Existentialism is a strange and counter-intuitive philosophy to most people unfamiliar with its deep driving concepts. It seems upside-down when explained in a bar room conversation to laymen. It is disaffecting to those brought up on religious notions of life. It is repulsive to those that prefer the complacency of conforming to their lives and the world in which they live. To me, it is the only correct view of life.
There is an irresolvable problem this philosophy brings up. If we take it to its logical conclusion, some very anti-humanistic views emerge. This problem we will get to during the course of this article. It would be almost impossible to write about this monumental leap forward in human thought without citing its distinguished thinkers.
The general tenets of Existentialism were laid down in the 20th century by writers like Jean-Paul Satre, Husserl, Albert Camus, and Heidegger, to name a few. What they all contended is simple but alarming to most whom have not thought at length about the metaphysical import of their ideas. What they assert can be summarized into four principle ideas:
1) Reality is without meaning or purpose.
2) You are placed in this meaningless reality without choosing to be here. You become aware of this fact during the course of your life.
3) You must eventually come to terms with 1 and 2 as you approach an inevitable event: your death.
4) Your
consciousness of the above three ideas leads you to see life as absurd.
We are born into this world and nurtured by our parents until a certain age, and then we repeat the pattern. At least in general this is what happens. In this upbringing, we are molded into socio-emotional bonds with our relatives and friends. Later, we develop such bonds with others of our ilk: those whom speak our language, share our culture, those to whom we feel a racial affinity, and lastly those to whom we are sexually attracted. Existentialism in its extreme form directly combats some common sense notions. It contends you should feel no bonds with anyone except yourself. When we are born, we are just a thing-of-existence, as we grow, we learn and find an essence as Jean-Paul Satre called it. If we faithfully follow our growing self-consciousness, we should see, that no one, NOT one living being is the same as the subject of his/her conscious mind. You are the only being that is in your head. And you should be the only being that feels the same as you. The phrase same as has another term: Identify. Identity is to feel that something is the same as something else. In this case, you feel the same as yourself. While this sounds obvious, the concept of identification is at the heart of Existentialism and leads to the strange conclusion I cited. You don’t identify with anyone other than yourself, or you are mis-identifying. Weird, right? So, a good existentialist doesn’t identify with their parents, siblings, race, linguistic group, countrymen, fellow living things, etc. These others are not you! But, for instance you can identify with your actions and creations, like this article I’m writing now. These things are a part of you. Look where this idea is taking us. Existentialism affirms only a self-conscious mind, which comes to maturation as we age. This process of maturing makes us see we are alone in reality. No matter how we may appear to be part of others, by artificial social relations built out of the necessity to survive, we are still alone in our heads. As we continue in life we do eventually see we will always be alone until, well until we die. And here is where the term absurd comes into play. Jean-Paul Satre described it best with two French words he uses in his opus Being and Nothingness. At birth we are pour-soi, that is we are a being becoming a part of the world at large. We are an existing thing in the world and growing in our understanding of it, not yet a part of anything, even ourselves. As we mature, we become en-soi, that is a being becoming a part of itself. We have introspection, we come to know ourselves in a special way: we are separate living beings interacting with the world at large. As an example, you might imagine a man thinking to himself the following: I shouldn't have gone out last night and drunk too much. My head is killing me, and I gotta go work today too, I shouldn’t have gone out last night. That was dumb thing to do, really dumb man! In this example, the person is a being reflecting to himself about a world outside himself. He is pure en-soi, as Satre would say. But, how does this lead to the Absurd? The short answer to that question is, he is concerned with a world that he can never find meaning in, but we need to dig deeper to really under the Absurd.
Just look at it and the absurdity of life should jump at out you. You are born, without you choosing to be born, and then you grow up to find, you are a separate conscious individual that is locked in your mind, never really getting beyond yourself. But, that’s not bad enough, you quickly discover that you are going die. It just doesn’t make any sense, at least to a mind that seeks meaning. As you look around, you see that all others too seem to be leading meaningless lives. We’re all just here for oh maybe 70 or 80 years and then BANG, bye-bye. Marrying, having children and raising them doesn’t make up for this feeling that life is a strange kind of joke on you.
Let's go back to identity. Identity is more than same as when we apply it to human psychology. It also means you see in others quality or aspects of yourself. We are constantly identifying with other human beings, though we may be unaware of it. When a person is injured in your presence, you may cringe feeling their pain. If the injury is great, like say a stab in their flesh deeply, you might actually feel faint. Why is that? You are identifying with the injured person. You feel their experience as if it were happening to YOU! Identification happens all the time, my friends. It is a part of being human. When you hear of someone’s close relative dying tragically, you feel pity. But what is the content of that pity you feel? Again, you feeling as if your close relative died, or in other words you identify with that person. Now, I must point out that identity is really a larger class of knowledge that cognitive science describes as the other minds class. As human beings are aware that other human beings are like our own minds. It is the ability we have knowing others are thinking beings like ourselves that welds us together as a species. The species human, I mean. But, it is ironically also this ability that separates us. By knowing they're other minds like yours, the individual also knows, those minds are not the same as his/her mind. His tacit knowledge of others like him, in effect works to alienate him from them. Paradoxical isn’t it? As a side note, I might point out racist human beings that hate other people because of their racial group are actually recognizing their humanity. When they use invectives and slurs designed to show their hatred and hurt others, they are really showing that they know they have minds like their own and can experience shame from these vicious comments, thereby recognizing their humanity. These people would never consider calling a computer something like you disgusting bloodless machine! It would make no sense. A computer can't feel shame! It is even more of a paradox: to show hatred a racist has to know the one hated is like him/her: a person. In this sense a racist really identifies with his/her target of hate. But enough of that sordid aside.
Man must judge existence as a kind of senseless phenomenon in which our participation is obligatory. I mean he can’t escape it. These unfolding negative truths about our existence only add to the sense of absurdity he feels as he travels through life. In the face of these realizations many fall victim to what Satre termed self-deception. This experience has varied roots, but religious faith is a fertile field for it to blossom. In religion he develops mythological conceptions of a being or beings that exist outside his world, whom will at some point, make meaning and content for his temporal life. Then comes the myth of an afterlife that overcomes death. These notions are merely ways to placate and appease a growing dread of the end of the individual’s life. These notions are self-deceptive because the person that is misled into believing them is the individual himself. And he is the only one deceived. The outside world, governed by the laws of physics has not such deceptive ideas. In fact, it has nothing other than existence. Now, Satre went further than other Existentialists on this point. He declared that people that accepted faith as a way to find meaning in their lives were being cowardly. He believed that they were afraid to face the stark and cold fact that there was nothing to comfort us in the face of death. These people being cowardly by nature take away to belief in something eternal that will give them salvation. I don’t go quite that far. I do affirm, that beliefs which attribute our reality, to some omnipotent being are false. I can’t prove this conjecture. Moreover, Existentialism is a philosophy with its own moral code of action. It, like Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and add to this many animistic nature-based religions is founded upon a belief. Unlike, the aforementioned belief systems, Existentialism applies its beliefs to the individual’s perceptions and ultimately to his concepts that evolve from these perceptions. Existentialism in this respect is in alignment with scientific reasoning. Yet, it is not a philosophy of science. And this is what we will explore next.
Science is the human attempt to know the external world
through study. It applies no
evaluations of purpose to what it studies.
It does make conclusions about what it studies. Science refines the conclusions once made
based upon new data found, if that data are in conflict with current
conclusions. In this way, science is a
self-correcting system of analytic knowledge.
Science, unlike Existential philosophy never applies an evaluative
judgment to any conclusions made. Science can tell us nothing about the meaning of our lives,
or the universe, or any subject to which we apply the idea of meaning or
purpose. Science is not
teleological. Science doesn’t tell us
anything about final meanings and intentions of reality. In light of this, we might conclude that
science and Existentialism are not compatible.
Contrarily, from the point of view of the Existentialist, science
needn’t agree with the philosophy’s conclusions. It need only support them, or at least not contradict them. Existentialists have a lavish regard for
science. They believe that science can
do nothing more than assist their conclusion of purposelessness in the
universe. It can only augment the
notion of self-aware beings concluding that this world is absurd. Cosmology argues for a universe, uncreated
by a chance event: the singularity of the Big Bang. Though, I must say that new
models of cosmology have called into question BB in the last 10 years. The new
theories are just as purpose-free.
Biology, through evolutionary theory teaches that life is orchestrated
by organisms struggling to maintain their species, but with no overall end to
this struggle. Scientific disciplines
show no purposive end to reality. In
fact, science stays out of the teleological theater. This is so because science is descriptive not prescriptive
in its methodology of study. This is
true even of the less exact sciences like Economics, Sociology and
Psychology. An economist describes the
nature of human beings managing natural resources, but doesn’t attribute
meaning to it. The same can be said or
the other fields. No, science doesn’t
intrude on the great philosophic debate about Purpose and Meaning in the
world. Well, it doesn’t unless you
subscribe to that category of thinkers whom can only be called
Pseudo-Scientists. Those charlatans
that argue since science doesn’t make teleological pronouncements, they must
make such conclusions. The nerve of this lot is immeasurable. I detest them for their corruption of truth and spreading lies and half-truths. If we lived in a fascist state, I'd be the first to bring them on charges of advocating anti-scientific ideas and and...hey wait let me stop this... no, I wouldn't do anything such thing...excuse me.. I get a little emotional about these matters some times. Seriously though, it is quite
fitting that Existentialists are most at odds with them. Existentialists argue in the opposite
direction, it is BECAUSE science does not show meaning in the world, that we
KNOW there is none! If there were a
meaning behind say the initial singularity to the universe’s creation, shouldn’t
a theory of physics quickly exhibit this?
If there were a final purpose to the struggle of genes to continue their
existence in the natural world, shouldn’t genetic science see this?
This last example affords me the opportunity to illustrate how careful we must be, when addressing the question of meaning
and purpose. Richard Dawkins, a British
biologist wrote a book in 1976 entitled The Selfish Gene, in which he
described a thesis that fascinated me. As a fellow atheist and man of science, I have great regard for Dr. Dawkins.
He concluded that life is really all about genes reproducing
themselves. This is the abbreviated
conclusion of the book. Though, I must
say this wonderful book describes much more.
But, that’s the short story.
Now, we must ask what does he mean by life being nothing more than
various organisms being subject to genetic struggle? Is he saying genes consciously decide that they want to survive
and thus make use of the bodies they are in to survive? If that were the case, well I would
certainly have to admit there is purpose and meaning in our world. Yet, this is not what he’s saying at
all. He depicts in riveting prose, that
this is the objective conclusion we can come to by studying the nature of genetic reproduction. Genes are
not conscious beings, but a molecular process within an organism that operates on a set of rules, that in turn affect the larger species in which they
reside. The rule is to reproduce itself
or significant portions of its DNA code, and this drives struggles in the
larger organisms. It seems purposive to
us, because we interpret it as such. It
is deterministic, in the sense that the process itself leads to definable
results. But the process of genes
struggling for hegemony can only be seen as that by our interpreting it as
such. And this is what Richard Dawkins
does. What you say? Now you’ve fallen right in the trap of
showing that there is purpose and meaning in the world! No, I say, what Dawkins showed (and he went
to great pains to make this clear) is when we look at the process in total; we see that there is a definable end to it. It
doesn’t mean that the parts of the process have an intrinsic goal or
purpose. Here we have again a
scientific conclusion that can easily be misconstrued with a philosophic
one. Genes don’t think: man I gotta pass
myself on to another person, animal or plant if I’m gonna keep my line
going. We know that’s ridiculous. But the process of DNA reproduction achieves
such an end. A better way to see this
can be found in human economy. If we
look at world economy, we might see that our use of this planet’s resources is
destructive and will ultimately lead to the annihilation of all species on this
planet. We consume minerals, and
destroy plant life, and pollute our atmosphere in the course of trade and
material production. Any outside
observer might conclude the purpose of human life on this planet is to destroy
itself and all other life on this planet.
But as parts of the huge economy machine on Earth we can’t be said to
intend this. Again, this conclusion is
not one of purpose but a deterministic process.
One, which can be remedied I must add to our merit. Ken Wais
12/4/11 Next, we come to the deepest realm of the Existential
philosophy. We are aware of ourselves
and know we are headed to death in a meaningless reality. This I have described above. But, there is a positive side too. In the face of death and our pointless lives
we have freedom, we are free to do as we think and feel. Though, it all comes to nothing, we are free
to live and express ourselves and possibly learn of this meaningless world. There are limits to our freedom. Existentialism is not Anarchism. The twine that binds Existentialism to
Science proper is strong. We should not
let our free minds indulge in anti-biologic actions or behavior. We shouldn’t violate evolutionary inherited
behavior through our genes. Things like:
not killing one of your species, or engaging in sex with one of your same sex, or parent-child incest for instance. Why? Well, not because there is meaning in adhering to
evolutionary drives, but our conformance to these innate principles gives us
the opportunity to know, to keep being free to learn and grow. The Existential Concept does affirm
purposelessness, but not that we shouldn’t try to understand why it’s
purposeless. And yes there are some whom
always choose to die, or rape, or commit acts of murder, or extreme incest,
homosexuality and so on. But they have
had the ability to choose. Think of yourself as a conscious
entity. From the time you achieve your
state of being, you are aware of yourself, but moreover, you have something so
special to human beings: choice. You can choose to be this way or that. Even, if you are under duress, threatened, or
even facing torture, you as a conscious being can make a choice. You can express your freedom of mind by
choosing. Sometimes in my past, I’ve
felt as if I wanted murder certain people, but I didn’t. Why? because I chose
not to do that. But, in every minute of
my life now passing I know that all that I do is my conscious decision. I am aware of my ability to choose. Then in the face of knowing that I will die,
I can choose to do all I desire, though it has no meaning. Against the backdrop of a hard cold layer of
non-existing, I can make a living beautiful plane of creation, like writing
this article now. This is what freedom
means in Existentialism. Though, we live
meaningless lives, we can choose how we live them. It doesn’t mean that we live happy lives, or
there is no oppression, hate, like racial animus, or wrong-doing, like
swindling. It means we,
as a human species have the special quality of free will without determination
by anything. Yes, it is true, that there
are people without this ability. And yes
they are reduced as human beings. Think
of the mental insane, or those suffering mental diseases, they are not fully
human. But, this doesn’t detract from
the point the most of us are free to be as we choose. Still,
this doesn’t solve the problem of meaning.
We still lead meaningless lives, knowing we will die in time. Existentialism exhorts us to live free, to
know our pointless fates and live as if we will die at any moment. It tells us to stop interpreting what is good or what is bad or what is beautiful and what is ugly, or what makes us as we are Next: Beyond
Humanity 12/6/06 Ken Wais Existentialism has one grand conclusion, we can choose the content of our lives.
Freedom and Choice
Existentialism and Our Bodies
What is Interpretation?
What about truth and falsity? Here is a new way to look at it, courtesy of the Dutch mathematician Brouwer.
Intuitionism: New mathematical logic
Return to Portal Philosophies, Science, Mathematics, and Music
Freedom and Death
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