Like many people, I'm always obsessed by a philosophical question - what is the meaning of life?
After years of thinking, I recently got some thoughts on that.

I write down my coarse thoughts below and would like to hear your ideas.
What philosophical tradition these thoughts are related or belongs to?
Has anyone proposed similar ideas to the public? Who if yes?
What flaws do you see in this essay?

For anyone replies the questions, I really appreciate your help.

Here is goes:


On the Meaning of Life

Lives exist in the universe. What is the meaning of them and what should they do to fulfill that? This question is important since it guides everyone's everyday behavior. This essay tries to give an answer.

Darwin's discovery of evolution showed us a seemed meaningless universe. It excluded gods and universal objective moralities from the account of life's meaning. But when we examine wild species, we found all of them struggling, suffering and yet striving, without a single exception. Surely they are pursuing something and seem to have found their meaning. The evolution theory already gave the answer - continuation of existence itself is the only and ultimate goal. For better illustration, consider this: for anything that lives do, reasons can always be found. For example, why humans cooperate? Because they can do more. Why they want to do more? Because they can have more resources for their existence. But as for why they want to continue existing, there is no why. It's just that if they don't they don't and the universe is left to those who do. In that sense, lives achieve much more than non-living matters since they preserve, further or reinforce their existence (through metabolism, response to stimuli, reproduction and evolution etc.). In other words, lives found meaning by themselves in this seemed meaningless universe - to continue existing, to perdure.

So lives join the race of continuation from the very beginning and developed many different forms of it. By 'the form of continuation', it means the physical form, the behavioral model, the environments of residence, the artificial objects built and used, the minds, the beliefs shared, the organizational structure and system (if any), etc., i.e. all the things that is critical to the continuation of existence of the physical being in question. Many species and sub-species on earth are forms of existence. They have many common components. For example, reproduction is a component of most forms of existence. It continues the existence as well as reinforce it by spreading instances. Evolution, which enables lives to improve their forms of continuation, is another common component itself. On one hand, evolution finds better forms of continuation, such as to develop a powerful brain for better coping with the world. On the other hand, evolution also enable lives to diverge to explore different forms of continuation. That is how so many species come into being. This diverging also has the effect of not 'putting all eggs in the same basket'. Because you will never know what event will cause some species to stop continuing.

So forms of continuation are not static. They are evolving and diverging, which is good in the sense of its quality, which is measured by the possibility of continuing infinitely. For example, although insects and germs have larger quantities and can exist in much harsher environments than human. Human's form of continuation is still better. One reason is that humans are already developing the ability to escape from earth to avoid extinction caused by great catastrophe, which is bound to come even if the ecosphere is lucky enough to escape asteroids and super volcano etc. since the earth and the sun have lifespans.

During the development of forms of continuation, some lives joined together to form bigger and stronger forms of continuation. For example, cells joined together to form more capable multi-cell organisms. Sexual reproduction joined genes of individuals of a species together to form a shared and more vigorous gene pool. So the scopes of forms of continuation are also changing along with evolution, from a single molecule that copies itself, to a cell, to an individual, to an internally mating group. The components within a form of continuation work together for its continuation, since no separate part of a form of continuation can achieve the goal alone. If it can, the separate part becomes a form of continuation itself. There are also conflicts and competitions within a form of continuation. Such as competitions between genes and individuals in a sexual-reproduction species. This is also a component of its form of continuation and is good for keeping better genes in the gene pool.

So every life should strive for ever better form of continuation in order to achieve the goal of perdure, forever. That's the only meaning of life, if any.

So what should humans do according to this meaning of life? Somethings are obvious. For example, humans should colonize outer space and to diverge into multiple forms of continuation in order to change the current status of 'all eggs in the same basket'. Another example, an extremely happy, peaceful and delightful paradise world should not be the ultimate goal since it is static, only reflects the adapted psychological needs of past and conflicts with forever searching of better form of continuation. Somethings are not obvious and need deeper research. Such as, should human create artificial super-intelligence? Should human manipulate their genes? What social system should be adopted? These questions should be carefully studied and tested before taking action since, if not done well, it may incur catastrophe like fascist did. When studying and testing them, the meaning of life is the tool of judging good from bad.