A recurrent question among those who consider the nature of human existence is "What is the purpose of life?", or "What is the meaning of the Universe?". The evidence gives us no reason to suppose that there is a purpose to life or meaning in the Universe. The real problem, however, is not with the answers to such questions, but with the questions themselves.

To show why that is so consider the results of studies of social primate behavior. Those studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the great apes and most monkeys constantly monitor the behavior of the other members of their band. And they are quite capable of anticipating the behavior of other band members, and though they are not always right, most of the time they are. In fact, they are clearly considering the motives and goals of other members of the band so that they can use social situations to their own best advantage. For each individual in the band the behaviors of the other members has "meaning". This attribution of motives and goals to others is a skill at which humans are the supreme masters. We are from birth so highly attuned to interpreting and anticipating the behavior of important people in our lives that our tendency to attribute purpose spills over onto non-human animals or even inanimate objects. We relentlessly anthropomorphize the world around us, interpreting the behavior of many things as though they were human. Thus a tornado is "savage", or a river is "lazy", and we swear at a tool that fails to do the job. And most pet owners speak to their animals as though they understood human speech and are convinced that their animals believe themselves to be human.

Given this human tendency to see things in the world as having human attributes like motivation, goals, and purpose it should not be surprising that humans have considered such things as the universe or the series of events constituting the flow of life as having human attributes such as "purpose" or "meaning". And where purpose exists in the world, there must be some quasi-human agency from which that "purpose" springs and which gives human life "meaning". Thus, "gods".

I am inclined to see "meaning" in the fact that I am the product of a line of ancestors at least a billion years long, every one of which were in a biological sense "winners". I see purpose in accepting that humans have a limited time to find and realize their potential for achievement, to find and enjoy the great pleasures afforded by life, and to find the mental strength to deal with the pains and the sad end of our being. I see the great sweep of the formation of the universe and the unique development of intelligent life on this planet as an enormous epic poem ringing with the music of the spheres and singing of a lullaby. The existence of humanity is in itself sufficient and indeed complete "meaning".