March 10, 2022
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
I find nihilism pretty distasteful. Assuming that everything means nothing is repugnant; how can one see no meaning in the ground under their feet, full of worms and dirt and roots and seeds, or the sky over their heads, with the clouds reflecting the purples of the atmosphere as the sun rises? The ability to deny meaning to these things has always been foreign to me. This nihilistic belief is found in DEATH’s dialogue above, taken from Terry Pratchett (one of my favorite authors). And I’m sure it follows what most people believe when they say life has no meaning or purpose; that without justice or mercy, how can we ascribe meaning to the world around us. People more articulate than I have discussed how we can find meaning in the face of this absence, terming it hopepunk – I go back to this article a lot. And frankly, I have no insights that I can add to that article; instead, there are a few molecules of mercy that exist in daily life that we overlook, and I wanted to express my gratefulness for them here.
Empathy was not necessary for us to exist. Sure, it may “help social cohesion” or whatever the social\evolutionary scientists of our times say, but that does not make it a requirement for us. There exist many alternate universes where we never had this instinct, and I believe them to be much colder, harsher worlds than the one we exist in. Empathy may be imperfect, but a flawed item is better than the absence of it. A world with empathy is one filled with meaning, for we can recognize ourselves in others and assist each other. Without this, meaning is much more difficult to come by.
In the same vein, being conscious is not necessarily evolutionary advantageous. The ability for metacognition – to think about your thinking – likely provides only marginal benefit over a perfect automaton that flees from a tiger when it is supposed to and eats food when its urge comes into existence. The fact that we can ruminate on our feelings allows us to find meaning. It is a frightening ability, sure, the fact that we can spiral in our rumination into deeper depths, but the alternative is far less preferable.
How wondrous it is to be anything at all? Nothing here need exist; there are infinitely many other alternatives where this is nothing. That we are incidentally here, even temporarily, is a wonder. People may retort that one only values existing because they exist, and fear the alternative, but this is a flawed argument. Given the infinite possibilities of universes, one would ask to be moved to the next most pleasurable one only until they realize that they currently would cease to exist. There is no meaning without someone to ascribe it.
These are experiences in which we can find meaning, though definitely not an exhaustive list, for everything may. The engineer may ask, “So what? What can I do with this information? Just because I can find meaning does not give it a function.” Not all experiences have a use, but to entertain this argument within the nihilist framework, read the next paragraph:
Convincing yourself that everything means nothing is much easier than finding meaning – given the easy and hard paths, if they mean nothing, why not pick the harder one to see what it feels like to walk upon?
On February 27, 2022, I thought it would be a great idea to create some sort of content - writing, art, coding, etc. - every day of the next month. Luckily, the alliteration worked out. This should be the tenth (DOUBLE DIGITS!!!) post in the series.