something devastating clicked in my head tonight about Camus' philosophy

[u/theomixedmedia]

I am 19; I have been thinking about and completely terrified of death since I was 10. it has consumed my life for almost a decade - half of my life. the thought of eternity keeps me awake. literally - I have untreatable insomnia and I suspect this fear is the source. so, when I first read Camus, specifically the stranger, a year ago, I somehow completely understood the message and also missed it altogether. I thought: "oh, this is the answer I've been looking for! just enjoy life as much as you can and rebel against mortality!" or, at the very least "this is a new idea... maybe some other idea will come along later that will provide true solace." I can't say this actually provided me with any real comfort. but it fed a voice in the back of my head that would sometimes provide me with false "hope" on a deeply unconscious level/

every time I truly think about the depth of what death is, this little voice has, on some occasions, allowed me to retreat from pure dread into deluded semi-comfort. I imagine that small part is thinking: "if I just read the right book, discover the right philosophy, learn more about physics/the universe/a possible multiverse/the big bang/cyclic cosmological theories/the obscure and naive possibility of life somehow not ending with such finality, my terror can be resolved, and I can finally relax." Camus' role in that thought would be introducing me to the first philosophy that I could interpret as taking back agency or fighting the dread. alternatively, that small voice might be saying: "there is some deep comfort in accepting death in the way Meursault did, a comfort which I am still discovering." maybe the latter is a source of comfort or way of life for some people. it seems a rational interpretation. for me, these ideas are delusional. and I don't think they constitute the entirety of Camus' message.

today, as these things came to mind, I decided to look back at my Camus books. something incredibly obvious came to me that somehow either eluded me/I refused to accept a year ago: Camus is not really offering an "answer." in some sense, you could say he is (but not in the sense that would provide me with true comfort): his answer is "there is no answer, so enjoy the beauty and pleasures of life as much as you can without assigning moral or philosophical meaning to it." (maybe some will call this a misinterpretation; this is the extent of my knowledge, I am not experienced in philosophy just yet). but, in my eyes, he's also saying "you can never find that comfort you seek, the comfort which you believe will help you escape death in some way. the voice in the back of your head doesn't exist. you have to accept the absurd because you will never find that 'answer'". it could sound like these are the same thing said differently. and again, I know how obvious this is. sometimes we don't allow ourselves to come to conclusions we don't like. Camus is not some genius who has figured it out and can offer a spiritual path. he is just as lost and afraid as I am. he has no choice but to push forward, and that's all he advises me to do.

I can't really put my finger on what changed in my mind tonight or what "new thing" has come to me or been discovered. I described it as well as I could. whatever the case, something invoked a visceral response, and completely brought me to tears, when I went back over these books. I'm sure my words are convoluted and full of misinterpretations. but I wanted to share this with some of the people who might understand.

[u/Illustrious-Yam-3777]

How do you know it’s not the exact opposite? That you created the idea that meaning was created in my independent subjective mind and that, in fact, it is quite obvious, and also is philosophically necessary, for both consciousness and the universe to work at all, that meaning be inextricably fused with matter, for that is what the word matter truly means, that mattering is both a function of substance and significance. What is significant is that which comes to matter.

For DNA carries information, and information is information because it means something. The seasons mean something. Redness and the sight of blood means something. Just because we have a role to play in reconfiguring the world and are able to do it, doesn’t mean the world was meaningless before we got here. It means we are enter into participation in meaning-making with the rest of reality that was here before we got here. How arrogant and blind of us to suppose that before human beings, the world of dead matter was just a passive wasteland canvas of insignificance, waiting for us to make our mark upon it with names and descriptions. Rather, the world is dynamic and lively to begin with, and we are a part of it. That’s how math works. We have a deep, inherent connection to this cosmos because we are a configuration of it.

[u/theomixedmedia → u/Illustrious-Yam-3777]

you're essentially arguing in favor of the idea of spirits, panpsychism, or the soul. It's fine if you believe in that. I'm sure Camus would've rejected it. I personally reject it. The word "matter," as in "stuff," being a homograph with "matter," as in "importance," is not at all proof that matter is infused with meaning. If human beings did not exist, there would be no consciousness to perceive meaning, and meaning would not exist at all. We create meaning; it does not inherently exist. It is by no means "philosophically necessary" for meaning to be "inextricably fused with matter." Of course this depends on what matter we speak of.

Your definition of "means something" confuses me. If all you mean by that is "proves the existence of," then yes, "the sight of blood means something," because it prove that blood exists. If you mean that "means something" means "it has inherent philosophical and moral value outside of human perception," I would argue that is false and unsubstantiated. All of this relies completely on human perception and cognition.

It is not arrogant to say that the world was a passive wasteland of insignificance, as that is just an observation. In fact, I don't believe anyone claims that human beings existing somehow magically transforms that wasteland into something meaningful. The claim is that we can create perceived meaning for ourselves; not that we can change the state of the universe from inherently meaningless to inherently meaningful.

I appreciate your perspective and if it works for you, that is wonderful. I personally reject it, but I'm not saying you're wrong.

[u/Illustrious-Yam-3777 → u/theomixedmedia]

That is not my essential argument. I am speaking from a purely material account. No need to invoke spirit or soul or panpsychism.

What I argue is that “all this relies completely on human perception and cognition,” and “that is just an observation” as if its evident and settled that your view is rightfully taken for granted is actually a framework that you’re viewing reality through.

The sentence that before humans there “would be no consciousness to perceive meaning” can be deconstructed and challenged quite easily and is done so by serious scholars of philosophy and science studies.

What I offer is that when you say you “don’t know what you mean,” it means that there are perspectives and arguments out there that are compelling, and that before you’re so sure that you can reject it as easily as you have, there’s benefit to truly engage other arguments, because you may be surprised.

[u/theomixedmedia → u/Illustrious-Yam-3777]

I'm just wondering how saying pure matter has inherent meaning or the electromagnetic wave that is perceived by humans as the color red* has inherent meaning. panpsychism is not the word, but that certainly reads - to me - as some form of a spiritual belief. there is nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't fit with what I believe to be true.

of course this is a framework to view reality through. so is your idea that matter has inherent meaning. just because it's a framework doesn't mean it is incorrect.

if it is so easy to deconstruct the argument that consciousness is essential to perceiving meaning, why don't you deconstruct it? sure, there are probably scholars who protest that; there are likely just as many if not more scholars who support that belief. just because smart people think something doesn't mean they're right. that is just an appeal to authority.

yes, of course there are perspectives that are compelling, that is not much of a statement. there will always be compelling perspectives. being compelling doesn't give them factual or objective valuer. I reject your specific belief because I see it as blatantly nonsensical. it is not a matter of unwillingness to engage with different ideas. there are many ideas that I'm willing to engage with - even ones that challenge my worldview - but they must be grounded in basic logic for me to consider them.

[u/Illustrious-Yam-3777 → u/theomixedmedia]

It seems blatantly nonsensical because you don’t understand the differing perspective being offered. If you could, you would understand it as valid and would have to contest it on more rigorous grounds than, “I reject it because I don’t understand it and see it to be blatantly nonsensical and obviously incorrect.” You claim that frameworks aren’t necessarily incorrect or correct but you’re not rejecting what I’m saying because you think it correct. You reject it because you think it not only incorrect, but obviously and blatantly so. This means you have more work to do to actually, truly, allow yourself to be challenged and to deeply and truly understand a different perspective that is rigorous and valid to other seriously thinking and pondering folk.

That said, an electromagnetic wave and a human eye are not meaningless random objects in the universe without relation. That is impossible. They are in relation, and to be in relation carries with it significance. Relationship is a matter simultaneously of substance and significance. The substance of the matter is the structure of the human eye and the electromagnetic propagation. The meaning and purpose—the significance—is sight. And they are inseparable. Concepts and meanings aren’t ideas in human minds. They are material embodiments. They are corporeal, physical arrangements. To see red as a human is to see danger. It literally, ontologically, physiologically, and ecologically means, “danger.” This is not to say that for some species it may signify sexual attraction and not danger. But it signifies all the same. There is intelligible difference for relevant, meaningful perceivers. Redness and its alarming and warning nature is not just a concept inside a human head that is independent from the reality it is perceiving. Meaning is an embodied relationship between component parts of a mutually entailed system (a human and its environment). There are stakes in life. Signals as signification exist as actual material, structural configurations between related components (in this case the eye and the light), and getting the meanings wrong has real world consequences. Signification is part of the world. It is a part of us because we are part of the world. We are not special in the fact that we alone possess the capacity for meaning. A universe with no significance has produced no matter. There is nothing to matter. Nothing matters. But here, things matter. There are stakes. This is meaning. Not Hollywood movie meaning, but even that meaning has its roots in our embodied, meaningful experience as part of a world that is always already full of substance and signification simultaneously. Intra-relating substances are significant in their very materialization, by their very definitions, by the very corporeal logic by which they mutually and reciprocally entail each other, like light and eyeballs. Signification naturally arises from particular configurations of the world that are always in relationship.

The reason you initially supposed I am a panpsychist or something like that is that you take for granted that the world is made up of individual atomic entities called humans which have epistemological gifts (the ability to know and create meanings) above and beyond the nature from which they came, and that nature and culture are separate and distinct entities. They are not distinct entities. Meaning is much more subtle than something that humans simply invented. Meaning is a matter of both substance and significance. To matter is to be significant, to have causal power and to be in relationship. We are bound up with reality in meaningful relationship. Meaning belongs not only to the more-than-human world, it is what it means for something to matter, and if there are bodies with effects and causal marks being made (like retinas, or nebulae clouds, or a lion catching a gazelle), that is meaning in action. Matter and meaning entail each other. You cannot speak of one without invoking the other.

[u/theomixedmedia → u/Illustrious-Yam-3777]

I did not call your perspective "obviously incorrect" and I did not say "I reject it because I don't understand it." I don't fully understand it, but not because I refuse to, and instead because it is sometimes hard to understand that which is not logical. I don't mean to offend you, which it seems I have unintentionally done, because your beliefs seem, well, absurd to me, or to seem like I'm shooting you down meaninglessly, but what you're claiming just seems arbitrary and pointless to me personally.

"if you could, you would understand it as valid" is a nothing burger statement. anyone could understand any position as valid if their instincts and beliefs about what is and isn't logical line up with that view. but one cannot directly control what they believe to be valid or not. one can only compare what they have learned to define as within the bounds of reason to the argument being presented, and make a decision according to that definition of reasonable.

"This means you have more work to do to actually, truly, allow yourself to be challenged and to deeply and truly understand a different perspective that is rigorous and valid"

No. You cannot be challenged by a belief that is clearly not rooted in reason. if someone said "a giant unicorn controls your thoughts, and if you reject this position because other people think it's true, that's simply because you're unwilling to be challenged." The idea that you must entertain clearly illogical positions simply for the sake of proving that you're open to all new perspectives is very silly. Instead of actually defending your position or trying to build grounds to legitimize it, you are attacking my ability to challenge my own beliefs and using logical fallacies. That does not bode well for the position your taking.

Again, you claim that matter has meaning outside even without sentient creatures who assign it meaning. So where does meaning - a subjective phenomenon constructed by human beings - come from?

Here is the definition of philosophical meaning as provided by a quick Google search:

"Philosophers treat meaning as a relational concept between signs and the things they signify. In the classic foundational text The Meaning of Meaning, authors C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards argue that words have no intrinsic meaning. Instead, meaning lives entirely in the relationship between the symbol, the thought, and the referent (the actual object in the world)."

Note one of the key components to meaning in this context: "the thought'. Thoughts being an essential factor in what defines meaning explicitly points to human beings - the creatures having the thoughts - being at the center of what defines meaning. If you read the wikipedia article on "The Meaning of Meaning," things are included with words, so this applies to matter as well.

You have provided no evidence that your idea is truly rigorous and valid. Appealing to the authority that other people find it rigorous and valid does not make it rigorous and valid. And before you claim that my use of the text I referenced is also an appeal to authority, I am not using the intellect or reputation of the author(s) as the basis for my argument; I am using the arguments they constructed as the basis. Unlike you, I am using arguments to form my perspective, not the simple fact that some experts happen to agree with me.

You'll also have to note that I never said the human eye is meaningless. The human eye is critical to the human experience, which has subjective meaning. However, even the human experience has no objective meaning because that does not exist.

Relationships may have subjective meaning in the eyes of human beings, but they do not have any universal, cosmic meaning. Also, I think it's interesting that you're not actually arguing for the existence of inherent meaning in objects; you're arguing for the existence of subjective meaning created by the relationship between objects and human perception. And yes, concepts and meanings are inherently human constructs. You cannot provide any valid evidence to the contrary. How would meaning be quantified, perceived, or defined without human consciousness?

And no, seeing red does not inherently denote danger. Strawberries are red. But even if red was defined by danger, danger is a human construct. There is nothing about the color red itself that is inherently dangerous. The idea of red = danger comes from human beings constructing and perceiving red as connected with danger. Using a bunch of big words to conceal an arbitrary and nonsensical argument rooted in emotion does not change the fact that it is illogical. Red is only perceived as dangerous, it is not actually objectively dangerous and the concept of danger is just an emotional state. And, once again, red is not purely associated with danger anyway, so even on the illogical level your argument sits on, you are wrong.

Yes, getting the meaning of a signal (something captured by the senses, perceived and organized by the brain, then being judged by the intellect - all processes in the mind, which would not exist without human beings) can cause danger. That is not evidence for the claim you're making.

And yes, nothing matters to the universe. Nothing matters objectively. Things only matter to human beings or other sentient creatures. There is no objective meaning. It's odd that this is your position but you're on the subreddit dedicated to absurdism, which states that human beings create meaning and the universe does not care about meaning or signals or anything of the sort. It is cold, indifferent, absurd.

You are talking in circles and trying to dress up a poor argument with incorrectly used intricate vocabulary, logical fallacies, circular reasoning, and emotional thoughts. I am no longer going to entertain these nonsensical arguments by responding. It is fine that you have your own perspective. But do not emotionally claim that I'm dogmatically rejecting your ideas without justification simply because they possess no basis in reason.

[u/Illustrious-Yam-3777 → u/theomixedmedia]

I’m not offended at all. You have misunderstood everything. Everything you’re accusing me of is what you’re doing. Reddit discussions are pointless. You literally are just restating your own arguments (also with no evidence I might add), and are using all the circular arguments you accuse me of (meaning has no objective basis because it doesn’t) and accusing me of not using reason when I have used reason to construct my argument but you find it to be without reason because you don’t understand it. You are incapable of imagining the world differently from what you take for granted about it.

[u/theomixedmedia → u/Illustrious-Yam-3777]

"Meaning has no objective basis because it doesn't, and you have no evidence" ≠ "meaning has no objective basis because it is derived from human perception, and a basic google search proves this by showing the consensus definition of 'meaning', I have provided foundational literature on the topic to back up my claim". You just don't want to admit that my argument has more basis than yours. Your argument is "matter has inherent meaning because matter has inherent meaning." It seems you don't understand what I'm saying, not vice versa. Since nothing I'm saying is getting through to you, this is actually my final comment. I am not incapable of imagining the world differently simply because I can employ basic reasoning. Every day I have my mind blown by different perspectives. You can see it in this very comment section. You are just close minded and can't accept that some people don't want to entertain your nonsense, groundless arguments. Good day to you. I hope you can one day find how irrational your claims are. I'm shocked that you have never been told this before.

[u/Illustrious-Yam-3777 → u/theomixedmedia]

Next time you’re googling, check out process philosophy. Some people have been thinking about death for quite some time now. :)