That’s the charmingly grandiose title of a talk I gave at The Amazing Meeting this past July, now available online. I hope that the basic message comes through, although the YouTube comments indicate that the nitpicking has already begun in earnest. There’s a rather lot of material to squeeze into half an hour, so some parts are going to be sketchy.
There are actually three points I try to hit here. The first is that the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood. There is an enormous amount that we don’t know about how the world works, but we actually do know the basic rules underlying atoms and their interactions — enough to rule out telekinesis, life after death, and so on. The second point is that those laws are dysteleological — they describe a universe without intrinsic meaning or purpose, just one that moves from moment to moment.
The third point — the important one, and the most subtle — is that the absence of meaning “out there in the universe” does not mean that people can’t live meaningful lives. Far from it. It simply means that whatever meaning our lives might have must be created by us, not given to us by the natural or supernatural world. There is one world that exists, but many ways to talk about; many stories we can imagine telling about that world and our place within it, without succumbing to the temptation to ignore the laws of nature. That’s the hard part of living life in a natural world, and we need to summon the courage to face up to the challenge.
Or at least, so you will hear me opine if you click on the link. Curious as to what people think.
On another note, I think that the entire project to find a meaning for our lives by looking at the Universe or beyond is misguided.
Suppose God Himself showed up and announced that the purpose of our species is to collectively perish in a cosmic disaster just when we are on the verge of creating a perfect society. Maybe our species has been chosen to illustrate to be the “tragic figures” of the divine drama, who strive and fail for no fault of their own. (No, there won’t be any eternal future reward for perishing thus)
Would we then delight in “having found our Purpose” and proceed as per plan ? No way !
I bet most people would refuse to believe that God had such a miserable end planned for us.
Those who did believe it would possibly still try their best to find a way out.
So, there’s the rub.
1) We basically want to find something to do which makes us “live long and prosper”.
2) We hope that the Universe and/or God also has the same in mind for us..
3) Even if (2) is not true, we will continue with (1) anyway.
So, as far our lives are concerned, it doesn’t really matter either way if the Universe has “intrinsic purpose or meaning”.
This may cause this not to be printed, but Sean Carroll’s capering is the very essence of arrogance.
Declaring that absolutely everything that will ever be observed or experienced will come only from what is written in “science” books now. There is absolutely nothing whose basis is not completely understood. There are no new laws of nature. There are no new levels of reality. Remember when “science” used to be about the unknown, ever expanding realms with new things to discover, not just new combinations of the same things? This is an unjustified retrenchment, retreating into a standard model and accepting no embellishments. “Defining” anything that falls outside their artificially attenuated purview as a one time odd combination of conventional manifestations, fraud or “noise” which, like all “noise” in “experiments” is discarded and denied that it ever occurred.
So much, too, like a Fascist indoctrination meeting, insisting that all they need to know is containined in one pamphlet of self serving rhetoric. “Everything you need to know is explained in this one book. You don’t need anything else. Just being a follower of the movement makes you a genius!”
What combination of the conventional explains the formation of the moon? Even the popular idea of a third body hitting the earth only goes to far as to explain a ring of debris around the planet. It still doesn’t explain how it formed into the moon.
How does conventional “science” explain the fact that the rate of decay of radioactive elements shows a seasonal variation?
What conventional “sceince” explains the Banford Law?
Basically, it looks like the false bravado of the insecure and uncertain who know that they have nothing to offer and they have to convince themselves that they’re not frauds.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for this talk.
I’ve often been at a loss at expressing the idea of nature being quite detached from our judgemental world view. Your talk has given me a much better vocabulary to express this.
In school… during the study of thermodynamics and physics, it was becoming clear that our culture’s narrative was very anthropocentric, and believing somewhere that there are higher purposes and values. I guess it was the study of evolution which eventually drove home to me our place in the world and highlighted the several inconsistent thoughts and beliefs we live with. It was depressing for a while to have the anchors removed… but those were false anchors anyway and I guess learning to swim untethered and free in the vast oceans needs time. 🙂
I think the cumulative cultural of curiosity that is science is something I’m very thankful to for shaping my world view and helping me see things I would not have. Wish I could buy all the people in the history of science a good beer! It’s awesome.
Oh well… I think I should get back to work. Got to keep my story going! 😉
Thanks again for the talk!
I so agree with Kumar. Good support of science. For others who are not as familiar with science are usually threatened by it. Science is a true glory while religion is a fabricated glory. Thanks for the lecture, Sean. I can’t wait to view your presentation at Wisconsin.
By the way, scientists are not afraid to admit what they don’t know and would patiently wait for the data to come in before making any claim, where the religious fanatics have the answers to everything even before the questions were asked. Arrogant and yet so simple minded.
Sean, 100% excellent, every word.
Cosmonut #25: “I don’t see the logical connection here. Why can a universe “that moves from moment to moment” not have intrinsic meaning or purpose ?”
Well that’s kind of misstating (or at best oversimplifying) Sean’s point. He said the laws *describe* a Universe that moves from moment to moment — you left out the primary verb. And because the laws are descriptive, they do not impart meaning. If you wish to posit some meaning then that must be either (a) not intrinsic, or (b) arising from something fundamental other than the laws of physics. But if there were something fundamental other than the laws of physics, then it would leave its mark on the material world. But if something fundamental outside of the laws of physics left its mark, then the laws would fail to describe it. So option (b) is not tenable, if the laws are descriptive.
Good point made, Richard M. The laws of science are descriptive.
and yes, Sean, excellent presentation and 100% on it. Thanks. Keep presenting and maybe someday people will understand what you are trying to say. Educate them!
I’ve heard this “you make your own meaning” song from many different people in many different places. They usually become mute when you ask them: “good, so what is yours?” Creating your own meaning is no meaning at all. Actually, “the meaning of life” doesn’t even seem to make sense from an objective point of view. Or subjective, for that matter. Enjoying life? Sure. Making the most of it? You bet. From there to meaning, though, there’s quite a long way…
I’m not saying we should all go ahead and kill ourselves. But just face that, if by “the meaning of life” we understand what everyone else does, there is no meaning and that’s that. Get over it. Move on. It happens.
It’s a well presented talk, but I think it’s probably preaching to the choir. I do not think it would persuade anyone who is determined to believe in their metaphysical entities. You are implicitly saying *if we presume naturalism* then astrology, life after death etc are bunk, but the majority of people who hold those sort of views will not presume naturalism.
“Sean should also apply his argument to 40-year old man in love with 15-year old girl and explain how that situation is different.”
You tell us how it is different.
I think the point that people are missing when Sean says “whatever meaning our lives might have must be created by us” is that human beings don’t realize how insignificant we are to : the quantum universe, the cosmological universe, or even our own planet. A lot of people think about how global warming will “destroy the planet” when it really won’t; the planet will be fine, we will be screwed. So even at the scale of classical mechanics, we’re pretty insignificant.
How does the whole of humanity throughout history effect the universe? It doesn’t. That’s the reason why our lives only possess the meaning we assign to them; because we have no effect on the laws of nature. If the whole of humanity throughout time did effect the universe, then we would have a purpose because our existence effects the laws of nature; but we strive to manipulate the mechanisms which govern the universe in order to better our lives, which means those mechanisms have purpose to us because we are bound by their limits but we have no real purpose ourselves other than the role we assign ourselves in civilization.
@Phillip #36
I did say how I thought it was different, to expand, in the case of older man and underage girl (as determined by society) the union would not be beneficial to the overall functioning of society since it would raise strong AND REASONABLE fears in many parents of their daughters’ saftety and protection in society.
Whereas with two adults of the same (or different) sex such a fear is not reasonable and so the people in society for whom it would be a problem are mostly UNREASONABLE (even irrational) people. They would benefit from education.
@Sean,
Wow, you are an atheist AND a nihilist too, which is not too surprising since one logically spirals down into the other down the drain of futility. To put it mildly, you aren’t inspiring.
@Brett #37,
Wow, you’re atheist AND a nihilist AND (by your own admission) insignificant. Why do you bother saying anything at all? When you say something is ‘pretty insignificant’, do you even know what that means? And to who? Significance has nothing to do with the physical size of an object, so comparing a human to cosmologically large phenomena is pointless. As to what effect humans have on the universe, well, if there isn’t a higher power, then we are all that we know that can give it any meaning at all with our names and stories about it, which is pretty amazing and in it’s own way ‘god like’, which is in effect cosmic purpose. What you don’t know about the universe we live in should instill some humility as to limits of our knowledge, not the presumption of our insignificance.
Brett # 37, well said. We are insignificant due to the short life span within such a vast and expanding universe. We have no effects on this universe at all except we pollute our own planet. We do assign our own roles in this society and all the laws we made up are so prescriptive and the only purpose I can see is that we do whatever it takes to keep surviving at our best and to fulfill our urges. We try to live a meaningful life and get the best out of it even though life is itself an accident with no real purpose since we can’t affect the laws of nature for they are descriptive. Sean is very inspiring and for those who said he isn’t, they just simply don’t understand the real science and they are embedded with their own fabricated glory that is so called ” religion” and “God”, ” false comforting”.
I grew up in a third world country; among the lucky ones who got to live well. Now, when I hear Carroll go on about meaning and other things I keep imagining the following: A young emaciated kid, underweight, sunken eyes, sniffing glue from a plastic bag to blunt the worse of hunger, somebody already bit him to the leftovers in the garbage dumpster. Now, I approach this kid and go, “Hey kid, what’s the meaning in your life?”
After a long, empty and silent stare I start to spew my existential drivel. “You are nothing but a bunch of atoms in a cold and indifferent universe. You see how your parents did not care for you, how society ignores the fact you exist, well, the universe is not different. There is no god, so please don’t start praying. By the way, you will die in a few weeks, and nobody will even know you existed. But don’t look so gloom, because you give meaning to your life, just think the right thoughts, and everything will be super.”
Really? Is there no surprise then why atheism will never win? It is stupid be mad at atheist for the fact we live in a meaningless universe, but it is human to hate the cheerfulness with which they embrace the fact. It takes a perniciously sheltered life, insulated from human suffering, to embrace this world view with a smile, and expect others to do the same. It is not atheists who bother me, I am one myself, but the way they smile smugly as they strip meaning away, and then look with bafflement when others do not concur.
Sean isn’t telling the important part, that we can actually influence the future via our free choices and imagination – THAT is what essentially gives meaning to our existence.
In fact, violation of Bell Inequalities shows that universe can’t possibly be deterministic in a sensible (meaningful) way, and MWI is just a childish or psychological problem with accepting fundamental probability, since the theory is identical to one that says the global wave function evolution is seeded by random jumps at the microscopic scale.
And it’s perfectly natural/sensible/sane to assume randomness at a microscopic scale whereas it is pathological to assume some kind of monstrous macroscopic splitting wave functions.
And remember, you can’t get randomness out without putting randomness in, no matter how convoluted your theory is (especially not by obfuscating decision theoretic arguments)
Regarding the old article “ghost moon”, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/10/25/ghost-moon/ here’s a wikipedia article on a rare cloud type that matches this shape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mammatus_clouds_regina_sk_june_2012.JPG
Something I noticed from the comments on here is that a lot of people seem to find meaning in hate.
I guess hating the people and things that are different from you gives you purpose just like it did for so many people throughout history. Hitler, the “god hates gays” church of assholes, racists, religious extremists of all forms etc.
But as a point to #41, I’ve seen FAR more theists (throughout history) use their religion to justify treating kids in 3rd world countries like the conditions you described. Atheists tend to appreciate and respect a person far more because they don’t believe in an afterlife; they believe that when you die your time is up and you don’t exist anymore; the computer has been turned off, the car does not run because it is out of gas; and it would be so immoral to take any of that time away from you due to some misdirected hate. I’ve never met an atheist who goes around shitting on someone when they are living a torturous life of despair. In Christianity, and other religions, they actually go out of their way to travel to 3rd world countries to feed people false hope; or they beat you to death or torture you if you don’t accept god in some parts of the world. Atheists believe in actually focusing on humanity rather than just saying so in order to win points with a fictitious deity. Find me 1 atheist who would go to someone who is about to die in minutes and tell them “you can be saved if you accept atheism into your heart before you die”. Is it any different to say “life is meaningless, and you are powerless, so let go” or “god is in control, you are powerless, let go”? It is all about your perception of reality. Life has the meaning you give it.
you are right on, Brett. Very well done. We are on the same wavelength here. Thanks.
Any organized religion is a disaster to the real humanity. It is all about power and control and dictating. Religion is just like the laws we have created, very prescriptive and serve absolutely no benefits to the humanity.
There were a few other posters who made the point that morality is likely attached to a biological/evolutionary mechanism – so I won’t dwell on that point. But as we free ourselves from the shackles of survival instinct as a guiding principle, we can indeed make our own morality.
But I wanted to point out that I think it’s because we are so tiny in this vast universe that makes us special and gives us a purpose. We know that life is rare. We haven’t found it on the moon. We haven’t (yet) found it on Mars and we know that there can only be a small portion any given solar system that could support life. And we also know that at some point, a very complex and accidental chemical reaction took place that caused protons, neutrons and electrons to arrange themselves in a way that they began reproducing and competing for resources to continue that reproduction and that competition became evolution. We also know that intelligent life has only existed on this planet for a tiny fraction of time since life itself began. So, even if there’s more out there, intelligent life is extremely special.
So, the universe created intelligent life. The universe now contains intelligence. And we are self aware, so (being part of the universe) the universe is also self-aware. So, I would argue that being the universe’s self awareness, does indeed give us meaning and purpose. And the laws of the universe endowed us with that purpose. Makes them almost seem benevolent, doesn’t it? 😉
@45,46:
Oh, come on folks, get serious! Religion is an abstract concept, like physics is. Saying that religion should be abolished since someone has abused it is like saying physics should be abolished because someone made an atom bomb, or that knives should be abolished since someone used a knife to stab someone else to death.
Religion, like any other abstract concept, is a tool (a tool for thinking about the world). How people are going to implement/use/abuse this tool is mostly the reflection of the people who do it, rather than a property of religion itself.
It is plain stupid to discard the concept of religion only because some arrogant idiots implemented it in the wrong way and (ab)used it to justify inquisition, crusades, etc. The concept of atheism can be abused in much the same way (and indeed was abused, in recent history).
@Brett #45
Have you heard of communism? Have you heard of Pol Pot?
Brett, is not that I disagree with you, I don’t, I just think you are missing the point. I often wandered why people in poor countries are so willing to accept ideologies that work against their own self interest, like the Catholic Church and its attitude towards birth control. The answer is meaning. Think of it like a drug addiction. You can tell a heroin addict: it’s bad for you, you con OD, and you can get HIV, etc. All true, but also already known by the addict. You cannot understand addiction by looking only at the negative effects. There is something about the act that makes its consequences more than worth it, in addiction that is getting high. In religion that is meaning. You can argue: religion is so stupid because it makes people do stupid things. But you can also argue: religion is so powerful because it makes people do stupid things. Those people we atheists look down at must be getting something in return for their belief, otherwise why would they be willing to do what they do? And what they get is meaning, the very one thing we take away from them. If you are a rich person, living well, healthy, with a stimulating intellectual life and a proper social environment, then meaningless may not present a problem for you. But if you are not, then the very idea of you giving meaning to your life is not only stupid, but offensive, for it clearly shows an utter disconnect on how the rest of the world lives. Our economy has its 1%, but so does our intellectual world, and both 1%s are clueless on how the rest of the world works. Why is this so difficult for most atheists to understand?
An atheist is like a doctor informing a patient of a cancer diagnosis. If I were the patient I would want to know the truth, but if my doctor told me the news with a smile on his face I would have to resist the urge to punch him in the face.