[This is the first in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at [email protected] or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the series!]
If physicists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers call consciousness “the hard problem,” because no one has a good answer as to how brain material can possibly produce mind, they ought to perhaps call meaning “the even harder problem.” Because doesn’t meaning seem that difficult?
What sort of thing is “meaning”? Why are even the best thinkers wrong-headed when it comes to describing and explaining meaning? And how is it that virtually the whole human race has gotten meaning wrong? Why is talking about meaning and thinking about meaning so very, very difficult?
This feels rather like a cosmic joke or maybe the premise for a Twilight Zone episode. Let’s eavesdrop on two Twilight Zone writers:
“Okay,” says the first Twilight Zone writer, “here’s an idea. Even though there is no ‘meaning to life,’ let’s have billions and billions of people chase that illusion, such that a billion over here are wrapped around the finger of one chimera, say a thing we’ll call ‘religion,’ and another billion over here are wrapped around the finger of another chimera, say a thing we’ll call ‘capitalism,’ and then we’ll drop all these billions onto the same planet and see if they can communicate or get along. That should make for a fun episode!”
“Well,” says the second writer, “that does sound pretty amazing. That will be a fun episode indeed! But … how can we possibly make that believable? How can we have our audience believe that a whole species can so easily be fooled into thinking that there is something called ‘the meaning of life’ that the species is going to hunt for and hunger after, like a lost unicorn, when it doesn’t exist? And that huge percentages of them are going to settle on believing that a fellow with a round belly or a loud man with a big beard can provide that ‘meaning of life’? Who could believe such a thing?”
“Easy,” replies the first writer. “We’ll simply portray the species as muddled, afraid, and champions of wishful thinking. It will be like a snapshot of evolutionary history, where we are looking at a rather low-level species that hasn’t yet evolved an understanding of or an appreciation for personal responsibility. That could be the fade-out, as the camera pulls away from earth, where we get to feel how under-evolved we are.”
“Or,” exclaims the second writer, “maybe we can have some catchy way of showing that they are all chasing nothing, that meaning doesn’t exist and never existed? Like we did when we showed that garbage can with no flies buzzing around, to suggest that all living creatures except our last man on earth had gone extinct? Something clever like that?”
“Oh, no!” replies the first writer. “You’ve misunderstood. There is indeed something that we can and we ought to call meaning. It absolutely exists. It just isn’t what the species thinks it is.”
“Well,” says the second writer, pouting a little, “you mean, there is such a thing as meaning? That it isn’t an empty word signifying nothing? I thought that you were saying that there isn’t such a thing?”
“Oh, no, meaning is a real thing,” the first writer laughs. “It is absolutely there, baked into our species. But it is what it is that the bakers have fooled the species about. Meaning really does exist. It is … get ready … ”
“I’m ready!” replies the second writer breathlessly.
“Are you ready?”
“I’m ready!”
“Okay! Here is what meaning really is! Meaning is … a feeling!”
The second writer droops, quite crestfallen.
“A feeling?” the second writer says. “That’s all? Just a feeling?”
“See!” cries the first writer. “You are just like the rest of the species. You can’t see the amazing implications of the truth that meaning is just a feeling. That is such big news … and also so very hard to hear. It’s as if whoever baked us made us nearly completely deaf to that truth. Isn’t it amazing that it is so hard to hear that meaning is merely a feeling? Can’t you feel yourself yawning, as if I had just said the drowsiest thing in the world! So drowsy-making as to put little Alice right to sleep and drift her off to Wonderland! And yet … it is the most important news there is. It completely helps explain why we do the things we do and how we ought to live. It—“
“Excuse me,” interrupts the second writer. “I believe I have to pick up some artichokes for dinner. Please do excuse me. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early. I’m sure we can work this episode out … somehow.”
“Well,” murmurs the first writer, watching his fellow writer depart. “There goes another human being upset by the truth about meaning. Another human being fleeing a brief encounter with freedom. What a very, very hard problem this is, getting our species to recognize and reckon with the implications of that truth—that there is no ‘meaning to life,’ that meaning is merely a feeling, one baked into us for some rather obvious reasons. Ah, well. Let me play with the grandkids for a while. That always feels meaningful!”
We have much to tease apart if we are to get to a clear understanding of the truth that meaning is merely a feeling—a feeling, a subjective psychological experience, and a product of consciousness—and what that implies. We will have to deal with the amazing extent to which language confuses us, mesmerizes us, and prevents us from seeing clearly. We will have to deal with the many superficial ways that contemporary psychology and psychiatry have chased meaning—or avoided dealing with it entirely. We will have to clear out heads and unlearn a ton.
But the end result is worth the effort! Once you get this idea and its implications, you will never be fooled by the phrase “the meaning of life” again. Nor will you hunger for meaning, pine for meaning, or despair when it is absent. Isn’t that great news?
Let us continue.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
