It matters just as much

The lack of permanence in the world, at least, is difficult to dispute. There are no counterexamples; this universe itself seems opposed to the notion, given that the laws of thermodynamics seem to guarantee an end state at equilibrium,¹ the past unascertainable—true permanence in this world is essentially restricted to unit.

Permanence as a concept is eminently conceivable and deeply attractive; yet no amount of human effort can achieve it. Perhaps it is natural, then, that our literature and mythology so often place it strictly under the purview of the divine, or at least mystical. This is as much true in the Gilgamesh as in classical and Abrahamic mythologies: eternal, permanent life is granted to Utnapishtim and his wife only by the grace of the god Enlil; the secret plant which restores youth is a mystery of the gods; man is allotted death, but life remains in the gods’ own keeping.

Yet in this world, there does not appear to be permanence, even from the gods, so it might follow that there is, ultimately, no meaning in anything—if all will end in time in uniform insignificance anyway.

Still, people do “get up and go about their business”. If there is no meaning, must there not be at least some driving force, some reason to continue?

Some, perhaps, have never truly believed in the fundamental impermanence of the world. Afterlives, after all—particularly those in which one’s lot is determined by judgment of one’s actions in life—are a recurring theme in the world’s mythologies. By introducing an independent measure of meaning, the transience of this life becomes irrelevant: it matters just as much as the next life matters. Whether in a system of reincarnation, as in the dharmic tradition, or of eternal afterlives, as in the Abrahamic tradition, the work of the present life is in anticipation of the life yet to come.

But for the others—even if for no other reason, even if there truly is not meaning to life, people do and will continue for a long time to get up and act. The tyranny of natural selection assures it, because impermanence means, in the end, everyone dies.

Even if impermanence makes everything hold no meaning, action is no less meaningful than inaction, and no action any more or less than any other. So, perhaps, when everyone is dead, some may have left offspring—offspring which, as in any other sustainable self-replicating system, have derived their traits from their parents, and thus have likely inherited some tendency to produce offspring. Once the initial generations have died off, only the offspring remain; those which could not (or would not) reproduce become lost forever to the impermanence of the world.

Thus, even if the amount of meaning is exactly the same, whether or not we act, there should be, in all possible worlds, far fewer people who do go on with their lives than who do not. Since our ability to observe the world is predicated on our presence in it, there is consequently an anthropic bias favouring a world in which most humans actually do get out of bed in the morning.

Still, we all will die. We will have mattered.

Eventually, we will not matter; just as we ourselves cannot achieve permanence, neither can our influence: as time goes on, we are forgotten, and our actions become inconsequential.

But as impermanent as they are, the actions have a persistence without well-defined limit. The effects of self-replication in particular, for example, extend indefinitely and are distinctly inherent to all life: even if they are not meaningful, they at least remain; each individual has been born to a lineage which, in every generation, reproduced.

The sole motive (if it can be called that) life has or needs is its own propagation. Life may not have a meaning, but neither does it need one: most of us will get up in the morning and go about our business anyway.

Some won’t. It matters just as much.