To truly understand the concept of the prospect of oblivion, one must understand the pure material model that coincides with it. Materialism states that the only thing that can be said to truly exist is matter; consequently all occurrences in nature are the result of natural causes. Hence the non-existence of the supernatural. From this viewpoint, each of us 'persons' are in fact nothing more than biological machines. Your body fills an ecological niche produced by accidental factors and has no purpose; its optimal mechanical utility is sheer survival and replication. There is no 'I', and your entirety is nothing more than a self aware culmination of various parts randomly advanced through fundamentally purposeless outside influences. A computer with advanced artificial intelligence that can be declared aware of itself and conscious of its surroundings has as much right to live as you. Unplugging this computer is no less ominous than taking out a fellow man with a polished revolver. Welcome to a world in which you should never have really existed, and essentially you don't; you're just some cells interacting together. You might have a small bit of free-will, more precisely free action, but in effect, you're virtually watching a TV screen of how these complex organizations of cells react together. When factors cause these cellular systems to fail and stop interacting correctly, the biological processes stop, and you'll get to watch this television unplugged. And it won't ever turn back on again. Whether or not other televisions are turned on or not doesn't matter to you, nor does it matter if new televisions are being built. This is because the television you were watching was the only one you were ever going to be capable of watching. Welcome to oblivion.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre points out the true threat of death is to the observer. In the third person view, life forms enter into existence and then leave. If you view your life in the third person, it seems to be okay if you're replaced. Robert Nozick seems unconcerned with this view. Hyper-intelligent robots could replace you eons later, but if you've left traces that influence their future behaviors, your life has had purpose. However, in the first person, if you're obliterated, there is no universe. Nothing is relevant. If you've sacrificed yourself, for example by letting a younger person board an escape raft on a sinking ship, or even been able to sacrifice your rescue for the continued existence of an entire family, you haven't done much more than given yourself a warm feeling in the minutia of time preceding oblivion of everything relevant. In other words, if you'd wanted to keep on living in the least, the rational behavior was not the utilitarian one. You'd be willing to sacrifice an entire country if it meant your continued existence. If oblivion had otherwise awaited, the world's utility is of no relevance to the observer; a universe doesn't even exist now. Yielding such a perilous perspective, it's easy to understand why Nietzsche feared nihilism when a society withdrew from need of God. Materialistic science would supply answers and medicine and politics could solve problems. A person then doesn't need to believe in God and afterlife when he can understand and craft his own reality. However, can one's life possibly have any meaning when oblivion awaits for you and all those you could possibly influence? As William Craig puts it, “does it really matter whether he ever existed at all?” (Craig, “The Absurdity of Life Without God,” p. 42). Craig presents the idea that the universe had never even existed and argues that such an option has no fundamental difference compared to the ultimate death of the universe. Additionally, if the human race and rodent species all face the same final ultimatum of oblivion, a human life is no more meaningful than that of a rat. “Because [modern man] ends in nothing, he is nothing” (Craig, “The Absurdity of Life Without God,” p 42). Is happiness possible when not only meaning is removed from the picture, but oblivion also awaits?

The existentialist would argue happiness is possible. Sartre says if existence precedes essence, you are free to choose and invent; no rules can tell you how you should behave. Thus you can live life in whatever way provides you enjoyment. Nietzsche would argue thinking of your life as a series of brush strokes on a canvas will provide happiness. However, some feel that if a paradise of perfection does not await, or even anything at all, for that matter, then suicide is actually a rational course of action, as we'd have nothing to live for. Taking a philosophical argument to its logical extreme often provides enlightenment. Details complicate the picture, so let us use a simple thought experiment to provide a utility level of happiness, if it can even exist at all when oblivion awaits. Nozick's “experience machine” provides a sound platform on which to model this.

Virtual person A is born into existence in the machine at age 20, is imbued with basic knowledge, allowed to live for 24 hours, and is unaware he will ever die. In these 24 hours, he can explore any interest he has and can experience any pleasure he chooses. Assuming he immediately indulges in aural pleasure and enjoys the works of as many classical composers as he can, one would surely say he endured a happy existence. Or, more accurately, better than nothing. Person A's life can relate to that a simple life form, content with its own reality, and lacking the capacities for Nagel's “self-transcendence” that would allow him to see his lack of objective purpose and overall insignificance. Person B is the same situation as A, but chooses to labor the second 12 hours getting started building a house for his future, believing in his permanence. Person A experiences a greater utility of happiness in all happiness models presented. This analysis shows happiness is possible in certain situations in which oblivion awaits, and in varying utility levels.

When the subject positioned in the experience machine is aware of his impermanence, the reality becomes more complicated. Sartre makes the claim that years make no difference when you realize you've lost eternity. Person C, aware of his impermanence, and believing in ultimate oblivion, is thus allotted a maximum of one million years. Also, in person C's case, the experience machine only provides a few unique experiences. Person C can exercise, listen to a thousand hour music collection, and explore a few unchanging square miles of forest. Person C will realize soon that he'll be repeating actions long before his time has run out. Person C's model also parallels Nozick's view of the necessity of death to give value to life. According to Nozick, the large span of person C's time with limited life choices will not force him to live carefully, reducing his appreciation for life.

Craig makes a reference to a science-fiction story in which an astronaut permanently lost in space accidentally swallows an immortality potion instead of a vial of poison. The astronaut is now cursed to a never-ending void, left with only his thoughts for infinity to go. Merely comprehending true infinity is a difficult, as one must acknowledge it as never ending, not just a really long time. This is painful fate to imagine from almost any perspective. Of course, person C doesn't have infinity to get through, but he has what will seem like an eternity after he's done everything once. Surely before a million years, the temptation would be so strong, he'd explore everything, leaving no corners unturned. To take this example further, for how long can person C be happy listening to the same song when he knows oblivion awaits the instant he turns it off? No matter how good the song was the first time, he'd turn it off before infinity was over, just as the astronaut had wished for. Even if his memory is erased before hearing the song again for infinity, this is a truly absurd existence. He may experience a facade of happiness, but it's a disgusting and unfair fate to the outside observer. The same goes for the ancient story of Sisyphus; no reasonable person wants to be moving rocks up a hill for eternity even if they're inflicted enjoy it. For even if Sisyphus didn't want to be pushing the rock(s), what actually appalls is that “his existence itself is without meaning,” and this pointlessness never ends (Taylor, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 168).

Person D has the worst fate. He's allotted a finite time in the machine, knows of his impermanence, believes in ultimate oblivion, and experiences an observable, linear process of deterioration. Each passing moment, he becomes slightly weaker and less capable of experiencing the world around him. New potential experiences come and go, but person D must choose his pleasures wisely. Some new experiences will be better than previous ones, but overall, pleasures will wane. Person D will eventually be unable to move around or even think as well. He will experience increasing pain. The attachment whatsoever that person D has to existence will certainly come to depress him, and he will knowingly be less able to experience existence as life goes on. Person D's experience qualities will deteriorate to nothing and person D will eventually prefer oblivion over his less than undesirable existence.

Person E has the freedom to choose his length of existence, knows of his impermanence, believes in ultimate oblivion, and believes that his life will improve overall until the very end. Person E will want to stay alive, because the pleasures he's so far experienced are not as good as those he has yet to experience. Of C, D, and E, Person E is ultimately the only subject who can experience continuing happiness despite believing in his fate of ultimate oblivion; C will tire of the precise repetition of his actions, and D deteriorates. Person E demonstrates that in a controlled situation it is possible to experience happiness despite believing in oblivion as an ultimate fate. It is important to acknowledge that person E's opportunities can never peak, lest he be subject to person C's redundancy fate. But if they do peak, however, person E will still be happy up to that point. In the real world, regardless of religious beliefs, person E's reality can be created in the short term. A musician hasn't yet heard all of Beethoven's symphonies, let alone play those he desires to learn. A suffering patient holds out for hope of an uninvented treatment. A student gets excited about a new engineering technology that promises to improve life. This is why people have such excitement for new discoveries and technologies. Forests are yet unexplored, songs haven't been heard yet, and human augmentation has barely been initiated. However, in the material world, one has to accept an uncontrollable factor can end in his death and that the best of his life may have already passed. Can this normal person be content with oblivion without guiding his life by hope or attempting to perpetually improve the quality of his experiences?

There are two ways one can still derive happiness from life if he believes oblivion is on the other side of the corner and things aren't going to increasingly improve. In the first, one is giving himself a false sense of purpose. Taylor argues that one derives meaning to his own life from within. In his reference to Sisyphus having been inflicted with the desire to move rocks up mountains for eternity, he argues Sisyphus is happy because has the sensation of purpose and meaning. Craig argues that such a perception is actually an “exercise in self-delusion. For the universe does not really acquire a meaning just because I give it one” (Craig, “The Absurdity of Life Without God,” p. 47). If the reality is that there is no meaning, we're simply fooling ourselves. Is happiness possible, then, without fooling yourself? According to Craig, objective meaning is required for happiness. However, one can accept lack of objective meaning, reject subjective meaning, and still derive pleasure by living hedonistically, the second way.

Baier points out that if one is accustomed to the Christian view that perfect bliss awaits the death of the body, earthly life is miserable, and most of the pleasures it provides as vile and sinful, he will have trouble shifting his viewpoint to accepting a more hedonistic lifestyle. Such an idealistic outlook creates unjustifiable high standards. This is as absurd as refusing to call “anything beautiful unless it is perfectly flawless” (Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 127). In truth, a flaw in a gem can give it more beauty, and if life “can be worthwhile at all, then it can be so even though it be short” (Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 128). With the exception of ruthlessness to avoid an undesired oblivion, lack of morality does not necessarily coincide with living hedonistically, as one might think. True morality is independent of a patriarchical god that would punish behavior failing to glorify him or alternatively providing reward. Morality is “to recognize that others, too, have a right to a worthwhile life,” and helping others take actions that they would want if they followed reason (Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 129).

A hedonistic, non-meaningful life that would come at a “considerable dissociative cost, [but be] less absurd than most,” says Nagel, would be “if someone simply let his individual, animal nature to drift and respond to impulse,without making the pursuit of its needs a central conscious aim” (Nagel, “The Absurd,” p. 184). If there is no objective meaning, “the point of any living thing's life is, evidently nothing but life itself” (Taylor, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 171). Taylor also says that desire itself can create the products needed to provide internal meaning to one's life. In the case that this isn't eternal and one can still acknowledge a self transcending view of his life, I agree with Taylor that this is okay. “Each man's life thus resembles one of Sisyphus's climbs to the summit of his hill, and each day one of his steps; the difference is that whereas Sisyphus himself returns to push the stone up again, we leave this to our children” (Taylor, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 172).

When Tolstoy began to believe his life was ultimately meaningless, the prospect of oblivion became such a painful idea that he felt he could not enjoy the least of it. He gives the example of a traveler who jumps into a waterless well to save himself from an infuriated beast. Seeing a dragon waiting to devour him at the other end, he holds onto a bush, dangling meaninglessly to attempt to avoid his fate. Tolstoy sees his entire life like this and says the honey drops on the bush's leaves will provide no pleasure for him. The problem with Tolstoy is that he doesn't acknowledge the sweetness of the honey while it's still available to him. Baier, arguing his mindset is like many who believed in a perfect afterlife, implies he's subconsciously comparing perfection to that of oblivion; therefore happiness from such a measly pleasure is hard for him to obtain. Baier says that the true sadness is that “we have to leave this beautiful world, but it is so only if and because it is beautiful” (Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 128). Tolstoy should change his outlook to appreciation of the drops of honey while he has them. After all, as Epicurus argues, if death is annihilation, it's neither bad for the dead nor the living, so to be concerned with it is irrational. Alternatively, “where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not,” Epicurus eloquently says in his famous words. Consequently, fearing death is irrational.

Even without hedonistic ways, one doesn't need an objective sense of purpose for happiness, says Baier. In fact, it would actually be belittling to believe in yourself as having an overall function. “We are treating him, in Kant's phrase, merely as a means to our ends, not as an end in himself” (Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 120). If one cannot give himself a false sense of purpose and cannot derive enough pleasure from his reality in a hedonistic fashion, he is “driving a burning car” (Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 125). To escape his body, he must jump out of the car to a quick transition to oblivion, rather than endure an excruciating, lengthy pain from the fires amok inside of the vehicle. If we have the belief that our lives are not worth living from a rational standpoint, we reserve the right to not stay in that burning vehicle. Arguably, this is actually more liberating than the notion one must stay in the burning vehicle to fulfill an objective purpose. Even if there were creators of humanity, notions Nagel, “we would still be in the dark as to the significance of the lives of those [higher] beings,” and “it is not clear how it would make [our earthly lives] meaningful to us. ... justifications come to an end when we are content to have them end” (Nagel, “The Absurd,” p. 180). In other words, if we came to understand earthly existence was to glorify God, is it meaningful to have to continue the glorification? Even if we can self transcend and look at ourselves from an external view, without objective purpose, we still tend to perceive ourselves as having such a strong sense of subjective purpose that we don't even cease “to be the persons whose ultimate concerns are so coolly regarded” (Nagel, “The Absurd,” p. 179). Additionally, if we recognize our ultimate objective actions as arbitrary, it's easier to accept subjective freedom.

If one does in fact believe oblivion awaits the death of the body, happiness is still possible. Hedonism, giving oneself a subjective sense of purpose, or combinations thereof can provide the foundation of an existence that is meaningful from within. Self transcendence is preferable; “absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics” (Nagel, “The Absurd,” p. 185). Morality is recognition that others have the right to a worthwhile life, but if oblivion awaits, choosing to save yourself independent of the necessary ruthlessness over the utilitarian saving of others is actually the rational course of action. This facet of the viewpoint may be the only true absurdity to life if oblivion did, in fact, await. Certainly, however, one can find much more contentment in the idea that oblivion does not await. Of course if eternity of existence awaits the death of the body, this eternity must provide the absence of permanently pointless and repetitive behaviors. This is what appalls a reasonable person about being imbued with the desire for purposeless stone rolling for eternity, and causes him to feel intense dread for the immortal astronaut left occupied only by the desolate agony of his thoughts, an existence one cannot even comprehend.