The Meaning Of Life?

2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the noted Austrian psychologist Victor Frankl. The late Dr. Frankl established a school of thought which maintained that the desire for meaning acts as humanity’s primary motivating force. His technique of “logotherapy” sought to treat certain forms of depression by helping the depressed to fill the “existential vacuum” in their lives. His birth’s centennial has invigorated the efforts of different groups attempting to complete a project initially proposed by Frankl: the construction of a “Statue of Responsibility.”

Frankl believed that responsibility constituted the very “essence of existence.” He taught that people ought not to concern themselves with their expectations of life, but rather with life’s expectations of them. When questioned, so to speak, by life, they could only answer for themselves through responsible behavior. By responding responsibly to their individual circumstances, they thereby actualized the unique meaning of their lives. Frankl left it to individuals to determine the appropriate object of their responsibility, though he identified conscience, family, society, and God as possibilities.

Frankl’s work had political as well as psychological dimensions. In his seminal 1959 book Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl wrote, “Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibility. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” This observation demonstrates penetrating insight into not merely the human condition in general, but into America’s unique political heritage.

The political philosophy which so influenced America’s founders had a negative concept of liberty - not negative in the sense of bad or harmful, but in the sense of involving absence. Classical liberals such as John Locke believed that freedom entails the absence of coercion. One person’s freedom ends when it infringes on the life, liberty, or property of someone else. A government exercises force only to protect those rights from violation. This view of freedom gave rise to classical liberalism’s distinction between the moral and the legal. Governments, like citizens, may persuasively promote virtue, but immorality falls within the government’s legislative purview only so much as it involves the infringement of life, liberty, and property.

Nonetheless, the concerns of a nation exceed the jurisdiction of its government. For a society to survive, a critical mass of its population must behave in a moral fashion. In a country with a classical liberal heritage, the citizens must take up that responsibility voluntarily. Thomas Jefferson declared that “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Liberty can only endure in conjunction with responsibility, and where responsibility fails, so too ultimately will liberty. Victor Frankl understood this principle, and his recommendation draws attention to its importance.

The Statue of Responsibility Foundation and The Statue of Responsibility Endowment stand out most prominently among the no less than seven organizations and individuals currently laboring on Frankl’s vision. Daniel Boltz, president of the Foundation, has stated that “the Statue of Responsibility, as a companion to Lady Liberty, would spark a national dialogue on the intrinsic worth of both. It will result in more responsible actions, personally and collectively, toward each other, our neighbors on the planet, and our common home - the Earth.” Whether or not such a statue would actually accomplish all this, it certainly would draw attention to the neglected but necessary counterpoint of the freedom Americans so cherish.

E.T. Phone Home

A recent survey conducted by the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute and the National Geographic Channel revealed that approximately 60% of Americans believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life. The poll also predictably revealed that a majority of college graduates believe in such life, whereas a majority of regular churchgoers do not. These results contribute little knowledge and no insight to a topic that ought to fascinate. The poll should have asked not what people believe about life on other planets, but why they believe what they do.

While most scientific debates hinge on the interpretation of evidence, in the case of extraterrestrial life no evidence exists to interpret. Because opinions on this issue remain entirely speculative, they reveal far more about their holders’ worldviews than about the issue itself. Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer with the SETI Institute, has asserted, “It is quite likely that there is life elsewhere in our galaxy, and there's a real possibility that we will find evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life by the year 2025.” However, he never articulates exactly what makes such a discovery likely. It certainly qualifies as possible, but so do many other hypothetical eventualities. Dr. Shostak’s prediction has no more scientific merit than a prospective date for the return of Christ. While his beliefs do not reflect either positively or negatively on him, they obviously do reflect more deeply held nonscientific beliefs on his part.

One potential line of reasoning in his favor claims that the universe encompasses such incomprehensibly large dimensions that it simply must contain other intelligent beings. Obviously, this argument has no logical force; the size of a vessel has no relationship to its specific contents. Furthermore, recent scientific research has demonstrated that an extraordinary number of precisely tuned factors must prevail for life to even possibly exist in the universe, let alone actually exist on Earth. The remote probability of just one inhabited planet existing makes the existence of another such planet even more improbable. Disregard for teleological considerations reveals a common, though not a necessary, corollary of belief in extraterrestrials: the belief that life randomly originates through purely natural means.

Another potential argument bypasses logic altogether and instead passes a moral judgement. It accuses those who disbelieve in extraterrestrial intelligence of arrogance. This argument actually presupposes the existence of extraterrestrials, for exclusivity only implies arrogance if the exclusive claim is false. Beyond that, it serves no purpose to “rebuke spirit by size,” in the words of G. K. Chesterton. Human significance would not diminish on account of extraterrestrial life any more than one child diminishes in value when his mother gives birth to another. A collection of significant beings does not make for collectively less significant beings.

While some scientists undoubtedly research extraterrestrial intelligence purely in the spirit of abstract inquiry, the popular quest for alien life primarily involves human concerns. Whether revealing the secrets of cold fusion, teaching revelatory spiritual insights, or diabolically gestating in a human belly, aliens serve as an artistic motif for expressing hopes and fears about the destiny of the human race. These hopes and fears find their source in highly subjective personal conceptions of progress and regress. Such notions have an inherently philosophic or religious character with which the scientific method cannot concern itself. Ultimately, science works best when inspired by a worldview which invests scientific proceedings with transcendent significance. But scientists, and those who emulate and follow them, must take care to identify where science ends and science fiction begins.