生命的意义与目的的探寻
大多数人本能地认为生命存在某种意义。他们倾向于认为意义是客观存在的，就像你问他们：“你为什么起床去工作？你为什么要做那些赚钱的事？为了养家糊口。为什么？为了健康地抚养孩子。为什么？因为我希望我的孩子健康。为什么？你是什么意思，为什么？”对一些人来说，他们根本不理解这个问题，觉得：“你在说什么？”而另一些人听到后会说：“天哪，你知道吗？说得对，我其实不知道。”虚无主义者则是一种从宏观视角审视，并意识到这一切都略显无意义的人。与其认为生命只是一个或好或坏的偶然，不如认为你来到世上是出于某种写在宇宙规则中的原因，这会让人感觉更好受。
我的名字是 Alex O'Connor，是 Within Reason 播客的主持人。我认为我最适合的身份是哲学YouTuber和前“愤世嫉俗的无神论者”。意义，我认为，与目的（purpose）是同义词。而目的，可以理解为行动的理由或存在的理由。每当一个人采取任何行动时，比如我拿起一杯水来喝，或者我走到公交车站，总会有一个我这样做的理由。这些行为并非凭空产生，它们存在着某种原因。所以，如果你问我为什么伸出手去够那边，可能是因为我想拿起一杯水。我为什么要这样做？我不是随机地这么做的。嗯，因为我渴了。好的，那我为什么渴呢？现在我们进入了生物学范畴。你可能会说：“嗯，我上次喝水已经有一段时间了。”然后你可以描述我身体的哪部分会引起口渴，甚至可以给出进化论的解释，说明为什么我们会发展出对口渴的这种敏感性。最终，这种推理链条必须有一个终点。它要么会终结于某个进化论的理由，要么这条偶然的推理链条会一直回溯到无穷，要么它会终止于某个自我辩护（self-justifying）的事物。对宗教人士而言，这个终点就是上帝。他们所做的一切，即使并非时时刻刻都能意识到，都是为了荣耀上帝。而如果你是世俗之人，这个终点很可能是别的东西。对某些人来说，他们生命的意义可能在于抚养孩子。而对大多数人来说，这可能更多是关系性的。当人们说他们找到了生命的意义时，我认为很多时候他们找到了那个自我辩护的原则。
虚无主义者认识到，他或她所持有的价值观并非根植于任何其他事物，除了他们自身的偏好或审美偏好。虚无主义有多种形式，根据语境可以意味着不同的东西。但最广泛地说，它是对生命或我们在生命中所采取的行动和所表现出的行为，不存在客观目的或意义的缺乏信念，或者相信根本不存在这样的客观目的。许多人认为，如果你像虚无主义者一样生活，你就会在床上烂掉。一些虚无主义者可能确实如此，而且我认为哲学虚无主义与实际的抑郁之间存在着一种强烈的相关性。然而，虚无主义关乎的不是实际的后果或你正在做的事情，而是它们背后的目的，是它们背后的意义。所以，假设你感到口渴。我可以向你解释，你感到口渴的唯一原因是因为某种你无法控制的动物性驱动。但你仍然口渴。你仍然有这种渴望。你仍然有满足口渴的价值，所以你还是会去喝水。这同样适用于生活的所有领域，艺术、音乐、诗歌，也包括人际关系、友谊等等。你仍然会想要去做这些事情。
Original English
Most people instinctively think that there is some kind of meaning to life. They just sort of assume that it's there in the same way that if you ask them, "Why are you getting out of bed to go to work? Why are you doing that to make money? Why to provide for my family? Why to bring up my children healthily? Why because I want my children to be healthy? Why? What do you mean why?" For some people, they just don't recognize the question. They're just like, "What are you talking about?" For other people, they hear that and they go, "Gosh, you know what? Fair enough, I actually don't know." The nihilist is someone who sort of takes a bird's eye view of it and realizes that it's all a little bit meaningless. It is nicer to think that you are here for some kind of reason that's written into the rules of the universe than that it all is just a happy or unhappy accident. My name is Alex O'Connor. I'm the host of the Within Reason podcast. I think I'm best described as a philosophy YouTuber and former edgy atheist. Meaning, I think, is used synonymously with purpose. And purpose is something like reason to act or reason to be. Whenever anybody acts in any way, when I pick up a glass of water to have a drink, when I walk to a bus stop or something, there will be a reason why I've done that. These kinds of behaviors don't just spring up ex nihilo. They exist for some kind of reason. And so if you ask me why it is that I'm reaching my arm over there, it might be because I'm trying to pick up a glass of water. Why am I doing that? I don't just do that randomly. Well, because I'm thirsty. Okay, well, why am I thirsty? Well, now we're kind of into some biological science. You might say, "Well, it's been a while since I've last had a drink." And then you might describe what it is about my biology that causes thirst and you might even give an evolutionary explanation for why it is that we've developed this sensitivity to thirst. And eventually this kind of has to bottom out somewhere. It will either have to bottom out in some evolutionary reason or this contingent chain of reasoning just essentially goes back forever or it terminates in something which is self-justifying. For the religious, it will be God. Everything they do, even if they don't cognize it all the time, will be for the glory of God. And if you're a secular person, it will likely be something else. For some people, their meaning in life might be the raising of their children. And for most people, it probably is relational. And when people say that they found their meaning in life, I think a lot of the time they found that self-justifying principle. The thing that the nihilist recognizes is that the values he or she holds are not grounded in anything other than their own preferences or aesthetic preferences. Nihilism comes in many forms and depending on the context can mean many different things. But most broadly, it's the lack of belief in or belief that there is no such thing as an objective purpose to life or to the actions that we commit and the behaviors that we portray within life. A lot of people think that if you lived like a nihilist, you'd sort of rot away in bed. Some nihilists may do that and I think there is actually a correlation, a strong correlation between philosophical nihilism and practical depression. However, nihilism is not about the actual consequences or the things that you're doing, it's about the purpose behind them, it's about the meaning behind them. And so, suppose that you're feeling thirsty. I could explain to you that the only reason you're feeling thirst is because of some animalistic drive that you had no control over. But you're still thirsty. You still have that desire. You still have that value of quenching your thirst and so you'll still do that. And the same applies in all areas of life, art and music and poetry, but also including relationships, friendships, that kind of stuff. You're still going to want to do those things.虚无、荒谬与存在的慰藉
这种对意义的深刻反思，在文学和哲学史上留下了诸多印记，尤其体现在对“荒谬”的探讨上。这就像加缪在 《西西弗神话》（Myth of Sisyphus）中著名地描述的那样：一个人突然意识到他一天的生活结构——醒来、吃早餐、上车、去上班、休息、工作、回家、吃点东西、睡觉、然后重新开始。你开始注意到你在重复这一切。这并非关于你正在做什么，而是关于你退后一步，意识到这一切都没有意义。没有……它仅仅是我在做这件事，仅此而已，没有更深层次的东西。
印刷品中最伟大的虚无主义阐释之一，可以在《圣经》旧约的 《传道书》（Ecclesiastes）中找到。《传道书》带领我们回顾了这位匿名作者的思考。有些人试图辨认出他，但这并不重要。我们知道他是一位伟人，一位国王。他过着辉煌的生活，却看不到其中的意义。他不断回到这个词——“hevel”，字面意思类似于“风”。因此，在《钦定本》中被翻译为“虚空”（vanity）。“虚空的虚空，凡事都是虚空。”一切都是虚空。一切都是无意义的。这是其中一种翻译。“荒谬，荒谬。一切都是荒谬。”这是我最喜欢的翻译。他说：“我没有拒绝我眼中所见的任何快乐。如果我想要什么，我就去拿。我喝酒，我狂欢，我享受生活。但最终，我看到这一切都是‘hevel’。一切都只是风。它就是……什么都没有。它只是发生，然后消失。它不代表任何意义。”
但最有趣的是，它似乎表明这位作者所说的一切都是真的，一切都只是风，但不知何故，仅仅通过敬畏上帝和遵守祂的诫命，你就解决了问题。我不认为这是一个令人满意的解决方案。但随后，我认为这就是虚无主义文学的伟大主题。人们试图寻找某种解决方案，但最终，至少对我而言，它们似乎相对令人不满意。
将时间快进数千年，我们看到了阿尔贝·加缪的《西西弗神话》，其著名结尾是“想象西西弗是快乐的”。事实上，加缪因《西西弗神话》开篇那句直击人心的陈述而备受赞誉：只有一个严肃的哲学问题，那就是自杀。因为其他一切，你知道的，空间有多少维度，抽象数字是否存在，所有这些都是次要的。最根本的问题是你是否会，正如他曾经所说，今天喝杯咖啡还是选择自杀。
你看到我们周围的世界似乎是任意的，生物体及其环境似乎几乎是随机地进化，仅仅是为了生存而进行的斗争。我认为人们渴望的不仅仅是这些。他们渴望一些感觉有价值、某种程度上被某种普遍原则所证明的东西。其中几乎包含一种道德元素，即活着是一件好事，过有意义的生活是一件好事。而我认为，这种东西很难客观地确立。事实上，如果有人问我如何面对这些存在主义的忧愁来安慰自己，坦白说，至少对我个人而言，是在于不可知论（agnosticism）。在于我根本不知道这一切为何存在。我当然不知道，你知道吗？有时人们在播客或舞台上问我，言下之意仿佛我会有某种答案，仿佛我已经解决了这个问题并能传达给人们。我对哲学感兴趣，所以我可能读过一些有助于阐明概念的东西，或者我可能能够为一些你一直在思考但不知道别人也这样想过的事情找到词汇。但我们在这里做的是同样的事情，最终，我完全不知道最终的答案是什么。所以，这一点给了我安慰。我想，我只是不被虚无主义所说服。
Original English
It's like Camus famously described in the myth of Sisyphus, this person who suddenly recognizes the structure of their day, waking up, having breakfast, getting in the car, going to work, taking a break, work, going back home, eating some food, going to sleep, starting again. And you sort of start to notice that you're doing this. And it's not anything about what you're doing, it's realizing, taking a step back and realizing that there's no meaning to any of this. There's no... That there's nothing more than just my doing it. It doesn't go any deeper than that.One of the still greatest expositions of nihilism that can be found in the printed word is the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes takes us through the reflections of this man, this anonymous author. Some have tried to identify him, but it doesn't really matter who it is. We know that he was a great man, a king. He lived an illustrious life, but he saw no meaning in it. And he keeps coming back to this word "hevil," which means literally something like "wind." And so it's translated as "vanity" by the King James. Vanity of vanities. Everything is vanity. Meaningless. Meaningless. Everything is meaningless is one translation. Absurd, absurd. Everything is absurd is my favorite. He's like, "I denied my eyes no pleasure that they saw. If I wanted something, I took it. I drank wine, I partied, I lived life. But in the end, I saw that it was all "hevil." It was all just wind. It's just... Nothing. It just happens. And then it's gone. And it doesn't mean anything. But the most interesting thing is that it seems to suggest that everything that this guy was saying was true, that it is all just wind, but that somehow, by just fearing God and keeping His commandments, you have somehow solved the problem. I don't think that that's a very satisfying solution. But then I think that that is the great theme of nihilistic literature. People try for a kind of solution, but ultimately, for me, at least, they seem relatively unsatisfying.
Fast forward thousands of years and you get Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus, which famously ends with this idea of imagining Sisyphus happy. In fact, Camus was celebrated for the starkness of the opening line of the myth of Sisyphus, that there is one serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Because everything else, you know, how many dimensions there are to space, whether abstract numbers exist, all of that is secondary. The most foundational question is whether or not you're going to, as he once put it, have a cup of coffee or kill yourself today.
You look at the seeming arbitrariness of the world around us, the way that the environment and the organisms within it seem to just sort of almost randomly evolve according to literal just battles for survival. I think people want something a little bit more than that. They want something which feels worthwhile, that's somehow sort of justified by some universal principle. There's almost like a moral element, that it's a good thing to be alive, that it's a good thing to live a meaningful life. And that kind of thing, I think, is very difficult to ground objectively. In fact, if somebody ever asks me how I might console myself in the face of these existential woes, genuinely, at least personally, it is in agnosticism. It's in the fact that I do not know the first thing about why any of this exists. Of course I don't, you know? And sometimes people ask me in a context on a podcast or on a stage or something, implicitly as if I'm going to have some answer, as if I've like worked it out and I'm going to be able to communicate that to people. And I'm interested in philosophy, so I might have read something that helps to elucidate a concept or I might be able to put a word on something that you've been thinking but didn't know was, you know, also thought by other people. But we're doing the same thing here and ultimately I have absolutely no idea what the ultimate answers are. And so that kind of consoles me. And I suppose I'm just not convicted of nihilism.
📌 文中提及的人物和组织
媒体/书籍: Ecclesiastes, Myth of Sisyphus