Years ago—almost six now—I shared a conversation I had with a person I supposed to be a “materialist.” In retrospect that was perhaps an unfair presumption, as I don’t think I talked to the person long enough to truly reach such a conclusion, and these days I would prefer to let people identify themselves as they will rather than designate them with some label they may or may not appreciate.
In the course of that conversation I wrote some things that reflected some thoughts to which I no longer hold, and accordingly I thought it would be interesting to give myself a kind of rebuttal. And so here is a new conversation… with myself.
If “dreamless sleep” or the cessation of existence is the final end of things… what’s the point of doing anything in life? Does not this ultimate meaninglessness give you any kind of existential angst?
If we’re to be honest, sure. But that doesn’t mean that angst is perfectly rational. I could easily contend that living forever and ever in the Kingdom of God can give a person angst. In fact, Jon, I know it did for you as early as 8 years old. Back then it was living forever on Earth petting pandas, but it never completely went away. Your best answer for it was that there is infinite dimensions of infinite novelty in God and so communion with the Lord would address this angst.
I’ll come back to that later, but in the mean time the implication here that experiencing angst means that a given premise should be rejected is illogical. Angst, like any other negative emotions, should be confronted, analyzed, and worked through.
…you admit the great angst of ultimate meaninglessness. Isn’t that horror enough?
Jon, your interlocutor simply stated that “coming to terms” with death is “becoming an adult.” Is it possible that what he meant by “coming to terms” with the angst does not mean that he was accepting its validity? Well in any case, I (future Jon) don’t.
What’s the point of experiencing anything?
So here we come to an interesting question. And it’s interesting because I think it betrays a flawed premise. Who says there has to be a point to experiencing things? Is there a “point” to being in communion with God? Does God have to have a “point” for experiencing anything he experiences? Isn’t joy axiomatically appreciable?
The short answer is there is no point to experiencing life. And that’s why it’s so obviously wonderful. When something has a purpose—a “point” as you phrased it–it’s only to serve something else. Asking for a purpose for that thing which the purpose is serving only goes down so far. At some point, all purposes are fulfilled and you are left with the thing itself. If you can never learn to appreciate that for what it is, then you are not truly appreciating life.
Life is wondrous and worth living—not in spite of its lack of “purpose” or “meaning”—but precisely because of it. It is valuable in and of itself.
If nothing is going to last, then there’s no point in building anything. Everything is temporary, and the only thing there is to do in life is mitigate pain and try to experience some pleasure so that the process of dying is easier, because death is ultimately the only thing we can effect which will last.
You’re fairly close to the truth here, but you have the whole wrong attitude about the affair. I also take some contention with the last statement, if at the very least on technical grounds.
So, it is indeed true that the only constant in the universe is change. This gives a great deal of angst for the order-centric civilization-building impulse that lies at the heart of Christianity. And that impulse serves a good purpose. But, of course, as I previously outlined purposes have an end. They serve something greater.
Civilization, along with all other structures, are good insofar as they facilitate and possibly maximize joy. Of course they also have the great potential of bringing about sorrow and strife, war and suffering. One of the earliest artifices of civilization we know is the ziggurat. It served as the likely inspiration for the story of the tower of Babel. And it functions as a decent model for human achievement. Success is like Jacob’s ladder ascending into the heavens. But of course, the higher one climbs the more precarious one’s position potentially is. As the saying goes “the bigger they are, the bigger they fall” and the same goes for things which are “taller.”
Thus there is a need for balance and a constant evaluation of the sturdiness of any structure before climbing its heights. Does that mean we shouldn’t bother climbing at all? That’s certainly one opinion. But it’s not really mine at the moment. I say we climb all the way to the moon. Exploring the heavens is just as exciting and fulfilling as exploring the sea. It is riding along the waters of chaos out to unseen lands. It is the essence of adventure. And this feeds the deepest recesses of our soul. The very potential for disaster is part of what brings excitement. A lot more could be said about that to be sure, but I fear I digress.
Suffice it to say, embracing life while it lasts is so much more than mitigating pain to make things easier to die. How woefully pessimistic of you, Jon.
And that brings me back to the contention I have with your last statement. Who says death is “the only thing we can effect which will last?” The impermanence of all things which clearly brings you so much angst extends not just to life, but death as well. A corpse doesn’t last forever. It too is disintegrated and reintegrated into the universe. I know at this point you would say “That’s a good picture of Hell” having such a macabre assumption about the dissolution of consciousness as some horribly painful thing and then somehow equating it with eternal torment.
What would possibly lead you to such a conclusion? When you drift off to sleep and your awareness of the outside world dissolves how painful is it? When you dream disjointed barely sensical shattered dreams, how painful is that? Aren’t both of these things… strangely joyful? Or at the last they certainly can be. Being confused, forgetting, misremembering can bring on frustration and pain… but only because we’re aware enough of what we’re trying to make sense and remember that we fight against the dissolution and bring pain upon ourselves in the struggle. If we learn to let go, drift off, and move on, we can experience brand new things. Exciting things. Dreams!
We speak of dreams, in fact, as synonymous with our deepest hopes and aspirations. Isn’t it curious then that our literal dreams are actually born out of chaos and dissolution? It’s only then that wondrous new structures of order can emerge when we start to rationally put this new mix into order. Why would the dissolution of ourselves in death be so different? Could it not, in fact, be that that the dissolution gives rise to new selves? That yes, while we may lose our soul, in so doing we find it? Anew. A true second birth. A literal second birth.
People die all the time. But people are born all the time. This is simply the ongoing ebb and flow of the world. Fighting against this process brings suffering and pain. But giving up and letting go? That presents the opportunity of entirely new experiences. Things beyond our imagination.
How regretfully limited your imagination is at this stage of life that you would insist “suicide is the only logical course of action.” You’re so thoroughly attached to your own present instantiation, that you can’t imagine how “you” ceasing to exist really just means that “you” become someone else. Nature abhors a vacuum. If the particles that make up your body continue to be replaced over time like the ship of Theseus, why not your soul? Certainly you’ve already changed. After all, at this point now you… are me.
The rest of your points about rational optimism are fair enough (within their own limited context). I will just leave you with one final thought: My desire for “Paradise” is rooted in my love of the present life. Was not the Paradise of Eden on Earth after all? The thing you love so dearly is life itself and it’s not something you need to defer to the future in some abstract “future life.” It’s the life you have right now. Enjoy it while it lasts. But don’t cling too tightly to it either. It will go away, but if you need faith, why not have faith that it will come back again? It won’t be the same. You won’t be the same. But that’s okay.
Reference: Conversation with a Materialist
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