Meaning is multi-causal, so we’re able to choose what meaning matters most to us. Yet the palatability of the particular meaning we choose to emphasise is only loosely coupled to its truthiness.
\n\n", "content_hash": "sha256:50bdddcceac654f99cc5fb9873db8047933a2601772e94c427ce137bc7114e6b", "media": [], "changelog": [ { "version": 1, "at": "2026-09-10T06:49:58Z", "note": null } ] }However, as the philosopher Robert Nozick has pointed out, humans will not accept any mere “purpose” for our lives as the “meaning of life.” In a notable thought experiment, Nozick imagined humans learned that we had been bred to be food for aliens in a nearby galaxy. Such a realization would have many features of a classic “meaning of life”: it would explain both why we are here, and what human life was “made for.” However, Nozick was quite confident that most humans would not embrace “being alien food” as the one, the capital-t True, “meaning of life.” We humans generally want a “meaning of life” to represent the best parts of how we lived; “being food” lacks a certain gravitas we expect from an ultimate purpose.