Members of the scientific community and philosophy of science communities believe that science can provide the relevant context, and set of parameters necessary for dealing with topics related to the meaning of life. In their view, science can offer a wide-range of insights on topics ranging from the science of happiness to death anxiety. Science can achieve this means by objectively exposing numerous aspects of life and reality, such as the Big Bang, the origin of life, and evolution.
Psychological significance and value in life
Scientific inquiry may be able to reveal which - if any - aspects of life are of essential value (and various materialist philosophies such as dialectical materialism challenge the very idea of an absolute value or meaning of life), but some studies definitely bear on aspects of the question: researchers in positive psychology (and, earlier and less rigorously, in humanistic psychology) study factors that lead to life satisfaction,[98] full engagement in activities,[99] making a fuller contribution by utilizing one's personal strengths,[100] and meaning based on investing in something larger than the self.[101]
One value system suggested by social psychologists, broadly called Terror Management Theory, states that human meaning is derived from a fundamental fear of death, and values are selected when they allow us to escape the mental reminder of death.
Neuroscience describes reward, pleasure, and motivation in terms of neurotransmitter activity, especially in the limbic system and the ventral tegmental area in particular. If one believes that the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure and to ease general life, then this allows normative predictions about how to act to achieve this. Likewise, some ethical naturalists advocate a science of morality - the empirical pursuit of flourishing for all conscious creatures.
Sociology examines value at a social level using theoretical constructs such as value theory, norms, anomie, etc.
Origin and nature of biological life
The exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are unknown: notable hypotheses include the RNA world hypothesis (RNA-based replicators) and the iron-sulfur world theory (metabolism without genetics). The process by which different lifeforms have developed throughout history via genetic mutation and natural selection is explained by evolution.[102] At the end of the 20th century, based upon insight gleaned from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists George C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, David Haig, among others, concluded that if there is a primary function to life, it is the replication of DNA and the survival of one's genes.[103][104] This view has not achieved universal agreement; Jeremy Griffith is a notable exception, maintaining that the meaning of life is to be integrative.[105]
Though scientists have intensively studied life on Earth, defining life in unequivocal terms is still a challenge.[106][107] Physically, one may say that life "feeds on negative entropy"[105][108][109] which refers to the process by which living entities decrease their internal entropy at the expense of some form of energy taken in from the environment.[110][111] Biologists generally agree that lifeforms are self-organizing systems regulating the internal environment as to maintain this organized state, metabolism serves to provide energy, and reproduction causes life to continue over a span of multiple generations. Typically, organisms are responsive to stimuli and genetic information changes from generation to generation, resulting in adaptation through evolution; this optimizes the chances of survival for the individual organism and its descendants respectively.[112]
Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are generally not considered to be organisms because they are incapable of independent reproduction or metabolism. This classification is problematic, though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are also incapable of independent life. Astrobiology studies the possibility of different forms of life on other worlds, including replicating structures made from materials other than DNA.
Psychological significance and value in life
Scientific inquiry may be able to reveal which - if any - aspects of life are of essential value (and various materialist philosophies such as dialectical materialism challenge the very idea of an absolute value or meaning of life), but some studies definitely bear on aspects of the question: researchers in positive psychology (and, earlier and less rigorously, in humanistic psychology) study factors that lead to life satisfaction,[98] full engagement in activities,[99] making a fuller contribution by utilizing one's personal strengths,[100] and meaning based on investing in something larger than the self.[101]
One value system suggested by social psychologists, broadly called Terror Management Theory, states that human meaning is derived from a fundamental fear of death, and values are selected when they allow us to escape the mental reminder of death.
Neuroscience describes reward, pleasure, and motivation in terms of neurotransmitter activity, especially in the limbic system and the ventral tegmental area in particular. If one believes that the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure and to ease general life, then this allows normative predictions about how to act to achieve this. Likewise, some ethical naturalists advocate a science of morality - the empirical pursuit of flourishing for all conscious creatures.
Sociology examines value at a social level using theoretical constructs such as value theory, norms, anomie, etc.
Origin and nature of biological life
The exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are unknown: notable hypotheses include the RNA world hypothesis (RNA-based replicators) and the iron-sulfur world theory (metabolism without genetics). The process by which different lifeforms have developed throughout history via genetic mutation and natural selection is explained by evolution.[102] At the end of the 20th century, based upon insight gleaned from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists George C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, David Haig, among others, concluded that if there is a primary function to life, it is the replication of DNA and the survival of one's genes.[103][104] This view has not achieved universal agreement; Jeremy Griffith is a notable exception, maintaining that the meaning of life is to be integrative.[105]
Though scientists have intensively studied life on Earth, defining life in unequivocal terms is still a challenge.[106][107] Physically, one may say that life "feeds on negative entropy"[105][108][109] which refers to the process by which living entities decrease their internal entropy at the expense of some form of energy taken in from the environment.[110][111] Biologists generally agree that lifeforms are self-organizing systems regulating the internal environment as to maintain this organized state, metabolism serves to provide energy, and reproduction causes life to continue over a span of multiple generations. Typically, organisms are responsive to stimuli and genetic information changes from generation to generation, resulting in adaptation through evolution; this optimizes the chances of survival for the individual organism and its descendants respectively.[112]
Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are generally not considered to be organisms because they are incapable of independent reproduction or metabolism. This classification is problematic, though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are also incapable of independent life. Astrobiology studies the possibility of different forms of life on other worlds, including replicating structures made from materials other than DNA.
