What is life? How does it differ from matter as understood by physics? In physics, it does not matter what time it is; its laws are always the same. It does not even matter whether time moves forward or backward. But in life, time matters a great deal more. Life and its circumstances really change in time. Over time, life builds up a lifeworld that continues to grow and brings forth newness. Nothing is more fundamental in it than the difference between the past and the future. Life is a state of being that builds its future every moment anew.
Philosophers introduced the term lifeworld, or “Lebenswelt” in German and “monde vécu” in French. They meant the world as experienced in human life, but we can take this more literally and refer to it as the world established by life in general. It is the link between the world of human meaning and the world of (seemingly) meaningless physics. It connects the world of the spirit to the world of physical matter. It bridges the world of meaning, values, and motives for acting to the material world described by physics.
One of biology’s most important modern insights is that all of life started from a common origin. The tree of life has a single root. Out of this beginning developed a world of interdependence and increasingly higher levels of cooperation, making possible more complex living beings, including humans. In biology, cooperation and specialization are the real powers that leads to the unfolding of life on Earth in all its complexity. As one large cooperative system, it even makes sense to consider all of life as if it were one unified megaorganism.
But we humans know very well that we are not just parts of a megaorganism. We have an individual responsibility for ourselves. When we build our future in our part of the lifeworld, we make choices, and we express our creative freedom in making them. But like any artist, we must make choices in harmony with the possibilities of the medium with which we express ourselves. For us, this is the lifeworld, not only as made by ourselves but also as it came about prior to us.
Consider how every human culture puts so much emphasis on family life, the place where new human life is conceived and comes to maturity, and is integrated into the larger community. This is not an old-fashioned commitment to values that modernity has replaced with better ones; it is a mere recognition of who we are.
Of course, not all of us are called to family life. I am not, for example. Modernity recognizes and respects the multitude of diverse ways in which individual humans find their way in life. But all must understand how their lives are not about themselves but stand in the service of life continuing. Seeking personal pleasure is not what life is about. Finding the most meaningful way for oneself to shape how the lifeworld grows is.