Fellow hardline materialists, how do you "enchant" the world?
As the classical argument goes, as the metaphysical aspects of the universe were stripped away by materialism, it was disenchanted. That it became more soulless, barren, and less enjoyable. While this argument has merit, I don't think it's necessarily true.
For example, I'm a hardline materialist, meaning I don't think any metaphysical phenomenon exists, there is no afterlife, and that it's extremely unlikely a "God" exists. However, I also create dramatic and playful narratives around existence. I think of the natural laws of the universe as cold, unfeeling, grand Lovecraftian gods. I also think of the human existence, struggle, and search for warmth and meaning as an existentialist endeavor, a rebellion against this cruel and hostile cosmos. It can be likened to the narrative in Dark Souls or Berserk. A suffocatingly dark cosmos that also has warmth scattered around.
This is my way of "enchanting" these jumbled together random bits that we call a universe, and the lives lived within it. So, other hardline materialists, how do you "enchant" your life and view of the world?
I don't think it will be an issue, but just in case, please, no non-materialist answers. This topic's intention is not to debate anyone about materialism or metaphysics, but to have a conversation among a particular group of people.
I really don't. I just sweep the existential dread under the carpet while it becomes bigger as I get older.
interesting, tbh for me it's decreased a lot as I age. I remember almost having a panic attack in a high school bathroom thinking about the universe, and such moments were pretty common when I was a teenager. Now I can dismiss it within about 5 seconds with little effort.
Not sure when you started having these thoughts so maybe things will get better for you also :)
Always had, but it is worse now that I'm older and seeing more people getting sick or dying around me.
It's not the thinking about universe that gets to me, it's death and the passage of time.
Same here. Especially since I turned 40. The chronic health issues I've developed since I turned 37 haven't helped either.
I like to play a lot of games where it's not just about winning or losing, it's about style. In my opinion life is performance art. As long as I get to do some of the wild stuff I want to do, impressing those I care about and upsetting those that need to be upset, I'll have done as much as a person can hope to do. So even if dying is losing, I want to lose in a way that proves I held to my values.
You don't think the structures of the observable universe, both large and small, are infinitely enchanting by themselves? Personally, I am captivated by the beauty of the universe (and yes, its unfathomable vastness), and find it utterly delightful that such small collections of matter as ourselves are able to self-assemble, and to then have an agency that nothing else we've observed demonstrates.
I find the above much more magical than any attempt to anthropomorphise the laws of physics which are, let's face it, not cruel: simply indifferent to whether some transiently-conscious structure of its particles is created or destroyed.
I'm a life scientist, and a passionate one, so I'm obviously interested in how the universe and life work. But I do not think, in general, it's a beautiful setting for life. It definitely has beautiful and magical moments, but generally it's a very hostile and cruel place. Nature is vicious, and most animals live lives of misery, which end abruptly and early.
To quote Darwin.
This is a big part of the reason why I think of the natural laws as Lovecraftian gods. To quote an essay.
This is why universe is more Dark Souls rather than high fantasy for me. I still think it's kind of magical, but in a twisted way.
Ahh I think i see what you meant now, that it is life that's cruel and uncaring... that life itself exists is magical, but the realities of predation and parasitism are pretty unpleasant. I'd imagine most people get by with ignoring it unless they're confronted with it, and then forgetting about it as soon as they can (whether they're religious or not - perhaps Buddhism has an answer to the awful ways most animals die, but I don't think any other religion does beyond "it must be like this for a reason").
I imagine being a life scientist you're in the tough position of being constantly reminded of those unpleasant realities... what do others in your profession think/do about it, out of interest?
It's not just that other animals harm others. It's also hunger, malnutrition, scarcity. But yeah, that's the gist of it.
I have a somewhat unique perspective about this issue. I have a lot of health issues which forced and force me to confront mortality, I am a life scientist, I've had a morbid curiosity phase in the past, I read a lot philosophically pessimist literature in my life. So, all combine to give me a certain perspective. I still stand by my decision to affirm my own life, which positions me somewhere among life-affirming philosophical pessimists that say "Yeah, universe is full of suffering or devoid of meaning, but I still want to live," (e.g. Nietzsche, Camus). But I'm not sure I can say the same thing about life in general. Which is out of anyone's hands anyway. If humanity was to nuke everything to hell, life still would survive in some way and flourish again. Not to mention, Earth is just one grain of sand in a vast desert.
I can't speak about the generalizability of this with confidence, but my experience is that scientists in general aren't philosophically inclined. They are actually barely interested in fields outside of their own, even within science. So, for me, these topics never came up during conversations.
I share a similar sentiment as you do, which I think can be summarized quite succinctly as "Life is stranger than fiction". Looking at the mechanics of our universe and thinking about how these emergent properties arise from particles/waves interacting all the way up to conscious thought is absolutely awe inspiring for me.
I can watch a hummingbird with elaborate displays perform a courting ritual and get mesmerized by the sheer beauty of evolution. I can see footage of a the coordinated development of a fruit fly embryo and be captivated by the intricacies of genetics and cellular processes. I am dazzled by time scales much slower than we are used to when I consider the formation of bodies of water. I am absolutely bewitched thinking about the radiation of particles and how this is happening constantly all around, just out of sight.
So for me, the world is full of enchantment. Just because we can grasp small bits of the mechanics doesn't make it any less entrancing.
I think the thing you are looking for is not philosophy. I think you are looking for beauty.
Beauty is entirely subjective, so there is no one right answer. It's entirely subjective, so it's not something that anyone can give you.
It seems like you're looking for a romantic "imaginary dimension" beyond what you can see. Based on that I would recommend starting your search with the works and workings of your fellow human beings. Try investing some time into your community. Or try to immerse yourself in the arts. Or find a community based in the arts!
This is an angle I hadn't thought about. I do love visual, auditory, and narrative arts a lot, so it makes sense. Thanks!
I pretend. Those rock outcroppings that very vaguely could be humanoid in shape? Mountain trolls. Mossy boulder in the forest? Entrance to the faerie realm. I also have a habit of building small stick dwellings or entrances to little hidey holes when I’m out on hikes. It’s a fun bit of make believe that might also make the world a little more interesting for other people.
Maybe not quite what you’re looking for, but I also read a lot of fantasy.
Quite the contrary, it's very similar to what I do. I love fiction, and this is why I take my inspiration regarding existence from the likes of Lovecraft, Berserk, Dark Souls, and other existentialist literature. People often think only the "literary" authors are capable of philosophical reflection, but I don't agree with that. For example, Aldia's dialogue from DS2 speaks to me a lot, it's very captivating, and at times I remember his words. This happens a lot with the fiction I interact with. I experience an emotion, and then I remember a scene that touched me from a piece of fiction which made me feel a similar emotion. This elevates both that piece of fiction and the moment I'm experiencing.
I think the symbolization aspect is important to me, because I'm a huge nerd, and fiction excites me, so I bring it to the physical world too. But on a deeper level, I think it's also because fiction after all is a way of interacting with the world. It touches people in the heart, which is never isolated.
If you specifically want to exclude any conversation from people with viewpoints different than yours, would it perhaps make sense to ask this in a more specific venue? I'd also note that materialist can mean sufficiently many things that it's a potentially less than useful term at times; for example, I came into this curious to see what "enchanting" the world meant in terms of class relations. With that said, it's an interesting question.
Your view of constructing what one might describe as knowingly-fanciful narratives makes sense, but I think it raises a question of how much that encompasses, and whether at some point it becomes something not 'hardline'. It is, in some sense, reminiscent of Cat's Cradle's Bokononian "live by the foma [harmless untruths] that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy".
Yet I would speculate that the same view would include a number of religious people who, whether they admit it to themselves or not, take their religious beliefs as sufficiently metaphorical that they are effectively living by what they know are harmless untruths. Coming instead from atheism, I would now vaguely consider myself to be a Christian who does not believe in the reality of any supernatural aspect of it or the importance of the reality of any non-supernatural aspect, but still finds value in some significant portions of the narrative and in living as though I do believe some of it (I realize that many people would not consider me to be Christian). Is there a fundamental difference between that and what you do? You are viewing the world through an essentially religious, even theist, and distinctly non-materialist lens, while acknowledging that that lens is artificial. And I am not denying a fundamental materialism, or that the lens I view the world through is artificial. I am just taking from an established religious practice.
This could be contrasted perhaps with Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, which constructed ceremonial practice around believed but fundamentally non-supernatural views.
I want to clarify two points.
If there was a special place on Tildes for the group I mentioned, I would have created the topic there, but there is not. However, even with that being said, I don't think it's wrong or offensive to ask for input from a specific group in a more general subforum. It's done all the time, but since it's not about a religious topic, it's not thought of in this way. Many of these topics ask for input from specific people, whether it be about having experienced a certain thing (e.g. having a life-altering experience) or being a certain role (e.g. a parent). The kind of topic I have in mind is not different from this.
You could say that I emphasized the "No outsiders!" point too much, and I can see that. It may have a point. But it's a habit I developed throughout the years, because I found topics like this are often flooded with answers from "outgroups", if the lines aren't drawn clearly. Especially considering hardline materialists are a minority in every country in the world. This is why I exercised extra caution, which is probably partially why you took an issue with it. And while I see your point, and it's worth thinking about, at the moment I don't think it's wrong.
We probably live in very different places. In my personal life, I am lonely enough with my beliefs regarding these issues, and in this topic, I wanted to hear from like-minded people, not people I have fundamental disagreements with, who are the majority and dominate most conversations about these topics in most places anyway. I think people like me should be entitled to have these talks among ourselves, without being dominated by the majority beliefs. As it stands, I can't have that here on this site any other way, and I don't think the limits of the current structure of the site should mean that then I shouldn't create topics like this for people like me. I am silenced enough in real life, and I don't want to keep being silent here, to not make people who are the majority in real life feel slightly excluded about a specific topic.
This is a misunderstanding. I don't in any way give epistemological weight to the symbolizations I mentioned. They are not even the main lens through which I see the universe. They are symbols I sometimes think about to entertain myself, and give a symbolic face to experiences I have.
This is not much different than writing literature in general, maybe not at all. I love fiction, and this is a variety of creative fiction for me. Basically crafting fictional narratives about the existence to make it more interesting, exciting, and symbolically easier to interact with in some ways. It's why people write stories—taking elements from life and then transforming them to symbol-structures to create narratives.
Yeah I was also confused by this post's use of "materialist", given my only exposure to this term was in leftist circles. Shame, I think that version of the question would've been more interesting.
I loved reading this comment, I want you to recommend me books :0
I shift my thinking, what I consider "zooming in/out". Whatever I am thinking about, I selectively add or remove context. That baby bunny with it's mom is precious and warm and their snuggling for a little bit of time is all that exists. All context removed, it's actually super important, and special to those bunnies, and will never be experienced again. And for a short time I can let myself feel that it's a mysterious world I don't have access to, just a glimpse here and there. Yesterday I saw a dead baby scrub jay near my compost, and I spent a few minutes looking at it and wondered if it was that scrub jay mom's first baby. And if she had the capacity to look forward to milestones, and felt grief and loss at having to wait another year to try again. Or if that would make her a worse mom, more harsh, for future babies because now she knows that sometimes they just die. From this zoomed in perspective, the fact that organisms have these unique moments in their life feels pretty magical. "Does it matter?" is hard to answer because obviously no, it doesn't matter if you are zoomed out. But if you zoom way in, it matters so much! I try to hang out in the zoom in zone. Like.. One day our sun will explode and all these atoms will be something else, like what??? I can not dwell on that. It does not serve me to zoomed out that far.
I also play a lot of dungeons and dragons thsese days.
This resonates so much with me. I've posted a link to the starfish thrower before, but it might be the central tenet of my existence these days.
Studies have shown that practicing gratitude regularly is good for mental health. I like to thank The Universe when things go well. When it doesn't? Well The Universe works in mysterious ways...
If you don't mind me asking, have you always been? I might be overgeneralizing, but I noticed the line of thinking I see in your post is typical for people who grew up in an environment where it is "normal" to be a believer, and you have to "switch" to a non-default mode and then rebuild your model of reality and maybe even justify to yourself why your model differs from those who did not switch.
I am an atheist (I am using that term to signify I have no metaphysical beliefs, but I did not want to use the word "materialist" because I do not want people to think I do not care about immaterial stuff, like relationships), but I grew up in a country where the majority of people are atheists. I never understood why would a material world not be enchanting. For me, this is the default mode - the world is material and enchanting. It's like... you might believe that love is an evolutionary mechanism to make the survival of the offspring more likely, and yet be totally enchanted when you meet "the one".
If I understand correctly what you are asking about, you are referring to those feelings of awe, being profoundly touched by something, beauty... am I close? If yes, then I see zero reasons why any of this should be somehow incompatible with materialism. And I think it is simply because I grew up in an environment where those things are not associated with metaphysical explanations like religion.
Religions are self-referential interpretation frameworks. They explain things that exist on their own by themselves. It is not just the enchantment - there are other things like that, for example, justice/morality. I never believed in god and yet, I feel some things are just and other things are not - it seems obvious to me that those things are not rooted in religion (even monkeys clearly have some sense of what is just). But religions appropriated them and explain things that exist independently by themselves (as in "You are moral because your religion taught you that"). Because of that, religious people sometimes assume that non-religious people have no sense of morality, which is kind of annoying - a lot more annoying than assuming enchantment comes from religion.
I answered this in a slightly different context not long ago in this comment.
Short answer: Making meaning and connection.
I'd also add nature. The complex, nuanced relationships between everything alive and the surrounding evironment that arise from millions of years of co-evolution make this planet home in much more than a literal sense. We're made for and of this place.
We've only scratched the surface of what that looks like and already it's clear that there's more depth and connection in that story than you'll find in any metaphysical belief system.
In that way I don't see the underlying laws of the universe as cold. Our genomes have been informed by those laws for a longer span of time than we can really comprehend. They are more intimate and familiar than any lover.
You may have read that, by some estimates, bacterial cells in and on our bodies outnumber our own cells. The more we learn, the more the line between inside and outside blurs into nonexistence.
Which is to say that lack of metaphysical meaning does nothing to take away from the profoundly connected nature of being a living thing, even if we aren't consciously aware of it.
I’ve shared this before, but here’s an essay I reread sometimes. The most zoomed-out view isn’t the best view.
No cosmic meaning (David Chapman)
Thank you for posting this. I read the whole thing. I found it fascinating and helpful!
A pithy bit in a very interesting read.
I like thinking about the fact that beings exist - bits of the universe that can somehow observe themselves, whether that's me, the cat next to me, or an ant in my kitchen. How wild is that?
I'm not a materialist myself, but I would venture that materialism is only "unmagical" if you have a very narrow notion of what matter is or can be. It would only take reading some Greg Egan to fix that. Or Greg Bear.
When I read Blood Music, everywhere I looked I imagined bundles of cells doing all kinds of crazy shit. It was way more magical than any "magic" I could conceive. Remembering that book, it all comes back again!
This is not entirely relevant, but, in philosophy, metaphysics is about the principles that govern reality. It isn't limited to the modern meaning of the word, which seems exclusively about the spiritual world.
I tap into the placebo effect, which does have benefit even if you know that it's a placebo. I collect crystals and burn incense and make spell jars and I know that if those things have any impact than it's 100% psychological, but it feels good and it's not hurting anyone.
Our ability to exist when we do is pretty darn magical. The probability of every single event aligning to this moment is basically an impossibility.
I guess my point is our existence is magical enough. The base purposelessness of it is a side effect that our intelligence generally negates by trying to understand what we need to do to exist better, such as forming societies, developing them, etc. Nihilism never bothered me because to me purposelessness is the default state of existence, at least beyond the four Fs (feeding, fighting, fleeing and mating).
I think looking at the likelihood of a given outcome and the fact that something beat the odds is enough, and we won on a ton of gambles across billions of years.
This is real big picture stuff, but if you're thinking about the nature of existence you're already thinking on this scale, or at least on the road to it. In a sense I feel truly "enlightened" when I stop to think about the means by which we came to exist, and am filled with an existential glee when confronted with the notion that we never had a reason to exist, we are simply here and must do what we can with it. This "enlightenment" is separate from any metaphysical/philosophical systems I engage with, qnd more a strong sense of joy knowing my place as an insignificant speck in an uncaring universe, and that I exist despite living in a universe that is demonstrably averse to this outcome.
I guess I just don't think about it too much or too deeply.
We exist, and it's only as a result of billions of years of circumstance that we do. If I look at an event and ascribe it any more cosmic importance than any other event I would be grasping at straws to try and discover something that just isn't there.
There is no shame, to me, in saying "I don't know". There is no shame in saying "I might never know". I have fully accepted the fact that there are some things about life and the universe that we probably won't figure out anytime soon, certainly not during my lifetime. There's nothing terrifying or off-putting or existential about it for me, it's just... Life.
With this in mind, it's not very hard for me to appreciate the little and simple things in life. Eating something nice, going for a walk in nature, etc. It really is enough. I will die one day, and there's probably nothing afterwards, but the world will still exist as will the people who I have affected, and they're the ones who really matter in the end. If I can live my life being kind to other people, maybe make them laugh sometimes, that's all the magic I really need.
I’m also a life scientist and a materialist. As others mentioned, I find “enchantment” through beauty. I adore fractals, whether in the nature of a garden displayed in branches or the nature of a computer algorithm displayed on a screen—I actually equate the two as the same. Physical constants are the distillations of beauty in different forms: phi, pi, c and all the other Greek letters.
If I had to commit to a religion, it would be one of the polytheisms. I think it’s analogous to physical constants at a less abstract level, and also applicable to social and psychological phenomena. I would still take a materialist view here: not taking the Gods literally but rather as distillations of the beauty in the world.
Is not the wonder of how the world is enchantment enough? How matter forms and what not? The beauty of the Milky Way Galaxy?
Have you read Anathem?