(Part 1) I started composing an objection to John\u2019s objection in my head and realised that I would have to take a very circuitous route to explain where I\u2019m coming from. Thus let me start by stating what I believe is one of the very few universal laws: the human psyche demands meaning. What I mean by this is that the human mind cannot function properly unless it is able to invest meaning, causality and intention into the physical world it inhabits ? and in particular into the lives we lead. Now, there are two possibilities here. The first is that meaning does exist in the world (in whatever form that takes) or secondly that we are nothing but ants crawling over a lump of rock that hurtles through the void of space towards our individual (and ultimately species-wide) Annihilation (that\u2019s Annihilation with a capital \u2019A\u2019 as in Oblivion with a capital \u2019O\u2019) and that anything we do is meaningless. My contention is that whichever of these positions is correct (and I don\u2019t propose to solve this question just yet) the human mind needs to create a sphere of meaning around itself. There are so many examples of this that I won\u2019t bother going into much detail but suffice to say that I firmly believe that we routinely seek meaningful coincidences, connections and causalities in events we observe or experience. The whole \u2019alternative\u2019 movement seems a particular case in point. You can even take drugs that will make you experience more \u2019connections\u2019 and it\u2019s possible that certain chemicals in our brains, present in greater or lesser amounts from individual to individual, makes us more or less prepared to \u2019make the connection\u2019. Again let me stress: I am not stating whether I believe that ultimately the meaning or the non-meaning interpretation is the correct one. Only that regardless of the truth the mind needs to create meaning. Having said this, I think that our drive to create meaning biases us towards seeing meaning where no meaning exists. Having looked briefly at the tendency towards meaning, think for a moment about living a life that eradicates meaning completely. Such a life would, I think, be akin to a state of permanent existential angst. Think Sartre\u2019s \u2019nausea\u2019 on a constant basis. Think Sunday night horrors every day of the week. Think \u2019death attacks\u2019 as the baseline. (Er, sorry, getting carried away ? that\u2019s more information than you require). The point being that I don\u2019t believe anybody can hold the tension for too long without resorting to drugs, depression or suicide (or probably all three). This quote from Sartre sums up pretty well the impression that I am trying to convey: “Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.” (from L’\u00catre et le N\u00e9ant \/ Being and Nothingness, 1943) You\u2019ll notice that even Sartre gives himself an opt-out clause in that without any intrinsic meaning in the world, he allows that man can set himself a purpose. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Part 1) I started composing an objection to John\u2019s objection in my head and realised that I would have to take a very circuitous route to explain where I\u2019m coming from. Thus let me start by stating what I believe… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-questing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simonjnugent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}