to these feelings. We feel that our life isn't meaningful because we're mortal and we die, and perhaps there's no afterlife, and certainly many students and many people find that what gives their life a meaning is the existence of a God, and it's God's purposes for us that makes our life meaningful, and he parodies this by saying... Well, he gives one example which is rather cute, he says, 'Look, the meaningfulness of the chicken's life doesn't come from becoming our coq au vin' , and he makes you see that perhaps the meaning of one's life can't come from somebody else's purposes; it has to come from within, and it has to be meaningfulness to yourself. Alan Saunders : Well, I might want to say what more meaning could I give to the life of a chicken than by carefully cooking it and eating it with pleasure and appreciation. Peter Slezak : But Nagel actually says how would you feel if we discovered that there were some other extraterrestrial beings that were preparing us for such a fate? James Franklin : No, but you might find your life more meaningful if they had more cooperative designs. I think if I was not only doing what gave meaning to my life, but I discovered that I was part of some pattern that gave meaning to, well, even other human's life but also other... Peter Slezak : But that's because then it could become meaningful for you, but let's say