I don’t fully agree that the last century gave rise to some special “Me Generation” as a couple of authors and a follow-up media reported and labeled the Baby Boomers. “Me” has always been central to individuals at some time in their lives; to label an entire generation thus and to say it was a special circumstance denies the role the Self has always played in human affairs both personal and social. Just like other social and historical explanations—i.e., “the Lost Generation,” the “Great Awakening,” and those groupings of people who populate the current decade—"Me Generation” and all such designations are generalizations. Within any generation diversity plays a role, and no label seems to be universally applicable. Yet, all social designations applied to a generation do indicate some dominating trends that the media use as shortcuts to understanding why people do what they do and why they see the world as they do. All such designations are foundations for pop psych, pop sociology, and commonly used metaphors.
We don’t like the darkness of meaninglessness. So, when we have difficulty uncovering an objective reality, we rely on a personal one. And that brings me to our philosophical dilemma: How do we reconcile our personal reality with an objective one? The philosopher David Hume seemed to argue that the former imposes itself on the latter. Other philosophers have argued that the latter imposes itself on the former.
The film Guardians of the Galaxy II features a small plant character named Groot whose oft-repeated words are “I am Groot.” Although those words do not change, by his inflection Groot reveals emotion, puzzlement, and understanding in the film’s various settings and contexts. And in the context of the movie, Groot also demonstrates that there is, indeed, a reality outside the Self. He stands ironically in contrast to the villain Ego, who can make whatever world he wants. Ego is a “me” of seemingly unlimited creative power capable of making reality.
In saying “I am Groot” in every circumstance, Groot reveals a philosophy all of us carry either ostensibly or secretly: For much of our lives, we see the world not empirically, but subjectively. Each of us, at times, sees the world as an extension of Self. Even in our most profound science we cannot refrain from some slightly personal perspective—with one very special exception. When we ultimately face that which can end our existence, we recognize an indisputably objective reality that no subjectivism can alter. Death imposes an objective world upon subjectivism. How “me” sees the world becomes irrelevant when something from “outside the me” threatens.
There’s no denying the importance of “me” in revealing objective reality. Science doesn’t initiate itself; science doesn’t do itself; it is not a creator, but merely a methodology to achieve understanding and control as we see a need for either or both. People do science, and that requires choosing (to do, to do this way or that, to include or not to include, to pursue a purpose or fill a need). Puzzled by the very large? Build a telescope like the Hubble. By the very small? Build a collider like the LHC. Your choice. You could sit sipping soda, but, no, you drive yourself to discover and understand, to experience and record, and to make and distribute. And you do all of this, I assume, because you believe that something exists outside your awareness of it, that the refrigerator light does, in fact, go out when you shut the door and that a tree in a forest does make a sound when it falls in your absence. Yet, simultaneously, you want to believe that much, if not all of the world, is an extension of you and is your creation. At times you play Ego.
If you think the world has an objective existence, you have the same thought Einstein pushed in his arguments with Bohr about the atom. Albert didn’t want a world in which God merely rolled dice; he didn’t want a world in which observation determines the ultimate reality and individual perception accounts for the predictability of a Newtonian world or an Einsteinian one. There’s security in the stability of a world of actions and reactions, of inertia, gravity, and a world of warps in the fabric of Spacetime. Our car navigation systems work because we can use Einstein’s relativity to adjust clocks on satellites to account for the real effects of velocity and gravity.
You and I might recognize that one Self sees a world differently from another Self and that both “mes” can claim a truth to their perceptions, but both “mes” do so within the context of a predictable, independently existing world. If no such objective reality exists, then both of us are left with an ultimately incommunicable “I am Groot.”
At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy II, Groot has an opportunity to save his friends and the universe by pushing one of two buttons on a bomb. One button is an instant detonator; the other sets a timer that would give Groot and the Guardians five minutes to escape the blast. Groot almost pushes the wrong button, but stops, and pushes the correct one as he was instructed by Rocket. His choice isn’t the result of how a “me”—in this instance, Groot—sees reality. Death makes itself known as an objective reality that overrides any subjective one.
Sure, as you go through your day, you’ll say “I am Groot” many times, but for most, if not all of those times, there will be nothing final on the line, nothing that imposes an unavoidable restriction. Around you, you will encounter some who insist that “me” is all there is, that no absolutes, as Hume would argue, really exist. They believe they alone decide reality, and they might do so until they encounter that one reality they cannot change, like Groot’s having to choose the correct button. If they push the wrong button, objective reality will make itself known as it has for countless humans before them, people who believed that the world is as they believe and that they choose what is real like Ego.
Ego dies at the film’s end because a little plant-guy whose only expression seems to be centered on his personal existence actually recognizes an objective reality and an absolute that cannot ultimately be avoided.
We don’t like the darkness of meaninglessness. So, when we have difficulty uncovering an objective reality, we rely on a personal one. And that brings me to our philosophical dilemma: How do we reconcile our personal reality with an objective one? The philosopher David Hume seemed to argue that the former imposes itself on the latter. Other philosophers have argued that the latter imposes itself on the former.
The film Guardians of the Galaxy II features a small plant character named Groot whose oft-repeated words are “I am Groot.” Although those words do not change, by his inflection Groot reveals emotion, puzzlement, and understanding in the film’s various settings and contexts. And in the context of the movie, Groot also demonstrates that there is, indeed, a reality outside the Self. He stands ironically in contrast to the villain Ego, who can make whatever world he wants. Ego is a “me” of seemingly unlimited creative power capable of making reality.
In saying “I am Groot” in every circumstance, Groot reveals a philosophy all of us carry either ostensibly or secretly: For much of our lives, we see the world not empirically, but subjectively. Each of us, at times, sees the world as an extension of Self. Even in our most profound science we cannot refrain from some slightly personal perspective—with one very special exception. When we ultimately face that which can end our existence, we recognize an indisputably objective reality that no subjectivism can alter. Death imposes an objective world upon subjectivism. How “me” sees the world becomes irrelevant when something from “outside the me” threatens.
There’s no denying the importance of “me” in revealing objective reality. Science doesn’t initiate itself; science doesn’t do itself; it is not a creator, but merely a methodology to achieve understanding and control as we see a need for either or both. People do science, and that requires choosing (to do, to do this way or that, to include or not to include, to pursue a purpose or fill a need). Puzzled by the very large? Build a telescope like the Hubble. By the very small? Build a collider like the LHC. Your choice. You could sit sipping soda, but, no, you drive yourself to discover and understand, to experience and record, and to make and distribute. And you do all of this, I assume, because you believe that something exists outside your awareness of it, that the refrigerator light does, in fact, go out when you shut the door and that a tree in a forest does make a sound when it falls in your absence. Yet, simultaneously, you want to believe that much, if not all of the world, is an extension of you and is your creation. At times you play Ego.
If you think the world has an objective existence, you have the same thought Einstein pushed in his arguments with Bohr about the atom. Albert didn’t want a world in which God merely rolled dice; he didn’t want a world in which observation determines the ultimate reality and individual perception accounts for the predictability of a Newtonian world or an Einsteinian one. There’s security in the stability of a world of actions and reactions, of inertia, gravity, and a world of warps in the fabric of Spacetime. Our car navigation systems work because we can use Einstein’s relativity to adjust clocks on satellites to account for the real effects of velocity and gravity.
You and I might recognize that one Self sees a world differently from another Self and that both “mes” can claim a truth to their perceptions, but both “mes” do so within the context of a predictable, independently existing world. If no such objective reality exists, then both of us are left with an ultimately incommunicable “I am Groot.”
At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy II, Groot has an opportunity to save his friends and the universe by pushing one of two buttons on a bomb. One button is an instant detonator; the other sets a timer that would give Groot and the Guardians five minutes to escape the blast. Groot almost pushes the wrong button, but stops, and pushes the correct one as he was instructed by Rocket. His choice isn’t the result of how a “me”—in this instance, Groot—sees reality. Death makes itself known as an objective reality that overrides any subjective one.
Sure, as you go through your day, you’ll say “I am Groot” many times, but for most, if not all of those times, there will be nothing final on the line, nothing that imposes an unavoidable restriction. Around you, you will encounter some who insist that “me” is all there is, that no absolutes, as Hume would argue, really exist. They believe they alone decide reality, and they might do so until they encounter that one reality they cannot change, like Groot’s having to choose the correct button. If they push the wrong button, objective reality will make itself known as it has for countless humans before them, people who believed that the world is as they believe and that they choose what is real like Ego.
Ego dies at the film’s end because a little plant-guy whose only expression seems to be centered on his personal existence actually recognizes an objective reality and an absolute that cannot ultimately be avoided.
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