Philosophy of the Void

I believe life has no meaning.  When I say this, people often interpret it as a sign of pessimism or nihilism.  The statement can have a different nuance, so let me elaborate.  I think meaning emerges from interpretation.  Meaning takes a cluster of points and redefines them in terms of patterns.  A line can symbolize the number ?g1,?h the letter ?gI,?h the concept of myself ?gI,?h and many other things.  Life is also subject to interpretation.  On a personal level, Einstein might symbolize genius, Lincoln freedom, or Hitler evil.  More broadly speaking, life might mean the service of a deity or cause, the pursuit of happiness or truth, or merely procreation and sustenance.  Meaning can take a simple object and make it terribly complicated, or reduce complexity to simplicity.  In regards to life, I think the primary function is the latter.  In turn, I think talking about life in terms of ?gmeaning?h is to belittle and diminish it.  Our interpretive tools too often get in the way, reducing something beautiful into a crude stick figure.

I think humility is the greatest sign of intelligence. One often hears of geniuses who are full of themselves or who are otherwise personality-impaired. I think this signifies stupidity - such people have not developed the ability to handle the cognitive machinery genetically handed down to them. There is no difference between this type of personality and the rich kid who brags about his family’s wealth or status. In both cases, the subject of bragging is not a function of the person’s existence, but rather of external factors that were (for better or for worse) beyond the person’s control. To be proud of such things is tantamount to bragging about the sunny weather.

When I arrived here last year, one of the first documents I received was called “General Guidelines to Bathroom Etiquette.”  Apparently, getting into Harvard doesn’t mean you know the functional difference between a sink, a urinal, or a shower stall.  The sad thing is, according to the authorities, all of the things written on this were based in fact.  If you ever put up a Harvard student in your home, you might want to remind them that it’s inappropriate to “smear hair on the shower wall” or “urinate or defecate in the sink” or “store urine in rooms and dispose of it later in the bathrooms or trash cans.”  Also be aware that they may release a lot of blood and “mucus.”

People sometimes compare mankind to a virus or plague. This comparison seems adequate insofar as we continue to destroy the environment and ultimately render our existence untenable. The negative connotations associated with this metaphor, however, seem unjustified. Population explosions have recurred throughout the history of life. The subsequent decimation of species including the perpetrator could even be described as the natural course of events. If this has any “meaning,” I suppose it might be to rid the planet of incumbent species to give others a fresh start. In this sense, the natural role of mankind might be to reformat the earth, precisely through a process that strikes us as irrational, unsustainable, rampant destruction. If this is true, our petrol firms and SUV drivers are perhaps the greatest environmentalists of our time. Similarly, environmentalism in its conventional sense is highly artificial. It would be a remarkable feat, of course, if mankind were able to break out from this seemingly preordained fate. This would constitute the ultimate overcoming of nature and attainment of artificiality. From the perspective of life, I’m not sure whether this would constitute a good or bad outcome.

Relativism is often attacked for being morally ambiguous and admissive of all perspectives. I think this is somewhat misguided. Morality can be absolute within bounds. In our youth, virtually all of us undergo some type of moral indoctrination. Whether one treats this as religious doctrine, social morality, common sense, or just one of many plausible perspectives is a function of humility. Humility allows us to defend our moral prejudices without an overbearing assertion of absolute truth. The justification granted to our particular morality is a function of affinity, comfort, and familiarity. The morality is bounded by those who subscribe to it. People can be held accountable if they hold a morality and fail to adhere to its tenets. The same is not true of individuals outside a given moral framework. The punishment or mistreatment of such individuals might be justified on grounds of social welfare or stability, but this justification never has the same force brought to bear on deviants operating within a coherent moral framework. A murderous Christian is evil, but a psychopathic atheist is a social problem. Even a relativist can hold this statement to be true.

Religions often make universal claims to some truth or way. In reality, I think it depends on your personality. Active, restless souls are ill suited for meditation and satori. Sedated, calm types do not fit well with fanaticism. Artistic, sensual people are attracted to mystic rituals. Rational, philosophic minds find pleasure in brain-twisting deepness. Finding the right religion, then, is mostly about finding something that suits your temperament. A very successful religion, like a Shakespearean play, will appeal to every type of personality.

This weekend, I read “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. It was good airplane reading – not dense but thought provoking. One of the themes that come up in this novel is the superiority of atheism and faith over agnosticism. The assumption here is that having faith in something is more “mature” or otherwise somehow preferable to wavering. Like all assumptions, there is no argument for or against this one. I object, however, on two grounds. First, faith is compatible with agnosticism. Second, atheism and faith in religion do not exhaust the options available to the “faithful.”

Agnostics can be faithful. There is no contradiction here. I have been faithful and agnostic in the past. The contradiction only arises because some people have trouble separating the realm of the rational from the spiritual. On scientific grounds, we should all be agnostics since there is no physical evidence for the existence or non-existence of God. This is the rational realm. One can strongly believe in something while being unsure about its existence. I’m not sure whether dreams exist or not, but I believe in them. In fact, I think one can strongly believe in something while being entirely sure – on rational grounds – that the thing in question does not exist. A utopia, or world government, maybe. On a separate note, strong agnosticism might also constitute a sort of faith – a faith in the limitations of our comprehension. I think Confucious and Socrates could be classified as such.

The faith I find most attractive arises from the assumption that the concept of “existence” is inapplicable to divinity. This moots the distinction between religion, agnosticism, and atheism. Or, one may say this constitutes a fourth category, one that asserts that the other three are divided over an irrelevant question. A useful metaphor might be the “void.” One cannot really say whether or not the void “exists,” or how many “voids” there are. Rationally, one could say, “there is no basis to say whether or not the void exists, so I remain undecided.” But this is sort of like remaining undecided over whether or not a cauliflower prefers blondes or brunettes. The reason I find this assumption attractive is because it seems to put divinity beyond the grasp of human constructs and concepts. I’m turned off by notions such as God being “jealous” or “seeing” or even “loving” or, ultimately, “existing.”

According to the The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), “During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms.” This suggestion is apparently common enough to warrant a FAQ entry on their website, in which they offer a “rigorous” scientific explanation as to why this might be a bad idea.

Having spent much of my early life growing up in Japan, I’m always struck by the difference in perceptions towards nuclear weapons in the two countries. The above example is obviously extreme. Nonetheless, in Japan, the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has created a nuclear taboo that would render the above paragraph unfunny. In contrast, in the US, the opposite has happened - because the US was responsible for the first use of the weapons, a culture of justification has developed. The intellectual and emotional efforts that went into justifying the use of nuclear weapons in World War II have had the effect of legitimizing the weapons themselves. One can only imagine how we would view nuclear weapons if the Nazis invented them first and used them on, say London or New York.

This is not to deny that geopolitical realities would have made the subsequent possession of nuclear weapons inevitable. However, the casualness and absence of reluctance in our society strikes me as both disturbing and aberrant.

My former roommate Don and I recently had a e-mail discussion about weird google searches.  Presumably because they contain a lot of text, these types of blogs attract a lot of hits from very random and/or unintended sources.  Recent examples for this site include “eating habits of the ameba” and “pathological depression.”  This site comes up among the first ten for a google search on these phrases.  The first is pretty random and funny but I’m surprised about the latter, since the term returns over 100,000 hits and this is clearly not a site about pathological depression… or maybe google knows more about me that I’m willing to admit?

From Don’s weblog (*3), the funniest search result was for scantily clad females, for which his site shows up among the top five… although now that I read his entry again, I suppose the connection is not very random.  It’s pretty funny though.  I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if linking to his page with a specific pointer like this would bring it to the top of the search results, so there it is. 

I guess this entry was more void than philosophy… oh well…

Update (11/2/03): The desired outcome has been achieved. I suppose this type of low-key manipulation is not very difficult for not-so-popular search phrases.

I have an ongoing discussion with one of my friends about teleportation. Suppose some day a scientist invents a teleportation device. You walk in one end, your body is zapped, and you reemerge in another location (think Star Trek). Will the person who emerges from the other end have the same consciousness as the person who was zapped? I’m skeptical. The being that reemerges will surely act like the same person if reconstruction is perfect. This will lead others to believe that the transportation was successful. However, I think the person who walked in is effectively dead. Let’s think of it this way – if the same device was used to clone somebody, would the clone and the original share a single consciousness? I don’t think that’s plausible. This raises a scary prospect – if teleportation becomes feasible and popular, there will appear to be no problem until you walk in, and your life will end right there. Everybody else will carry on as usual, thinking the being that emerged from the other end is you.

On the other hand, this type of dynamic might be more common than we realize. For example, suppose our consciousness dies every time we sleep. The being that wakes up the next morning retains the same memories, so there will be no realization that something is out of place. Carpe diem takes on a new meaning here. Literally, today is the first and last day of your existence.