“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. … “So says   renowned physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg  in his 1977 book “The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe)”

In general, we humans like to think that things happen for a reason, either accidentally or on purpose – whatever the case may be. At least, that is the way we usually think about the world based on our very experience of it.  Seeing the world in this manner allows us to understand the interaction between things and events while enabling us to manage our lives around them with some degree of predictability.

So what about the universe? Would it not be reasonable to expect there was some reason for it to be here as well? I’m kind of two minds about that.

First of all, it is quite a conceptual leap to jump from considering the status of some event or another in the world to considering the status of world itself. Is the world  just another event in the sense that we should be able to look at it from either end, i.e., consider the likely cause of it and the effect that it has on other things in the world? Can the world be seen as an event beyond all the things that take place in it? (look up: Gilbert Ryle’s category mistake)

Since the world is both logically and physically necessary for anything to take place, I don’t believe you can put it in the same category of events that take place in the world. As such it occupies a class or category all its own. (I think I’m running into a version of Russell’s set paradox here, but let’s not go there … )

For anything to happen, the world must have happened – that much seems clear. But – as far as we know – the world appears to have happened on its own account, i.e., it is simply here – full stop. It is the container that contains everything else, but itself it is not contained other than by itself.  Such is the mystery of the world.

Now one  could argue that we just don’t know that the world isn’t part or the result of another event that brought it about, i.e., the world is a transitory event that came into being as a result of “the big bang”  – which is the prevailing view at the moment, and so on, and end up in an infinite regress of events preceding events, and then only because we cannot accept that events can appear out of thin air or materialize from within a material empty vacuum for that matter,

Our language is the limiting factor here because it is the language of the living and breathing  mortals that we are.  We cannot get beyond the logic derived from our species’ experiential involvement  with the world and make sense of events that seem to go beyond that.

But what if the point of the universe being here is simply just that: to be here for what it is, i.e., to exist for its own sake?  That we may be able to make sense of this might depend on  what sense or meaning we are able to attach to  our lives, as by extension we would  then be valuing the point of universe being here as well.

If we think about our place in the world this way, well-known  20th century existentialists such as Sartre and Camus would be wrong  classifying life as essentially meaningless and  – among other things –  attributing the absurdity of our predicament to a cold and indifferent universe that remains silent on such things, given that only human beings are able to attach meaning or value to something.  The conclusion has to be that meaning comes from within life, from experiencing life as meaningful, and not from having it  derived from a source external to it.

It would follow that no feature of the universe will likely make sense unless it is viewed in the context of providing the ground for some aspect of meaningful human activity that could otherwise not have taken place.  The logic may sound counter-intuitive but I believe that this is the only way out of the absurdity paradox that Albert Camus entertained when considering the fact that human beings inevitably seek to understand life’s purpose:

“Camus takes the skeptical position that the natural world, the universe, and the human enterprise remain silent about any such purpose. Since existence itself has no meaning, we must learn to bear an irresolvable emptiness. This paradoxical situation, then, between our impulse to ask ultimate questions and the impossibility of achieving any adequate answer, is what Camus calls the absurd. Camus’ philosophy of the absurd explores the consequences arising from this basic paradox. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)”

The question remains then how the seemingly puny human could conceivably value the existence of the mighty universe simply by finding meaning in their everyday lives.  I think it boils down to the distinction between  quantity and quality, and between form and function in the context of an evolving universe.

As such it wouldn’t matter how old or how large and complex  the world is, given that the significance of that could only be expressed by how well we would be able to experience the quality and depth of  being at the receiving end of this  spectacularly creative effort,  and then solely with the sensibility and reasoning  that has been given to us as a result of merely being a part of it. Everything beyond it is more or less irrelevant, in the sense that -as spectacular as that may be – it is at most a set decoration, the backdrop against which we play out the destiny of our species and of which we have for the moment absolutely no clue.

Benatar is a proponent of what has been termed the anti-natalist position. In a 2006 book titled Better Never to have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence he writes that

While good people go to great lengths to save their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.

The disappearance of sentient life on this planet would be of no consequence to anyone or anything according to Benatar, and in that context he joins earlier existentialist writers such as Sartre and Camus when he believes the universe is indifferent to our fate; it is without meaning, and other than that “we are subject to blind and purposeless natural forces”.

But when at least Nietzsche would find some purpose in suffering (and hence life) when he wrote “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” Benatar does not believe that human suffering and the struggle to survive are capable of providing meaning to existence.

While one might want to argue about all the good things in life providing value to it, he would claim that they can never offset the badness of all terrible tragedies that might happen during one’s lifetime, including one’s death. I guess he has a point when you think of all the natural disasters that have happened – and are likely happen again – be they earthquakes, floods, famine, and what have you.  Or man-made tragedies, such as the 9/11 terror attack, the holocaust or the slaughter of millions of people  in the various wars. What kinds of positive experiences might one put on the other scale to suggest that all this will balance out in the end?

This is not to say that on an individual basis someone might not be able to look back at one’s life and conclude that it has by and large been a very positive experience – but I’m assuming that Benatar has appraised the human condition from a species perspective, and from there concluded that it – life – just isn’t worth it when it is all added up. So why bother; sentient life is just a waste of time, causing much unneeded pain and suffering

I have some sympathy for the view that planet earth would be better off without the likes of us,  given our longstanding and well established record of harming ourselves and the  environment.  And no doubt there is something to say for discontinuing the amount of pain and suffering we have inflicted onto our fellow creatures in the animal kingdom through our thoughtless practices of whatever nature – such as the asinine practice of trophy hunting certain animal species into extinction, to give just one example.

And so the question remains if the continuation of sentient life – and in particular human life – is a value added experience of sorts, and the point being that – regardless of incredible misery, pain and suffering being regular features of human existence – life is worth the effort of sustaining it.

Clearly, professor  Benatar thinks not, but I have already argued that it is, since just because we appear to be unable to determine the meaning or purpose of life today  beyond the immediacies of survival doesn’t mean it has no meaning or purpose in a larger context. (I suspect this question is too large for us today).

So what would be the grounds for such assumption when I seem to say that the basis for it is  outside life’s experiential realm?   To get a sense of what I’m hinting at is a little bit like what the character Morpheus says to Thomas A. Anderson, AKA “Neo” and the protagonist in the excellent 1999 Sci-Fi movie Matrix: You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. 

Now I realize that this might be an understatement for some, but here I’m not talking about all the really bad things that are happening in the world today (and have more or less always happened in the world of yesterday) and an astonishing human tragedy by any other name given all the calamities, war, religious strife, murder and mayhem and what have you, but the fact that regardless of the nature of the event – good or bad –  it remains a mystery why any of it actually needs to take place, i.e., what in the world  is playing itself out here?

In short, I am saying that life, living, doesn’t add up … at least not for me, and while that might just be my problem, I think not.  I suggest we are seeing only part of the script here.

This has to do with the fact that you cannot make sense of something existing for its own sake. I know, some will say something equally nonsensical, like “it is what it is”,   but trying to make sense of apparent nonsense is one of my interests, especially when there appears to be so much of it, such as a whole universe of it.

So when I say that it doesn’t add up, I mean to say that I have never come across the reason as to why we are here, on this planet, in this universe, or the reasons why life is the way it is to the extent that we are challenged by it on a daily basis.

Sure, science will give you a hand full of reasons as to why the world is the way it is, but these are descriptive accounts that assume the world as a given without any further justification for it being there in the first place. When it comes to life, similarly – and discounting religious nonsense of any kind – the answer to the question “why are we here” is lacking also.

And so, in whatever way you look at it, the world – life – appears to be more of a solution in search of a problem, i.e., we don’t have the whole story. And  unless there is something more going on than what meets the eye, i.e., what we must confront on a daily basis, the world and everything that can be found in it appears to make no sense at all. At least not for the present …

And so he is granted permission to appear for the Law, and is led to a gate that leads to it. While the gate appears to be open, there is a gatekeeper preventing him entry and who tells him that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down by the side of the gate.

There he waits for days, weeks, then months, all the while asking and negotiating with the gatekeeper to let him through. And although the gatekeeper continues to suggest that entry continues to be a possibility – but not just yet – eventually years go by and he ends up waiting his entire life, to no avail, never gaining entry.

Then, when he is about to die, he wonders why he was the only person waiting at this gate seeking entry before the Law. The gatekeeper tells him that, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close this gate”.

Kafka has the unique gift of being able to capture a critical insight into the larger human condition and weave it with great literary skill into an allegory that gives it away – but not quite. As a result, we can’t always be sure of what aspect of our lives he is writing about. Countless interpretations have been provided by those who have studied Kafka’s writings over the years, intrigued by his efforts to challenge us beyond the usual boundaries of our thinking about the world and the role we play within it.

What I believe what he wrote about here is, once again, his own acute experience of being in the world without an apparent reason, and feeling compelled to make the assumption that there has to be an aspect of our existence that provides the justification for it.  And while this reason may be staring us directly in the face from the very day that we were  brought into this world, how will we ever gain access to  it?

And so it appears that – while having evolved towards the capacity of being able to consider a reason for being, as in the question “I want to know why I am here, and for what purpose?” – being allowed to confront this question is no guarantee that you will be able to get it answered even if you are willing to dedicate a lifetime to it! At the same time, this is very much an individual question, in the sense that it is meaningful only for those who feel the need to pursue the answer for it.