So what's the fuss about Sisyphus?
Nov 26 2005 | Views 480 |
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So what’s the fuss about Sisyphus?
“I think therefore I am”
René
Descartes immortalized those rationalistic words inspiring millions of
people to go about imitating Rodin’s masterpiece. Five words which may
work on so many levels. “I think” and so I have a
meaning, a feature different from animals. I can make my own decisions
and can change my life’s course and that’s precisely why I do
meaningfully exist, “therefore I am”.
Or for that matter, I don’t know whether “I am” or not but “I think I am”
and thus I exist. If I wish to think that I’m not then I can think it
away. Like heat, cold, pain. They exist because I think they do. My
senses send me the signals. I think those signals signify something and
thus I feel them. I think whatever I am and feel.
Let’s just divert to Cosmology. The weak anthropic principle which says “I am” and “I think I am” because “I am”. Simplifying it would read as, “this
place around me needs to be perfect in a chaotic universe because it
had to be perfect for me to be able to think this thought”. If the energy or density had varied by even a fraction of a percentile,
then this place wouldn’t be as it is and we wouldn’t be here observing it.
But is everything that easy. Aren’t we humans just here. “We are” and that’s it. Our existence doesn’t make a difference. We exist, period. “Our existence precedes our essence”.
We come into the world, live out our parts and exit. What we do with
our lives is up to us. Our choices and beliefs are our own, without the
aid of universal moral standards. And here we have the existential
train of thought of Nietzsche, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Søren
Kierkegaard.
Their
own philosophies, be it Nietzsche with his Übermensch or Sartre with
his atheistic existentialism, each make sense. But does it ever answer
the question, “Why?” They aren’t irrationalists. In
fact they believe that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible,
but most questions in life have no rational answers.
Maybe
we are just the next step in Darwin’s evolutionary process. A sudden
development in evolution. Like the first fish which could breathe
oxygen, we are the first species which can think. This sets us apart
and humility fades as we pride ourselves on this accomplishment.
Descartes almost proves right here. Does Darwin now logically expect a
rising mental evolution? Physically we’ve evolved more or less to a
well defined body with sufficient appendages to suit our needs and
place us on top of the food chain. It’s the mental part which is left.
That’s
where Nietzsche’s Übermensch (literally Overman or Superman) comes in.
He’s a human who is superior to the others and helps humanity to
proceed on the correct path. People
like Jesus, Socrates, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Goethe,
Julius Caesar and Napoleon who were ahead of their time and helped the
rest catch up with the future. The kind of people Shaw hints at in Man
and Superman and Ayn Rand describes in Howard Roark and John Galt.
But
then is that it? Or should we finally come back to the mysterious
Sisyphus who hogs the title. Will the supermen of this world finally
take over? Or is the chaos surrounding us too dense? “Human beings are not absurd, and the world is not absurd, but for humans to be in the world is absurd”.
A French Algerian made this statement and distanced himself from his
fellow French philosophers of the existential school of thought. Simone
de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre’s feelings were slightly out of sync
with “Absurdism”.
Albert Camus found humans capable of correct reasoning, rational
thought and order whereas the world offered irrationality and chaos.
The meaning to life was that there was no meaning.
Poor
Sisyphus may have been condemned to roll up the heavy rock forever but
he did the job with a unique happiness. He realized that the job was
meaningless as was his life and as soon as he realized it, he was
uplifted. So is the case with the protagonist in Camus’ ‘L’étranger’ (The Stranger) and the ultimate realization of the absurdity of it all delivers him of his doubts.
Wouldn’t
it be called overly pessimistic? Sheer optimism has led man to ask
millions of questions and finding answers to most of them, but the
important ones still exist and a conclusive answer or proof doesn’t
seem likely. We get a feeling that maybe the answer is not supposed to
be known. Maybe that is what keeps him ticking. The ultimate questions
that seek answers remain a mystery and humans go on creating little
challenges, overcoming them and living their life. The answer is like
the speed of light. A value one can almost reach, but the closer you
reach the more difficult it gets and that speed remains as elusive as
“the answer”.
An
analogy of Bill Watterson summarises it quite well. A sled bearing his
heroes starts, hurtles at breakneck speed and ends with a big bang.
Speaking of which, if our universe ultimately does culminate in a big
crunch (unless the no-boundary theorists are right), then that’s the end and impossible though it seems, there it is! Finito, kaput!
Seems rather futile, thinking of a question with no satisfactory answer except perhaps the enterprising existential reply,
“Why not?”
© Aditya Dutta Roy., all rights reserved.
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