The Meaning of Human Existence

by Edward O. Wilson

Overview

National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?"

In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends.

Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way.

Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe.

The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871401007
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	10/06/2014
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021) was the author of more than thirty books, including Anthill, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Conquest of Nature. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Wilson was a professor emeritus at Harvard University and lived with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

I The Reason We Exist

1 The Meaning of Meaning 11

2 Solving the Riddle of the Human Species 17

3 Evolution and Our Inner Conflict 27

II The Unity of Knowledge

4 The New Enlightenment 37

5 The All-Importance of the Humanities 53

6 The Driving Force of Social Evolution 61

III Other Worlds

7 Humanity Lost in a Pheromone World 79

8 The Superorganisms 92

9 Why Microbes Rule the Galaxy 102

10 A Portrait of E. T. 110

11 The Collapse of Biodiversity 123

IV Idols of the Mind

12 Instinct 135

13 Religion 147

14 Free Will 159

V A Human Future

15 Alone and Free in the Universe 173

Appendix 189

Acknowledgments 203

Index 204

Editorial Reviews

The sections about ants remind you what a lively writer Mr. Wilson can be. This two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction stands above the crowd of biology writers the way John le Carré stands above spy writers. He's wise, learned, wicked, vivid, oracular…Mr. Wilson remains a warmly skeptical and provocative figure on the page.

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

06/30/2014
In his typically elegant style, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Wilson (Letters to a Young Scientist) cannily and candidly probes the nature of human existence. Wilson ranges from natural selection and eusociality to extraterrestrial life and the “all-importance of the humanities,” observing that the “origin of the human condition is best explained by the natural selection for social interaction.” He explores the conundrum of nature versus culture, pointing out that the two levels of natural selection—individual and group—always oppose each other. Human nature, he argues, is the “ensemble of hereditary regularities in mental development that bias cultural evolution in one direction as opposed to others and thus connect genes to culture in the brain of every person.” According to Wilson, “human existence may be simpler than we thought. There is no predestination, no unfathomed mystery of life... we are self-made, independent, alone, and fragile, a biological species adapted to live in a biological world.” Given this freedom to recognize our relationship to nature and to act accordingly, Wilson pleads that we show tolerance to our fellow humans and mercy to the world around us: “We alone among all species have grasped the reality of the living world.... We alone have measured the quality of mercy among our own kind. Might we now extend the same concern to the living world that gave us birth?” (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"No biologist has been more persistent or eloquent in correcting our misapprehensions about human origins than Edward O. Wilson… We should be grateful that Wilson, so late in his illustrious career, still appeals to reason and imagination in hopes of enlightening us about our nature and inspiring us to change our destructive ways."

Scott Russell Sanders

"A valedictory work… What a lively writer Mr. Wilson can be. This two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction stands above the crowd of biology writers the way John le Carré stands above spy writers. He’s wise, learned, wicked, vivid, oracular."

Dwight Garner

2014-07-16
An exploration of what it means to be human by the noted sociobiologist and naturalist, twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize. According to Wilson (A Window on Eternity: Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, 2014, etc.), our species was created not by a supernatural intelligence but by chance and necessity out of millions of species in Earth's biosphere. No destiny or purpose is assigned to us, and no afterlife awaits us. The meaning of human existence, writes the author, lies in "the epic of the species, begun in biological evolution and prehistory, passed into recorded history, and urgently now, day by day, faster and faster into the indefinite future." Social intelligence, enhanced by natural selection for social action, made us what we are today. Our most vital possession is not science but the humanities. The humanities, writes Wilson, describe the human condition and address in detail all the ways that human beings relate to one another and to the environment. Science takes a larger view: the general principles of the human condition and why the species exists and where it fits in the universe. While science and the humanities are fundamentally different, they are complementary. Wilson's last word is that if the analytic power of the one can be joined with the creative power of the other, "human existence will rise to an infinitely more productive and interesting meaning." Perhaps the human species will even take up the cause of biodiversity, on which its very existence depends. For readers wondering where religion fits into this, the author notes that throughout prehistory and most of history, people required religion to explain natural phenomena and provide cohesion to the tribe. Conceding that there is strong evidence from neuroscience that a religious instinct does exist, Wilson asserts that the instinctual force of tribalism is far stronger. A little book with a big message, bound to produce discussion among scientists and discomfort in devout churchgoers.

Kirkus Reviews

"[A] tough-minded little primer-cum-manifesto… Compact and readable."

Boston Globe - Dan Cryer

"There can be few better guides through our species’ past journey and potential for the future… A provocative and beautifully written collection of essays."

Nature - Tim Lenton

"E. O. Wilson is Darwin’s great successor, a scientist of such astounding breadth, depth, experience, and brilliance that he offers us nothing less than a new understanding of humanity… You will see the beauty, mystery, and possibilities of human existence through the eyes of one of humanity’s greatest and most intrepid explorers."

Jeffrey D. Sachs

"Wilson asks: Does humanity have a special place in the universe? Where are we going, and why? He answers by telling science’s latest creation stories, and presenting a vision of the future both inspiring and plausible, not an easy feat to pull off… Wilson is both a wild-eyed optimist and a hard-nosed realist. What more can we ask of a prophet?"

Scientific American - John Horgan