The Brains and the Meaning of Life.
This book aims to show that neural naturalism can serve to satisfy wonder about the nature of mind and reality, and also to alleviate anxiety about the difficulty of life in a vast and apparently purposeless universe. Philosophy and neuropsychology can do little to remove the many hardships that people face as their lives develop, with inevitable bouts of failure, rejection, disease, and eventually death. But together philosophy and science can paint a plausible picture of how minds, even ones that are merely brains, can apprehend reality, decide effectively, act morally, and lead meaningful lives enriched by worthwhile goals in the realms of love, work, and play. To begin this picture, we need to understand how scientific evidence provides a better source of knowledge than does religious faith or pure reason.