The Meaning of Life - Richard Taylor

Preface:

Sometimes people ask me why I study Philosophy or how it affects me as a religious person.  I am a Christian and a large part of what I study is secular, and in many writings, there will be some aggressive and blatant anti-religious sentiments.  Richard Taylor’s book Good and Evil contains those thoughts, and in many ways, when I read through them, there are some parts that I feel slightly offended when my views seem misrepresented in his writings but at the same time, there are many views that I misrepresent on many things.  My answer is that studying philosophy has given me a better perspective on why people believe what they believe and has taught me to be more humble in approaching such debates or discussions.  As I encourage those of different beliefs to try and get a better understanding of the worldview based on Christianity, I try my best to get a better understanding of others.

Summary:

Richard Taylor (1919-2003) in a selection from his book Good and Evil talks about a way to address the ever-looming question of whether life has any meaning.  He addresses that the question may itself be an unintelligible question but he says that it is important to contemplate and arrive at a significant answer.  Taylor goes about this task by discussing the ancient myth of Sisyphus.  He talks about what the myth is trying to convey to us and brings up some interesting variations he comes up with to alter our views on the meaningless existence of Sisyphus.

Sisyphus, in Greek mythology, was a king who was condemned by the gods to roll a stone to the top of a hill just to see it roll back down, again and again, forever.  Taylor says that, in this, we can see a clear depiction of a meaningless existence.  Many people have interpreted this myth as such saying that it symbolizes our struggle and insatiable thirst to move forward even with overwhelming discouragement.  Taylor points out that it isn’t because his struggle is so great that we find his existence as meaningless: it’s because there’s no meaning to his being or what he does.  Even though you take away the struggle of rolling up a heavy rock and replace that with a pebble going up a gentle hill, there’s still no change in how we view his life.  He’s still stuck rolling it up forever and the pebble will still roll down whenever he finishes the task.  Taylor also mentions that the perpetuity is not the issue here: the issue is that his efforts come to nothing.

Taylor considers a few alterations from this scenario, now that we’ve established that Sisyphus’ life has no meaning.  First off, what if the rocks didn’t roll back down but instead were assembled at the top to build a beautiful and enduring temple.  The aspect of meaningless, in that case, would disappear: his labour wouldn’t be pointless.  One could say that it’s not worth the struggle, but one could not say that the life of Sisyphus lacks any meaning.  Second variation Taylor suggests is if the gods gave him an insatiable thirst and desire to roll rocks uphill.  Without altering any physical aspect of the myth, Taylor suggests we contemplate the scenario where the gods mercifully gave him a “perverse” irrational impulse to keep rolling rocks.  Whereas the original myth would have us say that death would be preferable to what Sisyphus has to go through, just by changing his state of mind, there’s a huge shift in how we view this situation.  Now that he embraces the task and it’s the only thing he is obsessed about, it could be viewed not as a curse but as a blessing that Sisyphus is allowed to do what he wants to do for eternity.  He lives a desire fulfilling life with mission and meaning.

Taylor defines meaninglessness as the following: “Meaninglessness is essentially endless pointlessness, and meaningfulness is therefore the opposite.”  When it comes to our lives, we exert prejudice and our wishes onto what may be ultimately viewed similar to the life of Sisyphus.  Taylor looks at the lives of other animals such as the luminous worms inside a cave in New Zealand.  These worms sit there to attract insects and entrap them for nourishment.  This goes on for months until the larva transforms itself to a tiny winged adult that lives for a day or two.  As soon as these adults lay eggs, they’re caught by the other cannibalist worms and eaten.  You can see this kind of meaningless toil for existence in all organisms, and Taylor concludes that, “the point of any living thing’s life is, evidently, nothing but life itself.”

Are we so different?  We struggle and toil after goals and most of them of transitory significance.  Once we get there, we just set another goal and move on as if the previous goal had never been achieved.  Just by looking back at the past, we can see that the great houses and temples that were built have mostly been demolished or in ruins.  If the people who once lived in those houses or built those temples could see what has become of their labor, they would not be greatly pleased with how their work has turned out.  Taylor argues that just as a meaning was seen when Sisyphus was given the compulsion to roll the stone, we should see that the point to living is “simply to be living, in the manner that it is his nature to be living.”  Taylor concludes that whether or not anything significant results from our labor is irrelevant; the meaning is in the strive itself rather than what may or may not come out of.

My Thoughts:

What is the meaning of life?  Taylor establishes the meaning by looking at what we can come to consensus on as a meaningless life and by trying to make it no longer meaningless.  However, can we actually agree that by changing the state of mind of Sisyphus, he suddenly has a meaning to his existence?  His situation is no longer completely depressing or dismal but does his desire and the act of desire-fulfillment give his life a meaning?  I know I’m posing a lot of questions but as Gary North would say, a good question is worth many statements.  I cannot agree with almost any conclusions that Taylor draws in this selection.  I still fail to see any meaning in any of the scenarios or alterations of the myth.  This world and this life in itself has no meaning.  If we believe in a purely physical world without the possibility of the metaphysical realm or being, we’re just an ever-decomposing organic life form.  What we achieve in this life, as Taylor says, is transitory but it seems Taylor is the one who implements his wishful views to try and fabricate a meaning to our existence.

I don’t think it’s wrong for us to strive for happiness.  I don’t think it’s wrong to put a value on what we do.  However, if we wish to say that the results of our labor hold no ultimate value, we must acknowledge the action itself holds no ultimate value.  It might mean something to us, such as self-fulfillment, but is that what was asked when a person asks, “what is the meaning of life?”  This almost seems like the mistake of equivocation where Taylor is using 2 different definitions of “meaningfulness” to try and establish some significance to our existence.  From this point, we can live our lives satisfied with meaninglessness or we can search for a meaning outside of our existence.