The French literary period stretching from early 1930’s to the end of the 1960’s saw philosophers emerge from their personal quarters and mold into public figures. With writers like Maurice Merlau-Ponty, Albert Camus and Simone De Beauvoir blessing the streets and cafés of Paris with their presence, the movement known as existentialism experienced a tremendous rise in popularity. However, none of the before-mentioned intellectuals came close to the modern superstar status of Jean Paul Sartre. With his 1938 novel Nausea, Sartre involuntarily became the poster boy of an entire literary movement. Claiming that the French never were freer than under German occupation, Sartre provoked the intellectual establishment not only in France, but also throughout the continent.

Nausea lays bare our utter meaningless existence trough the writings of Antoine Roquentin, a young writer living in the French city of Bouville. The novel rises a number of philosophical questions regarding not only the meaning of existence itself, but also its absurdity, its moral dilemmas and the superfluousness of it all. Throughout the novel Roquentin experiences a number of episodes where he can’t decide whether he has lost contact with his surroundings, or if he for the first time actually is in contact with them. He concludes the latter and decides to embrace the meaninglessness of it all. In my opinion, is it exactly this conclusion that makes the work of Sartre, and to some extent also Camus, so intriguing. It is not enough to acknowledge the meaninglessness of your existence, you have to live with it, and this is ultimately the reason why being human is so absurd. But to live with absurdity is no easy task.

Man seeks meaning, and if there is no preordained meaning, then what should a man make of himself? Exactly what you want to make of it, says Sartre. This statement, which he postulated more accurately in the pamphlet “Existentialism is a humanism” as ‘Existence precedes essence’, is most likely the biggest contribution to the legacy of french existentialism. But is this true? In the light of modern science, particularly modern neuroscience, is this statement still sound? Are my choices purely based on my a posteriori behaviour? Is it possible to truly create meaning without compromise? Or did Sartre underestimate the role of our l’essence?.

We characterize certain natural phenomena as objectively determined based on the laws of nature, such as tidal waves, sunsets, erosion etc… We as people, however, cannot always determine each other’s actions using the same methodology. I can hypothesize based on my knowledge of psychology, sociology and general observations that my friends will be much upset if I massacre their entire families. This hypothesis will most likely be confirmed if such a study were to be conducted (Imagine the face on the ethics board if someone proposed this as their thesis). In this extreme scenario it’s fairly easy to predict my friends reaction, but in the other scenarios it would be nearly impossible to accurately predict his or hers behaviour. Why is that? Firstly, the amount of confounding variables outrank my available means of calculation by far. Secondly, some of the variables change more quickly than what we encounter in natural phenomena. The density of a specific spot on a mountain is most likely to remain static, but my friend’s mood change often (too often if you ask me). Thirdly, I have to account for changes within my own consciousness that may influence my prediction. This however, is not easy. The accuracy and shiftiness required of my introspection in order to account for the changes in my consciousness would be impossible. The conclusion of this must therefore be that we simply cannot, as mere people, predict human behaviour using the same methodology as we do with natural phenomena.

However, as I mentioned earlier, this is perhaps no longer the case. With a significant development within the field of neuroscience, wouldn’t it now be possible to account for the majority of the confounding variables and predict human behaviour more accurately, and if this is the case, wouldn’t this refute Sartre’s infamous claim concerning human essence? Or at least, reverse the order so that we create meaning after we exist based on our individual biological limitations? Furthermore, will it some day be possible to optimise our choices by giving a quantum-computer the correct input? And perhaps more importantly if this becomes possible, are we willing to enter a new paradigm in human history where our choices are mathematically optimised based on our individuality? Will man then become pure essence?