Here is a remarkable article from one of our own Club members who has really put his finger on what's important. Yes, there may not be any cosmic meaning (though the cosmic jury is still out on this), but does this mean there is no meaning? Only if this depresses you to the point of dysfunction, and in that case the meaninglessness is mostly local (to you and not to the cosmos at large). In other words, depression does not follow logically from lack of cosmic meaning. The realization of meaning is a function of psychological health; and (to speak a bit pompously perhaps) it is our birthright as humans.
Perhaps though the problem not just about meaning vs meaningless, but (in a way) about subjective vs objective. If we admit that the matterer is what matters here, then perhaps we should pay attention to a corollary point -- the psychological (spiritual) state of the person involved. And, at least from a Socratic standpoint, what matters most is not just what we, in rash enthusiasm, merely take to be meaningful (like collecting trinkets at Macy's) but rather what is truly most important to us as human persons.
So maybe that's what self-knowledge is all about -- knowing what really makes us tick at the most fundamental level available to us, so that we can flourish ("live well"). That, I think, is WISDOM, and it's a matter of self-discovery (insight) and never just the conclusion of an argument. Though arguments can correct some errors (as we've already seen above here), they can also distract us by rationalizing our distance from the depth of our own authenticity. Our own logical virtuosity can enthrall us, so that the better we are at arguing, the greater the temptation of distraction and self-deception. Likewise, when we are not self-deceived, we are living in our own truth -- a matter that is subjectively accessible but objectively present, even when we do not see it. (And there we have an entire other discussion.)
Fantastic. I ALSO pompously do so claim that meaning is our birthright, as so far as we are sentient beings capable of cognition, and maybe more importantly, love.
I love this. I think sometimes we use an “objective reality” to invalidate the meanings we have constructed for ourselves. But practically speaking, we experience a ton of meaning or lack thereof throughout our lives, whether God or physics condones it. For anyone looking to deconstruct Christianity, I recommend Marcus Borg! He offers some really interesting ideas around how to craft a spirituality that doesn’t require us to abandon our intellectual values
I’d also like to loosely caveat myself here by adding an Alan Watts quote:
“We are the universe experiencing itself.“
If one takes this to be true, I’d say it makes the universe look a little less cold and uncaring, and a whole lot more relational. It matters, one might argue, to itself.
Your “matterer” move is elegant — and psychologically honest.
But let me press one layer deeper.
Sure, nothing matters without someone for whom it matters.
Yet having a matterer isn’t the same as having authorship.
A person can care deeply about their wife, their dog, their ice cream — attachments that feel utterly real.
But the structure within which they act increasingly precedes them. The point where experience can still interrupt, veto, or redirect action may already have shifted elsewhere.
Meaning might survive subject-dependence just fine.
The harder question is whether the subject still stands at the locus of decision.
If “matterer” is purely a psychological state, meaning stays safe.
If it requires actual custody over action, then the crisis isn’t nihilism — it’s displacement.
Here is a remarkable article from one of our own Club members who has really put his finger on what's important. Yes, there may not be any cosmic meaning (though the cosmic jury is still out on this), but does this mean there is no meaning? Only if this depresses you to the point of dysfunction, and in that case the meaninglessness is mostly local (to you and not to the cosmos at large). In other words, depression does not follow logically from lack of cosmic meaning. The realization of meaning is a function of psychological health; and (to speak a bit pompously perhaps) it is our birthright as humans.
Perhaps though the problem not just about meaning vs meaningless, but (in a way) about subjective vs objective. If we admit that the matterer is what matters here, then perhaps we should pay attention to a corollary point -- the psychological (spiritual) state of the person involved. And, at least from a Socratic standpoint, what matters most is not just what we, in rash enthusiasm, merely take to be meaningful (like collecting trinkets at Macy's) but rather what is truly most important to us as human persons.
So maybe that's what self-knowledge is all about -- knowing what really makes us tick at the most fundamental level available to us, so that we can flourish ("live well"). That, I think, is WISDOM, and it's a matter of self-discovery (insight) and never just the conclusion of an argument. Though arguments can correct some errors (as we've already seen above here), they can also distract us by rationalizing our distance from the depth of our own authenticity. Our own logical virtuosity can enthrall us, so that the better we are at arguing, the greater the temptation of distraction and self-deception. Likewise, when we are not self-deceived, we are living in our own truth -- a matter that is subjectively accessible but objectively present, even when we do not see it. (And there we have an entire other discussion.)
Fantastic. I ALSO pompously do so claim that meaning is our birthright, as so far as we are sentient beings capable of cognition, and maybe more importantly, love.
I love this. I think sometimes we use an “objective reality” to invalidate the meanings we have constructed for ourselves. But practically speaking, we experience a ton of meaning or lack thereof throughout our lives, whether God or physics condones it. For anyone looking to deconstruct Christianity, I recommend Marcus Borg! He offers some really interesting ideas around how to craft a spirituality that doesn’t require us to abandon our intellectual values
Thanks for the comment! I will definitely look at Borg.
I’d also like to loosely caveat myself here by adding an Alan Watts quote:
“We are the universe experiencing itself.“
If one takes this to be true, I’d say it makes the universe look a little less cold and uncaring, and a whole lot more relational. It matters, one might argue, to itself.
Your “matterer” move is elegant — and psychologically honest.
But let me press one layer deeper.
Sure, nothing matters without someone for whom it matters.
Yet having a matterer isn’t the same as having authorship.
A person can care deeply about their wife, their dog, their ice cream — attachments that feel utterly real.
But the structure within which they act increasingly precedes them. The point where experience can still interrupt, veto, or redirect action may already have shifted elsewhere.
Meaning might survive subject-dependence just fine.
The harder question is whether the subject still stands at the locus of decision.
If “matterer” is purely a psychological state, meaning stays safe.
If it requires actual custody over action, then the crisis isn’t nihilism — it’s displacement.
And that’s where the real vertigo begins.