Chaotic Flux and the Absurd

            Chaotic flux is a concept of the world which entails a causal determinism of existence. The random, uncertain process that is chaotic flux is the absurd. The existential hero takes actions within the chaotic flux, recognizing the absurd nature of it.

Chaotic flux is the process of every existing thing in a flow of confusing, disorderly continuous change. But what exactly is this meant to describe? The process of cause and effect, the myriad causal connections between all things. Chaotic flux should be considered a process of coming into existence, of becoming. Causality in this concept is simultaneous, cause and effect occurring at the same instance. Every instance of a cause/effect occurrence is one of an infinite number, that infinite is the chaotic flux.  In Nausea Sartre gives the perspective of someone grasping an idea of this ‘becoming’. Looking around the character realizes that he, “never had understood the meaning of existence. It is there, around us, in us, it is us, you can’t say two words with mentioning it…” (Solomon 215).  The character sitting observing and only that, “…thinking nothing, [his] head empty, or there was just one word in [his] head, the word ‘to be’” (Solomon 215).  Chaotic flux is this process of becoming each moment melding into the next. All that comes into existence in chaotic flux also ceases to exist in chaotic flux. Chaotic flux is the manifestations of the moment, each moment it is the process of change that occurs. The use of the word Flux is intended to indicate the Heraclitan idea of continuous change. It is existence but existence is, “…nothing, simply an empty form which was added to external things without changing anything in [its] nature” (Solomon 215). Within the chaotic flux human life occurs in absurdity.

            The chaotic flux results in human life, all life, occurring in causal determinism which is inherently uncertain. This uncertainty is the result of the unknown amount of causal connections between any instances of cause/effect. Chaotic flux implies meaninglessness because it is a random process of interactions upon interactions. Every moment is the result of these interactions, every moment is becoming, cascading one after another, somehow complexity is a product. There can be no inherent meaning in something that doesn’t remain constant or unchanging, for it always different and thereby so is the meaning. “What, then, is the absurd? The absurd is that the eternal truth has come into existence in time…”, this eternal truth being change the only constant. The absurd is recognition of chaotic flux, recognizing that one is an inseparable part of the whole. I propose that there are two views: to see the world as existing or seeing the world as chaotic flux it is the difference between ‘being’ and ‘to be’. Understanding the universe in chaotic flux is to be, “…in a universe suddenly divested if illusions and lights, mans feels an alien, a stranger” (Camus 6). To be is absurdity is to be looking at the universe as chaotic flux and recognize, “…that the world is ‘dense’, sensing to what a degree a stone is foreign and irreducible to us, with what intensity nature or a landscape can negate us” (Camus 14). There also is the recognition that no one person ever truly knows this phenomenon, something in chaotic flux cannot know chaotic flux. In another paper, it was argued that the existential hero affirms life in the face of chaotic flux; in chaotic flux the existential hero is the absurd hero.

            Life is affirmed by simply living it despite of chaotic flux, recognizing chaotic flux is absurd and that this absurdity entails the lack of inherent meaning of life. In the absurd one is confronted with the existential situation.  Th actor in absurdity is in a position to know that, “[one] can just as well do one thing as the other…where one cannot act and yet here is where I have to act…” (Pojman). It must be noted that Kierkegaard is discussing actions that require a break from ethical values, that break placing one in absurdity. I use this quote in a different understanding; as it pertains to the question of the value of life. Chaotic flux entails that there all that is occurring and will occur is in part totally random. Complexity is always arising from some disorder, a city for example, there is order overall but chaos among the separate parts.  Life arouse due to ideal conditions, a planet capable of sustaining habitable conditions, and has persisted. This implies that there is no purpose to life, it is simply occurring. Resignation to chaotic flux is to, “…continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit…”, given that one, “…[has] recognized…the ridiculous character of that habit…” (Camus 6).

 The individual has only one guarantee---death; and history of discarded time. The existential situation is the juxtaposition of the individual and chaotic flux, of the finite and infinite. I tis a paradox, “…that [one] as a single individual place [themselves] in an absolute relation to the absolute” (Marino). Chaotic flux, the infinite, can doom or bless an individual; not it that it is endowing circumstances on individuals. It is simply due to the process of unfolding of cause/effect with no account of happiness or suffering.  “But what does life mean in such a universe”, how should an individual in the existential situation respond? By life affirmation which is, “nothing else for the moment but indifference to the future and a desire to use up everything that is given” (Camus 60). This is not a hedonistic proposition encouraging indulgence. Rather it is the idea of an individual who is aware of and actively engaging with the environment.  The individual recognizes chaotic flux that, “ this world in itself is not reasonable… what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart ” (Camus 21).Decisions and outcomes are accepted as they come, the existential hero lives in the moment their moment, “ the absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing… for he knows himself to be the master of his days… [and he] contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him..” (Camus 123). The existential hero acts as opposing resigning, this is to maximize the phenomena that is this chaotic flux.

            Actions can be meaningful in subjectivity only, the absurd nature of the subject passing in chaotic flux. The existential hero affirms life by living in the moment with full understanding that the meaning they assign to the world is only in subjectivity. In this way, the existential hero is an absurd hero.    

                                                              Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Myth Of Sisyphus and Other Essays. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1991. Print.

Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Vol. 1. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. Print. 2 vols.

Marino, Gordon, ed. “Basic Writings of Existentialism.” Fear and Trembling. New York: The Modern Library, 2004. 7–39. Print.

Solomon, Robert. Existentialism. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.