THE MEANING OF LIFE

THE MEANING OF LIFE From the Summit; Traveler Looking Over the Sea of Fog Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) DEATH, MEANING, AND LONGEVITY • Everyone who is now alive on earth will be dead at some time in the future. Does the fact that everyone will die mean that none of our goals, projects, thoughts, and interests have meaning? • But just as did Nozick, Nagel wonders why the future extinction of everyone now alive should make our lives meaningless. • Is what we do meaningful only if it lasts? How long does it have to last? This is Nozick’s idea of traces. LIFE, MEANING, AND LONGEVITY • Nagel notes what we have already seen, that even masterpieces of art and science will one day disappear in the rubble of the universe. • It would seem then that, if we can’t find meaning in longevity - since nothing will last forever - we must find it within our own lives. • We can find explanations and justifications for most of the things we do within lives, but the problem is finding a justification or meaning for life as a whole. And if you look at life as a whole you might not think that there is a meaning to it at all. LIFE AS A WHOLE, VIEWED FROM THE OUTSIDE • Looking at life as a whole, viewed from the outside, it doesn’t seem to have a point. And it doesn’t seem to make a difference whether you existed or not. And after you are gone that won’t seem to matter either. • This doesn’t mean that you don’t matter to other people, you do, “but taken as a whole, their lives have no point either, so it ultimately doesn’t matter that you matter to them.” • People and the things they do matter to each other, but the problem is in giving meaning to the whole. And, to Nagel, life as a whole doesn’t seem to matter. DOES IT MATTER THAT LIFE DOESN’T MATTER? • You might say, so what? What does it matter that life doesn’t matter? • Nagel says that this is an acceptable reply, but “only if you can avoid setting your sights higher, and asking what the point of the whole thing is. For once you do that [ask what the point of the whole thing is] you open yourself to the possibility that life is meaningless.” LIFE IN THE LARGER CONTEXT OF THINGS • Looking at your life and death from the outside and seeing it in a larger context of the world and its processes makes it seem that the things which are important to you within the context of your own life are not important within this larger context. • This larger context of the world and its processes seems to be the thing lacking meaning. • Nagel asks, “what if your life as a whole did have a point in relation to something larger? Would that mean that it wasn’t meaningless after all?” THE MEANING OF LIFE IN RELATION TO SOMETHING LARGER THAN LIFE I • The problem with giving life meaning in relation to something larger than life is that there is a shift of the question to the larger thing in virtue of which your life is supposed to have meaning. Thus we must now ask, what is the meaning of this larger thing? • Either this larger thing has a meaning in relation to something larger or it doesn’t. If it does, then the problem of meaning is just transferred to a higher level. If not, then Nagel says that the search for meaning comes to an end in something which, in itself, has no meaning. THE MEANING OF LIFE IN RELATION TO SOMETHING LARGER THAN LIFE II • That is, the larger thing which gives our life meaning - like religion, or art, or belonging to a political party - has no meaning itself. • However, if the pointlessness of that larger thing is acceptable, then why not say that the pointlessness of our lives as a whole is itself acceptable? Why does life have to be related to something larger than life to be acceptable? Why then isn’t it alright for your life, or life in general, to be pointless? THE MEANING OF LIFE IN RELATION TO SOMETHING LARGER THAN LIFE III • If you say that it isn’t acceptable for your life to be pointless, but it has to achieve meaning in relation to something larger, even though that thing in itself is pointless, why is it acceptable for this larger thing to be pointless if it is not acceptable for life? • It would seem that we can always raise the question about the meaning or pointlessness of something at any level of discussion and no matter how large or great the thing is. CAN WE GET MEANING FROM GOD? I • Nagel says that an attempt to get the meaning for life from God or religion has its own problems. We think of God as being something which explains everything but which does not have to be explained itself, but Nagel says that it’s very hard to understand how there could be such a thing. • Even if we use God as the meaning or explanation of the world and human life, we can still ask what the meaning and explanation of God is. • On the other hand, if God is supposed to bring all our questioning to a stop, then why couldn’t we just have stopped somewhere earlier along the way, with the universe perhaps? CAN WE GET MEANING FROM GOD? II • Nagel’s problem with using the idea of God as the ultimate explanation of things and the ultimate source of the meaning in things is that he is not sure that he understands the idea. And by saying that he does not understand the idea, he is saying that it is not clear that this is truly an explanation. • What really could be meant by saying that there is something which is the meaning and explanation of everything but which itself does not require explanation, and we are not supposed to ask what the meaning of that thing is? CAN WE GET MEANING FROM GOD? III • An additional problem with using God to give your life meaning is: • If God giving your life meaning means that you are to live according to the plan he or she has for you, or that you are to fulfill his or her purpose, then that makes you a slave to that plan or purpose and limits your freedom to choose for yourself - to create your own sense of your significance and what amounts to accomplishment within the wider context of the shared meanings and values of human life. CAN WE GET MEANING FROM GOD? IV • Another problem with using God to give your life meaning is this: • If God is supposed to give our life meaning, but one which we don’t understand, then “it’s not much of a consolation.” • And how does a life which has a meaning which we don’t understand differ from one which has no meaning at all? Aren’t we equally confused or unappeased in either case? • Using God as an explanation for the meaning of life then is incomprehensible for Nagel. However, he admits that he may just not be understanding religious ideas. THE MEANING OF LIFE COMES FROM INSIDE LIFE I • Nagel says that it may be nothing to worry about even if life as a whole is meaningless. Perhaps we can recognize that, be honest and brave about it, and simply go on as we always have. • Perhaps we have to go back to the idea that what meaning life has comes from inside life itself. The meaning of life comes from the meanings we give to the goals, projects, and accomplishments in our lives, and which others also recognize as being meaningful. • Nagel: “The trick is to keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, and allow justifications to come to an end inside your life, and inside the lives of others to whom you are connected.” THE MEANING OF LIFE COMES FROM INSIDE LIFE II • Nagel is suggesting that the meanings for what we do, and the justifications for what we do, come to an end within life, and we do not have to derive meaning in relation to something outside of the context of life itself. • The meanings within life are those which are connected to the lives of others. And this attitude recognizes and accepts the idea that life as a whole has no meaning. This view further accepts that, in this larger meaningless context, it would not matter if you hadn’t been born. • Some people are perfectly content with this attitude, others find it depressing and unacceptable, and still others “find it depressing, though unavoidable.” Which are you? MEANING AND SERIOUSNESS • Perhaps accepting meaning in the small sense, from the inside, is something that people who want to see themselves as having meaning in relation to a larger context will not be able to tolerate. • These people want to matter “from the outside.” They want life as a whole to have meaning, and, if it doesn’t, they feel dissatisfied. • Nagel suggest that “perhaps it’s ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously.” Oscar Wilde said that life was far too important ever to talk seriously about. We might adapt this to the present matter by saying: “Life is far too important a thing ever to take too seriously.” One might also consider a remark made by Eugene Ionesco as relevant to the current issue: “To be an intellectual in the twentieth century means to take nothing too seriously and nothing too lightly.” LIFE AND ABSURDITY I • Finally, Nagel says “if we can’t help taking ourselves so seriously, perhaps we just have to put up with being ridiculous. Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.” • In a paper titled “The Absurd” Nagel says: “I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. Like skepticism in epistemology, it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought.” LIFE AND ABSURDITY II • Thus, for Nagel, our capacity for thought enables us to see ourselves in a larger context in which the ultimate pointlessness of group and individual life becomes clear. • The absurdity of life, according to Nagel, is due to “the collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt.” LIFE AND ABSURDITY III • Nagel: “We cannot live human lives without energy and attention, nor without making choices which show that we take some things more seriously than others. Yet we have always available a point of view outside the particular form of our lives, from which the seriousness appears gratuitous. These two inescapable viewpoints collide in us, and that is what makes life absurd.” LIFE AND ABSURDITY IV • Thus, for Nagel, at the same time that things can have importance within life, we can also view these things in relation to a larger context in which they lose that importance. It is this taking something to be important which is not ultimately important which gives life it’s absurdity for Nagel. It is also what makes us human. • Nagel: “If sub specie aeternitatis (L. lit. under the aspect of eternity; in its essential or universal form or nature) there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that doesn’t matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.”