James Toye
2/24/09
ENGCMP 0200
Dr. Johns
What is the purpose of human life? It is a question nearly everyone asks of themselves and those around them at some point during their existence. Many people arrive at this question not through direct contemplation but through association with another question, be it asking what their individual purpose is, or asking what the purpose of any life is. In the process of determining the function of people, many questions are asked, and through answering them, an answer to the original question can be determined, giving someone the idea that they have figured out humanity. But when many different people’s answers to the question are compared, one realizes that there are as many answers to the question as there are askers. Even though this is true, many of those answers strike around the same general idea.
In his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, Bill McKibben shares a story from another book, which I believe echoes his thoughts on human life and purpose. The story is about an old man who lives with his wife and son, to whom he has given his farm. Even though he does not have to, the man continues to work and bring home food for his wife because “he still needed to be bringing something to her (McKibben 95).” The old man, once a farmer, no longer has to work, yet he continues to. Why? As McKibben says in his book, life is about investing yourself into your work in order to have purpose and function (McKibben 94).
Some people, like Princeton professor Lee M. Silver, have differing opinions. From reading his book Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality, one may get the impression that he thinks that life lacks purpose, that we are all but machines, existing simply because we do, driven by probability, just as his child had a forty-nine percent chance of being a girl (Silver 24). I disagree with this analysis of his persona, if Silver was convinced that we have no purpose, why would he be spending his time working to do what he believes is the right thing, and through doing so, trying to improve the quality of life for him and those around him? I believe his book is an extension of this, of him trying to get people to see his view of human purpose and join him on his mission to achieve it.
As Silver believes that human purpose is the improvement of human life, and McKibben believes it is the investment of energy, there are still more related, yet different ideas about human function. The science fiction novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, tells of a giant computer, made to determine the answer to the “Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” which turns out to be “Forty-two (Adams 120).” This causes its creators to ask what the question is, which the computer cannot answer. From there on, the novel focuses on the antagonist as he is hunted down by the creators of yet another computer (Earth) who believe he has the question inside the structure of his brain. Through his book, Adams offers another perspective to the question of human purpose – human purpose is to search for purpose while surviving.
My personal answer to the question is a combination of these three other answers. I believe that the function of human life is to explore and understand the universe while working to help humanity thrive as a whole. The feeling of satisfaction that anyone gets when they help someone in need out helps me believe that it is something that we were meant to do, not just something we can do, but there still is an empty space inside of me and some other people that I have spoken to, that makes me feel like I need to go find something new and figure out how it exists with us, and how it influences what we do. The question “what is human purpose” is timeless, but so will be the pursuit of an accurate, all-encompassing answer to it, that people all around the world will constantly yearn for.
Works Cited
McKibben, B. (2003). Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. New York: Times Books.
Silver, L. M. (2006). Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishing.
Adams, D. (2002). The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Random House
5 comments:
Don't worry about it, James--I had the same bio test today, I think (Roberts?)--and I'll be able to edit it whenever you have the time to write it within a few hours, so don't rush if you don't get a chance right away.
Sorry for taking so long to put it up, but as you'll notice, I had a little trouble finding content for it. Any pointers you have for expanding the length of the essay would be awesome (I could barely get it to two pages).
Thanks,
James
Overall, I liked this essay. Your writing is of very good quality and you do a good job of transitioning between ideas smoothly.
In your first paragraph, you make what I consider to be your “thesis statement.” You say “But when many different people’s answers to the question are compared, one realizes that there are as many answers to the question as there are askers. Even though this is true, many of those answers strike around the same general idea.” You go on, throughout your paper, to show some good examples of the many answers offered but not to highlight the “general idea” that these all converge on. This is the point that you can argue. As it is now, your paper does not truly argue anything—it just states facts and offers others’ answers to the prompt question.
You also restate your thesis in the final sentence of the essay—“the question ‘what is human purpose’ is timeless, but so will be the pursuit of an accurate, all-encompassing answer to it, that people all around the world will constantly yearn for.” It’s a good point to make and would not be trivial if supported. If you could explain more explicitly how the four answers (McKibben’s, Silver’s, Adams’s, and yours) show the variety of answers within a central theme, you would then have a paper that argues a point rather than relays information.
This would be my best advice for expanding your paper. The prompt surely asks a difficult question of you and you do do a good job of offering your own theory as to the purpose of human life. I feel, however, that what I see as your central argument—that the answers to human purpose are many, though still universally the same—is underdeveloped. Another possible way to expand your paper would be to go into more depth as far as your theory of human purpose is concerned (though this would be a different direction to take and should probably not be done in conjunction with my first suggestion to avoid loss of focus). How is your theory similar to the others? What evidence is there to support your theory? These are just some questions you could possibly answer to lengthen and improve your paper.
Good job!
Jessica
James Toye
2/24/09
ENGCMP 0200
Dr. Johns
What is the purpose of human life? It is a question nearly everyone asks of themselves and those around them at some point during their existence. Many people arrive at this question not through direct contemplation but through association with another question, be it asking what their individual purpose is, or asking what the purpose of any life is. In the process of determining the function of people, many questions are asked, and through answering them, an answer to the original question can be determined, giving someone the idea that they have figured out humanity. But when many different people’s answers to the question are compared, one realizes that there are as many answers to the question as there are askers. Even though this is true, many of those answers strike around the same general idea.
While some people genuinely do not care about any part of humanity at all, most people generally answer the question with themselves, their family, and their close friends in mind. They tend to try to come up with an answer that, if true will make the world a better place for them. There are cases where one person’s good is another’s bad, but from my personal experience, it seems to be that most people’s ideas of good occurrences are at least somewhat related to each other. Because of this, pieces of many people’s answers tend to reach towards the same idea of well-being for mankind. On a personal note, my answer can be seen as a conglomeration of answers of three other people, who have expressed their views on this question through their books.
In his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, Bill McKibben shares a story from another book, which I believe echoes his thoughts on human life and purpose. The story is about an old man who lives with his wife and son, to whom he has given his farm. Even though he does not have to, the man continues to work and bring home food for his wife because “he still needed to be bringing something to her (McKibben 95).” The old man, once a farmer, no longer has to work, yet he continues to. Why? As McKibben says in his book, life is about investing yourself into your work in order to have purpose and function, ultimately leading to the betterment of those around you (McKibben 94).
Some people, like Princeton professor Lee M. Silver, have differing opinions. From reading his book Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality, one may get the impression that he thinks that life lacks purpose, that we are all but machines, existing simply because we do, driven by probability, just as his child had a forty-nine percent chance of being a girl (Silver 24). I disagree with this analysis of his persona, if Silver was convinced that we have no purpose, why would he be spending his time working to do what he believes is the right thing, and through doing so, trying to improve the quality of life for him and those around him? I believe his book is an extension of this, of him trying to get people to see his view of human purpose and join him on his mission to achieve it.
As Silver believes that human purpose is the improvement of human life, and McKibben believes it is the investment of energy, there are still more related, yet different ideas about human function. The science fiction novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, tells of a giant computer, made to determine the answer to the “Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” which turns out to be “Forty-two (Adams 120).” This causes its creators to ask what the question is, which the computer cannot answer. From there on, the novel focuses on the antagonist as he is hunted down by the creators of yet another computer (Earth) who believe he has the question inside the structure of his brain. Through his book, Adams offers another perspective to the question of human purpose – human purpose is to search for purpose while surviving.
My personal answer to the question is a combination of these three other answers. I believe that the function of human life is to explore and understand the universe while working to help humanity thrive as a whole. The feeling of satisfaction that anyone gets when they help someone in need out helps me believe that it is something that we were meant to do, not just something we can do, but there still is an empty space inside of me and some other people that I have spoken to, that makes me feel like I need to go find something new and figure out how it exists with us, and how it influences what we do. The question “what is human purpose” is timeless, but so will be the pursuit of an accurate, all-encompassing answer to it, that people all around the world will constantly yearn for.
Works Cited
McKibben, B. (2003). Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. New York: Times Books.
Silver, L. M. (2006). Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishing.
Adams, D. (2002). The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Random House
Jessica - excellent response.
James - Your opening is really wordy, although the central insight is good. Ditto for the 2nd paragraph - potentially good, but stretched out.
The paragraphs on McKibben/Silver/Adams are fine individually, but not so great taken together. None of these paragraphs offers any particularly impressive analysis or serves a terribly clear purpose. The would be functional in a better context, in other words - but the context isn't there.
Your own idea - that we should take a combination of the three - might have worked well if you'd clarified, from the beginning some version of what the three taken together amounts to. When it's an incompletely formed idea, though, and it only appears at the end, it has little impact.
I come away with the impression that you're trying to say that the answer to the question may lie precisely in asking the question, rather than in the answer (paradoxically); or, to put it better, that the meaning lies in the process of asking rather than in any particular answer - but I'm not entirely sure. This feels like a draft, for all of those reasons...
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