The paper discusses, as per the request, the concepts expounded by John Searle and Viktor Frankl. These concepts relate to everything from humans, to life, to consciousness, to free will, and to the transitory nature of life. The paper links these different concepts together and concludes by adding that they do, in fact, offer varied but helpful explanations about what it manes to be alive.
Frankl and Searle:
An Analysis of the Difficulties of Life
The meaning of life has been debated by some of the most illustrious minds of the twentieth century. In fact, this particular, complex concept has always been a topic of discussion, as long as man has walked the earth. The dictionary states the life is "the act or process, or a manner of growing; development; gradual increase,"
but in reality, life is much more than this simple definition. The following paragraphs will discuss the complexities of life from two standpoints: that of Viktor Frankl and John Searle.
The first point to be discussed here is the answer to the question of how Victor Frankl would answer the following: what does it mean to be human? From various readings, one can certainly see the author's point on life, love, suffering and humor. Human, for the author, can mean, a variety of things. First of all, humanity is transitory, and humans are on earth for a very short time. Frankl also discusses, in his writing, how humans face all the transitory events that life has to offer, and especially how they deal with death. To the author, being human means all these things, and especially realizing that life is infinite and that humans are not immortal, and subsequently dealing with this realization. Frankl states, in this regard,
"Only under the threat and pressure of death does it make sense to do what we can and should, right now. That is, to make proper use of the moment's offer of a meaning to fulfill -- be it a deed to do, or work to create, anything to enjoy, or a period of inescapable suffering to go through with courage and dignity."
The meaning of life and the definition of being human and of humanity is, thus, complicated. I would define it as dealing with everything life throws at a person in its random, complicated fashion, and trying to keep everything under control at the same time. Life is, in Frankl's opinion, nothing like the cliche stating it is like a box of chocolates; for Frankl life is not only ugly but also transitory, with an ability to always amaze, put down, but also lift up and make meaning. In other words, again, life is very complex.
The second part of this paper will focus on what John Searle's hypothesis of consciousness and free will states, and the way these statements relate to life and humans. The paper written on Searle's philosophy begins by stating,
"For years, the frustrating lack of progress on the problem of free will has been a scandal in philosophy. Now it looks as if neurobiology may help us out…"
This paper comments on the fact that Searle, despite believing this latter statement, also believes that a person may not be able to live with the result of what neurobiology will say about the "free will" process. The author adds,
"Some traditional philosophical problems -- unfortunately not many -- can be solved scientifically. Among them is the problem of what it means for matter to be alive, where scientific explanations are now sufficiently good that we cannot recover the passion with which this was debated by our great grandparents."
Further according to this author, the concept of free will and how it relates to humans, and life, is the more complicated matter, and cannot be quickly resolved through scientific means.
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