What Is the Meaning of Life?

The Fourth Beginning

What is the point of a journey, if you have no destination? In Gee’s novel, The Fourth Beginning, a character named Rambler quips: “No, I’m not saying there’s a purpose. I’m just saying there is a direction. The more I think about it, the more obvious it is. In fact, speaking as a scientist, albeit an enthusiastic amateur one, I would say the evidence is everywhere…. The odds were very much against a universe being capable of supporting life. And when life came along, there was no reason why it should have sought to replicate, to multiply, to evolve. And, even when it evolved, the emergence of human consciousness was again against all the odds.”