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“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. \u2026<\/em> “So says\u00a0\u00a0 renowned physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg\u00a0 in his 1977 book \u201cThe First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe)\u201d<\/p>\n In general, we humans like to think that things happen for a reason, either accidentally or on purpose \u2013 whatever the case may be. At least, that is the way we usually think about the world based on our very experience of it.\u00a0 Seeing the world in this manner allows us to understand the interaction between things and events while enabling us to manage our lives around them with some degree of predictability.<\/p>\n So what about the universe? Would it not be reasonable to expect there was some reason for it to be here as well? I\u2019m kind of two minds about that.<\/p>\n First of all, it is quite a conceptual leap to jump from considering the status of some event or another in the world to considering the status of world itself. Is the world\u00a0 just another event in the sense that we should be able to look at it from either end, i.e., consider the likely cause of it and the effect that it has on other things in the world? Can the world be seen as an event beyond all the things that take place in it? (look up: Gilbert Ryle’s category mistake)<\/p>\n Since the world is both logically and physically necessary for anything to take place, I don\u2019t believe you can put it in the same category of events that take place in the world. As such it occupies a class or category all its own. (I think I\u2019m running into a version of Russell\u2019s set paradox here, but let\u2019s not go there \u2026 )<\/p>\n For anything to happen, the world must have happened \u2013 that much seems clear. But – as far as we know – the world appears to have happened on its own account, i.e., it is simply here – full stop. It is the container that contains everything else, but itself it is not contained other than by itself.\u00a0 Such is the mystery of the world.<\/p>\n Now one\u00a0 could argue that we just don\u2019t know that the world isn\u2019t part or the result of another event that brought it about, i.e., the world is a transitory event that came into being as a result of “the big bang”\u00a0 – which is the prevailing view at the moment, and so on, and end up in an infinite regress of events preceding events, and then only because we cannot accept that events can appear out of thin air or materialize from within a material empty vacuum for that matter,<\/p>\n Our language is the limiting factor here because it is the language of the living and breathing\u00a0 mortals that we are.\u00a0 We cannot get beyond the logic derived from our species’ experiential involvement\u00a0 with the world and make sense of events that seem to go beyond that.<\/p>\n But what if the point of the universe being here is simply just that: to be here for what it is, i.e., to exist for its own sake?\u00a0 That we may be able to make sense of this might depend on\u00a0 what sense or meaning we are able to attach to\u00a0 our lives, as by extension we would\u00a0 then be valuing the point of universe being here as well.<\/p>\n If we think about our place in the world this way, well-known\u00a0 20th century existentialists such as Sartre and Camus would be wrong\u00a0 classifying life as essentially meaningless and\u00a0 \u2013 among other things \u2013\u00a0 attributing the absurdity of our predicament to a cold and indifferent universe that remains silent on such things, given that only human beings are able to attach meaning or value to something.\u00a0 The conclusion has to be that meaning comes from within life, from experiencing life as meaningful, and not from having it\u00a0 derived from a source external to it.<\/p>\n It would follow that no feature of the universe will likely make sense unless it is viewed in the context of providing the ground for some aspect of meaningful human activity that could otherwise not have taken place.\u00a0 The logic may sound counter-intuitive but I believe that this is the only way out of the absurdity paradox that Albert Camus entertained when considering the fact that human beings inevitably seek to understand life\u2019s purpose:<\/p>\n \u201cCamus takes the skeptical position that the natural world, the universe, and the human enterprise remain silent about any such purpose. Since existence itself has no meaning, we must learn to bear an irresolvable emptiness. This paradoxical situation, then, between our impulse to ask ultimate questions and the impossibility of achieving any adequate answer, is what Camus calls the absurd. Camus\u2019 philosophy of the absurd explores the consequences arising from this basic paradox. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The question remains then how the seemingly puny human could conceivably value the existence of the mighty universe simply by finding meaning in their everyday lives.\u00a0 I think it boils down to the distinction between\u00a0 quantity and quality, and between form and function in the context of an evolving universe.<\/p>\n As such it wouldn’t matter how old or how large and complex\u00a0 the world is, given that the significance of that could only be expressed by how well we would be able to experience the quality and depth of\u00a0 being at the receiving end of this\u00a0 spectacularly creative effort,\u00a0 and then solely with the sensibility and reasoning\u00a0 that has been given to us as a result of merely being a part of it. Everything beyond it is more or less irrelevant, in the sense that -as spectacular as that may be – it is at most a set decoration, the backdrop against which we play out the destiny of our species and of which we have for the moment absolutely no clue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. \u2026 “So says\u00a0\u00a0 renowned physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg\u00a0 in his 1977 book \u201cThe First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe)\u201d In … Continue reading