Paraphrasing a friend of mine, He who thinks he has all the answers, hasn't asked all the questions.
General or Philosophical
What are the ultimate questions?
Why does anything exist at all?
What is the source of the Universe?
"... Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes.
Because, in the first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence; and bysearching into the nature of other things, I find that no other thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things exist; therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting from this search, that there is a power superior to all those things, and that power is God."
"... Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?
No. Not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in the structure of the Creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible; but because even this manifestation, great as it is is probably but a small display of that im- mensity of power and wisdom, by which millions of other worlds, to me invisible by their distance, were created and continue to exist."
What is the nature of the Universe and man's place in it?
Are there other universes?
Are there other dimensions?
What will happen to man after death, and does his consciousness survive death?
After thinking about these questions long enough, one may begin to realize that understanding the entire universe would take, well, forever. However, beginning to understand The Constitution of Man is another matter, and it is also convenient in that one's self is always available for study and experiment, so while it may be difficult to come to understand mankind at first, one can at least begin to understand one's own Personal Constitution.
Eventually, after enough study, a path may reveal itself and answer the question: why am I me?
From there, this eventually evolves into, why NOT me (as it relates to one's mission and sense of purpose)?
From there, one may want to be of service to his brothers and sisters, which begins to form questions of a more practical nature:
How should he govern himself and be governed (see The Land and Labor)?
Mathematical
For a mathematical view, consider the below quotation from a walk-through of Godel's proof:
"Do you understand why no formal mathematical system can ever hope to represent all statements about natural numbers. As I see it, there are three directions you can go from here. The first direction is down, to a more mathematical level. The explanation I have given is very "high-level," and would not satisfy a real mathematician for an instant. By learning more about the math involved, you can work the proof to ever finer levels of detail, and make it ever more rigorous and bullet-proof. The other way to go is up, to a more philosophical level. There are many people who believe that the human mind, based on neurons and physical principles, is just a very sophisticated formal system. Does Gödel's theorem imply the existence of facts that must be true, but that our minds can never prove? Or even stronger, that our minds can never believe—or strongest yet, ever conceive? The third direction you can go is sideways, to lunch. Who wants to spend his whole life worrying about abstract mathematical theorems?"
Scientific
What are the unanswered questions of science?
Why does gravity work as it does?
Is it possible to create artificial self-awareness?
What is consciousness?
Is there more than the material world?
Religion
| Philosophy | Atheist (Existentialism) | Christian (Existentialism) | Absurdism | Nihilism |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is there such a thing as the meaning of life? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Is there inherent meaning in the universe? | No | Maybe, but we must have faith believe so. | Maybe, but humans can never know it. | No |
| Can we create real meaning ourselves? | Yes, and it is all we can do | Yes, by faith in meaning beyond yourself. | Yes, by facing the absurd and meaningless. | No, there is no actual meaning to create. |
| Is the pursuit of inherent meaning possible? | No, and such pursuit is itself meaningless. | Yes | No, but the pursuit may be meaningful. | No, and such pursuit itself is meaningless. |
| Is the pursuit of created meaning possible? | Yes, this is the goal of existentialism. | Yes, this is the goal of existentialism. | No | No |
| Can we solve the problem of meaning? | Yes, by creating your own meaning. | Yes, by creating your own meaning before G-d. | Yes, by facing the absurd. | No |