Dan Smith Illustration: April 2011

The age-old cliché ‘the meaning of life’ is a beaten to death concept. Countless perspectives currently weigh in on the subject of life’s meaning. The complexity of the topic seems to baffle all contributors except a handful, who I think still misunderstand the point of the question. Now the topic is cluttered by contribution - you can’t discuss it without spinning off into a thousand tangents that simultaneously attempt to weigh in all conceivable viewpoints in an unbiased manner, and feel out defenses of the inquisitor. For the most part, I’m dissatisfied with even my favorite contemporary takes on the subject, which come from the philosophies of absurdism and existentialism. But frankly, I’m amazed that no one has stumbled upon the idea that maybe this subject is incredibly simple. Hints of inappropriate preconceptions still linger in even these freshest of ideas. We’ve got to discard them and start from the ground up if we ever want the answer. It is important to understand the discrepancies that follow suit when we attempt to compute worth – or anything that cannot be computed. We must sterilize this area of thinking and ward off unwelcomed guest, like determinism - and we have to dissolve certain ideas altogether such as divine purpose - to understand the purpose of the question. To begin our analysis of the meaning of life, I’ll do some correcting of some of our ideas about logical blind spots. Most of these misconceptions come from misunderstanding to limits of application, particularly in the realms of biology and physics. To sort the issue out I’ll introduce the concept of ‘mu’, and use it to classify these fallacies as ‘mu question’ or ‘mu answer’. All of this in order to dissolve our current idea of worth – which is tainted by antiquated ideals - so that we can build it back up free of fallacy.

Think about something non-existent.

Okay, good. Actually, that was terrible. You’re doing it all wrong. Try again.

Fuck. Still bad - just forget it. You’ll never get it because non-existence is unimaginable concept. Now try and grasp the idea of an unimaginable concept. Not great, but slightly better. There are things that, as humans, are off limits to understanding. Quantum physics is something that even experts on the subject admit to not really understanding; Art is claimed to be utterly subjective. Color is a philosophical chestnut that no one knows whether any two people view the same way; and biology shows us forms of perception which are unimaginable to humans (bats and dolphins use echolocation, birds use electromagnetism to perceive magnetic north, and many different animals see different wavelength spectrums of light). That you cannot assess any situation without the proper tools necessary to even imagine them should be obvious, yet we go on defining the indefinable. But it is no one's fault, because no one can perceive of their ignorance exactly, and if everyone asked everyone else to hold off on formulating any opinion until all prerequisite knowledge was had, there would be no such thing as opinion. So we take the plunge into opinionation because the pros outweigh the cons, but just how perilous this slippery slope is, is a topic deserving of volumes. There are plenty of non-applicables out there; understanding a few of them will help us understand that expanding on cognitive blind spots leads to further misunderstanding. This discourse concentrates largely on understanding the effects of applying non-applicables – or thinking paradoxically - and finally how everyone thinking paradoxically is affecting what everyone's thinking about.

In The Zen Of Art and Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, there is a passage about the word ‘Mu’. I don’t have the book with me to quote, so ill paraphrase. ‘Mu’ is a Japanese word. It means something like ‘non-existent’, ‘non-entity’, or ‘non-body’. ‘Mu’ captures something about non-existence better than any concept in English – but its definition is also very wide. Mu can be a response, in which it can be interpreted as a deferral of the question – addressing the question as undeserving of a response, or that it should not be a question at all. Robert M. Pirsig, ibid, says it can mean something like ‘un-ask the question’. This word is appropriate here since we’re addressing ideas that have been formed where a mu response was necessary, because of a misunderstanding of the limitations within the concepts at hand. What a mu answer often results in is further questions, not answers. A mu answer is not a solution, but a temporary deferral. The next three examples, the time paradox, color, and non-existence, are harped on, yet not entirely understandable by organisms such as ourselves.

A time paradox is a product of faulty thinking, which results in some mu answers. The Back To The Future movies have built their entire plot upon this mu question. A time paradox would do something unthinkable, equating to the end of everything. That’s how we know it’s probably wrong - because we can’t even imagine the consequence! There are various scenarios drawn out to help us understand the impossibility of the time paradox, the most common of which is the grandfather paradox. I’ll just say this; the most practical and promising solution is Stephen Hawking’s theory that backwards time travel results in feedback, caused by the self-feeding time loop (similar to acoustic feedback) that would cancel the wormhole out. (Don’t quote me on this but I think he also says that instead of acoustic feedback, the feedback would be made of fire or some shit.) Sending someone back in time is futile for this reason because the time traveler cannot access the wormhole before feedback cancels it out. Even if Hawking is wrong, I can think of another dilemma for the time traveler; that time travel invariably results in dimensional travel in order to avoid a breach of physics when any affected item fails serve the purpose that it is been known to serve. For all intents and purposes, this means anything and everything. Any time traveling object will disturb the physics of the realm which is know to provide the circumstances that rendered its being possible – this is a problem because that object is known to come from those origins and the contradiction of those origins does not render them non-existent. They are still known and proven to have existed by the time traveling item’s presence – thus proving that the current dimension is a variant on the previous dimension. That being said; if we can prove the impossibility of created dimensions (not even dimensions in the traditional sense, but entirely separate existences, complete with identical laws of physics) we can prove backwards time travel impossible. If anything (a big if) - they will enter a wormhole to find themselves in another dimension with an entirely new set of physical laws and constants, which will certainly kill them, and- well you get the point. It’s just not possible. Either scenario has a slim enough that we can expect the heat death of the universe to occur before we ever see such a day. In addition to this, new research is adding to the impossibility.

Another closed system is Color. Color exists independent of objective perception. Outside of your own head, it is impossible to imagine how others perceive color. The sensations that cause color are objective events with numeric wavelength values, but the way our brains represent that wavelength is our own arbitrary sensation. This is not a claim that color and light are not real, just a matter-of-fact statement that color perception is entirely subjective. The color wheel can be turned on its axis and every color relationship remains intact to the individual. This is because there is no way to describe a color other than the association it has with objects that give it off. The sun, fire, light bulbs, oranges and bananas, are all things that have a similar wavelength of light – which we associate with the adjective ‘warm’. Where does association of ‘warm’ come from, though? It comes from the behavior of objects with these wavelengths in common - not from any sort of a priori knowledge. If what I see as ‘warm’ is spun on it’s axis to be represented by what-are-your ‘cool’ colors, it follows that my ‘cool’ colors will now be occupied by your ‘warm’ colors – and there is no way for either of us to detect differences because the perceptions have remained in perspective to each other since birth. Things that are look warm to me, are things that look cool to you. Nature looks green to both of us, but the perceptions that we receive to represent the green shades of nature could be anything. Warm is warm is warm – is orange is yellow is red. But orange, red, and yellow are only words use to label arbitrary perceptions of objective sensations. Your brain has no capacity to imagine what an insect sees as ‘ultra-violet’ – but an insect does in-fact see those wavelengths. Take a second to try and imagine the color ultra-violet. You haven’t the capacity to make up a new color in your head. Ayn Rand, in the Fountainhead, says something like ‘cut out a man’s eyes and he loses his ability to see, but destroy a man’s cognitive faculty for visual perception and he loses all ability to even conceive or remember vision’. Can you grasp the concept of not having the mental faculty for visual perception? This is the cognitive blind spot I wanted to point out. Now let’s keep staring into it for one last example.

Non-existence is an unimaginable concept. Actually I lied, I think. It’s hard for me to tell, because I don’t know what non-existence is – I can’t. That’s because the term ‘non-existence’ itself is fallacious. Instead, let’s try a different definition for non-existence – one that actually illuminates the issue. Non-existence is better described by this term: Zero differentiation. This is a better definition because our typical approach leads to an impasse. We assume that non-existence is just that which opposes existence, and that they both occur with no implications. We assume that existence is not a default state for life – and that we are fortunate to be here because non-existence could be just as likely. This is erroneous because neither state can just occur. They need to be made to occur. They are divisible occurrences that can be broken down into smaller elements. We could still exist in non-existence as some kind of anti-entity - maybe the anti-matter composition of ourselves – like some kind of archenemy from a comic book. That’s where the term ‘non-existence’ falls short, because it doesn’t write off, or even address the quality of variation. There is no intrinsic quality of existence or non-existence that allows for the possibility of life. That’s why existence has to be defined as non-zero differentiation, because even within non-existence differentiation causes existence. Existence cannot have an up-down/on-off relationship in comparison to non-existence – because existence is secondary to variation. That’s why I favor the terms non-zero differentiation or zero differentiation to existence or non-existence, because the latter are irrelevant and fallacious, and the former are real solutions to the problems the latter have caused. In fact, time is so problematic an element within the origin of existence, that it is currently being re-evaluated altogether. This in itself is an example of a mu concept.

New studies are coming out even today that suggest time may be an altogether fallacy. The idea of time has always presented an impassable obstacle in discovering the origin of existence, because our concept of time is more of a deferral, or even a conundrum, than an answer. Even if we trace time successfully back to the beginning, we end up at the same place we would without it, and that is: zero differentiation. We then need to replace it with a theory that explains differentiation independent of time – which I think is actually much more convenient. What if we discard it and replace it with differentiation? The previously linked article stresses that maybe spacetime is not so much about time as it is space; that is, what if matter is only undergoing variation in position or form? This also solves the conundrum that time travel may be impossible by suggesting that moments in time are not real moments, only variations on a single state, and that once a variation is gone it is inaccessible. I’m not alone in this idea.

Anyway, wherever differentiation occurs is bound to be existent. Any being capable of observing the seemingly perfect state of existence is secondary to the laws which are compatible to such a being’s observance. Zero differentiation does exist – in a state of non-existence. So by contrast, we exist, because of the non-existence of non-existence – or simply nonexistence. Non-existence is non-existent; therefore only existence is existent. Existence exists because of the impossibility of non-existence’s existence. Non-existence itself, is what makes our existence possible, by contrasting itself with existence, thus giving existence it’s own self in that it can be contrasted with the uncontrastable. However, in trying to analyze non-existence, you make it exist, by giving it differentiation from that which cannot be analyzed. So, quasi-non-existence (also known as the second of two components of variation) is in a state of perpetual expansion, because its contrast with existence gives it existence. Ergo, conceptually observable non-existence, or quasi-non-existence, is actually another rate of existence. It is possible to plug these twin-substances in, perhaps to the illusive dark matter and anti-matter that make up most of the universe. Perhaps they were the initial substances that give differentiation. Now we understand true non-existence, zero differentiation, for the impossibility that it is. Now let’s move from concepts which do not apply to biological, to concepts which do not apply to physical.

Perception is not applicable to the pre-life universe. There was no eye, no skin, no tongue, no ear, and most importantly, no brain in the pre-life universe. Perception is an evolved characteristic, which took billions of years to arrive upon the scene of our universe. This is a fact. For billions of years in our universe, there was no perception at all. Nothing was felt - no image was had – nothing was tasted or heard – there was not even such a thing as color - just a bunch of non-conscious bodies of energy, exploding and scraping together. Today, we can contemplate what it may have looked like back then, but our contemplation is only an event occurring at present. A big piece of the misunderstanding of our worth comes from a misapplication of what our universe is capable of.

The pre-life universe did not matter. This is inarguable. That is, it had no objects that decided what mattered. Some qualities are entirely perceived. It is not that existence only exists to the perceiver – because this is not true. But there are many qualities that an object can bear, simply by being thought of as the bearer of such qualities. For example, being thought of as wealthy does not just make you wealthy, because wealthy has ties to tangible possession. But being thought of as ‘great’ or ‘beautiful’ really does make you ‘great’ or ‘beautiful’ in the sense you are the recipient of such opinions. In the end, a beautiful person has only been such because they have been the receiver of such opinion. A hypothetical beautiful person is not beautiful simply because their beauty is not witnessed. There is nothing else which makes anything beautiful, since we are the creators of this concept. Sort of like Schrödinger's cat, if a beautiful thing does not exist, than it is not yet beautiful – it occupies a superposition in that if it ever was witnessed, it could be beautiful, but if it is not ever witnessed, it will never receive such opinions. Think of all the hypothetically beautiful things you can imagine, that are not yet beautiful simply because they have yet to be conceived. If you have ever been thought of as ‘beautiful’, then you have been ‘beautiful’. What else is there that grants us such qualities, other than a being’s decision? There is no way to tell any difference in two objects deemed ‘worthy’, because they both have instantaneous status as ‘worthy’ when they receive such opinions. This does not discount reason, which we use to compare our opinions to truth – it just says that a concept (the concept here is worth) defined by an entity (in this case, strictly humans) is interpretable only by that entity. Since nothing outside of humans (that we know of) can contest to that which we deem 'worthy', it is inarguable that any human individual's application of 'worth' (or any other human defined concept) is absolute. Those who define are inarguably those who define. That which is defined is inarguably defined by it's definers. To visualize the concept of receiving worth, think of organisms shooting out little laser-beams of opinion throughout space, at whatever they find worthy. It doesn’t matter how true or false, reasonable or unreasonable these opinions are. All that matters is that they go somewhere, and are received. Therefore, the recipients are inarguably worthy. If x organisms hold x opinions, all of x opinions weigh exactly the same in their status as an opinion. You cannot say that opinion ‘a’ is 95 percent of an opinion, while opinion ‘b’ is only 80 percent of an opinion - all opinions are 100 percent opinions. Cognizant organisms are the sole contenders in the arena of opinion. Entering the arena is not the object of existence. The universe works independent of ‘matter’. ‘Matter’ is strictly limited to those with the cognizant capacity for holding an opinion. When we think that nothing matters, we don’t often realize that nothing but ourselves are judging significance.

Worth is like color, but not nearly as subjective. It applies to all life just about the same, but it does not apply outside of life. Nor did it exist before us. It is a scientific fact that we are the universe iterated into a complex format that receives sensation and wrestles it into recognizable shapes so as to aid in replication. When we say ‘nothing matters’ or it comes from a fallacious misunderstanding of what matter and meaning apply to, and where they exist and what they are limited to. Though the illusion of insignificance is very complete with the modern realization that our physical scale relative to the universe is very minute – it is still just and illusion. There is no scale, especially not a physical scale to decide if our ‘worth’ has any relation to an interpretably sufficient or insufficient amount. The question; “is our ‘net-worth’ sufficient of insufficient’ should not be a question at all. Not only is it not-sensical, it is not non-sensical. It is neither appropriate nor inappropriate – it is non-existent – it is mu. There is no question because there is no asker of the question. It is impossible for man to ask this question, let alone answer it. The amount of meaning perceived by organisms is an independent scale with no ties to anything at all; like color. Analyzing the inanely tenuous connection between our physical scale relative to our universe, and our amount of worth relative to some kind of god-given-divine-worth, leftover from the influence of theism, makes about as much sense as comparing green to one hundred.

“How much is the number of green?”

“Not nearly enough.”

The problem is that we tend to personify inanimate objects, like galaxies and black holes, to which meaning does not take place. Celestial bodies are not judging us in terms of worth because cannot do so. The universe spent billions of primal years as a large chemical reaction with no set of senses to perceive them, and it does not bother the universe because the universe cannot be bothered – much like you before you were born, in the form of atoms from untraceable origins. Existence does not seek acceptance - we do. Meaning is a singularity occurring at the threshold of contemplation. Past that threshold is no necessity for opinion. That does not stop meaning from existing, nor does it dwarf the existent meaning; it only prevents interpretation, especially as an amount. It doesn’t matter how small meaning is in scale – it only matters that it is had at all. If a black hole had the capacity to form an opinion, yes, it might look at us as insignificant. But our tendency to place opinion in these objects comes from a misunderstanding of what the phenomenon of significance really is. Because physical space goes beyond our bodies into the universe does not mean that all things have to travel into the beyond. In our existence, the physical scale of the universe is immense – but our perceived worth stops in our minds – it doesn’t stretch out across space-time, like we think it does. It is limited, not in scale, but in application. We don’t have to wish our worth god-speed on it’s journey. It doesn’t go anywhere. All contemplation of worth outside of a brain is falsely applied contemplation.

What can we say about matter and worth? Things matters indefinitely – but that doesn’t mean that the highest and most important objective in existence is to seek what matters. It means it is our highest objective. Therefore, what matters absolutely is totally irrelevant, but what matters non-absolutely is relevant. As organisms that hold opinions – everything that matters to us, matters. Not universally, not indefatigably, but in only the way that it is. Any object or idea that receives notions of worth - is worthy – inarguably, and it is impossible to apply an opinion of amounts to this collective of thoughts. This is not to say that opinionation is worthless – just that is already included in this collective worth that we are attempting to analyze. The objective of existence is not to create objects that are worthy. Worth is an unintended bi-product of survival.

Survival leads, eventually, to cognizance - because cognizance is a strategy of survival - and cognizance leads to contemplation. What is ‘good’, to us, is always oriented in the direction that is synonymous with survival. Survival too, was not arrived at consciously, but just the only available option for continuity to ever be achieved. By definition – the rival of survival is doomed to non-survival! So when we arrive at the idea that nothing matters, of course that’s not true – because things obviously do receive notions of matter. The very idea that opinions are held – at all – leads to the indisputable realization that things matter non-interpretably. What is the meaning of life? In what is probably the world’s first correct application of its absolute most useless idiom - It is what it is.

Now that I’ve destroyed your preconceptions of worth, let’s get to the reconstruction. What I’m trying to clear up is our expansion on paradoxes. Time travel presents us with something intriguing to study, but may ultimately lead to a dead end, where we discover time to not be real. What I’m proposing is that we have attempted to study the meaning of existence to the point where we discover there is no intrinsic value to existence, freeing ourselves up to define value as we are and should be able to. Yes, I have said there is no intrinsic value to existence. This should be obvious. This acceptance is a denial of a divine worth. But that doesn’t matter (get it?) for the simple reason that because you do not enjoy the consequences of something is not an adequate reason to reject its premise. Such is the definition of an argumentum ad consequentiam. Even if we could not create worth (which I am about to argue is false) it wouldn’t change the fact that you need to recognize and not live in denial of the fact that there is no such thing as inherent worth! The essence of our belittlement is the understandable result of left over influence from superstition. The whole reason that worth is an issue is that we grow up invariably being exposed to the idea of divine purpose. It is not that we need or require this divine-purpose, it is just that we cannot unlearn the effects of its influence. There is truly nothing more inanely seductive than it’s concept. Though I am very much non-superstitious, I still sometimes feel the effects of my innate desire to personify events into beings. I cannot escape the easy-way-out that belief has offered. Of course we want to relate our troubles into human-like figures that can be reckoned with! But personification is the name of the monster that dwarfs our sense of purpose. Whether it be pondering divine purpose, or looking at our purpose relative to the scale of the physical universe, we are left feeling largely inadequate. If anything, the concept of divine purpose has robbed us of our desire or appreciation for self-assigned purpose - divine purpose degrades us into dependency. That we cannot interpret worth is not a testament to worthlessness – it is a childish sulking about what we felt like when personification of belief (god) was the only answer. Like a maturing young adult, Mankind is getting used to responsibility – and for the immature remnants of our mind – it’s a fucking drag. That we cannot go back to divine purpose, because it offers no solutions, because it is a mu answer, makes us feel inadequate.

That self-assigned purpose seems so petty is exactly my point. Struggling to realize the necessity of self assigned purpose is to be expected. It only seems this way because that it is not absolute or divine, has to be true. That it is strictly non-absolute means it has to be the private interpretation of the subject. And that we must create our worth in this life only adds to our significance (significance in reference to our man-made definition, because the is no alternative)! It is commonly said by philosophers and non-theists that ‘there is no purpose, so we must create our own purpose’. The main message of this discourse is to argue that for the aforementioned, it is not valid to call into question our purpose simply because it contrasts with a more "classic" view of purpose (the one offered by theism). There is no way to contest the application of a concept which we create ourselves. In no way, shape or form has there been ‘no purpose’ since the outset of life in the universe. This created purpose has always been, only never fully realized. I have shown that we are the ones who create the definition of worth, and so by doing inarguably define worth. We should not be concerned with applying this concept outside of it's application - there is no way in which it's application does not suffice.

We are currently speculating that ape took it’s most significant evolutionary steps towards become man when they began to walk upright, and that only when they freed up their hands to do their work is when they began to make tools, in turn stimulating their minds. They then fell into a brand new strategy, and the rest is history. We too can move past our current dilemma if we accept that there is no divine purpose, nor is there an interpretable collective purpose – freeing up our minds to create purpose – like our minds create color (which no one seems to object to). That there is nothing which lessens your power to create purpose makes you that much more significant. I don’t want to live in a world where significance is unconditional - I want people to be responsible. I want to live in a world of variation - the only way that worth can be deserved and earned. Fortunate for us, it is actually and observably detrimental to contemplate an alternative. Self-assigned worth is a journey more epic than the fucking Odyssey. Soak it up, baby.