The Realization
It’s time to tie up some loose ends. I’ve been thinking a lot these last few years, but where has it all been going? Meaning this and rationality that – philosophies, ways of life, entropy, the brain. I was unintentionally touching on these concepts and related ones in my posts up to now, and really it’s all pointing to one statement that I finally appreciated. We are emotional beings looking for unity in a chaotic world.
Because what else is there to say about anything that goes on in our lives? Funnily enough the time I had my aha moment is different from when I actually wrote it. I was looking through old notes and it was a snippet about AI bots not feeling the angst of rationality. There it was: we are emotional beings looking for unity in a chaotic world. It clicked and that’s when the goosebumps came. Which may not be saying much. I just find it neat when there’s a new angle to stuff, even in everyday / non-exciting things. Because I haven’t done or seen that before, despite having been around that thing so much. In this case, I had not thought about it in that way before.
My point is I’m not saying anything new or clever. Still though, I like it. It’s a line that gives me clarity, and it creates a more evident cohesion among topics I have touched on the last couple of years.
<> How to live -> looking to establish order (unity)
<> What is the meaning of life -> again, looking for order (unity)
<> Being a person, good with the bad -> emotional being
<> Flawed heuristics of the brain, not totally rational -> emotional being
<> Outlining flaws of the world -> describing chaos
<> Mistakenly using world in line above instead of what it really (simply) is, social order -> example of emotional being not comfortable that it’s actually chaos
<> Pursuit of knowledge -> unity of concepts and meanings
<> Pleasure from new insights -> emotional being
<> Possibility of spiritual enlightenment -> pre-assuming existence of unity
<> Angst around death and passing of time -> emotional reaction to chaos
<> + many more
So yes, I like this line. I think it will be an answer I can quickly pull out to a lot of future questions. But still, it’s not entirely true. We aren’t just emotional beings. We are rational, emotional beings. And then being rational carries with it the shadow of irrational since our emotions count and make their presence felt in our decision making.
Implication for Meaning of Life
To be blunt, there is likely no objective meaning to life, only chaos. Sure, there is ‘order’ to how the universe changes as far as it is constrained by physical laws consistent with observation, but in another sense the world just exists. It’s not angling towards an end goal. Things happen and react with each other. Within all of that, we emotional beings exist with an ache to explain it all.
The Use and Limits of History and Philosophy
Two of the broader areas of inquiry where humans love to create explanations are history and philosophy. I love them both (history less so and more recently), but are they useful? The question is always, are they useful? How are they useful? How will they help me?
I don’t know how to answer that question in the way it’s being asked. I’m sorry. I get what you’re asking. Yes you do make me feel a tinge of embarrassment that I am wasting my time and my energy – probably because I know deep down I can’t stop. For me (ignoring now that I am about to try to create unity out of chaos), history and philosophy help me continue to think about the question: what are we? In other words, what am I? Who am I? Wouldn’t I love to know who I am.
Consider this. Our whole worldview ultimately comes from our arbitrary starting point in the overall timeline of humanity where there has been (1) evolution and (2) ebbs and flows on themes such as social organization, mind vs. matter, war vs. peace, commerce vs. religion. We can picture how these ‘traits’ are on a spectrum and at any one point humanity was X place on the spectrum for one trait and Y place on the spectrum for a different trait. Then, humanity at any point in its evolution can be characterized by where it is on all the spectrums combined – a master ‘reading’ if you will.
Pick a starting point and you can trace your way back to today. But do we need to do this? Maybe we can just “take stock” with a truly penetrating eye of where we are now. Does our vision go deeper knowing where the string of time has been before or can we just pick it up at the present day? Rationally, knowing the future is just as unpredictable as the past, we may get some extra comfort, but no real, usefully predictive knowledge to inform change. This suggests history is not too useful – for that.
Personal Takeaways
But it is useful for thinking about what we are (emotional beings looking for unity) because the people that did all those things in the history books are basically the same as us today (likewise the philosophers that thought all those things are also the same). See the below quote from The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
Society is founded not on the ideals but on the nature of man, and the constitution of man rewrites the constitution of states. But what is the constitution of man?
This points us to the conclusion that the world we live in is not much more than a reflection or impression of our humanity. It also aligns with my thought that studying history will reveal something about us as humans. As for my claim that the people of history are basically the same, the authors seem to agree – see the second quote below in response to the question: is progress real?
Since we have admitted no substantial change in man's nature during historic times, all technological advances will have to be written off as merely new means of achieving old ends - the acquisition of goods, the pursuit of one sex by the other (or by the same), the overcoming of competition, the fighting of wars.
We have different wrappers, but it’s the same candy. Humans haven’t evolved meaningfully since we ‘arrived’ as a species. It’s science that has lengthened lifespan. So I can ask – what do the actions done by others and by past societies teach me about who I am and what I am? As the quote implies, it’s like a map, let me see what states and society we have and I will learn from that more about man. That ruler used force arbitrarily to satisfy a petty whim. I can use force to satisfy a petty whim (hypothetically). That scholar believed in critical thinking and was ostracized from the majority. Ridiculed, even killed. I could also face consequences. These groups have used fraud and systems to enrich themselves at the expense of the less informed. Is that what I want to do? People around me are doing it, still, on a larger and larger scale.
We’ll see. Every day is one more opportunity to ask myself who I am, what I want to do. Every history read and philosophy studied is a chance to challenge my mental frameworks, see if they need patching. Every day I try to create more unity out of chaos. Logically, I shouldn’t, but that’s life. You reach rational conclusions and then you act irrationally. Because it’s a passion at the end of the day, I suppose. Yes, I wish there were a purpose, a bigger structure, I’m only human after all. Still, my human take is that I don’t want to be fully rational. I am what I am, I feel, and it’s a pretty marvelous experience, handicaps and all. Even though the need for unity or meaning is a mandatory illusion, still we answer in the positive, yes. We accept. We leave the universe to do its thing, and bring the act of creation into our minds, knowing it changes nothing but us.
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