> Why is there no canon for life's most important questions? There is! Well, sorta, but a very good attempt at least: Mortimer J. Adler's Great Works of the W

> Why is there no canon for life's most important questions? There is! Well, sorta, but a very good attempt at least: Mortimer J. Adler's Great Works of the Western World, 1965 (a bit dated by now). It's the supra-compilation of 'western' thought, and the works in there do come close to a canon for the most important questions in life. That list of questions does need to be formalized first, unlike, say Electromagnetism; you're dealing with more than just charged particles after all. Still, the best thing about Adler's work was the Syntopicon: a 'quick' reference of the great works based on ~100 topics (Astronomy, God, Justice, Family, Dialectic, etc.). Each of those topics was further subdivided into specific areas (The nature of Jesus' human form, Ellipses, Jurisprudence of Judges, etc.). It's a huge work. Most critically, these specific areas listed a where you could find the relating pages in the great works. For example: Under the topic of 'Mind' and the subtopic of 'The condition of the human mind when the soul is separate from the body', you have a listing for 'GIBBON: Decline and Fall, 233d' and a lot of other listings too. It's not exactly what the question asks, but it is as good a starting point as I think you can get shipped to your door. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_Wor... https://www.logos.com/product/55052/great-books-of-the-western-world https://www.logos.com/product/55052/great-books-of-the-weste... (pricey, but the search feature is essential)