At the center of everything is nothing...

OK, for the next few days it looks like I am getting back to the original focus of this blog: stuff that makes my brain buzz. Today we are going to talk about meaning and meaninglessness, or how everything is built on nothing (or something agonizingly close to nothing).

Years ago, I showed up for a psychotherapy session. At the time, my therapist Ellen was subletting an office space from another therapist Heather. At the beginning of our session, Ellen excused herself to put a note on Heather's desk. As she put the note on the desk, her hand brushed against a pencil can on the desk, and the can fell to the floor and broke.

Ellen became upset and wrote another note to explain what had happened and offer to pay for the pencil can. We then sat down for our session. The first thing Ellen said was, "gee, I wonder why I did that? Was I subconsciously harboring some resentment towards Heather?"

Now, you should know that I have a pet peave about the tendency of therapists to see meaning in every little thing that happens. Nothing is just what it is, no person is innocent, everything done is a window into the tortured tendencies we all have lurking beneath the surface of our personalities.

I countered by telling Ellen that I thought what she did had no meaning whatsoever. She was aghast: how could it not have meaning? Surely everything has some meaning, however slight and simple. No, I responded. It is actually the existence of meaninglessness at the heart of everything that makes meaning possible.

Whoa. She didn't have the foggiest idea what I meant. Could I explain that further? So I turned to math as an allegory - to the importance of undefined terms as the basis for defined terms. I couldn't quite remember how it all worked, but I did my best to recall it. Here is a better explanation than what I was able to describe to Ellen that day.

In geometry, we have terms that are defined, and terms that are undefined. The three terms that are undefined, point, line and plane, are the building blocks for the entire discipline. Without the undefined terms, we would have no point of reference for that which is defined. However, they remain undefined, because it is impossible to define them.

I know that in microphysics, there is a similar sort of thing going on, where as we examine particles in their most basic forms, we discover that they are built on energy which is in movement. But there is nothing that can be measured or precisely located. I know less about physics so I can definitely be corrected if I am wrong, but that is what I remember. Once again, all that exists, all that we have, is built on, perhaps we could even say depends on, imprecise, non-existent things.

My therapist listened and tried to grasp what I was saying. In the end I think it all confused her and we moved on: so, Karl, how are YOU today? But I did not let the idea die. Certainly therapists are not the only ones who spend a good deal of time searching for meanings in all their actions. I continue to believe that the situation for us is analogous to what I have described in geometry and physics.

In the example of Ellen brushing the pencil can, I believe we are distinguishing between whether what she did was deliberate or accidental. If it was deliberate, then she would have been completely aware of where the pencil can was and decided to knock it over. If it was accidental, then she was probably unaware of the location of the can. This is why I find seeing meaning in everything aggravating. It presupposes some kind of all-knowing, all-seeing ability. It also presupposes that while her conscious intention was not to disturb anything on the desk, her unconscious intention was to carry out some sort of agenda against Heather, and that her consciousness was powerless to detect this agenda and intercede to prevent Heather's can from being broken.

It is all just too much to accept. It reminds me of the eleborate formulae Ptolemy came up with to explain the movement of the sun and all the planets while desperately keeping the earth at the center of the universe. This meaning-in-everything position strikes me as somewhat desperate as well - it is a way of keeping ourselves at the center of our own universes, a way of avoiding growing up, I believe.

More healthy to accept, not that we are all powerless to prevent our unconscious from acting out secret vendettas at all times, but rather that, while it is useful occasionally to investigate our motivation for doing what we do, it is also very healthy to let things go that are not central to keeping us from living happy carefree existences.

I know I am being hard on Ellen and others who share her profession. Certainly, the reason I would have sessions with a psychotherapist is because I want to examine more acutely the mysterious movements of my psyche. And certainly, when Ellen wondered about why she had knocked over the pencil can, she was at least half kidding, and probably more than willing to just accept that it was an accident. I took it more seriously than she did, perhaps because I was the one who was sensitive to this mania of looking for meaning. I may not have wanted to examine my own motivations, my own secret, subconscious intentions.

But certainly it is healthy to have a balance in this as in all things. Scientists have shown us that so much in the natural world behaves in predictable ways. We have spent a good deal of time examining how the mind deviates from that principle. Perhaps though, even in our unpredictability, we exhibit patterns that may be considered to be predictable. We do things unconsciously that are in synch with the intentions of our consciousness. And nobody gets hurt, either accidentally or deliberately.