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Nathan Rothenbaum Philosophy Final Paper 6-2-11 The Black Box Human beings find themselves existing in the world often not on their own terms. We did not have a choice in being born; some even describe our birth into reality as a violent throwing into the world. Even in engaging and accepting existence, the following question is simple: to what end and why? We find we exist, and we accept this fact, yet the nagging thought in our head asks what it is all for. This search for the meaning of life has been approached by many philosophers from several viewpoints. Though many have come close, many more have missed that the meaning of life exists on a personal level for each individual to discover for themselves. For Nagel, there is no meaning to human existence. A lot of us take our lives seriously. When approached with the claim that our lives do not matter, or could not matter, we are quick to defend it. We make deliberate choices in our lives, [perusing] our lives with varying degrees of sloth and energy (Nagel 597). When faced at the end of our lives, we are asked what we have accomplished. Many of us would likely lament the end asking for only a bit more time. Nagel, however, claims that even if granted infinite time on the Earth our meaningless position would not change. Nagel says,
For suppose that we lived forever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely more absurd if it lasted through eternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filled the universe (either because we were larger or because the universe was smaller)? (Nagel 596).

Nagel means that even if we were given infinite time on Earth, it would not change the condition of absurdity that we occupy. Consider if one was given water and water alone and one was asked to prepare a delicious drink. It doesnt matter in what manner one serves the water or how one cooks it or so on and so on, if one starts with the baseline of water and is given nothing else to

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work with, it does not matter how much time one is given. In the end, all you have is water. Similarly, if our lives are absurd, no amount of time can change the absurdity of it. Thus, for Nagel, if time cannot be used as way to determine meaning for life, then meaning (if it is to be found), must be found in the moment. When asked what gives our lives meaning some of us may be quick to answer: family, companionship, sports, etc. Nagel asks us to take a step back and examine our meaning by asking the most basic question of all, why? When asked why family is important to us, or companionship or anything else, we provide another element that we believe gives our lives meaning. As Nagel asks us to break apart the ideas that give our lives meaning one can easily draw similarities to a miner breaking apart ore to find a rare gem inside. Yes, the ore is valuable but only because of the ruby that is inside of it we would say. Nagels task is simple, to have us find the one gem that provides our lives with meaning. Ultimately, this is impossible to reach. There is no definite answer, no gem, within our lives that gives us meaning, or so Nagel claims. The question why can always be given, and a new answer can always be painstakingly extracted. Eventually it becomes clear, we have no answer. We want things, we care about things in the world, we even take our lives seriously, but the problem is that we do not know why we want things, why we care, or why our lives are serious matters. Nagel calls this the absurd, which is a condition in which we recognize that the things we care for or chase after in life are done for no reason. In these moments of reflection, not only is it clear that we do not know what we want, but we dont even know why we would want to know. The absurd, Nagel explains, is akin to being trapped in an epistemological lens that one can never break free from it. In this manner not only is the absurd all encompassing in our lives, but it is also a necessary and universal human condition. Though in moments we may fool ourselves that our lives have

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meaning with family and friends or other things, in moments of reflection it becomes clear that there is no escaping the absurd. The glaring issue that Nagel misses is that our lives do have meaning. Before we examine the meaning of the individual, it is more important to examine the meaning of objects in relation to the individual. After all, you have to crawl before you can walk. Consider there is a hammer, what is the meaning of that hammer? I do not mean or mean to ask you what the internal meaning of the hammer is, but rather the importance or relation of the hammer to you is. Using only this information, it is very clear you would have a rough time determining the importance of this particular hammer to you. Several questions remain unanswered: is it your hammer, is it a good hammer, has it worked in the past, does it cost a lot? These are defining characteristics of the hammer, and even if they are indeed arbitrary they none the less change the way we interact with the hammer and our interactions with others in obtaining the hammer. The point is, if we determine that after weighing all these characteristics that we do not care about the hammer (say it isnt your hammer, it is broken, really dinky quality), then we find that the hammer has no meaning to us. If a hammer has no meaning, we are ambivalent to the hammers fate. If you I handed you a clump of dirt, would you care sincerely about the dirt? Probably not because it is both distance and detached from you, not to mention that that particular clump of dirt has no importance to your life. If I took away that dirt you probably would not care. Now let us suppose a thought experiment. Pretend you are a criminal who has committed several detestable crimes (what you did is not really important, so if you want to be a bank robber go right ahead, I wont tell anyone). As a punishment fitting your heinous crimes a small box is developed underground. The box is roughly the size of your body, fitting snugly around you. In the box you are destined to go, but this is a very special box. The box has some futuristic

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device that not only prevents any sounds from escaping the box, but it also prevents any sounds from occurring in the box. You box is also not only pitch black, but a sedative injected into your skin via contact with the box kills all sensations of touch. For good measure, let us sew your mouth shut. There you are, blind, deaf, mute, and without any sensation of feeling. I will propose two questions to you. The first is: how would you, if you were not punished, like to accept this existence over your current one? The second is: if you were given the option of being placed in such a box or death, which would you choose? The answer to the first doesnt require much explanation; logically everyone would choose to exist outside of the box than inside of it. The reasons arent necessarily important, but you know that an existence in the box would be akin to suffering. The second question is more difficult to answer, but regardless of your answer you would at least find it conceivable (if not understandable) that some people would choose death over this existence. This is what I will call the zero-point of meaning. When life has obtained, or lost, the qualities that make it either unlivable or livable respectively, this is when human existence has lost its meaning. In the same way an object that we know an object is meaningless is when it can be disposed of, when a human existence has lost its meaning it reaches the point where destruction is either acceptable or preferable. It seems then that we fall into Nagels trap, Why would you lose meaning in the box? Nagel would likely ask. While we cant necessarily answer the question, we can refute his idea of the absurd. The problem with Nagels approach to meaning is that it views questions, more explicitly the inability to answer some questions, as a source of hysteria or angst. This is not always true. Just because we do not know the answer to a problem doesnt mean it has to bother us. I know about quantum mechanics, or at least I have heard of it. Just because I do not know the intricate parts of the science, and I likely will never know, it does not follow that I even care

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how it operates or why. I can easily simply accept that it does. The question reveals just because I do not have an answer to the question, it doesnt follow that life is anymore or less absurd than if I did. T A more on point refutation to Nagels claim comes from Martins evaluation of why and when these moments of reflection and questioning occur. When we are in a moment of subjective glory and glee winning a competition, kissing a girl (or guy), or anything like that, we do not often take a step back and say, Hmmm, why am I doing this? Nagel would say that if we did we would find out the flaws in our argument, but he is missing the point of why we ask in the first place. Martin illustrates that the reflection process is not a sign of the absurd, but rather a moment of an unfilled life. Inside our Black Box we would likely ask why we would want to go on living, and what the point of it all is. The reason we ask then is simply because we do not know what we want, or we have not achieved what we want. A more simple refutation to Nagels argument is simply: just because. When asked why family and friends are important to you, one could simply respond resoundingly that they just are. That to the individual there is an intrinsic value in family and friends that is neither expressible through language nor reasoning. Nagel would find the answer absurd, yet in a hilarious twist of fate such an absurd answer would dismiss his theory of the absurd. The question then begins: how do we determine what matters for us? Richard Taylor, Raymond Martin argues, finds meaning everywhere (Martin 494). If there is a scenario in which meaning can be lost for an individual, ala our Black Box example, then a more specific approach to meaning is more likely. The reason why someone would choose death rather than live in the box is a very personal reason, and the fact that there is an ongoing debate over euthanasia proves the importance of this issue. Say you are one of the people in this Black Box who prefer death over their current existence, what senses or sensations would need to be

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returned to you to choose life and retain a meaning to life? The answers would likely vary from person to person: some may choose vision in the box, some may choose touch, others may choose companionship. This variation is proof of the subjective nature of meaning: the things that allow a person to continue living their life. When other philosophers engage the discussion of meaning, they refer to meaning as permanent and in doing so they are mistakenly thinking of perfection instead of meaning. Perfection of life is something that is impossible to reach since our demands are ever changing. No human being is entirely content with life: the house can always be one spec cleaner, you could always be paid more money, and your beautiful partner could always be a tinge more lovely. It is a mistake however, to convey a lack of total satisfaction with a loss of meaning. Using our previous example, a tool like a hammer can always be slightly better. It can always have a better grip, lighter weight, cleaner finish, but that does not mean to imply that it has no meaning. Perfection is impossible to obtain, but that does not mean that meaning is. Raymond Martin says that death is a symbol of defeat for meaning because it means the end of our search for meaning, and he is right, although for a different reason than he said. Even if we lived forever it does not mean that we would inevitably have meaning. An immortal life within our Black Box may never have to face the defeat of death, but it doesnt follow that meaning is attainable in this scenario. Others like Susan Wolf recognize the subjective nature of meaning, but seem to believe that there is also an objective nature to meaning. Susan believes that meaning arises when active engagement meets with projects of worth. Not a lot of time is needed spent here, simply because the argument is not very strong. First, it is hard to say what objective worth is. Susan believes that she doesnt need to answer the question, but going a step further we can say that there is no such thing as objective worth. Susan would likely recognize that objective worth

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can vary from culture or civilization to civilization (she does this to avoid criticisms on what is right and what is wrong), but if this is the case then objective worth, at least for Susan, translates into the opinions of society as a whole. One civilization may find doctors as more worthwhile (perhaps for religious reasons), while others at war-time may find a warrior caste as objectively more important. The question then should be simple to see: what about one born outside of society? If I bring a child into the wilderness, and raise them in the wilderness with no knowledge of the outside world, is there a level of objective worth we can leverage on this child? Likely not because there is no standard by which we judge this being he or she is in a civilization of their own. What is a civilization if not groups of people with similar ways of viewing subjective worth? And what if two countries are joined together via conquest and the two countries have opposing ideas of objective worth, what project rises to the top? These objections illustrate the problem with universalizing meaning. Meaning is a difficult thing to grasp for people, not only conceptually but also in reality. It is understandable that people will face crises in their lives, sometimes things do not go our ways. We often find ourselves lost, wishing to be apart of something greater and something eternal. While I am sympathetic to these calls, there is a time to grow up. Just because there isnt a grand eternal point to the world, and just because everything we do wont matter a million years from now, it does not follow that what we do in the moment is meaningless. Nagel was right when he said that meaning, if it was to be found, had to be found in the moment. The things that matter for your life: friendship, money, food, family, these are all things that are up to you to discover and cultivate. If you are unsatisfied with your life it isnt because you are aiming at a wrong form of meaning, or even that there is no such thing as meaning. It simply means that you havent obtained what you wanted, or joy from what you wanted. Either you are looking for

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things that you truly do not subjectively care about, or what you are after is very hard to obtain. A life without meaning is possible as we have seen with the Black Box, but it does not follow that all life has to be meaningless.