2b. Positive Nihilism
The human brain seeks meaning. Our minds hunger to see patterns in the chaos
that inundates us from the moment we are born.
Our ability to represent the world as abstract images and connect these
images into a meaningful whole have brought us very far indeed. But mankind mistakes what is merely a tool
for survival as a vehicle for discovering absolute truths about the universe; truths
about the ultimate meaning of life, of death, and beyond.
It may seem incongruous for a book that sites scientific
studies to suggest that absolute meaning is a delusional goal at best. But then
again, who says that the job of science is about absolute truths. One can argue that science challenges its own
previous theories as much as proposing new ones. The limits of science results from the limits
of rational thought itself. Can a mind limited
by its own filter of perceptions ever be absolutely sure about any truth
outside of itself? As far back as ancient Greece, Plato compared our human experience to watching shadows
from a fire in a cave wall. According to
him, the reality is always somewhere outside the cave, and we merely glimpse
its shadows inside our minds.
Take what we believe to be the simplest of perceptual truths, and
even those would be hard to pin down as absolutes. Let’s just take our perception of the color
red for example. Simple enough? Not really.
How can we ever prove that anyone’s perception of red is similar to
anyone else’s. Let’s say there exists a
person, and due to the way their neural circuits are arranged, experiences the
color blue whenever they see a fire truck, stop sign, or santa suit – but has
learned from society that the name of that experience is “red”. There would be no way of ever determining
which one amongst us sees the world this way. For every time you ask this
person to describe “red”, they will relate it to the hot embers of a fire and
the brilliance of a setting sun.
Anyone who believes that mathematics and logical
reasoning can lead to absolute truths hasn’t heard about Kurt Godel’s
Incompleteness Theorem. Godel showed that there fails to exist a mathematical
system in which all of its axioms are provable.
Secondly, he showed that these mathematical systems cannot prove its
consistency within its own set of axioms. And why does this failing in
mathematics matter in the bigger scheme of things? Well because, all rational thought –
especially science- is based on the
syllogisms and logical systems based on mathematics.
A simple way often used to illustrate Godel’s
theorem is to ask whether the following statement is true or false: “ This
sentence is False”. In order for any
system of thought to be consistent, an axiom must be either be true or false. In this statement, we see that this is not
possible
Surely architects and engineers would protest that a
simple concept such as a straight line must actually exist in an absolute
sense. If a surveyor draws a straight
line on the ground, it seems evident that a building would be built with a line
which is the shortest distance between two points. However, we know that this cannot be
possible if we remember that earth itself is round and that any line drawn on
the ground by definition must have the slightest of imperceptible curves. The
detractor would still propose that a line drawn not on the ground, but say on
an architect’s drawing board can be absolutely straight. However, Einstein’s
special theory of relativity has proved that space itself is curved due to gravity.
Einstein revolutionized the concept of time as well –
proving that the speed at which time flows, is relative to gravity and the speeds
of the relative frames of reference. The
famous twin thought experiment illustrates this unusual aspect of our
universe. One twin stays on earth while
another takes a journey at the speed of light to a nearby galaxy. The travelling twin experiences only a year
pass, while 10 years have passed for the earthbound twin. This unusual aspect of time has been proven
using two molecular clocks, one on a jet plane and the other on the ground –
albeit with nanosecond differences noted due to the relative slow speed of jets
compared to light. Essentially, Einstein
displaced both the notions that time is absolute and that we can determine the
simultaneity of any two events.
But even the great Albert Einstein could not discover a
theory of everything - to explain all
the energy and forces we observe in the universe into a cohesive theory. He certainly tried his best towards the latter
half of his astounding career. The
forces of quantum mechanics vs. the theory of relativity formed a stumbling
block of contradictions that he simply could not account for. The forces affecting the very small molecules
seemed at odds with the ones that regulated the motions of planets and
stars. Many people are unaware that for decades after
his momentous work on Relativity,
Einstein was basically shunned by the
vast majority of physicists – as he
obstinately tried to justify a model of the universe where there were no
contradictions or imbalances. Thus, the
man who had once challenged the establishment with revolutionary concepts
became himself the old reactive establishment.
Scientist’s are no closer today to a unified theory that
would explain all the big and small forces in the universe. The problem may again be one of
limitations. We may be limited by our
own 4 dimensional universe. Many of the equations in the latest unifying string
theories predict other universes that contain up to 18 dimensions. There is also some unseen Dark Matter that is
hurling our universe apart. One theory
called Multiverse states that our universe is just one tiny expanding bubble
within an infinite “bread loaf” of other universes - matter that will forever
be hidden from our view – because the light from these other universes never
reaches us.
The biggest problem with these astounding theories is the
impossibility of obtaining evidence to support them. No one can ever experiment or test the
validity of these theorems. Sounds like
a familiar pattern doesn’t it? So,
anyone who declares science to be the answer to our ultimate questions, doesn’t
really understand science. Science at
best estimates what is most likely to occur on average given a fairly large number
of occurrences in a relative reference point. For example, all that science and math can say
is that there is a 50 % chance that a flipped coin will land heads. But that only is valid when a coin is flipped
a large number of times. There is very little
it can say about prediction of any three flips back to back. Flip a coin three times, and you can easily
have it land heads 100% of the time.
When mankind becomes disillusioned with the promises of
human rationalism, their only hope rest in the absolutes promised in their religions. I must first preface that I am not an
atheist, but rather, an agnostic.
However, when I say that 99% of all religions must be man’s creations, most
all of the religious people in the world would agree –for every religious
person believes theirs is the one and true religion.
Man could not live with a void in meaning and an unknowable
future. This is where religions come in.
In religions we find ready-made absolutes that provide meanings for everything
from the birth of the universe, to the reason for existing, and our fate after
death. But this came with a big caveat. Happiness here required a suppression of our
rational side. Whereas the zealots of
rationalism may overreach in its search for ultimate truths, the zealots of
religion do away with rationalism altogether. For those who are lucky enough to be able to
suppress the rationalism that we in our modern age have been acculturated, more
power to you. Religion will then provide
all the answers you seek.
For the rest of
us, who have already bitten the apple from the tree of knowledge, the rational
brain becomes the stumbling block to faith.
The logical mind like a roadblock, prevents one from accessing
wholeheartedly religion’s tenets. I have mentioned that I’m an agnostic. It is not that my rational mind cannot
conceive of say, a Christian god existing.
It is that my rational mind cannot allow me to love such an entity. Fear…possibly, but not love. But
let us leave religion as a topic for another chapter, for the religious longing
of mankind deserves more thorough attention.
Suffice it to say, that the positive pessimist will find it difficult to
go down the path that many religions offer towards meaning.
So far we have seen the difficulty in establishing the
absolute quality of facts and observations as we perceive them. If we now complicate matters by talking about
the meaning of such facts – like the absolute meaning of life itself– we can
see why this is almost an impossible task.
Yet, here we are, saddled with a brain designed to find meaning and
patterns in an attempt to navigate our way through this phenomenon called life. It is no wonder that countless people
throughout time have been stymied in this search for absolutes with rationalism,
which temptingly seems so accessible, like a word at the tip of our tongues.
It may seem clear that rationalism alone will not reveal
any absolute path to happiness and inner
peace all of us so desperately seek. So
someone may ask, why then is this book filled with logical arguments and
scientific studies? Despite all the
limitations stated above, rational thought
is the most powerful evolutionary trait the earth has ever witnessed –
for good or for bad. We have put robots
on mars and battled thousands of previously crippling diseases. We have also made the killing of other humans
a much more efficient process farther removed from the gory hand to hand combat
of old. And yes, although the human mind has created such revolutionary ideas
as justice and human rights, it has kept apace with such defense mechanisms
that the killing and enslavement of others for our benefit continues. Concepts such as free markets,
libertarianism, and objectivism become tools that hand the guns and bombs to
other’s hands far unseen.
The obstacles to personal happiness are bulwarked with
the so-called self evident conclusions of rationalism that disguise themselves
as positivist. Such assumptions as free
will, good and evil, and the various meanings for life that society has
prepackaged for consumption. If these assumptions are reinforced with the tools of
rationalism, then they must first be tackled with the same tool of its
creation. Fighting fire with fire seems
the appropriate phrase. So although
rationalism may not bring us to the very heights of truth we seek, it is
invaluable in uncovering the pitfalls that riddle the path towards it. Like all powerful tools, its use depends on
its wielder. The fact that tools are
limited in scope does not diminish their importance.
So here is our first opportunity to take a seemingly
depressing thought – that in fact – our lives lack absolute meaning, into a
source of inspiration instead of despair.
If meaning is not determined, there must lie also in its shores a certain
liberation and freeing up of possibilities for personal meaning. Who is to say that personal and subjective
meaning carries any less relevance than the absolute. By definition, is not the absolute cast upon
us like some dictator’s decrees – life is...,love is…,beauty is..., and so forth?
How
much fresher did the world look to us when we were young. Our dreams of the possible seemed much wider. But as the years passed, the experiences in
the world became much more defined and narrow in meaning – becoming repetitive
and mundane. We rest our eyes upon the
images before us that melt into one another into tiresome familiarity. The so called realities of human society and
the universe ricochet in our minds as reminders of our confinement to these
immutable laws.
History has shown that before any momentous change in
mankind’s perspective, the previous thoughts, once thought unshakable and absolute
were challenged and nullified - the heliocentric universe, spontaneous
generation, the divine right of kings, the flat earth – all were replaced. We only need a change in perspective to
replace the limitation with a vision of endless possibilities.
I
would argue that those ideals that have been the most loudly lauded as absolute
have caused considerable pain and unhappiness – the ideology of money, the
defense of the ego, societal status, materialism, selfishness, exploitation,
possessiveness, and greed. How many
times have you heard others rationalize even the most heinous of human acts by pleading
to the “reality” of the world as is?
Society hides behind dictators and corrupt governments and excuses their
own every day complicity, whether it is nothing more than the silence of
bystanders. The reason is given – if we
didn’t exploit, someone else would, or – they would have done it to us. The Lamarckian arguments of social Darwinism
or the Neo Conservative rants of Ayn Rand followers who declare that nature has
set the meanings that humans need only follow.
I argue that it is not the lack of meaning that makes our
world tragically absurd, but the abundance of these so called good and positive
meanings in abundance before us that rings hollow and superficial. The very language and images set before us
riddled with such ugly stereotypes and division that allow us too easily to
view our fellow humans as less. We live
in these fearful tiny clusters of boxed familial units, losing any connection but
the most superficial to anyone beyond its walls.
Seen in this light, rendering much of our present
world meaningless may be a good beginning.
The world is in need of new creators of meaning. As we have seen, if we do not create them,
they will be created for us – and against us.
If we shed the concept that no person has the sole rights to absolute
meaning, we can create new meanings that make more sense, that share the earth
with other people and species, without leaving a trail of destruction, that
will ultimately lead to our own self-destruction.
