This is the first post I have made in a blog, and I am looking forward to having a means for me to share some deeper (though possibly incoherent) observations and thoughts. Facebook and Myspace are fun for the lighter side, but there are some topics that don't quite fit into the "cheery daily snapshot" mentality engendered within social networking. There are times when I have concepts and ruminations I want to share with my acquaintances, friends, and family. Hopefully this will prove to be an effective means to that end.
One of the major reasons I've been wanting to blog is simply due to my own upheaval emotionally, philosophically and religiously in the past 6 years. When unexpected or disappointing results appear in life, it is common to reflect back on the process to try and see where things went awry. If you burn some cookies in the oven, one naturally rechecks the oven temperature, the baking time and possibly even tweaks the ingredients wondering if they should have possibly added a tbsp of asbestos instead of baking powder. If the worldview you were taught from childhood proves that it was not as grounded in reality as you had previously assumed, rethinking your approach and trying to discern the wheat from the chaff is a natural reaction (more on this in a future post, do not interpret this as me having renounced Christianity, just rethinking it.) I want to see other people's reactions and insights and hope to receive feedback. Bottom line, is I view this blog as a way for me to reach into the "grab bag of my soul", throw the contents on the wall and see what sticks, what falls, and what walks away under its own power. Anyway, after this inglorious prologue onto my actual topic.
What if the Richard Dawkin's of the world are correct, and we as humans, our brains and all of its' higher processes: emotion and logic, our mind really, are nothing more than a peculiar array of chemical matter interacting in a most intricate way. If we as humans evolved in a godless universe. The question then becomes not how to find meaning, but why do we want meaning. Bacterium don't need or want meaning. They just keep on building enzymes and proteins, interacting with their environment with no set goal or objective really, and if they live long enough, they repeat the process that brought that cell itself into being. I'm not saying they don't have a long term goal, I'm just saying they show no willful intent to arrive at that destination. Yet we humans are often paralyzed by the thought of all being meaningless.
Meaning could have been affirmed and enhanced by natural selection; survival of the fittest. Imagine a primitive organism, one who's higher thought processes are just beginning. Like the bacterium, it doesn't have any real goal for its existence other than to eat and procreate, it just . . . exists. Then one day, an evolutionary breakthrough. You now have two different classes of organisms, one where the new class has developed a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, while the other has not. The new class believes its' actions are being approved of by a greater force than their own will, they may not be able to quantify it, but dammit, they know beyond mere hormonal urges that they must be doing all this for something. It strengthens their resolve, focuses their will and with the correlating advances, allows them to overpower their immediate predecessors who lack any biological imperative to believe that their actions truly mean anything. The new class of organism proliferates, the old class goes extinct, wash-rinse-repeat for a few billion years and you arrive at modern man: an intricate being with vast abilities and talents that it inexorably attempts to use to advance or pursue a higher meaning.
This all brings me back to the title of this post -- "the Greatest Irony in the Universe". What if the reason that we humans have been able to advance and dominate as no other specie on this planet has is due to an illusory drive, one that portends to be from a supernatural origin, but may be nothing more than a startlingly effective psychological complex. In other words the very REASON that we believe we have meaning in a meaningless world is simply due to a random collision of atoms that were the progenitors of a biochemical imperative that in reality is meaningless as well. In our minds, the entire universe, all of existence has been for a great meaning, a great purpose we hoped to have revealed to us; so we worked harder, jumped higher, plowed our fields, built the pyramids, discovered calculus, split the atom and created vast information systems . . . all for nothing.
To me, that is, by the very definition, the greatest irony the universe could ever know. For us to feel an unquenchable drive for meaning when none can possibly be had. I myself hope for nothing more than to awake into a new, better reality after my own homo sapiens shell ceases operation. The thought of there being no God, no angels, no Heaven or Hell is personally disturbing. Perhaps it is my romantic side (Alison, don't laugh) but I want there to be a personal God, I want to pursue and know Him. Like most Christians, at times I have my doubts. In the TV show The X-Files, Mulder had a poster of a UFO with a caption saying "I want to believe". Replace the saucer with an ichthys and you have a good proxy for what I desire. I do believe that there is a supernatural world, one that interacts with this one, but should I be wrong . . .
Fun! (Andy Indahl from NICS days)
ReplyDeleteI'd take the question a little deeper. What do we "mean" by "meaning?"
Seems like there are two types of meaning -- intended meaning and perceived meaning. Intended meaning is what I hope to convey by my speech/actions/life, perceived meaning is how people interpret my speech/actions/life.
So in by "seeking meaning," what do you mean? Do you mean that we seek to convey some message, or that we want to interpret something sublime from the universe? Or something else?
Incidently, love the title.
I always love to hear of people questioning their life... or their meaning. To me it is a very power process to find who you are. Every person will come to a slightly different conclusion on their ultimate meaning in life or therory on ours as a mass. It is most definitely not as black and white as you and I were initially taught! And while these thoughts can get huge and beyond our grasp, I realize why we were sheltered to not think outside the box... it is much safer and easier. But what is beyond our grasp or the things I can't quite wrap my mind around always come back to the same source because I too cannot give up the romantic idea that there is a God who loves and who intimately cares about every detail and thought. So some may call it a cop out but that is where I throw my unknowns... trusting him. If it is mearly a placebo effect, I do not care. It brings me a great sense of peace that I am unwilling to let go of.
ReplyDeleteContinue searching though, it is a scary but fulfilling journey, even though some who are scared to venture out may give you a hard time. It is worth it to make your perceptions and beliefs of this world and beyond - your own. It is quite powerful.
Hey there Andy, for this post, I'm coming from the context of "meaning" being something bigger than ourselves we hope to glean from the universe rather than it necessarily being anything we are trying to convey to each other. An eternal purpose if you will, with the hope of us ourselves existing beyond this world.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the title of the blog as you may know is from Satre.
ReplyDeleteGotcha -- regarding "what if our quest for meaning itself is just the result of random atom collisions?"
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it's a result of us not having a rigorous definition of "meaning." we don't expect a "rock" to mean something, unless somebody carves it into a sculpture. We don't expect scribbles on a page to mean anything unless somebody puts them into letters as words.
So it is with the meaning of the universe, I think. There's only two possible meanings -- the meaning intended by a creator (if any), and the meaning interpretted by us (based on our perceptions). No other type of "meaning" is possible, I don't think.
So if we want to find meaning in the universe that doesn't come from us, we have to a) figure out whether there is a creator, and b) figure out what he, she, or it meant by all this.
And if we determine there's no creator, then we need to stop looking for meaning outside ourselves, because no such meaning is possible -- and instead develop a keen perception and interpretation of the universe for ourselves ...
Kinda "Sartre without the atheism" I guess:).
Also, either way, I figure that the most valuable thing to do is to CREATE meaning.
ReplyDeleteI agree that meaning itself can only come from a greater intelligence that created this world, or from what we make of it. I've heard the argument from atheists that they find meaning through trying to leave the world a better place than they found it, etc, but I don't think that is enough for most people. We seem hardwired to pursue great meaning, and nothing seems to motivate humans more than some grandiose meaning they can take part of. Case in point you don't see many atheists strapping ball-bearing impregnated C4 to themselves and then taking out a crowded market for their cause.
ReplyDeleteLook at our culture, we are very materialistic and SHOULD have the tools necessary to find meaning if temporal earthly things could create sufficient meaning, yet we consume 90% of the world's anti-depressants. So we obviously have a strong default towards the grander sense of meaning.
Our desire for grander meaning seems instinctual which is why I introduced the biology aspect, which in turn asks how that instinct got there.
Agree ... sometimes i wonder if we're depressed because we expect the universe to provide satisfactory meaning without any effort from us ... i wonder if we need to create meaning ... whether Christian, Atheist, or Hindu ... maybe our role is less to passively wait to find Great Meaning, and more to create it ...
ReplyDeletemaybe that's the happy medium between passively receiving the meaning taught by someone who says you need to blow yourself up to mean something ... and becoming depressed because the universe fails to provide us with anything better ...
ReplyDeleteby analogy, a sculpture. A sculpter needs to a) learn what the block is made of, b) decide what meaning he wants to convey, and c) execute his plan with discipline and attention to detail. If we want to create meaning, maybe we need to a) figure out what we are and what the universe is, b) figure out what we want to convey, and c) do it.
There seems to be something deep in Western culture that tells us that meaning we create is somehow less than valuable -- that meaning must come from "somewhere Greater." I know i've struggled with that for years. And I wonder if that's actually true. Maybe the greatest form of meaning is that you create -- because you are INCREASING the amount of meaning in the universe through an act of mind, soul, and body.