Is there someone among you HNers who has retained a positive outlook by believing that the universe is a bleak, chaotic place with no intrinsic meaning to the things happening in it?
Is there someone among you HNers who has retained a positive outlook by believing that the universe is a bleak, chaotic place with no intrinsic meaning to the things happening in it?
Yep. Though I'd suggest you take a closer look at that sentence of yours. Specifically the "bleak, chaotic" part. That's already a very negative judgement and in contradiction with the neutral "no intrinsic meaning" part.
>I have found it difficult to really, deeply, accept things as out of my control without resorting to some concept of god or "the universe as a well-meaning entity".
Well it does by necessity lead to a conclusion along the lines of "the world is a cruel place". It's a bit like a lion eating a zebra though - brutal but not inherently evil. It just is what it is.
The universe doesn't care who you are the same way a benevolent god cares about his subject; the universe cares about you in an impersonal kind of way, that is if you do things according to the reality that is already established, then it'll 'care' about you and give what you want. The giving is likely probabilistic.
It's kind of like asking if the Universe was harmed by the big bang.
Suppose there really was a loving creator that put this all in place just for us. Then, yeah, we've made quite a mess of it, and it really all rather sucks.
However, if it's just a bleak, uncaring universe, then the fact that we're around is amazing in the first place, and the fact that we've managed to carve out a niche where we can, by and large, thrive in ever larger numbers [1] is outright awesome and amazing.
It also then enjoins us to "keep on fighting the good fight". For example, I don't think there is "automatic karma" imposed somehow - it is incumbent on us humans to impose justice as well as we can.
[1] The notion that things are terrible and getting worse is wrong, I think. See for example
- Julian Simon, "The State of Humanity"
- Steven Pinker, "The Better Angels of our Nature"
- Max Roser, "Our World in Data", https://ourworldindata.org
etc.
Also, the world has many very bad aspects and some of them are getting worse. But, on average the world is getting to be a better place rapidly. Today is the most peaceful, most healthy, most just, most educated, most comfortable time ever. As people who were born and grew up knowing only such good times, we easily forget how so much of what we would consider atrocities today was common a mere few hundred years ago.
We have adjusted to be tremendously more sensitive than our ancestors. And, we are infinitely more informed about every bad thing everywhere in the world. That doesn't make everything OK. But, it is a great sign that more attention and effort is being focused on the remaining problems than ever before. If you are deciding to focus your attention on the problems we still have, then you are a sign of how the world is getting better.
With that attention, you can find problems that remain. With some historical perspective, you can figure out which ones you can best help reduce. With some effort, you can be part of making the remaining problems in the world even smaller.
From your points on conflation, just to clarify, are you saying that meaning does not determine our feelings about the degree of bleakness? Maybe meaning is a multiplier of feelings depending on the direction you are interested in. For non-bleakness, meaningfulness would multiply the amount of enjoyment, and for bleakness, non-meaningfulness would multiply the amount of hatred. Those two assume that state of bleakness is naturally attached with intrinsic feelings.
I wish I've read more about this topic; it is ultra interesting.
Yup - I've found the lion/zebra thing to be very useful in explaining something that isn't easy for most people to see. Especially those that grew up with religious notions of good vs evil.
>the universe cares about you in an impersonal kind of way
Personally I'd be very wary of using the word caring at all. It's just atoms & stuff flying about the place to me. I choose to overlay the whole "I want to be a good person etc" on top of that though as a personal choice despite considering it a very artificial & fake construct. Bit of a cognitive dissonance I suppose but much like people choose to believe in god I choose this.
My usage of "care" here is equal to "notice". To make it easier for myself, I imagine an anthropomorphic universe gallivanting around and notice one of its agents doing something that could possibly exert an effect (either null and non-null) and bless it with that effect after spinning the wheel of probability.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/argument
My statement was not meant to be an argument or statement of fact but rather a suggestion or hypothesis, which is why I used the word suggest.
I think you'd find increased cooperation within many other types of groups. What we should aim for, of course, is to expand this circle of concern ever further, beyond religion.
So, just want to clarify that this might have been an benefit of religion in earlier days, but is by no means an argument for them today.
The writings of C.S. Lewis crystallized a lot of this in my mind.
I'm an atheist, but I certainly have no desire or intention or plan to cease cooperation. Just the opposite, I think it's extremely important, and it is also extremely important that we cherish and enforce and cultivate it.
As just a little example, for me some sort of communal health insurance covering everyone is a matter of course, as for most citizens of developed nations. (I'm aghast at the fact that many people oppose it in the USA, and I note in passing that it appears to be mostly religious people.)
Next, I have the same expectation of basically everyone I encounter (except some sociopaths, against one has to guard appropriately).
Finally, I think there are many good reasons for it, and the position that man is ("just") a higher evolved animal is not at all incompatible with it.
No I'm not saying a belief in God is necessary for what we would agree upon as moral behavior. However, I could easily see the case being made by individuals who might think that what we agree on as morally correct behavior being nothing more than our arbitrary beliefs. And that, from their perspective, rape or pedophilia makes them feel good in the way eating red meat makes them feel good.
So on a spectrum with complete moral bliss on the far left and complete degeneracy on the far right, I think we live somewhere on the left side. Furthermore I think a big reason we live there and not right of center is the wide spread belief in a higher authority/authorities.
> Next, I have the same expectation of basically everyone I encounter (except some sociopaths, against one has to guard appropriately).
Why? From where is your sense of "Fair Play" derived? Does it all boil down to the non-aggression principle and if so, from where is that derived?
Interesting. I am also concerned by moral arbitrariness and relativism, but fear it comes from somewhere else:
I fear that religion opens up the door to moral relativism, because you can go and say "don't eat shrimp" (Leviticus 11:10), or "don't eat pork", or "don't eat cows", or what have you, claiming "it says so right here, in this holy book full of true revelations".
That's a trivial example, but the same applies for more serious issues: morality based on (religious) revelation is hard to verify and discuss, and somewhat arbitrary.
But if we empirically agree on one real world, empiricism and evidence, we have at least a common basis and need very few, very basic moral principles (it really boils down to the golden rule, or somewhat more sophisticated versions of that, like the "veil of ignorance" in John Rawl's Theory of Justice.)
So, in purely practical terms, I think this notion of some psychopath running around claiming "there's no God, thus I can do what I want" is a non-issue.
If you furthermore seek a philosophical "Letztbegründung" (i.e. ultimate reason, where "the buck stops"), there are attempts e.g. in discourse ethics ("if we are talking, we are already implicitly subscribing to certain axioms, otherwise we would not need to talk"). But I don't think it'a a big problem.
The problem lies less in the foundation and more in certain topics, I think (think of abortion, contraception, war).
I don't think your claim withstands any scrutiny.
If you were able to control for all other conditions, possibly but not necessarily. Thus I don't think comparing homicide rates in the USA, Pakistan and Sweden proves or disproves anything.
So, comparing homicide rates across countries disproves that more religion is necessary or sufficient for an ethical life.
(Let me note in passing that fairly secular northern Europe also has much lower rates of abortions, STDs, teenage pregnancies, and other societal ills, than other, more religious societies.)
Second, if we look at long term trends, violence has come down over the millennia, as religiosity has decreased (see Pinker's Better Angels).
Third, I concede that under certain circumstances in primitive societies you might achieve a reduction in crime by introducing certain religious beliefs (whether they're falsehoods or not). However, we should not strive for that, but for enlightened societies where that is not necessary anymore.
Not really the point I was making with the lion/zebra thing, but regardless:
>is a general belief in a authority higher than man.
For some, certainly. I'd venture that it's only one route available. I certainly don't believe in any higher authority whatsoever nor do I even believe that good & evil are particularly sound concepts (Moral Relativism), yet most people that know me will probably judge me a good person.
I think you'll be surprised by the amount of cannibalism in the animal kingdom:
Imagine that a white blood cell in your body has a consciousness of its own, where it, in its own way does its job when needed, hangs out with its "co-workers", other white-blood-cells, and red-blood-cells etc. You are the "universe as a well meaning entity" for this cell in your body.
Extending on this hypothesis, its not too hard to conclude that you can be a small part of a bigger, well meaning consciousness.
This leaves you with two options:
1.) You can posit some blessed configuration of a biochemical system that magically produces awareness, a property separate from matter. Note that since our neurons are arranged quite differently, this blessed configuration must be quite general.
2.) You can assume that awareness is inherent in matter, and any difference between a group of neurons with coupled biochemistry and a cell with coupled biochemistry exists on a continuum. Thus, any difference in awareness between a neural network and a cell is likely to be one of resolution.
If you think for a minute hopefully you'll realize that option #2 actually involves fewer assumptions.
I feel it is consistent with my stance, that awareness is indeed a property of a configuration of (entirely unconscious) matter.
The configuration is extremely specific in the sense that almost all possible configurations have no consciousness, but somewhat general in that there are still infinitely many configurations that do.
I still stick to option #1. Similarly, it is the specific configuration of the sand/silicon in my computer that allows it to process information, not individual sand particles or silicon atoms (even though their specific properties make it possible).
Part of the problem is that consciousness is a nebulous term that conflates awareness, self-awareness and intelligence. Specifically, I'm only speaking of awareness here.
Also, when sand undergoes chemical reactions, how do you know that isn't a simple form of information processing?
And I've seen the argument being made that consciousness is fundamental and prior to anything else (Chalmers? Don't recall.)
But I disagree for now, and I think awareness is an emergent property dependent on various pre-conditions (like perception, a model of self, possibly "embodied cognition" (not sure about that), etc.), and it's absurd to speak of a few atoms having awareness.
(With modern computers, we might be getting there at some point...)
In polytheism the universe is not chaotic and meaningless - things to not happen at random, but because the gods willed it. But the gods does not always act for the benefit of humans, so the universe is not "fair".
If something bad happens to you, is it really a consolation that it is because an allknowing and just God wants you to suffer?
I know that I'm stepping on thin ice here, but: My son does not want his teeth brushed. He absolutely hates it, because he does not yet understand that this pain is way lesser than the pain and treatment of tooth decay. So, I still have to do this to him, at least twice every day, because it is necessary.
I DONT mean to say that bone cancer might be good for something eventually, but; if it were, then we might not understand it, because we don't have neither control nor insight over the future.
The standard, and again naive, rejoinder in mainstream Christian theology is that God had a pattern for the World that didn't include such types of pain and destruction but that man chose not to follow God's plan (as allegorised in "The Fall" in Genesis). Thus we chose to go it alone, and you can read the various theories on how that has a Universal effect too.
To raise the basic Argument from Suffering you really should look past the first-tier argument and present it anticipating The Fall.
In my limited understanding suffering appears out of the axioms of free will. To make us human, with the ability to choose to love, choose to care, choose to follow God or not, we require free-will. Otherwise it's just "echo 'i love you'" rather than a genuine emotion.
Your question should be "is it better not to create our Universe, with the possibility for love, if there is also a possibility of suffering". You may come to the same conclusion, that a benevolent being shouldn't turn Creator when faced with those possibilities ... but then if they hadn't you wouldn't be here to make the objection.
tl;dr "The Fall" and "free will" are the standard, Biblical, Christian counter-arguments that stand against Suffering and allow for a loving, benevolent God to be creator of a Universe such as ours.
People have been saying the same things for 2,000 years. The only development is that we can say it's been longer now.
Edit: Oh, you edited your comment to say something different. I guess this comment doesn't make a lot of sense as an answer now.
The mainstream Christian theology is that leprosy, and such diseases came in to the world after, and as a consequence of, The Fall. That if we'd chosen God's way we wouldn't have such things.
>So God inflicted leprocy on humanity //
God created a Universe with free will for man rather than creating a fancy automaton. Mankind chose not to follow God's precepts, the consequences being that disease, pain and suffering entered the world.
It's like if I serve you a hot drink. You can choose to cause pain and suffering with it - throw it at someone, say - or you can follow my instructions to sip it slowly, let it cool and enjoy it, share it. I can't serve you a hot drink without the possibility that you will abuse it, unless I make you into a "hot drink robot" with no free will.
You could couch that as God inflicting the possibility of suffering in order to allow the possibility of beauty, love, passion, humanity.
Of course, I don't think the universe exists to love god, so much as the universe is "god" playing with itself for entertainment.
If something bad happens to you it is not because God wants you to suffer but because God has given evil dominion over this place in order to facilitate free will and choice.
God wants to be reconciled with every person but also wants that reconciliation to be chosen and not coerced.
The suffering of innocents is just an extension of this idea.
The Book of Job in the Bible for example posits that God is almighty but not at all fair. He basically causes Job to suffer on a whim. Not out of some kind of theological necessity, but simply as a cruel experiment. There is no paradox here, because there is no claim that God is always just and benevolent.
This isn't technically true. What God does is choose to not prevent Satan from testing Job. I'm not making a judgement about whether this would be considered cruel or not, I just want the facts stated clearly.
And, Job himself said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15).
Really? The laws of physics, evolution etc. are all out of our control.
Positive outlook? Yes, I suppose. The universe is 15 billion years old and nothing we do will have a big impact on it. But we can still make the best of the time we have in it and try to make things better for others.
I was raised with the idea that belief (specifically, The Belief That Jesus Died To Take Away My Sins) is the source of a positive outlook. I think this kind of a warm snuggle (if you can accept a violent and prolonged execution as such) from The Universe is lovely. But it has not been my experience that it has been particularly conducive to my own well-being.
To take this back to your question, rebuking the concept of god is not tied to my well-being either. For me, a positive outlook is largely distinct from cosmology. And a nice side effect of thoughts arranged in this way is that god, the universe, a higher power are un-fundamental. My philosophical approach can constantly grown and change, and that helps me act in a way that is kind and brave.
If you agreed to my rewording of your question up above, then my answer is "yes". YMMV.
And the universe is outside of your control. Therefore you should not let it have any impact on your outlook.
Also, wanting a positive outlook is a desire. And desires are suffering. And having a "positive outlook" is pre-judging things, filling up your mind with assumptions. When you should be trying to empty it. But, I'm more of a Taoist than Stoic (although there seems to be fair amount of overlap).
Active nihilism is much more beneficial and relates to stoicism. It holds that you must find your meaning, which is really what everyone does anyway, whether through a super natural being or friends, family, or one's life work (read Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. The best book I've ever read that relates these ideas as a holocust survivor).
On the other hand and contrary to what you claim Viktor Frankl writes (I have not read his book), Stoicism (and Buddhism) are really forms of passive nihilism, Buddhism of course being the stronger of the two. If there is one word to characterize passive nihilism, it is "Acceptance".
Meditation and being in the moment or at least trying to be in the moment has helped me a lot. There may not be a rhyme or reason to life but that doesn't mean you can't create one and have fun while doing so.
- For me it was the latter too. I remember ( I am probably wrong ) that it was Napoleon who asked Laplace that why was there no god in his mathematics ( apparently before Newton had attributed some stuff to god ). And Laplace (or could be someone else ) that he did not need god to explain his work. That has sort of stuck with me.
Also Ecclesiastes (basically, the Judeo-Christian reimplementation of Buddhism) is pretty vocal on the subject.
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/%7Ephalsall/texts/taote-v3...
I see many living things around me - kittens, birds, squirrels, lizards, dogs - who happily go on living their lives without bothering with such things as the bleakness of the universe or its impermanence or its meaninglessness. I then remind myself that I must appear just as wonderful a creature as a kitten, bird, squirrel or lizard to some alien observer. I would find it absurd if the three playful kittens in my house suddenly developed an existential crisis. They are kittens! Their purpose is to be happy. But the same principle holds for me too.
In other words, the problem of meaninglessness of life is a problem we create by fiat. It's a remarkable fact that we're fragments of this grand, ancient universe that have become sentient. That itself is enough of a reason to be thrilled at our existence and everything around us, including the good and the bad!
I can't reconcile the two and inevitably end up in an existential slump that leads to depression.
Indifferent Universe(high certainty of no Abrahamic God) -> Anything Goes/Nothing Matters as far as humans go -> Existentialists: Great, you can find your own meaning -> Psychopaths/baby seal clubbing enthusiasts/Doomsday Cultists/Uber executives can find their own meaning too -> Might makes right -> Do everything for the lolz -> This is getting deppressing
For extra depression read about cognitive science (Dennett's "Bag of Tricks") or matrix argument.
So you have to say "MU" and just concentrate on more pleasant passtimes.
One solution seems to be ala Bukowski "Find something you love and let it kill you" (preferably slowly)
Stoicism to me just seems a slight improvement to fatalism.
Nice if you have the predisposition but it makes no difference if you are stoic or choleric.
"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions — in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing."
From that I take away, whether the universe proves to be a well-meaning entity or a bleak, chaotic, meaningless one, it is not useful^ to attempt to discern its motivations except to the extent you can affect them. As you noted, it is up to you to determine then what really is or isn't in your control.
^ note that this is distinct from the idea of intellectual exploration for your own enjoyment or edification
To me, a collection of stars, dancing together around a bigger, brighter star, swirling gases and dust around the ether, until the one large star finally shrinks and explodes, hurtling all that matter out into the universe to become the seeds of new life, is worthwhile.
The universe doesn't have a sense of what is bleak, or chaotic, but it probably does have a sense of what it should do, and does it according to a set of laws and principles.
On the contrary, it's humans who seek to break these laws and bend nature to its will, seemingly for the purpose of saying it could be so. Honestly, nature seems full of meaning, but humanity not as much.
Just enjoy your life. The only real judge is you.
Yes, I have. I tend to see myself as an existentialist.
_But_ we can make our lives meaningful by doing things. We can give our lives meaning through our actions, if we can accept that it is only ephemeral - the moment I stop doing it, it ceases to be.
The act of restoring meaning to meaningless life is - to Camus - an act of rebellion against the pointlessness, a refusal to give in. But it takes us back to a place where life is not bleak at all, but something to be savored.
I think this (the idea that there's some inscrutable higher level of meaning) is either a) a natural human intuition that can be broken down and discarded or b) an outgrowth of growing up in a society where there's a continuity of more-meaningful and less-scrutable things that we receive wrapped in packages that say: "this is important", namely, high arts, and the guilt that you feel when they don't move you (unless you happen to have previously received the necessary context). This reception - it's probably a twisted class thing - is what's wrong. The good art should be obviously good.
This cultural reception isn't limited to art, there's all sorts of disastrous cultural apparatus that causes a youth to end up thinking they're missing something or the world isn't supposed to make sense to your innate intuition. Ex high school literature, weird jazz, 20th century music in the formal tradition, "modern art", but also lawns, the weird way the king james bible is written, math education, band class, gerrymandering...
Take a breath, breathe out and move along.
Might all be a hologram anyway...
Stoicism ties though to a lot of modern theories. The concept of resilience springs to the front of my mind (and positive psychology in general). Might be a good place to look. Tends to have the same bent so it can be integrated naturally, but more practical in application. Particularly in a modern context, where the psychological demands are quite different.
Sounds like a fetish.