Meaning Of Life In Ayer And Nagel's Absurdity

When reading over both Ayer and Nagel pieces addressing the meaning of life it was clear to see some similarity’s and some differences in-between the two. As I was addressing the question of what is the meaning of life, I would argue that saying there is a meaning of life is bizarre. I would argue that there is no real cause and effect on life, if the action didn’t affect anyone in the first place there is no reason it will affect anyone later in life. A question that could be made up to better understand the answer would be, “what do we mean when we say life is absurd and how can we change that?”

Thomas Nagel’s whole article spoke about life being absurd, which is basically the same thing as bizarre or meaningless. Absurdity is also very similar to irony in the sense that a moment in your mind plays out differently in life. In Nagel’s article a focus of his is, what we think of life being absurd. To

that question he had a few simple answers some of them being, we mean that after time we will all be dead and something won’t matter, that we are little specks in the universe and that we are all made to die. He would consider these reasons to be bad because you can’t do anything about them, they seem more like an excuse than an actual reason, and because they are emotional responses. Thomas Nagel’s piece is more relatable to what I personally thought the meaning of life was after reading these two pieces.

Nagel’s states in his article that most of us can’t help to be absurd, that it is just in our human nature.

However, there are three possible solutions that Nagel mentioned could take the absurdity away from us. Them being having a surgery, trying to reach a higher level or committing suicide (Nagel doesn’t recommend this option however). To go back to the point of there being no real cause and effect to life, this idea would go hand in hand with Nagel’s thought of after time we will all be dead and something won’t matter. Although by Nagel this would be considered a bad reason I would defiantly agree with this because in 1000 years’ time our small actions of mistakes that we make will not be remembered. If one were to take 50 people and them a questioner to fill out in regarded to how they see life, each and everyone would come back different. Everyone is unique in the world meaning each of them would have a different idea of what life means. But if I had to pick one adjective to best described the meaning of life I would agree with Thomas Nagel and go with

absurd.

In conclusion I support Nagel and his work with answering my question of “what do we mean when we say life is absurd and the answer that was given of how can we change that’”? As well as my “hidden” opinion of looking for a meaning in life is absurd.