Logic of Absurdity

Last blog I focused on the sense that logic has wider application to life than the cold, calculating, factually based conception it is generally given. I want to say that it has graver consequences for one's understanding of not just one's context, but one's being. There is an existential character to logic which is rarely, if ever, talked about.

One place that the gravity of logic is important is that of the absurd. But to just say the 'absurd' in this way is to abstract it from a possible context where absurdity arises. The absurdity I'm referring to here is one that has the ability to crush one's meaning that s/he has to life and is an expression of a person's reaction to some horrible situation of life where they lose all hope, all meaning with respect to life. One gruesome outcome is that the person chooses to end their life. Here the absurd has a powerful logic that forces an outcome upon a person; that is, the only reasonable thing that a person sees about life is an end to it. One expression of this is, 'why am I here if there's nothing to live for?' Another is, 'there's no point to life; we all just die without ever knowing what it's all for,' and so forth.

This is a serious challenge to contemplative philosophy; that is, a philosophy that wonders at life and looks to bring out the sense, the meaning, the logic, of whatever it is that it contemplates. For the implication of absurdity, at its most subtlest, is skepticism of the possibility of sense, of logic, of meaning. The subtle suggestion in 'why am I here if there's nothing to live for' seems to be one of serious doubt that there is any meaning in life so that living is necessary to any degree. And if one sees 'no point to life because we all die without ever know what it's all for' strongly suggests that we can a) never know, and b) don't know already.

At this level, the person does not seem able to think of the possibility that his/her life is showing meaning at present. Oddly, for this person, the question doesn't seem to arise as to why s/he thinks that life must be going towards some ultimate goal. Should it? Is meaning of life constrained to some future perfection that will evidently complete some ideal notion the person as in mind? It seems that life's meaning can also be found at present, not because one has reached some terminus 'now', but because there can be importance in the now, in perhaps the love one has for a child or a companion, the happiness of the moment of sharing a care with a friend, in helping someone with an extreme difficulty.

But the skeptic may ask why these moments are important. Perhaps s/he sees life as movement towards some perfect ultimate - the question of 'why' here would be a question worth asking of the skeptic. But one can't be sure that there is a perfect ultimate. This premise of being unsure leads to the possible 'and since it hasn't been proven, and now because this certain situation has arisen (ex: loss of a close friend, a relative, a brother or sister; tragedy of life or limb; a victimization), life has no meaning.'

Pause for next blog.