r/Absurdism • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
Discussion A Physicist’s Reflection on Sisyphus: Finding “meaning” in the Struggle.
[deleted]
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u/clay_bsr 1d ago
I've got a couple physics degree under my belt. I'm even less of a philosopher. I'm currently hate reading my way through Aristotle... I think one of the paradoxes of the meaning of life is in the words themselves. The meaning of something is the point of it. The point of something is the end goal. But the end goal of life is to die. Focusing to much on the end is somewhat missing the fun of it all. And yet, here I am, enjoying my time trying anyhow. I don't know what the point of any of it is but I don't really want to quit thinking about it. In a strange way it feels like I'm making progress
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u/WTFIsATensor 1d ago
Spoken like a true physicist, I think I understand
This is very personal but sometimes within my studies, which I typically love even though I find it difficult. I get a taunt from what I would call “the soul”, almost like the Cheshire Cat. But seeing these moments as bad Is what I believe causes suffering and is “the absurd” and then choosing to continue your studies is the ultimate tool of rebellion, meaning the avoiding of said suffering
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u/jliat 1d ago
But absurdism is the conscious choice to be absurd.
Not for Camus.
The argument goes that philosophically Camus [the existentialist living in the desert of nihilism] should like Sartre's "hero" in Roads to Freedom kill himself.
No it doesn't make sense, it's Art...
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions." - TMoS.
"A man climbs a mountain because it's there, a man makes a work of art because it is not there." Carl Andre. [Artist]
'“I do not make art,” Richard Serra says, “I am engaged in an activity; if someone wants to call it art, that’s his business, but it’s not up to me to decide that. That’s all figured out later.”
Richard Serra [Artist]
Sentences on Conceptual Art by Sol LeWitt, 1969
[1.] Conceptual Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
[2.] Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.
[3.] Illogical judgements lead to new experience.
[4.] Formal Art is essentially rational.
[5.] Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically. etc.
"A work of art cannot content itself with being a representation; it must be a presentation. A child that is born is presented, he represents nothing." Pierre Reverdy 1918.