I'm committing suicide one day at a time.
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I'm committing suicide one day at a time.
This is a new to me G L Wilson.
I have never heard of this myth.
Is that sentence from it?
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and it is not a sentence from it what I wrote. The myth of Sisyphus is that he is happy.
Oh...is that your sentence?Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
I love the Myth of Sisyphus. Camus was a great writer and used that myth very well. I agree with him that you can get used to everything and be happy in any situation life brings you.
but I don't think you do...
I remember reading this work by Camus as an undergraduate, as well as others, but that was long ago. In looking at the wikipedia article on it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus , I wonder what the word "absurd" really means. Camus rejects solutions provided by other philosophers, but I now wonder if his rejection was correct.
Regarding suicide, this is no longer an option for Sisyphus since he is already dead and is in an eternal hell created by the gods just for him. That realization makes me doubt Camus' conclusions where the consciousness of death is prominent, but I would have to re-read the book.
welll looking at the book and then reading this question
Does the realization of the absurd require suicide?
puts into question what absurd mean.
A world devoid of God does not mean absurd or futile because we do live life without god around on a daily basis.
However about the myth one could presume that Sisyhus would kick the boulder to roll to the other side of the mountain hence ridding Sisyphus of his monotonous forever rolling down boulder.
'can I kick it?!! yes you can' is a song that comes to mind.
A stroke of genius and that's one task out of the way.
A twist on how to kick routine out of its habbit.
I take the Absurd to mean the generally bland.
As cacian mentions, I don't see why Sisyphus couldn't just stop pushing the boulder up the mountain. Even if he could not commit suicide anymore, since he's already dead, what's stopping him from discontinuing his torment? Maybe that would be "suicide" in his hell.
Whether the "absurde" is just blandness as G L Wilson suggests or not makes me wonder if Camus really has anything that is worth writing an essay about. We all have bad days. So what? We'll feel better tomorrow.
In glancing at a French version, the absurd sees to be defined by the following:
Ce divorce entre l'homme et sa vie, l'acteur et son décor, c'est proprement le sentiment de l'absurdité.
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I don't think it would make any more sense to me in English. My question is not so much what this means, but whether there is any point to the essay at all.
One thing I am picking up from the text is a belief, which seems too close to a flip-side of a Christian belief in resurrection, that suicide is a practical way to achieve nothingness (le néant).
Sisyphus has his honour that is all.
If I may, the absurd is representative of a meaninglness reality. It coincides with the falsehoods of civilization and the several synthetic facades that have dominated the ideals of mainstream consciousness. The individual phsyci has often been succumbed by misconception and egotistical bickering. Albert Camus reflects upon the absurdity of self-delusion, which is thence the purpose of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is bound to perpetual torment, it never ceases. The central character of the tale, Sisyphus, is representative of the absurd hero, and in a broader spectrum humanity itself. We as a species continuously attempt to alter the inevitable, but unfortunately the reality to which we are linked will never cease to persist. The boulder continues to tumble down a path, built upon a hope and only in the midst of the occasion where everything reverts back to the former do we recognize the obscurity of our place within the universe.
Those that take the Absurd onto themselves are considered normal.
says who?the absurdist himself?Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
what honour? the fact that he could not work out that the mountain was cleverer then him?Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
It's about the determination, even with the knowledge that it is all futile - there is a determination.
what determination?Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
he was told to roll up then watch it roll down again to oblivion.
I 'd rather deal with it then determine myself to watch it roll over and over again.
It says a lot about the mental state of giving to tediousness of this level.
oh and nothing is futile if you really think about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
Sisyphus could give up, he just can't.
Hahaha! To you all. Honor and determination. what choice did he have and I'm sure he stopped for a beer along the way once in a while too. It's a myth!? Not to be intrepretted in a concrete way.
I'm just playing with these ideas, Hunger Artist. I'm no expert. Welcome to the discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunger Artist
When I look at reality, everything that I see is meaningful or it wouldn't be visible to me. There is a lot that I miss when I look around, but what I do pay attention to either I have a name (meaning) for or I could describe it with adjectives which are meaningful. It is only when I look on a text that I can experience meaninglessness and that only occurs when the text does not make sense. So I would say "meaningless reality" is restricted to "meaningless texts". We may be saying the same thing, but I'm not sure.
Why is Sisyphus a "hero". What does he do that is heroic? The word "hero" in this context is an example of a text that appears meaningless to me, but it might gain meaning if I could understand it.
Finally, what does the following sentence mean?
Quote:
The boulder continues to tumble down a path, built upon a hope and only in the midst of the occasion where everything reverts back to the former do we recognize the obscurity of our place within the universe.
If I understood it better, perhaps it would acquire meaning. Reading Camus, I get the sense that it is his text that is absurd, not reality.
I would agree with you in this one.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
What goes up must come down and what goes around must come around, and not necessarily the same way. It could b pretty entertaining. It has nothing to do with suicide except that anything has to do with it somehow in any existential way.
Yes. Perhaps the main topic is the absurd in recurrence. But there might not be actual recurrence; as Cacian points out. It cannot be traced or categorized through a path. The path is suspicious, although in the neiborghood.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I wouldn't say that the text is meaningless, on the contrary it's a philosophical analyzation of one's existence. Meaning is based purely upon subjectivity. One's interpetation of the environment in which one exists is vital to the development of some sort of individual meaning. Therefore, Camus, I believe is implying that meaning doesn't necessarily exist. Meaning is what we make of it. This conclusion is evident, when the text is read objectively. And the meaning of existence in an existential sense can be traced back to the time of Kieerkegard, therefore to imply that such a work is meaningless would also suggest that the works of varying existential thinkers is meangless, this would thrash an entire lineage of philosophical tradition. Anyhow, as for the idea of the "absurd hero" it's basically a display of sarcasm. Some would argue that Sisyphus is a hero in the sense that he continually challenges the gods in taking up his punishment and if he is a hero by any means then it's in the most absurd fashion.
OK. It makes sense that Sisyphus is NOT a hero after all, Hunger Artist.
That "meaning doesn't necessarily exist" does not seem to be the case. Suppose I see a tree while taking a walk. What is present to my sight is a "tree" and has meaning because of the name regardless of its nature as an assemblage of quarks and leptons.
When you take a walk have you ever seen anything that is "meaningless"? Can you describe it?
I'm puzzled by the following:
And the meaning of existence in an existential sense can be traced back to the time of Kieerkegard, therefore to imply that such a work is meaningless would also suggest that the works of varying existential thinkers is meangless, this would thrash an entire lineage of philosophical tradition.
I don't see why the meaninglessness, or absurdity, of Camus' writing implies that some other philosopher's writing is meaningless. That other philosopher's writing might make sense for all I know.
I understand completely what you're saying, when I mention the term meaningless I am not referring to tangable materials. I suppose it's more so directed toward an ideal that transcends any existing superficiality. One can only interpret, but as I read this text I view it as a reflection upon the illusion humanity has created for itself. A facade of rationality in an irrational world. The many delusions that people create for themselves, the way people tend to confine themselves to ideas, concepts, or things for the sake of comfort. I remember one day I saw an independent film entitled "Leaves of Grass" starring Ed Norton. There was one line that relates to this "We are animals whose minds decieve us to think otherwise". That is what Albert Camus is trying to touch upon the deceit, false morality, and the constant tension that exists within humanity. Camus is referring to our mortality, the fact that the reality of so many is dominated by "meaningless" misconceptions. An absurdity that we have created. As for the comment regarding Kierkegaard, I apologize if I seemed a bit rude, but I said this because Albert Camus was influenced by Nietszche, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Sartre and so many others so remnants of these very thinkers exist within Camus philosophical writings. I hope this helps, after all it is a complex topic to discuss.
To Camus the world is absurd. There's no God and "nature as an assemblage of quarks and leptons" is really all there is. Such a world is rather alien to our innate desire for rationality and meaning. People used to make sense of the world through myths and rituals, tame the chaos with meaningful narratives. Nowadays such things seem childish. Myths and rituals and religions are patently the creations of men. If you could see the world through the lens of quantum physics and molecular chemistry and go through all natural history like in that film Tree of Life, then the world, the swirling mess of atoms, would appear most undeniably absurd next to the kind of perspective had by an Ancient Greek offering sacrifice to Zeus, or a Christian praying to an omnipotent human-like God.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Objectively, the argument can easily made that the world is absurd. I think the position falls apart due to the subjective nature of human experience. The world is not absurd to someone who is in love, or to someone who creates and values art. But in an "objective" sense the world really is absurd.
Any philosophy though that posits objective meaning over and above and in addition to the absurd has made a compromise, has betrayed true objectivity, as Camus would say Kierkegaard did. If absolute certainty is the standard for truth, then the world is objectively absurd and trying to pass off subjective meaning as objective meaning is to betray the absurd and in doing so betray truth.
This post of mine here presents a very crude understanding of Camus' work, but its a tough work, and I think I might at least be on to something.
Hi Buh4Bee haha I agree we have all had a go but that's because it was too easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buh4Bee
He could have stopped if he wanted to but he chose not to and that is one choice he made, the second choice he also took was to copiously roll that bolder up and down without thinking.
That's one too many silly choices.
the third choice I make it for me because the moral of any story is up to anyone who makes sees or reads it.
It is a myth yes and it is to be interpreted in whichever way one feels like. how else would one justify a myth?
@Darcy88. It is a tough work, but your interpretation is very honest and very true.
Thanks for responses, Hunger Artist and Darcy88. All I know about Camus is what I remember reading long ago as an undergraduate in a required general education class that was covering "existentialism", whatever that is. I think both of you know more about the topic than I do. However, I'm re-reading it now to see if any of it makes sense to me.
I am interested in delusions and I have no doubt that they exist, but I would claim that a delusion is only possible in language, that is, only in texts. Those "texts" might be words that go through our minds which we have not written down.
So, when you write, Hunger Artist: "A facade of rationality in an irrational world," I'm not sure what you mean by "irrational world". The world itself is neither rational nor irrational. It just is. However our descriptions of the world could be irrational.
Or, when you write, Darcy88: "To Camus the world is absurd," I'm not sure what you mean by "world". To repeat, the world just is.
My point is this: Meaninglessness is a potential property of a text. It is not a property of reality.
This brings me back to Camus' concern whether someone should commit suicide because the text running through the mind describing the world for that person keeps saying that the world is "absurd". Why should any rational human being commit suicide over their current interpretation of reality? Perhaps this is Camus' point as well since he ultimately does not accept suicide, unless I misunderstood him.
But why assume that humans are rational beings to begin with? Freud would have argued that humans are not rational at all, but that they (we) rationalize their behavior and thoughts, which is quite different from actually acting rationally.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
The fact that the world "just is" makes the world absurd. Part of us doesn't want a world that "just is." We want a world vested with meaning and purpose. People have been doing it since people have been doing anything - looking at the stars and at history and at everything and laying rational meaning overtop of what simply, as you say, "just is."Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Existentialism (whatever that is) is a timeless philosophy, as is Camus' idea of the absurd, but its truth and relevancy was especially pronounced at the time his works were written. You had world war two, you had atheism, you had all these historical and intellectual forces working very hard to divest life of its value and its meaning, rendering it all absurd.
Thanks. Having not read Husserl or some of the other philosophers Camus discusses in it makes understanding the text even harder. What helps me "get" Camus' philosophy of the absurd somewhat is actually his fiction. The Stranger and The Plague lay out his ideas quite plainly and vividly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunger Artist
@Darcy88. I'm the same way, I've only read some of his fictional works. One I'm really looking forward to reading is Exile and the Kingdom. I've just begun thoroughly exploring philosophy.
I disagree. That does not even seem to be Camus' intention. A Google Translate version of what Camus says is this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.What Camus is saying may be meaningless. It may be incorrect. It may be irrational. All of those things are characteristics or not of Camus' text. But they are not characteristics of the world except to the extent that we are in the world and we can be meaningless, incorrect and irrational.
I wonder if we are saying the same thing or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Who vests the world with meaning and purpose? We do. As you say, "People have been doing it since people have been doing anything". To that I agree.
The Plague is simply brilliant, both philosophically and as a work of art. I like the Stranger but I don't view it as his masterpiece like so many others do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunger Artist
@Darcy88. That's how I was first introduced to his work by reading The Stranger. Unfortunately, I only read it once, but from what I remember it was so beautifully descriptive, and so devastatingly real that I couldn't help but love it.
@YesNo. I recommend, if you haven't done so already, look into Richard Wright's "The Outsider".
Camus defines the absurd in a whole host of ways. The one I'm talking about is the contrast between man's desire for coherent meaning and the world's seemingly silent inanimateness. If a 1st century worshipper of the Roman pantheon of gods, someone used to interpreting the entrails of sacrificed animals and subject to all sorts of superstitions, seeing meaning everywhere in everything, were suddenly revealed the truth behind all natural phenomena, his eyes abruptly shown a world divested of all its veils of fanciful man-made meaning, he would be struck to the core by the sheer absurdity of everything.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
A being that experiences love and pain and possesses an ever-active imagination that strives to make meaningful a world that silently and inhumanly "just is," well I think such a being could fairly be called in a way "absurd."
You yourself YesNo have beliefs about God and consciousness and the universe that Camus did not share. I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong and he necessarily right, but if you look at the world from his radically atheistic perspective, its not hard to see the rationale behind his labelling man and the world absurd.
Hunger Artist - have you read his book The Rebel? Its amazing stuff. Talks about the philosophy of murder and rebellion, about the bases of fascism and communism and revolution. Discusses the french revolution, Nietzsche, Rimbaud, even mentions Hamlet and Heathcliffe. A great and profound book. I know I'll have to re-read it possibly several times to really "get it."
@Darcy88. No not yet, but I intend to read it.
Thanks for the recommendation, Hunger Artist. I'm beginning to think that Camus is not important as a philosopher. The main interest in him is as a novelist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunger Artist
If you're in the center of a large city the world can be quite animate and noisy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Do you have any alternate quotes from Camus that would help clarify the word "absurd"? In the one I provided where the feeling of absurdity is about the divorce between the actor and the setting, it doesn't make sense to say the setting is absurd or meaningless or irrational.
Well this thread has made me want to re-read M of S and so I'll post pertinent sections as I come across them.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Even if the city is noisy, its noisy because of man, and even the tall red-wood-like skyscrapers, the rivers of concrete, and the growling four-wheeled beasts all confront one as inhumanly aloof, beyond sympathy or meaning, unlike a numinous Grecian river with its attendant deity and its mythical story and its centaur inhabitants. They actually bestowed upon rivers personality and will, unlike we who reduce rivers to natural scientifically rather than spiritually coherent phenomena.
Walk to the ocean or lake-side on a clear day. Look upon the illimitable landscape of water and sky. Try and regard it as it is - a great amalgamation of molecules composed of basic chemical ingrediants, hyrdogen and oxygen and such. See it as that and only as that. Its hard, but without man, without us imposing meaning and beauty upon it, its nothing more than that. Its terrifying really, just how mute and unfeeling is this world, this universe we inhabit. Without God or gods we are utterly insignificant and alone, like ants on a mound of dirt.
Or if you want to undertand the absurdity of the actor, imagine some epic scene at the end of an epic film. Imagine right before Martin Sheen is about to plunge the blade into Brando, the great and mysterious and awe-inspiring Colonel Kurtz, in the thick of the deep dark jungle as forboding drums play and hellish flames dance in a flickering rage.... imagine the passion and terror of the scene, the actors and the audience taken wholly in, every thought and every breath arising with utmost profundity and trepidation, totally rapt... and all of a sudden a small smiling caucasion child holding a bright blue balloon on a string wanders through the shot. The emotion and meaning and everything about the scene have suddenly become strikingly absurd. When God died, when world war 1 introduced into the world and the mind of man such utter depravity as had never been imagined or seen, all the fabricated layers of meaning, of truth and morality, were then cataclysmically rent, and man's absurdity became henceforth plainly and unavoidably known. His script was made up, his passions and beliefs false, his setting natural, turned out by the amoral and purposeless cosmic machine.
And that's not true. I thought so too, but in certain contexts, particularly political activism and left-wing intellectualism, Camus is often regarded as THE philosopher, the most important - ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo