How the "ghost in the machine" is not a ghost

Activation does not come from a state of total contentment. Life strives because it lacks something that it desires. Activation is relative to the deficiency which the activation seeks to remove.

I think this activation of life, which is related to metabolism and reproduction, can be defined in its deepest essential striving as the activation to evolve in the material world all the way to supermaterial Godhood, the ultimate success in survival. Of course this evolution includes outside natural selection.

Evolving to Godhood redeems the endless activation and striving. But like all life, Godhood may become metabolistically and reproductively unsatisfied or "bored" and therefore is activated from within to evolve on to the next level of Godhood, endlessly.

"Every satisfied desire gives birth to a new one" Schopenhauer as pessimistic Buddhist said, but I think the activation to evolve in the material world all the way to supermaterial Godhood is a healthier way to justify religion than to hedonistically advocate blocking desires so as to end the striving that causes the suffering.

Otherwise there may not be "life."