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Language: en
let me ask the last the silliest there
may be the most important question what
is the meaning of life what gives your
life fulfillment / happiness me from a
scientific point of view the meaning of
life is the propagation of DNA but
that's not what I feel that's not the
meaning of my life so the meaning of my
life is something which is probably
different from yours and differ from
other people's but we each make our own
meaning so we we have we set up goals we
want to achieve we want to write a book
we want to do whatever it is we do
writer quartet we want to win a football
match and these are these are short-term
girls well may begin quite long term
goals which are set up by our brains
which have goal seeking machinery built
into them but what we feel we don't feel
motivated by the desire to pass on our
DNA mostly we have other other goals
which can be very moving very important
they could even be called as called
spiritual in some cases we want to
understand the riddle of the universe we
want to understand consciousness we want
to understand how the brain works these
are all noble goals some of them can be
noble goals anyway and they are a far
cry from the fundamental biological goal
which is the propagation of DNA but the
machinery that enables us to set up
these higher level goals is originally
programmed into us by natural selection
of DNA the propagation of DNA but what
do you make of this unfortunate fact
that we are mortal do you ponder your
mortality does it make you sad this is I
I ponder it it would it makes me sad
that I shall have to leave and not see
what's going to happen next if there's
something frightening about mortality
apart from sort of missing as I said
something more deeply darkly
lightning it's the idea of eternity but
eternity is only frightening you feel
their eternity but before we were born
billions of years before we were born
and we were effectively dead before we
were born as I think was Mark Twain said
I was dead for billions of years before
I was born and never suffered the
smallest inconvenience that's how I was
going to be afterward after we leave so
I think of it as really it eternity is a
frightening prospect and so the best way
to spend it is under a general
anaesthetic which is what it'll be
beautifully put Richard there's a huge
honour to meet you to talk to you thank
you so much for your time thank you very
much
you