What would be a good gift to buy a philosopher? A few weeks ago, I asked 10,000 people this question and got thousands of replies back.
Some, of course, were funny: “A job,” “Some money,” and a “girlfriend.”
Some were predictably context-appropriate: “An unanswerable question,” “Time to think,” and “A deep conversation.”
Others were oddly mundane: “Socks,” “A mug,” or a “book.” When Diego said “a comb,” I think he was getting personal. (You can find the best of the rest over on Substack.)
But there was one answer that really got me thinking. I am sure it was meant as a joke, but you have to be careful joking with the philosophically minded. Because quite a few people said “purpose” or “meaning.”
I started to imagine the scene:
My son runs over with a gilded, vibrating, and immaculately wrapped box.
“Open it, daddy!” he says, with the saccharine cliché of a Hallmark movie.
And so, I do. I pull at the ribbon, open the box, and peek inside. There, like some glowing magic from the end of Pulp Fiction, is PURPOSE. I stare straight at the meaning of life, the universal, categorical raison d’être. Here, among the Marvel toys and chocolate oranges, is the secret of everything.
According to philosopher Thomas Nagel, this is all utterly ridiculous.
Meaningful presents
In his book, Mortal Questions, Nagel has an entire essay devoted to the “absurd.” Absurdity — traditionally represented by Albert Camus — is the philosophical position that humans are caught in this dreadful existential disappointment: We are a meaning-seeking, meaning-needing species, and yet the Universe is meaningless. We’re wired to want a thing that the Universe cannot provide.
Nagel, though, thinks that all this talk of “meaning” is a misguided fool’s errand. In his essay, Nagel argues that we can identify three different types of meaning-grasping angst in the philosophical literature, and all of them are logically flawed.
First, the Argument of Time
Most of us are unhappy about our upcoming death. We’re scared of both the nature and aftermath of the Grim Reaper’s falling scythe. And when we imagine ourselves dying in some (hopefully) distant mortal moment, it kind of sucks the pleasure from the now. When we think “everything I’ve done will end in death” and “nothing will matter in a thousand years,” then it is enough to push you into an existential crisis.
So, imagine that on Christmas Day, you open a box containing a magic amulet that gives you immortality. You are no longer mortal and finite, but everlasting. You go on forever and ever. Is this any more meaningful a life than the one you have now? Nagel thinks not. As he puts it, “suppose we lived for ever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity?”
Second, the Argument of Size
Imagine there is a camera above your head right now, filming you sitting or standing wherever you are. Now, like some time-lapsed PBS documentary, imagine the camera zooming out. First to the building, then to the town, to the country, the continent, to Earth, then to the Solar System, and finally to the remote, vast blackness of the unfathomable Universe. When we view ourselves like this — what philosophers like to call sub species aeternitatis — then it kind of puts you in your place. Even the greatness of Alexander and the Pax Britannica of Queen Victoria are but a tiny ant’s footsteps on a vast Saharan desert. We are small, insignificant, and ultimately irrelevant to the Universe’s story.
Now, imagine you open a present that contains an elixir that makes you the size of the Universe. You are no longer a tiny ant on an insignificant rock. You are the cosmos itself. Would you now have any more purpose to your existence? What reason do we have to suppose that the sum of the entire Universe has any more “purpose” than the individual items contained within it? Why does size correlate to meaning?
Third, the Argument of Use
What is the point of anything at all? We waste our lives trudging to jobs we hate, to talk with people we don’t like, to live in a town we want to leave, and aspire to a future that was never what we wanted. Even all the good and noble things in life — learning, achievement, family, science, progress, and so on — they are all pointless in the grand scheme of things. A parlor game. Why do I exist? Why is the universe any better or worse as a result of my consciousness?
Instead of a present, imagine you get a card. Inside the card is a note written in a strange language.
Hello! Merry Christmas!
We are the Xynthapols. We are far more intelligent and far more powerful than you. We just wanted to drop a line to let you in on a little secret. This planet of yours — your “Earth” — is actually just a farm of ours. We rather like the taste of human meat, so we’ve been growing and harvesting you for hundreds of thousands of years now. Yummy stuff! Keep it up.
Hugs and kisses,
A Hungry Xynthapol
If you were to get that message — or something like it — would you now suddenly be overcome by a wave of purpose and happy, contented existential security? Is your life meaningful now that you’ve been told you’re food for someone else?
Nagel’s point to all of this is that when we talk about “meaning,” we often talk about it as a question without an answer. If only we look hard enough or read more philosophy, we’ll “find” meaning like a treasure chest under the sand. But while Nagel argues that Camus’s scorn and defiance are a little bit dramatic, he does agree that the best approach to “questions of meaning” is to live ironically. We need to commit to life seriously while knowing that it has no “meaning” beyond what it is.
In fact, it’s not unlike Christmas itself. When you get a present this year — a book, a toy, some socks, a scented candle — the “meaning” is obvious. The present is there to be enjoyed. The present is to be used. Read the book, wear the socks, light the candle, and play with the toy. Live your life as fully as you can, and ignore the “meaning” of what it is. A present is a present. Life is life. Enjoy them both.
This article All I want for Christmas is a sense of purpose is featured on Big Think.