 Hi, my name is Josh and this is Thunk. Kicker Guard, what's the matter? Nothing. Episode 42, as Douglas Adams fans are no doubt aware, this is a number of cosmic significance, so to celebrate reaching this milestone, I'm going to talk about the answer to the ultimate question, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. There's a whole constellation of philosophical labels that point in the general direction of what I think is the best answer that we have to those questions. Distentialism, nihilism, absurdism, deconstruction, all sorts of authors and philosophers have used terms like these to write different things about this single general idea. It's a pretty simple thing to understand, but really hard to truly come to terms with. It's going to get pretty dark, but I promise there's a light at the end of the tunnel that will leave you feeling slightly powerless, but also infinitely powerful. Are you still on board? Alright, here we go. Let's begin with the end. Mortality is part and parcel of being human, sort of the ultimate buzz kill to even the greatest party. We're all going to die someday, and that has made several people very upset. Presented with this fact, many decide or are told by others that the meaning of life is to make a difference, to change the world in some way such that even after they die, their legacy will live on. But realistically, the things that you and I do probably aren't going to matter very much after we die, especially not if you consider the bigger picture. No, bigger than that. No, bigger still. Bigger, bigger, yes. It's tough to feel super accomplished when you realize that with the exception of a couple of satellites and maybe a sunbleach flag, the sum total of all human history and endeavor has all occurred on this tiny spit of rock in space. And even barring a man-made apocalypse or a rogue asteroid smashing into earth and erasing that tiny legacy forever, literally nothing lasts forever. Cosmologists have tons of theories for the ultimate fate of the universe, ranging from the big crunch to a catastrophic vacuum metastability event. They may disagree about what's going to happen, but as you might be able to guess from the names, the general consensus is there isn't going to be anything recognizable left. Even if there was some sort of afterlife after the universe ends, the question still remains pretty much the same. What's the meaning of this life if anything that we ever do in it won't have any lasting effect on the amorphous cloud or the singularity that will conclude the universe? What's the meaning of the universe itself if it's going to end? Well, when you're looking for meaning, you're looking for one of two separate things, and although they can be similar or perhaps even identical, it's important to recognize and appreciate the difference between them. Meaning can be either the intended message or significance or purpose. For example, painters, musicians and authors will occasionally offer a description of the intended message that they were trying to convey with their work, but it's much more common to be presented with an abstract painting entitled Number 31, or a symphony that's called the Fifth Symphony, without any explanation, just the work itself. How are we supposed to know what those mean? Someone might look at this and think, oh, it's a joyous celebration of life in the midst of chaos. Someone else might think, no, it's about loneliness and suffering, and someone else might say, it's just some wheat fields, guys. Who's right? Van Gogh didn't give us any instruction manual for wheat field with crows, but the thing is, this painting's significance is not the same thing as the message that it was intended to convey. You might look at it and think of one time you were driving in the country with your parents, or of the Wizard of Oz. Personally, I think of how little painting ability I really have. Van Gogh clearly wasn't thinking of those things when he painted this. That was not his intent, and yet it can still have that significance to you. The significance of this painting isn't anything that's contained in the paints, or the canvas, or the colors, or even in Van Gogh's history, or the title, or the resemblance of these smudges to crows or wheat. The real significance of this painting, the real meaning, is inside your head. And that's the only place that it exists. And that's the answer to the ultimate question. Meaning all meaning, the meaning of our lives, the meaning of the universe, the meaning of anything, doesn't exist outside of our heads. There is no objective external significance for anything. To say that that idea is a tough thing to swallow is like saying that a bowling ball is a tough thing to swallow. But as far as we can tell, it's true. The universe doesn't function in any way that acknowledges meaning. Like if there was a fire in a museum, it wouldn't spare the masterpieces. The little pamphlets in the lobby would burn just as readily as the Mona Lisa, or the Constitution, or a Bible, or Da Vinci's notebooks. That could be exceptionally difficult to come to grips with, especially for people like me who were taught to look outside of ourselves to discover meaning. There's none out there. But here's the light at the end of the tunnel that I promised you. You don't live out there. You live in here. Just like mortality is part and parcel of being human, so is experiencing the world subjectively. We value objectivity, and we can probably access it to some extent. But what's good, what's bad, what's delicious, what's funny, all of that ends at the boundary of your skull. Wanting the world to heed the meaning that we assign to it is really just our vanity. We want our opinions to be universal facts. We want the things that are important to us to be important to everybody everywhere. We want the world to just stop spinning in space if we're heartbroken or overjoyed and acknowledge how we feel. That isn't going to happen. But you don't have to view yourself and your place in the cosmos as though you were some alien observer looking on from space. You can't. You have to view everything as yourself. And for you, the smallest change in your perception or mentality is effectively a change to the way that you experience the whole universe. And as such, is a change to that universe itself. Meaning doesn't exist anywhere in the universe, but in your head. That's the only meaning that exists anywhere. And that makes it really precious. Just like that Van Gogh painting, you are the sole author and arbiter of the meaning of your universe and your life and anything else. You get to decide what it all means. It's a literally awesome responsibility and a literally awesome opportunity. And that's pretty awesome. What does life mean to you? What does thunk mean to you? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. It means a lot to me. Don't forget to blah, blah, subscribe, blah, share, and I'll see you next week.