Science and Meaning
Science does not care about meaning, but that does not mean the world is meaningless.
Written by Bo Winegard.
Recently, a deflating remark about science and meaning by Yuval Noah Harari made the rounds on Twitter:
From a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.
The claim, common in one form or another, is that science is the final arbiter of what is really real. If something cannot be detected, measured or affirmed by the scientific method, it does not truly exist. Meaning, because it is not “scientifically objective,” is dismissed as an illusion. The universe, on this view, is cold, impersonal and fundamentally indifferent. And the man who believes that raising his daughter or writing a great novel gives his life meaning is not just wrong, he is deluded.