The Meaningless Universe?

How reasonable might it be to consider the universe devoid of meaning?

Those whose view of things are framed principally in physical, materialist terms, certainly seem to be struck – sometimes with horror – by the meaningless universe they find. Jacques Monod, swept away by this view, accused humanity of being gypsies lost in an alien and hostile universe. Yet the universe only appears meaningless because the tools we use to uncover this vast expanse beyond our world are the methods of science, and it is not the proper function of scientific enquiry to denote meaning. Without distortion or bastardisation, the field of science cannot possibly find or represent meaning, although meaning can certainly be grafted onto scientific observations and theories.

Those whose starting point for this enquiry is differently positioned – perhaps framed by the unique perspectives crafted by ancient narratives, or by insights freshly wrought from introspection – do not discover this allegedly meaningless universe at all. They find instead the world we live in, and that world is riven through with meaning. The more receptive one is to alternative viewpoints, the more meanings one will find. This is one reason why the role of religion is not prone to elimination, even though actual religious beliefs and practices constantly change, and these days frequently include many non-religious cousins performing similar functions. The universe, from any perspective concerned with meaning, is merely a cosmic backdrop, and can never take centre stage.

This is another case where the ideological construct which pits “Religion” against “Science” tends to mislead. As the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky observed, science deals with facts and religion with meaning. It is hardly surprising that an endeavour centred upon uncovering facts never discovers meaning. Meaning is, quite literally, more down-to-earth, as the moral philosopher Mary Midgley neatly suggested:

If we drop our surprising ambition to figure as central actors on the cosmic stage, and return to our field of terrestrial life, we shall find no shortage of purposes, many of them very demanding. We shall probably see the problem of meaning as chiefly one of harmonizing these purposes, and of understanding them well enough not to waste our lives on shadows.

If our world is full of meaning, the universe cannot possibly be meaningless. The decision to see it so is a metaphysical choice, a substitution of facts for values as disturbingly confused as when religious doctrine is used as a spurious surrogate for facts. Neither meaning nor values can be produced purely by scientific enquiry, and any attempt to forge something along these lines can end only by making a vacuous non-religion from a caricature of science. Against the meaningless universe such strange beliefs engender, our meaningful world stands as ample evidence to the contrary.

Comments

[Matt Mower]

My initial reaction is that, as soon as I reached the end of the third paragraph I found myself pondering whether the question "Is the universe meaningful?" is, itself, meaningful.

My thoughts are not clear but it seems to me that if we're taking the view that some people find meaning around them, ergo the universe is meaningful then what is really being said?

I don't disagree with you that science is not about, and does not produce, meaning but at the same time if it's purely subjective then those who find the universe meaningless are surely as valid as those who do not.

Or something...

Matt

If we polled a lot of schizophrenics, perhaps in their more lucid moments, we could find out lots of meanings of the world & beyond. Would we recognise them? Or find them plaus

[Matt Mower]

Hrmm... somehow I left in a paragraph I musing about in relation to how schizophrenics, who typically seem to experience the world in quite different terms, might relate to my argument. Please disregard it... unless you think it's useful :)

[Matt Mower]

Actually I remember why I was going there now.

The point I think I was heading for was that a schizophrenic may draw "meanings" where a non-schizophrenic may not.

So I think what I was trying to say, in my fumbling fashion, was that people claiming "meaning" from what they see around them may not be all that reliable either.

Something like that.

Probably I should have spent some time thinking this through, refining my argument, becoming very definite.

I didn't do any of that though :)

M.

[Michael]

I was thinking of that old chestnut by Hume. Values are things that we as human beings put out into the world.

Thinking beyond humanity, I suppose values depend on those who perceive values. Whoever is out there to appreciate the naturual world puts values out there in the world. If we didn't exist,or some other sentient value-oriented species; there would be no values.

The universe is stunning, fascinating and utterly mysterious. That should be enough of an acceptance of value that an agent of value appreciation may say it at all.

Michael (Noumenal Realm)

[Chris]

Matt: I take your challenge here seriously; if the criteria for meaningfulness is (as I claim) that there are people who have found meaning, does this make meaning purely subjective? I don't believe this is the case, as I will expand shortly.

However, I do believe in respect of your corollary relating to people with altered perception (schizophrenics, LCD users etc.) that we *are* dealing with subjective meaning in these cases.

But the kind of meaning I'm talking about here that contradicts the idea of a "meaningless universe" is the kind of meaning that occurs between people. Without the capacity for this kind of meaning, there could be no rules, no language, no society - nothing quite like what we think of being human. (Although I believe even without humans, I could make a case for meaning among non-human animals).

When we ask about meaning, we are asking about significance or purpose... these are things that beings with minds can have, and that do not apply to things without minds. The despair about meaning is perhaps a hangover of the Platonic belief (kept alive by Christianity et al and savaged by Nietzsche et al) that there could be truly objective meaning - meaning that would transcend beings with minds. But it's far from clear why we should expect meaning to transcend beings capable of conceiving meaning, nor is it obvious that this constraint prevents there being an objective element in the meanings that we hold.

The accusation that the universe is meaningless reflects despair that the horizon of significance ends with beings. But one must be truly mean spirited to think that this limitation is sufficient to destroy all meaning. It is almost as if, discovering that it is not possible to build sand castles bigger than a beach that one declares there are no sand castles at all. :)

Michael: I like your idea that recognition of the mystery of the universe is in itself an attribution of meaning! :)

I find it interesting that Hume, who launched the strange argument of claiming an insurmountable gap between facts and values ("is" and "ought") later retracted this challenge - the Enquiries omit the discussion of the "is-ought" problem, and Hume was clear that he wanted these later revisions to reflect his complete philosophical position. So somewhere along the line, Hume found his own challenge not worth sustaining.

Best wishes!

[Peter Crowther]

I'll merely point to http://xkcd.com/167/ as a commentary :-).

[wonderwhy-er]

Interesting post.
I never though about relationships of science and meaning. But reading this it strikes me that it really doesn't feel as if science has any interest in meaning and it feels as if it has not much to do with producing the meaning...

But at the same time it feels strange... Funny question then arises, who really losses value then? Science without meaning or meaning without science? Can there be meaning without science? Can there be science without meaning?

Seems to me that meaning without science could be hard to distinguish from delusion or superstition. On other hand science without meaning clearly looses its value too...

[Chris]

wonderwhy-er: There certainly can be meaning without science - after all, there was meaning before Thales of Miletus (dubbed "The Father of Science"). And it seems there can be science without meaning - or at least, one can conduct scientific research without any notion of meaning.

I suspect meaning without science need not be delusional or superstitious - after all, people draw meaning from their relationships, and we do not usually attack these as delusions or superstitions. :)

As for science without meaning losing its value, I feel science conducted in the absence of independent moral values risks great harm, as the scientists of the Manhattan Project realised only too late. It's all too easy to be swept away with the joy of discovery, but the idea that this pursuit is morally neutral needs serious reconsideraton.

Thanks for sharing your perspective!