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If nothing will matter in a million years, does anything matter now?

Baraka Mwakyusa Contributor
· 4 replies
Meaning of lifeAnalyticThomas Nagel#absurd#beginner#cosmic-perspective#nagel
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Its coordinates: 6.21 Meaning in Life

My cousin is studying astronomy at the university. At Sunday lunch she told us that one day the sun will swell up and swallow the earth, so in the end nothing any of us does will matter. My uncle (the one who quotes Nyerere) said that in that case she could help in the shop, since her studies don't matter either. Everybody laughed but I could not stop thinking about it.

I looked it up and found an essay by Thomas Nagel called "The Absurd" (1971). If I understood him, he says this argument proves too much. If nothing we do now will matter in a million years, then nothing that will be true in a million years matters now either, including the fact that nothing we do now will matter then.

So two questions, simple answers please:

  1. Is that a real answer, or a clever trick?
  2. If the million years can't make life absurd, why does Nagel still think life is absurd? What is his real reason?

We have a proverb, haba na haba hujaza kibaba: little by little fills the measure. My cousin says the measure gets swallowed too.

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4 answers

  1. Giulia Ferrante

    Fellow

    It is a real answer, but to the argument, not to the feeling. The argument says: things matter only if they matter later. Nagel points out that "later" is just another time, with no more authority than now.

    His real reason for absurdity is different. We take our lives seriously, choosing careers and worrying about our children, yet we can always step back and see all that seriousness as arbitrary, as if from outside. We cannot stop doing either. That collision, not the size of the universe, is the absurd. And his advice at the end is to meet it with irony rather than heroism or despair.

  2. Wanjiru Njenga

    Fellow

    I deal with this at work in a dull form. Any model that looks far enough ahead rounds almost everything to zero. That doesn't mean small things are worthless. It means you are measuring at the wrong scale.

    A life is lived at the scale of years and people. Measured at that scale, helping in your uncle's shop and passing an astronomy exam both show up clearly. Your cousin has simply chosen a ruler on which nothing can be read.

  3. Baraka Mwakyusa

    Contributor

    So the million years is not an argument, it is a place to stand, and I can choose not to stand there all the time. And the absurd is me taking myself seriously while knowing I could stop. I can live with that. I will tell my cousin about the ruler. My uncle will want the irony.

  4. Nuwan Perera

    Contributor

    Baraka, my daughter asked the same at our table after a science programme. I gave her what the monk at our temple gives: everything conditioned passes away, the sun too. In the Buddha's teaching that is the starting point, not the bad news at the end.

    It does not mean nothing matters. It means nothing lasts, which is different. The Dhammapada says the sage moves through the village the way a bee takes nectar, without harming the flower's colour or scent. The bee does not ask whether the flower will be there in a million years. It matters to the bee and to the flower now.

    Your proverb is right. The measure gets swallowed, yes. But it was full.