What those who put stock in these ideas tend to neglect, is that meaning is generally conferred by some external source, rather than internally. It is in conscious beings only, that meaning is had and given by the same entity (or is it more than one entity?). A block of wood has no inherent meaning. If I use the block of wood to pound down several nails, I have conferred meaning to the block of wood. It's purpose is now to hammer. If I no longer have need of a hammer, does the wood again become purposeless, or does it retain its former meaning, despite not being used for that reason any longer? What if in the future, I take to using the piece of wood as a door stop? Now the piece of wood has a new purpose, but is that purpose only present when it is actively stopping the door from moving?
In this case, there is an entity, the block of wood, with no inherent meaning, which is given meaning by a user/owner. This is fine, because although some confusion can arise as alluded to above, things are more or less straightforward: one entity is given purpose by another entity. But what if I had purposefully carved a piece of wood for the express purpose of using it has a hammer? Would the situation actually be any different? Aside from the origin of the wood, in the former situation being unknown and unimportant, and in the latter being created to serve a particular purpose, nothing in it's 'life,' post-creation, will ever differ.
This is getting long, so let's have a short intermission:
Now, let's look at the case of a human being taking the place of the block of wood as the object of attention in our thought experiment. In the case of a human, let us start with ignoring some original purpose of that human's creation. If no initial meaning is explicitly given to them by some external force, are they not the same as the block of wood? The only reason the person earlier was able to confer meaning to the block of wood, was that block of wood was an inanimate object, incapable of deciding it's own path. Only through being 'owned' by a person does it even have the opportunity to gain meaning. Is the same true of a human? If it is, then who can be said to be the human's owner?
Different people deal with this issue in different ways. Many believe in some higher power, positioning themselves as the block of wood, and imagining some incomprehensible being positioned above them, giving them different reasons for existing. What would the atheist, someone with a more scientific understanding of the workings of the world think? As a conscious entity, can one assign one's own purpose? If so, what criteria do you use in order to choose a purpose?
All if the consideration thus far has assumed that the human is purposeless, searching for reasons to be. However, it is not entirely true that you are born completely without purpose. Barring conception by complete accident, two individuals on some level purposefully created you. They may have created you to fulfill social expectations for having a family, or to satisfy some deeper desire to procreate. In this type of situation, you are at very least offered the opportunity to simply accept the role you are given, but even here, it's a fairly open ended situation, and you are still expected to find some meaning beyond that of a gene carrier or meme conduit.
If one believes in the existence of some god, or puts strong emphasis on purpose found through social and familial obligations, is it not similar to some sort of servitude or slavery, as in the case of the wood, given purpose by its owner? If you take the point of view of the atheist and reject, to the greatest extent possible, purpose found through social obligation, you would seemingly be left with two choices. Either you would live without apparent purpose, or you would assign one to yourself. In the former case, one must consider the possibility and desirability of living a relatively purposeless life. In the latter case, one must consider the strange implications of self assigned purpose, i.e., how is it possible to be indentured to one's self, simultaneously slave and owner? And also, what implications does this have on fate and causality?
In earlier scenarios, purpose is passed a long in some sort of linear fashion, with entities using/creating other entities, thus assigning them purpose, who then go on to purpose other entities, ad infinitum. In the case of self-assigned purpose, we have these localized, self-contained, circular causal loops, self-reinforcing, and seemingly temporally isolated. Instead of receiving purpose from some external source, you find your purpose, which further influences your actions and future purpose(s), and eventually, you die, and with you, your self-assigned meaning. Although your ideas may continue, and others may manipulate memories of your life for their own reasons, in practicality, your purpose must die with you.
Whew! That was a long one.
Here's a song to contemplate or not contemplate to.
