We can look at the world by asking what it is and what it is made of, which is what science does; or we can understand everything in the world in relation to ourselves—what everything in the external world means for us and what effect it has upon us. This is a very ancient way of seeing and lies at the root of the mythic view of the world.

We can choose to be materialists and to regard the world in an entirely material and scientific way, but this is not a way in which we can actually live. We are compelled, without pause, to search for meaning in every moment of our lives within a world that, from a materialist perspective, appears completely meaningless.

We may regard the world as an accidental combination of matter, but that belief cannot alter the necessity that confronts us at every moment: to decide what to do, and to live through the feelings we experience. For us as human beings the world is not only a collection of “things and material particles”; it is also a place in which to act, and we are compelled to move from one point to another through time.

The “world of things” described by materialism does not help us to understand the subjective world of values and actions, or our unavoidable search for the meaning of life.

Aydin Areta