Meaning

There seems to be: a)  an essential assumption in the authors’ reasoning, and b) an essential observation.

The assumption is that meaning is to be found outside of ourselves. We cannot successfully impose it. They make this argument in the second chapter of the book, when discussing David Foster Wallace’s Nihilism and his proposition that we can impose meaning on our reality. They state this possibility is “the most demanding and the most impoverished all at once” (p 47):

• Most demanding because:
  • It raises the stakes for happiness and demands a kind of bliss that supersedes any kind of earthly condition (ps. 47-48). They later equate this with the Buddhist concept of Nirvana (see ps 163-164).
  • It demands that bliss be constant and achieved at all times (p. 48)
• Impoverished because there is no place for gratitude (p.48)

They reject this option as a source of meaning and re-emphasize on several occasions throughout the book. For example, on p 142: “The history of the last 150 years suggests that we are not the proper source for meaning in the world”

I, quite frankly, don’t see how they deduce any of the points above. The fact that they seem convinced that they have made their case and discuss the rest of the book as if meaning must be found outside the self, to me, unfortunately, weakens the entire book that, otherwise, I find very interesting, illuminating even. To top it off, as mentioned in my previous post below, they take the cheap shot of using the example of David Foster Wallace’s suicide to emphasize that this is the only possible ending. Thinking back, if all this had sunk in while I was reading the book, I probably would have stopped right there. But I am glad that I continued reading and can enjoy the rest of the book by thinking of the above as an assumption made by the authors, not something they were really set to demonstrate. I can live with that and address the assumption elsewhere.

The observation I can easily agree with. The observation is that we cannot control everything that happens outside of ourselves. We do not fully control our world and the events that surround us. This seems to me to be patently and observably true. It is even arguable that we do not control everything about ourselves (such as quick, intuitive thinking, and involuntarily biological processes).

Given the “assumption” and the “observation” (by the way, these designations are mine, not the authors’), this leads them through a path of wanting to be in-sync with, immersed in, aware of this uncontrolled and uncontrollable environment, and the external “moods” that are generated with the idea that, in doing so, we generate an opportunity to experience meaning, something we can call sacred. I see the appeal of this way of thinking and I see parallels with oriental philosophy that, for some reason the authors seem to want to negate.

Now here is where my thoughts go next: what if we look at the whooshing, the moods, the physis we are exposed to as being generated by random events? We can even choose to look at our own choices and the choices of those around us as generated by random events or being individual outcomes of random events (leaving aside the fact that, in that case, we probably wouldn’t discuss them as “choices”). If we think about the examples the author’s give in these terms, how would our outlook on meaning differ?

To use one of the author’s examples, say we are at a sporting event and collectively experience an athlete “in the zone.” We all realize what is happening and collectively feel we have been a part of something special. For this special moment to occur, we need to have gone to the sporting event, and we need to have been open to experience the athlete’s performance as something special. In addition, those around us need to have done so as well, and at least one athlete must have been “in the zone” on that day. We can look at the aspects of this experience that we do not control as random events: the choices and behaviors of others attending the game, and the likelihood that at least one athlete will be “in the zone.” In that case, our special experience, our experience of the “sacred,” would be one possible outcome of a joint probability distribution of the random events we are exposed to. Why is there a stronger argument to feel gratitude in this case, then in any other outcome of the joint distribution?

In the end, it seems to me what really matters is what the authors’ assumed away in the first two chapters of the book: whether meaning can be attributed from within, whether it needs to be defined in relation to something outside ourselves, and whether meaning should be attributed at all, at least if we look at the world as one that can be described by joint distributions of random events. It is as if the author’s efforts to propose an alternative to today’s nihilism relies on first simply assuming away nihilism as a viable outlook on life. It seems to me the central question is to what extent we think of what we experience in the world as being random or deterministic.

The discussion above takes me to a memory of my father. My father was an engineer. He was very intelligent and liked math. He was also very Catholic. I have this recollection of a period when he was logging into a table the results of the national lottery where he lived. The idea was that, perhaps, he could find a pattern in the lottery numbers. A pattern that would maybe signal some higher order or something he could be “in-sync” with, tuned into. I am sure he would have liked to win the lottery, and he would have interpreted it as a gift from God. Many Catholics view the world as a place where everything happens for a reason. But I honestly think that the discovery of a pattern itself would have been way more rewarding to him than any payments he would have received from winning the lottery. It would have proven the existence of a higher order and at the same time provided some personal intellectual gratification. It is possible to think of my father’s attempt, and it seems to me of the entire book discussed above, as ultimately stemming from a kind of wishful thinking. One that is not unappealing to me, yet difficult for me to accept. One that is difficult for me to accept, yet not unappealing to me.

I don’t think my father knew much statistics, or perhaps didn’t care much for it. And, spoiler alert, to my knowledge he never found a pattern in the lottery numbers, or at least not one that proved successful in winning the national lottery. Interestingly enough, he did many years later win a car in a lottery from the club he belonged to: it was close to Christmas time and he did quite desperately need a new car. He interpreted it as a gift, perhaps even as a reward for his faith, and I am sure he was thankful. Relevant to the discussion above: he did not pick the numbers.

Reference:

Dreyfus, Hubert and Sean Dorrance Kelly. 2011. All Things Shining. Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. New York: Free Press.