The Cloud Chamber by Clare George
Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
More books read
My Five Cambridge Friends by Yuri Modin and David Leitch
Spy Catcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer
by Peter Wright
On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Hangover Square: A Story of Darkest Earl's Court
by Patrick Hamilton and J.B. Priestley
Books Read
Juggernaut by Desmond Bagley
Life Class by Pat Barker
Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
by Ralph Leighton and Richard P. Feynman
Code to Zero by Ken Follett
Jackdaws by Ken Follett
The Langhorne Sisters by James Fox
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The Meaning of Life
I am sometimes asked, "So, what is the meaning of life?" Most people who ask this just want me to say '42'. This brilliant answer from 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' is amusing precisely because it is ridiculously mundane. A proper answer, or so it is assumed, should be profound, deep and enlightening.
When I want to give someone a short answer that will make them think I usually say that the meaning of life is determined by three things—food, sex and death. This is not meant to be facetious. Although we currently live at a time and in a part of the world where we have quantities and a choice of food undreamt of by previous generations, we simply would not be here if our ancestors had not managed to get enough food to keep them alive until they had the opportunity to have enough sex to successfully reproduce before eventually dying. Having enough of the first to enable you to get some of the second before you experience the third explains much of human behaviour. There may be a legitimate debate about whether evolutionary forces operate on the individual, the group, the gene or some combination of the three, but the fact remains—those in the past who were not sufficiently driven to feed or mate left fewer descendants; those who had appetites that produced more offspring were more likely to pass those appetites down and on to us.
For some this is also an inadequate answer. This may be sufficient to explain what happens in the natural world but surely, they say, we have risen above the 'eat, mate, die and that's all there is' that characterizes the world of nature. Unless this is meant to be an appeal to something completely untestable, like the existence of a soul, it presumably depends on the fact that we are conscious creatures, we know, we are aware, and we know that we are aware. These people don't want any old meaning of life; they want the ultimate meaning of life. They want "The Answer to the Great Question ... Of Life, the Universe and Everything ..." Those who have read the book know that Deep Thought eventually says in defense of the answer forty-two, "Once you…know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means."
It is not at all clear that people wanting to know the meaning of life are asking a meaningful question. There is the famous nonsense sentence from Noam Chomsky—"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". It is quite possible for something to look like a question, to be grammatically correct but, in fact, to be complete nonsense. It seems to me that 'meaning' has to be meaning to someone. Asking about the 'ultimate meaning of life' may make as little sense as asking about the ultimate sound or the ultimate colour. Many secularists would say that the meaning of life can only be what each individual decides for themself. The philosopher Paul Kurtz puts it like this:
"As a secularist, I believe each person needs to find meaning and purpose on his or her own terms, though some people may lack the existential courage to become what they really want to be. Each person's life is like a work of art, for we are constantly adding the shape, form, color, and tone to what we create. Life has no predetermined meaning per se; it presents us with opportunities, and the meanings that we discover depend on our own creative decisions. They are realized in the plans and projects that we unfurl each day. In one sense, each moment is intrinsically good in itself, though it needs to fit into a kaleidoscopic rendering that we constantly reinforce or remake. The significance of living is found in the educational experiences we have had; the careers we pursue or jobs we endure; our partners and love mates, friends and colleagues; the children we have had, if we chose to have them, and their upbringing; the beloved causes we have championed; our interests and activities, in sum, all of the things that we have undertaken or undergone during our lifetimes. Secular humanists have invariably emphasized the importance of happiness in realizing a full life. This means many different things to many different people: For some, it is the quest for passive withdrawal or meditation; for others, it is maximizing hedonic pleasure, money, power, or sexual conquests; and for others still, it is the bourgeois sacrifice for God or country, or perhaps service for a worthy cause. This is relative to a person's own interests, talents, and predilections." (http://tinyurl.com/2jvhox)
Those who are not secularists will not be convinced. If you believe that there is a God then that does make a difference. It would make a difference to me! If I believed that there a realistic chance that I might spend eternity in heaven or in hell then I might be tempted to bring that into my happiness calculations. However, these people are not asking the question; they are already convinced they know the answer and are trying to get others to agree with them.
More interesting are those people who don't believe in God but who still want to believe that there is one single meaning of life that we would all share if only we could see things rightly. Presumably this is not just a desire for neatness as if the world would be a better place if everyone like banana yogurt and no one preferred strawberry. I imagine they feel that there is something a little unsatisfactory about a meaning we decide for ourselves; one that isn't given from outside. Religious people may be tempted to agree but I am not so sure this would be a good idea. If life is somehow unsatisfactory unless a meaning is given to us from outside it would seem to follow that God must find his own existence quite unsatisfactory.
When I want to give someone a short answer that will make them think I usually say that the meaning of life is determined by three things—food, sex and death. This is not meant to be facetious. Although we currently live at a time and in a part of the world where we have quantities and a choice of food undreamt of by previous generations, we simply would not be here if our ancestors had not managed to get enough food to keep them alive until they had the opportunity to have enough sex to successfully reproduce before eventually dying. Having enough of the first to enable you to get some of the second before you experience the third explains much of human behaviour. There may be a legitimate debate about whether evolutionary forces operate on the individual, the group, the gene or some combination of the three, but the fact remains—those in the past who were not sufficiently driven to feed or mate left fewer descendants; those who had appetites that produced more offspring were more likely to pass those appetites down and on to us.
For some this is also an inadequate answer. This may be sufficient to explain what happens in the natural world but surely, they say, we have risen above the 'eat, mate, die and that's all there is' that characterizes the world of nature. Unless this is meant to be an appeal to something completely untestable, like the existence of a soul, it presumably depends on the fact that we are conscious creatures, we know, we are aware, and we know that we are aware. These people don't want any old meaning of life; they want the ultimate meaning of life. They want "The Answer to the Great Question ... Of Life, the Universe and Everything ..." Those who have read the book know that Deep Thought eventually says in defense of the answer forty-two, "Once you…know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means."
It is not at all clear that people wanting to know the meaning of life are asking a meaningful question. There is the famous nonsense sentence from Noam Chomsky—"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". It is quite possible for something to look like a question, to be grammatically correct but, in fact, to be complete nonsense. It seems to me that 'meaning' has to be meaning to someone. Asking about the 'ultimate meaning of life' may make as little sense as asking about the ultimate sound or the ultimate colour. Many secularists would say that the meaning of life can only be what each individual decides for themself. The philosopher Paul Kurtz puts it like this:
"As a secularist, I believe each person needs to find meaning and purpose on his or her own terms, though some people may lack the existential courage to become what they really want to be. Each person's life is like a work of art, for we are constantly adding the shape, form, color, and tone to what we create. Life has no predetermined meaning per se; it presents us with opportunities, and the meanings that we discover depend on our own creative decisions. They are realized in the plans and projects that we unfurl each day. In one sense, each moment is intrinsically good in itself, though it needs to fit into a kaleidoscopic rendering that we constantly reinforce or remake. The significance of living is found in the educational experiences we have had; the careers we pursue or jobs we endure; our partners and love mates, friends and colleagues; the children we have had, if we chose to have them, and their upbringing; the beloved causes we have championed; our interests and activities, in sum, all of the things that we have undertaken or undergone during our lifetimes. Secular humanists have invariably emphasized the importance of happiness in realizing a full life. This means many different things to many different people: For some, it is the quest for passive withdrawal or meditation; for others, it is maximizing hedonic pleasure, money, power, or sexual conquests; and for others still, it is the bourgeois sacrifice for God or country, or perhaps service for a worthy cause. This is relative to a person's own interests, talents, and predilections." (http://tinyurl.com/2jvhox)
Those who are not secularists will not be convinced. If you believe that there is a God then that does make a difference. It would make a difference to me! If I believed that there a realistic chance that I might spend eternity in heaven or in hell then I might be tempted to bring that into my happiness calculations. However, these people are not asking the question; they are already convinced they know the answer and are trying to get others to agree with them.
More interesting are those people who don't believe in God but who still want to believe that there is one single meaning of life that we would all share if only we could see things rightly. Presumably this is not just a desire for neatness as if the world would be a better place if everyone like banana yogurt and no one preferred strawberry. I imagine they feel that there is something a little unsatisfactory about a meaning we decide for ourselves; one that isn't given from outside. Religious people may be tempted to agree but I am not so sure this would be a good idea. If life is somehow unsatisfactory unless a meaning is given to us from outside it would seem to follow that God must find his own existence quite unsatisfactory.
Hamlet and relativism
"…for there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so."
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2
In context it may be nothing to do with ethical relativism but rather more to do with whether or not you enjoy your current circumstances depends upon your state of mind. For Hamlet Denmark is a prison. However, many writers have traced this thought back to others. Kenneth Muir's Shakespeare Survey (p41) says "Hamlet's assertion of relativity…can be traced back to Lyly or Spenser, to Cardan, Baldwin or Nicholas Ling…but though the statement in Politeuphia (1597) — 'There is nothing grievous if the thought make it not so"— seemed to Wilson 'closer to Hamlet in wording and in date', one may still think with Robertson that in Hamlet it is no incidental or wayward utterance: 'we find the formula felt', as in Montaigne who devotes a whole chapter to the notion 'That the taste of goods or evils dothe greatly depend on the opinion we have of them.' (Essays)
(n.b. Wikipedia has a good paragraph on the philosophical background to Hamlet.)
bad, but thinking makes it so."
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2
In context it may be nothing to do with ethical relativism but rather more to do with whether or not you enjoy your current circumstances depends upon your state of mind. For Hamlet Denmark is a prison. However, many writers have traced this thought back to others. Kenneth Muir's Shakespeare Survey (p41) says "Hamlet's assertion of relativity…can be traced back to Lyly or Spenser, to Cardan, Baldwin or Nicholas Ling…but though the statement in Politeuphia (1597) — 'There is nothing grievous if the thought make it not so"— seemed to Wilson 'closer to Hamlet in wording and in date', one may still think with Robertson that in Hamlet it is no incidental or wayward utterance: 'we find the formula felt', as in Montaigne who devotes a whole chapter to the notion 'That the taste of goods or evils dothe greatly depend on the opinion we have of them.' (Essays)
(n.b. Wikipedia has a good paragraph on the philosophical background to Hamlet.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)