On Hume and the Problem of Induction

We take it for granted that the sun will always rise and set with the same regularity that we have known all our lives, but there is no logical reason why this assumption should always hold. What if one day the sun were to suddenly go out like a light turned off at a switch, or, (worse yet?) exploded in a supernova, taking all of the planets with it? We say to ourselves "the laws of physics do not permit such a thing to occur," yet this statement relies on the constancy of the laws of physics from moment to moment, a state of affairs which may have held throughout the past (and we cannot be certain that the laws of physics have always been what they are at present), but for which we have no reason to believe must hold in the future.


Contemplating the logical possibility of the sudden and unexpected death of our solar system puts a peculiar perspective on the significance of life on our planet. What would it mean if all life on our planet were suddenly to be snuffed out? What possible significance would there be to a universe without life within it? I hear you say "Wait! Who says that ours is the only planet bearing life?" I grant that you have a point, but I am not one of those who imagine that the existence of life elsewhere is so probable as to be a certainty. Besides which, there is a conceit behind such thinking that I wish to expose, a conceit that also lies behind my own line of reasoning, and it is namely this - there must be a meaning, a purpose embedded in the existence of our universe, and this purpose can only be to facilitate the existence of life. But why must this be so?


Indeed, it no more need be so than that the sun should continue to exist for another billion years. It is logically possible to imagine a universe without life, a vast and complex universe, coming into being, evolving and eventually perishing, either by collapsing in upon itself or subsiding into heat death, without the epiphenomenon called life having any part to play into it. To assume otherwise would be to imagine the universe to be a show somehow put on for our or someone else's entertainment, a spectacle which would be rendered pointless without spectators.

Proustian Insight at Work

Here is a delightful quotation from Swann's Way:

"Poor Swann," said the Mme des Laumes that night to her husband, "he's as charming as ever, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You'll see for yourself, as he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I do feels it's absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself suffer for a woman of that sort, and one who isn't even interesting, for they tell me she's an absolute idiot!" she added with the wisdom invariably shown by people who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man should only be unhappy about a person who is worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the comma bacillus.