Does Meaning Come From Mattering? | Rebecca Goldstein

0:00 Rebecca, after living with mattering for literally decades,

0:05 when you were actually writing the book, The Mattering Instinct,

0:08 which which I loved, I think it's a very important book,

0:11 when you were writing it, did anything surprise you?

0:16 Yes.

0:17 Um so surprised that uh it um uh that it uh made me doubt the whole thing.

0:27 Which was it seemed to explain so much.

0:31 Yeah.

0:32 It it so far reaching and I thought,

0:35 what have I become some kind of um you know, I don't know uh obsessive,

0:40 you know, you know, like you know,

0:43 give a person a hammer, they see a nail every place, right?

0:47 So I Yes, it it is that is the Yeah,

0:53 that was the aspect that that surprised me and that um um

0:59 that that that that that that impeded my writing the book because

1:04 That's really interesting.

1:04 I can understand that.

1:06 Yeah.

1:06 Yeah.

1:07 Um I was But ultimately ultimately you did and the what you present is

1:13 a a new framework for understanding human mentality and and you know,

1:19 to to an analytic philosopher, that that's scary because you're very you

1:24 would criticize that and then everybody else.

1:26 Exactly.

1:27 Exactly.

1:28 Exactly.

1:29 And of course as an an analytic philosopher,

1:31 you know, when self-critical capacity has been trained, right?

1:36 And over the And and so yeah, that this was the thing that really slowed me up

1:41 because I was really over 40 years ago that I began

1:45 to think about the the germ of this of this what

1:48 I I guess I have to call a theory though again,

1:51 I'm so nervous about that word theory but um yeah.

1:57 Well, I I'm I'm I'm happy you did and it it

2:00 it doesn't matter whether it's the ultimate theory of of human

2:05 understanding because it is it it it it will become

2:09 one of them and and I mean you're making a point.

2:11 You may you may be overstating it.

2:14 Yes.

2:15 That's fine but you're you are stating it and it and and and it's out

2:19 there for others to consider along with other

2:21 people who have made foundational theories but I

2:25 I I think that's I think that's a a problem as you said but I

2:30 think it's a good problem and I'm happy

2:31 you did it just as a personal expression.

2:35 Oh, thank you.

2:35 Thank [laughter] you.

2:37 We are so complicated that we there are so many frameworks in which you

2:41 can understand us and so this is not to exclude any of these other frameworks,

2:46 it's just introduce another.

2:48 Right and I think that's terrific.

2:49 Did you have any changes of views?

2:51 Any you know, in specific as you were writing?

2:54 Yeah, you know, um I thought out of transcenders, what I call transcenders,

3:02 the religious way of trying to uh to um

3:08 minister to our what I call our our mattering

3:12 instinct um and and I and I thought about um and this was very personal to me

3:21 um I I was raised to in a religious household and I believed it when I was

3:28 young and and I I I I I no longer I had doubts and I threw it off.

3:34 Um And then what I realized uh in in thinking about this um was

3:40 that it wasn't just the doubts that made

3:42 me um temperamentally unsuited to be religious.

3:50 It is that just as religious people want to live

3:55 in a world that has a transcendent being who gives them purpose.

4:01 Um I have a um such a mind that I

4:05 want to live it enhances my living in this world

4:08 and it enhances my joyfulness in living in this world

4:12 to think that the laws of nature can explain everything.

4:15 I get joy out of thinking that there is a final

4:20 theory of everything that we may never reach but that explains everything,

4:26 even explains why the laws of nature are the laws of nature

4:30 um explains everything and explains why there's something rather than nothing.

4:35 The the kind of thing that Stephen Hawking talks

4:37 about at the end of A Brief History of Time.

4:39 That kind of theory that would explain everything.

4:42 I it as much joy as transcenders get out of living

4:47 in a world in which there is an almighty being who created us,

4:51 I get joy out of thinking that the laws

4:53 of nature are an explanation onto themselves.

4:57 In a sense they're both the same thing

4:58 because both of them are an an ultimate explanation.

5:01 Yeah.

5:01 Yeah.

5:02 Yeah.

5:02 Yeah.

5:02 And this of course, you know, the thing that I'm talking about is what

5:05 Spinoza meant by Dea C Way Natura, you know,

5:09 that which to your point, you know, there's there's almost you know,

5:14 but that there is a final explanation of of everything.

5:17 For me, I like to think it's the laws of nature not

5:20 that they were um dictated by something outside of nature but by nature itself.

5:27 I mean so that was that was a new way of thinking and that it's not just,

5:31 you know, I know that I think that you like like like me,

5:36 great admirer of Bertrand Russell.

5:39 Um and you know, Bertrand Not not his personal life but his philosophy.

5:42 Not his personal life, that's right.

5:44 Um but you know, the clarity of his thinking and you know,

5:47 when he was asked um you know, what if you when you die,

5:50 you you find out that you were wrong,

5:52 that there really is a a creator of the universe and he said,

5:56 you know, that he would say, "Oh Lord,

5:58 why did you not provide more evidence?" Um And that you know,

6:03 and I realized, you know,

6:04 it it's it's not that kind of um motive for me that makes me non-religious.

6:11 It's um it's the joy of thinking

6:15 that uh that that nature itself can explain itself.

6:21 It is in in Spinoza's terms, causa sui,

6:23 the the the the the explanation of itself.

6:26 Yeah.

6:27 I I I I would I would I would divide the world differently.

6:30 I would divide the world in terms of those people who who

6:33 need a a sense of ultimate metaphysical concl- uh uh a conclusion Yeah.

6:43 way or the other.

6:45 Um and a and and I would classify you,

6:49 you may not like this, as a transcender because

6:52 you are you are you really want an ultimate explanation.

6:57 I do want an ultimate explanation.

6:58 And that that to me is is is very important and you

7:01 think you're you're a deeper transcender

7:03 because you've thought very hard about it.

7:04 Most religious transcenders are just there

7:08 because they're there uh by happenstance

7:11 or birth or culture or whatever but you're a real transcender in my opinion.

7:17 [laughter] Okay.

7:17 I'll have to think about that.

7:18 Okay.

7:19 All right.

7:19 All right.

7:20 Um uh what's the what are the similarities

7:23 and differences between mattering as you've defined it and meaning?

7:27 Yeah.

7:28 Yeah.

7:29 Yeah, so it's another concept.

7:31 The the meaning of life, you know, which I could never get my head around.

7:35 Like what could that you know,

7:37 I know understand what the meaning of a proposition is,

7:39 the meaning of a theory is, right?

7:41 I couldn't and I could never get my head around this.

7:44 Now I think I this has given me a way to think about it.

7:48 So to me this mattering, which I go into great depth depth trying to explain,

7:53 you know, what what it means and why we want to matter,

7:58 um and how it it it uh how

8:02 it's realized in our lives by these mattering projects,

8:05 gives me a way of understanding meaningfulness.

8:09 Um to me base meaningfulness is for me a secondary concept.

8:14 I derive it from Okay, that's very very significant cuz I I was going

8:19 to follow up by asking you to distinguish the mattering instinct,

8:22 which is your primary approach to mattering with the Victor

8:29 Frankl's a man's or humanity's search for meaning.

8:32 I don't want to be sexist in his title.

8:34 Right.

8:35 So that to me was a a foundational way of thinking

8:40 about reality which has motivated me greatly in life, that book.

8:45 Yeah.

8:45 Written as result of his experience

8:48 as a Holocaust victim in concentration camps and coming

8:52 out of that developing a theory called

8:54 logotherapy but the the fundamental driver for him

8:59 was was a the search for meaning and those people who had some kind

9:03 of meaning were able to survive

9:05 in the concentration camps and whatever his theories were.

9:08 Yeah.

9:08 So how how does Frankl's meaning articulate with your mattering?

9:13 Yeah.

9:14 So um you know, I I I I I think uh it's a different language.

9:19 I think the they're they're very similar in some in some way

9:24 that deeper than than this need for meaning is you know, deeper, yes.

9:32 Uh you know, the real existential need here

9:36 is uh this recognition that we matter an awful

9:39 lot to ourselves and wanting to justify

9:41 this and we we we have a mattering project,

9:44 I would say um if our mattering project is serving us well,

9:51 uh then there's a sense of meaning in our lives.

9:55 Um so that you know, I I just I generate this notion

9:59 of meaning out of this whole theory of mattering.

10:02 I I I think this is terrific.

10:04 Whether I agree with it or not doesn't make any difference,

10:06 but I think it's really important that that you take this stand that mattering

10:12 is the foundational approach and you build

10:14 it on the biology of entropy and biology

10:18 opposing entropy and then the self-mattering in terms of the biology and then

10:24 the mattering instinct and and then

10:27 from that can come the the aspect of meaning.

10:32 Um, whether that's right or not I it does to me

10:36 that that foundational way of thinking

10:38 is a really important contribution, honestly.

10:40 Yeah.

10:40 It was for me, you know, I as I said,

10:43 I could never get my It seemed mushy to me, you know, meaning and you know,

10:49 and but this way it feels there's something um I don't know,

10:56 some more substance to it.

10:58 Um How how did Spinoza's conatus affect your approach to mattering?

11:08 Very much.

11:10 Very much.

11:11 In fact, I I feel as if uh My brain

11:16 has been marinating in Spinoza for for so long.

11:22 Um And that and and that that this as the way this this theory,

11:30 if I can call it, developed had a lot to do with that.

11:35 And so he has a notion of conatus, which is really the notion of self-mattering.

11:42 Um, it's very very central in in my thinking.

11:47 Um, but where I feel like Spinoza didn't go all the way.

11:53 You know, he wants to generate ethics from conatus to, you know,

11:57 being being true to our own conatus, our own self-mattering, our own

12:03 To persist in our own being.

12:06 That's right.

12:07 That that what we are is are a system that wants

12:10 to persist in our own being and to to thrive,

12:13 which all is true and Spinoza came before,

12:18 obviously, the second law of thermodynamics,

12:20 before the theory of natural selection, but somehow he intuits this.

12:25 You know, there there and and if anything these theories,

12:28 these scientific discoveries since him,

12:31 strengthen a many many of his prescient intuitions.

12:36 But what he doesn't I I feel I don't know,

12:41 audacious saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway.

12:45 Um You always do.

12:48 [laughter] Um, you know I like that.

12:51 I like that.

12:52 That was a compliment.

12:54 Um, you know, it it's what he doesn't see is that we humans

13:01 we're we're not just running on conatus the way all living things are.

13:08 But that we are running on what makes us so different

13:12 and makes us in need of a book like Spinoza's ethics.

13:18 That is what that we want values.

13:20 We want to know if we're living this life right.

13:23 Um, is that we we we we take conatus one step further.

13:28 We want to justify it in our own case.

13:31 You know, I mean yes,

13:33 of course I have this great impetus to to continue to persist in my being.

13:39 Um, and of course that takes so much attention to myself.

13:43 And that's always uppermost in my mind and um But who am I?

13:49 What why You know if if how much something matters is

13:56 measured by how much attention we give it then it would seem

14:04 to each of us that the thing that we judge to matter

14:07 the most in all the universe is ourselves, our tiny little [laughter]

14:12 finite selves.

14:13 And unless you're a lunatic, you realize that that is not the case.

14:18 That each of us realize that we are not

14:20 the thing that matters the most in all the world.

14:23 And it's that it's that disturbing gap between how much

14:28 attention we have to give ourselves in order to pursue

14:31 our lives and how much we judge ourselves to be

14:34 deserving of all that attention that really distinguishes us.

14:38 And so it's not conatus itself.

14:41 Um, alas.

14:43 I mean, alas just because I would like

14:44 Spinoza to be the absolute end truth of everything.

14:47 But I don't think I don't think he is, you know.

14:50 I don't think that there there is this this extra

14:54 step that we humans take in trying to justify the conatus.

14:58 And that's what makes us who we are.

15:01 Articulate mattering with Schopenhauer's the will.

15:07 Yeah.

15:08 Um It it it's sort of it's sort of similar to to Schopenhauer um,

15:15 the will is what runs all of nature.

15:19 Everything is you know, according to this.

15:23 And and it's a similar thing to Schopenhauer, I think.

15:26 I mean, to Spinoza, but to Scho- Schopenhauer

15:28 and Schopenhauer was very very influenced by Spinoza.

15:32 That not seeing what is the special extra thing that we bring to to uh

15:42 to our lives that turns us

15:44 into these value-seeking creatures that we that we are.

15:48 Um, and that isn't shared with nature in general

15:52 or with other things which are not human.

15:55 But there is this extra a justificatory um,

16:00 ultimately self-justificatory um, aspect to living our lives.

16:06 Um that is the mattering instinct.

16:08 So the will would have this just global approach.

16:11 Everything humans, planets, stars, grass, chairs,

16:15 everything is part of this universal [clears throat]

16:19 tropism or whatever you want.

16:20 Yeah.

16:20 Right.

16:21 What what mattering is is that distinguishes the human

16:25 part of that in a very special way.

16:27 Yeah, exactly.

16:29 The mattering which has has component

16:32 of its meaning just serving deserving, right?

16:35 That we want to prove that we are deserving.

16:38 Um, that's really distinguish and deserving of what?

16:42 Of our own attention on which which we have, you know, on which all things run.

16:47 That they would those things that have evolved attention,

16:50 of course, play play predominant amount of attention to themselves.

16:56 But we want to justify that.

16:58 This So in this way I I feel Yeah, that we are really unique.

17:04 We are sui generis.

17:07 What can we learn about mattering from Wittgenstein's universal unhappiness?

17:14 Yeah, it's really interesting.

17:15 Yeah, he's one of the people I whose life story I I tell in some detail.

17:22 And to watch him.

17:25 You know, philosophy was everything to him, of course.

17:27 I mean, he had his the people who were he was intimate with.

17:31 I mean, that's always a part of a human life.

17:33 Even someone like like Wittgenstein.

17:36 But but but philosophy, you know, was was his mattering project.

17:41 All consuming and he needed he was a heroic striver,

17:46 supreme, very very high standards of excellence.

17:50 And to watch him philosophize and was to be

17:54 in the presence of somebody who seemed to really be suffering.

17:57 And he would talk about this.

18:00 You know, it's Norman Malcolm's memoir of of him,

18:05 a short memoir, very very interesting.

18:07 Have you ever read it?

18:08 No.

18:09 Well, I I think it's very short, a very very interesting.

18:13 But he yeah, he suffered a great deal.

18:16 And then the last words he said when he was dying was "Tell them

18:21 I've lived a wonderful life." Norman Malcolm says that was so mysterious to me.

18:27 It sounded mystical or something.

18:29 But this is a way of distinguishing something which I take

18:33 great lengths in doing in the book between happiness and you know,

18:39 what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia or life flourishing,

18:43 life life satisfaction.

18:45 Um, so he you know, he was doing

18:47 the thing he most wanted to do to make philosophy.

18:53 Um, he did You know,

18:55 sometimes he despaired that he really made a lasting contribution to philosophy.

19:00 But it was all in all um probably the only kind of life he could have lived.

19:06 Hm.

19:07 And and so a wonderful life.

19:08 use Wittgenstein to make a very interesting point where he,

19:12 of course, said there cannot be any private language.

19:16 You appropriate that and say there can't be any private mattering.

19:22 And so I wasn't sure about that because it it sounded like

19:25 mattering had more of an internal component even if there was no externality,

19:31 although the externality might have to might

19:33 corroborate it or have other relationships.

19:37 Yeah.

19:38 What I meant by that, and I'm I I can see it's a little mysterious, really.

19:48 Was that Uh, mattering commits us to values.

19:55 Um, you know, to it could be very bad values.

19:59 Um, but it is so for example, um, you know, um,

20:04 if I feel that my mattering, um, uh,

20:08 can only be attained by, uh, invading Poland.

20:16 [laughter] Or something, you know, um, but I will I will justify that to myself.

20:20 Why, you know, that that that you It

20:24 it it gets us into the business of justification,

20:28 which it it it implicitly gets us into the business of values.

20:32 They could be terrible values, um, but um,

20:35 and of course it's very important for me

20:37 to distinguish between bad between bad and good values.

20:40 So, one can't avoid ethics here.

20:42 But but it because of that, because it is a justificatory, um,

20:47 exercise, uh, simply to that we are normative creatures through and through.

20:54 Um, and being creatures who long to matter, there is a normative aspect to us,

21:00 um, that gets us into the business of values.

21:03 So, uh, quickly given the mattering instinct, uh, a very important book, uh,

21:09 what overall prescriptions would you have for individuals

21:12 in their own lives or for societies?

21:14 Is a very silly kind of question to ask you to give this giant, uh,

21:19 prescription, but I I I I I I I felt you were up to it.

21:23 All right.

21:24 [laughter] Well, Um, all right.

21:27 I will swallow my self-consciousness.

21:30 Right.

21:30 [laughter] Right.

21:30 Right.

21:31 Um, but um, I think life itself is counter-entropic, right?

21:41 Uh, it it is a fight of viva la resist la resistance, right?

21:46 I mean, that's what life is.

21:47 We are resisting entropy, uh,

21:49 the transformation from within that leads to disorder,

21:54 uh, to, um, uh, uh, to decay, to ultimately to death, right?

22:03 Um, and so um, a good way to live one's

22:08 life is to be as counter-entropic as one can be,

22:14 to ally oneself with life, uh, and and not with entropy, not with destruction.

22:22 With crea- creativity as much as one is possible,

22:25 but at least not to increase the entropy of either one's own life,

22:32 um, or the life beyond one,

22:34 or or not even like, you know, the not not just other humans,

22:39 uh, uh, but but other sentient creatures and the life of the planet itself.

22:43 You know, that this is and this and this somehow I think

22:48 captures a lot of our our intuitions about what is better than us,

22:53 you know, than it's their alternatives.

22:55 Like, knowledge is better than ignorance, clarity is better than confusion,

23:01 creation is creativity is better than destruction,

23:04 flourishing is better than suffering, uh, beauty is better than ugliness.

23:09 In all of these cases,

23:11 the thing that is better than its negation demands order, um,

23:17 and and and is is is a fight, uh, for order in the face of entropy.

23:23 So, I feel, you know, uh,

23:26 to be very audacious here is is that that that if you don't

23:29 want to look to God for your values or supposedly [clears throat] sacred books,

23:36 uh, that have often ended in more entropy than otherwise, A nice way to put it.

23:43 Uh, let's look, uh, to the laws of nature themselves, um,

23:47 and the the fight that is uh,

23:51 that is in fact life, uh, and flourishing, which is counter-entropy.