9]   | Orpwood, Roger (2017). Information and Origins of Qualia. PMID: 28484376. PMCID: PMC5399078.
[10]   | https:// www.verywellmind.com/ what-is-the-opponent-process-theory-of-color-vision-2795830.
[11]   | David Seaman (2005). The Real Meaning of Life. New World Library. ISBN 978-1-57731-514-8.
[12]   | Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (1954). The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Doubleday.
[13]   | Eric G. Stephan; R. Wayne Pace (2002). Powerful Leadership: How to Unleash the Potential in Others and Simplify Your Own Life. FT Press. ISBN 978-0-13-066836-3.
[14]   | John Cook (2007). The Book of Positive Quotations. Fairview Press. ISBN 978-1-57749-169-9.
[15]   | Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi (1993). The Work of the Kabbalist. Weiser. ISBN 978-0-87728-637-0.
[16]   | Timothy Tang (2007). Real Answers to The Meaning of Life and Finding Happiness. iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-45941-4.
[17]   | https:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Meaning_of_life. Western Philosophical Perspectives.
[18]   | https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Meaning_of_life. Eastern Philosophical Perspectives.
[19]   | https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=VTNmLt7QX8E.
[20]   | Proc Biol Sci. 2008 Sep 2; 276(1654): 13–19.
[21]   | Aditi Subramaniam. March 9th 2024. https:// www. psychologytoday.com/ us/blog/ parenting-from-a-neuroscience-perspective/ 202403/the-evolutionary-roots-of-music.