Uncountably many

Reflections on the incomprehensibly large number of people that exist 

I travel around on trains quite a lot. And one thing that always strikes me is the sheer number of houses I see as I flit by - in their hundreds, thousands, in every town and city. Not that there are an inappropriate number - I'm sure that there are approximately the right amount of houses for the people who need to live in them. But it's unsettling.

Because in every one of those houses, there will be people. This is not surprising, as there are several million people in the country, and they have to live somewhere. But the number of people is merely a statistic, as easily ignored as national debt or a famine death count; we are accustomed to hearing large numbers and used to ignoring them, of not seeing their true significance.

not actually taken from a train. obviously

The thing is, every one of those houses contains unique, individual people, each with their own lives, a full back story, an identity, hopes for the future. To glimpse briefly one house, its back garden open to the train tracks and strewn with children's toys, is to realise that it has real, live inhabitants, as real as myself or anyone I know. Theirs will be a house full of possessions, items of varying utility and consequence, the detritus that gathers around human life. I think of my house, filled with so many objects, each with its own meaning, a collection of memories accumulated over decades - this seems normal, it is right that my house should be so full of personal history... and yet, so will the house of this unknown, unseen family, and every other; rich histories that make up real people's lives, but totally unknown. This is difficult to grasp, the enormous quantity of stuff that exists out there, meaningful to some and unknown to the rest.

An instant later, the house is gone, disappearing into the distance as the train speeds on, to be replaced by more, similar yet still unique, innumerably many stretching beyond the horizon. It's strange to think I am not likely to look upon it again, to notice it amongst all the others; and that its inhabitants I will never meet, and know of them only by implication of the building they inhabit. A piece of momentary scenery, hiding whole existences utterly unknown, to me and almost everyone else, but lived out as fully and purposefully as any other.

That, I find, is what's difficult to fully comprehend. The physical amount of brick and steel that make up houses is itself vast, but quantifiable; the gargantuan amount of material that make up these millions of homes is all just so much inert matter. But for so, so many living, breathing, individual humans to inhabit them seems unbelievable, almost too far fetched to be true. Given the immense (and largely unremembered) detail that makes up my own life, can it really be possible that such complexity is replicated millions, billions, of times?

This is why it's so hard to understand the meaning of large numbers of people. Thousands die every day from preventable causes, but a nation's heart is captured by stories of individuals, personal narratives to which we can easily relate; an incongruity that makes tackling humanity's larger problems so difficult.  The world's population has reached seven billion - but what is that, other than just a billion more than it was last time we checked? To try and think of them all as people is impossible - not only because we can't really visualise what a one and nine noughts actually represents, but because it just seems so much beyond imagining, that this many individual lives can actually be happening, right here, right now, as real and detailed as our own. If truly contemplating the existence of all the people implied by my view from the train is daunting, to remember that this is a tiny, insignificant fraction of the humanity that's out there is dizzying indeed. I might just look away from the window for a while.

My life has no meaning - and that's just fine

The absence of a meaning of life is what sets us free

The meaning of life is something which has bothered humanity for as long as we've been around to be bothered. Generations of philosophers, theologians, artists and poets have debated, with little progress either way, what the point of it all is; with answers ranging from it all being part of a divine plan, to a quest for enlightenment or a journey of self discovery.

However, as we come to understand more about the physical world, our relatively minor role in it, and our origins, it is becoming apparent that there probably is none.  As the product of a few billion years of disinterested evolution, clinging to an unremarkable ball of damp rock revolving though a cold and uncaring universe, the conclusion that there is no actual meaning or significance to our existence is scientifically the most likely explanation.

This is dealt with in various ways - from outright nihilism to the focus on experience and absurdity of existentialism, to the more optimistic outlook of humanism; and in a lot of the more progressive outlooks with which I am most familiar, this is not much of a problem.  However, far from being something we have to come to terms with - some affront to our existence which we must learn to bear - I see this as the best situation in which we could find ourselves.

Consider for a moment that at some point, from some divine revalation, deep philosophical insight or profound scientific discovery, we had found the actual meaning of life, and understood our true reason for existing.  I really, really don't like the thought of this.  Why?

Because it would mean we have a purpose.

Think of what that would entail: we would know what it is we are supposed to do. Yes, we may rid ourselves of all that existential angst, the endless pondering over the point of it all, but at what cost? It doesn't matter what this meaning actually is, to know that there is one would be a terribe, crushing blow to our sense of identity, as well as a threat to the delicately balanced social structure we have built. We'd know exactly what we were here for, what it is that some undefined being/process had intended for us, and that if we did not fulfil said task, we were failing in our mission as human beings. Irrespecitive of what we, as intelligent creatures, think we ought to be doing, we would have irrevocable knowledge that this does, or does not, fit in with the plan.

That, I think, would certainly take a lot of the pleasure out of life; and it's not simply for the joy of the chase, the pleasure we take in pondering these deep questions - rather that when we are free to do as we think best, we know that we are doing things our own way, for our own reasons, for better or worse. The way I see it, making the most of our brief existence, and striving to improve ourselves and our environment, is an essential part of what it means to have a fulfilling life, and I would hate to find out that this is somehow contrary to some pre-determined intention (conversely, I'd also be disappointed to know that that is the plan, again because then we are reduced merely to following instructions, not living for ourselves). Life would basically be reduced to a case of "that's what it's all about then - better get on with it".

The need to be free of any particular plan is all the more apparent when considering some of the alternatives to the absence of a meaning.  The Christian tradition, for example, posits that our meaning is for the glory of God, that we are his creations and are here pretty much for his amusement and adoration - I've written about how I'm not too happy with this vision of reality before, but my point here is that if indeed there is such a meaning, it would surely be a horrific thing to know. It would mean that all our efforts are pretty much for nothing, other than as a service to some incomprehensible and ineffable being. The Judeo-Christian tradition is perhaps a rather easy target in this regard, but the same applies to less dictatorial religious viewpoints, which stress personal enlightenment, relvalation and one-ness - such as Buddhism, Zen or Hinduism: if that really is the meaning, then our efforts must presumably be focused on it, and any other endeavours (such as art, science, exploration, love) are ultimately a waste of time.

This brings me to my central objection to any externally imposed meaning of life: that without it, we have done rather a lot of awesome stuff. The past few thousand years have seen us advance astronomically (literally) from our humble hunter-gatherer origins, being capable of sublime works of art and continually going beyond our current capabilities, reaching for the stars, and gaining a greater understanding of ourselves. Certainly, some of this has been tied into mistaken ideas of what it's all about (religious architecture and music can't be ignored), or directly as a desire to find out (after all, "why?" is the primary scientific question) - but I'm sure that a lot of our achievements come directly from this sense of freedom, this ability to choose our goals for ourselves, that comes of not having any set direction.

My point is that we need not burden ourselves with searching for a meaning of life, nor should we be compelled to assign "bettering ourselves", "pursuit of knowledge", "helping our fellow human" or other noble goals as our 'purpose' in lieu of a definitive answer - there simply is no meaning. We must embrace this, since instead we get to decide our own fate, to do what we think is right purely because it is us that it affects: to be the architects of our own future and be judges of ourselves, as a species, on our own merits for our own sake. I'd say we've done pretty well at that so far.