Underground Man Analysis

...

or natural law don’t help shape us, but that humans aren’t bound by these things.

Reaction

The existentialist idea of existence before essence is undoubtedly true. While something’s in this world might have an essence preceding their existence, humans are not one of them. We are beyond that of a watch or a bee. First you cannot map or determine a human’s life as described by the Underground Man. Next if our essence did precede our existence it would be much more apparent to us. Lastly we are ever changing and growing beings that never truly know our self.

As discussed earlier the Underground Man described how some believe that science will one day be able to know our life’s mission and outcome based on having full knowledge of our bodies, brains, etc. This currently is not true and science isn’t anywhere close to being able to do this. The most advanced part of science relating to humans is artificial intelligence, which involves fully being able to re-create how a human thinks and acts; basically making consciousness. Science might be able to fully create a conscious robot, indistinguishable from a human, and thus it could have an essence. But the creator of that robot doesn’t have the essence in mind like the creator of the watch does. The creator simply understands the human brain and consciousness well enough to give the robot the tools to create it’s own essence. Thus is the fear of what artificial intelligence’s motives will be when it is created.

Secondly, if human essence came before our existence then why does no one know what the purpose of humans are? Things that don’t have the ability to create essence and shape their own meaning are stuck to one purpose. They don’t have free will, individuality, and are not ever changing. It would seem that something like this wouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out what that essence is. For example it’s obvious what the watch is meant to do and if it suddenly gained consciousness it would immediately know its purpose. Yet humans are constantly trying to figure out the meaning to life and what their essence is. That is because we create our own essence and it is always changing just as we are.

This relates to the last point of humans being incomplete individuals. Humans are constantly developing and forming ourselves and will never truly reach that end point. If you think about yourself five years ago you would agree that a lot about you has changed; your body, your experiences, your views, and some aspects of your personality. Five years into the future will be the same thing, and so on. As you gain new experiences and grow as a person you constantly are finding and creating a new essence for yourself even if that essence or purpose is unclear to you.

Conclusion

Existence before essence is one of the main and most important views of the existentialist. It demonstrates our ability to have free will and mold who we are. The Underground Man does a great job of explaining how we will always desire our freedom and individuality and therefore cannot be simplified to a formula. The existentialist is right because our essence cannot be known or scientifically found, our own essence is unknown to us, and we are evolving beings. For these reasons it is true that humans do create their own essence.