The Physics of Significance: Why Mattering is a Biological Imperative

Sean Carroll’s Mindscape often operates at the intersection of hard physics and deep philosophy, but a recent conversation with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, titled Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters, strikes a chord that feels more urgent than the typical academic exercise. Goldstein, a philosopher and novelist who began her journey in physics, brings a unique intellectual rigmarole to a question we usually leave to poets: why do we feel such a desperate need to be significant?

Goldstein’s central thesis is the existence of a "mattering instinct." She defines mattering quite simply as the state of being "deserving of attention." It is a definition that immediately bridges the gap between the biological and the normative. As humans, we are evolutionarily wired to pay an excessive, almost obsessive amount of attention to ourselves. To be a conscious individual is to be the protagonist of a never-ending internal monologue. The crisis of the human condition, Goldstein argues, arises when we realize there is a massive gap between the amount of attention we give ourselves and the amount of attention we feel we actually deserve.

The Entropy of the Self

One of the most compelling segments of the discussion involves the connection between human meaning and the second law of thermodynamics. Goldstein points out that life, by definition, is a resistance to entropy. To be alive is to push back against the universal slide toward disorder. In creatures with high-level consciousness, this physical resistance manifests psychologically as the drive to justify our existence.

We see this play out in the tragic history of the James family. Goldstein uses William James—the father of American psychology—and his sister Alice as a controlled experiment in mattering. Both were brilliant, and both suffered from profound, suicidal depressions. William found a "mattering project" through his work in philosophy and psychology, which provided the kinetic energy he needed to resist his internal entropy. Alice, trapped by the restrictive Victorian expectations of her gender, had no such outlet. She became a professional invalid, eventually finding a grim sort of satisfaction in a terminal cancer diagnosis because it finally gave her a socially recognized reason to occupy space and receive attention.

The Four Paths to Significance

Goldstein identifies a framework of four general strategies humans use to satisfy the mattering instinct. Understanding which category you fall into is a clarifying exercise for anyone feeling existentially adrift:

• Transcendent Mattering: The belief that we matter because a higher power or cosmic order has assigned us a role. This is the traditional religious path.
• Social Mattering: Finding significance through belonging and the attention of others. This ranges from the deep intimacy of family to the fleeting, fickle dopamine of modern fame.
• Heroic Striving: The pursuit of excellence in a specific field—art, science, or ethics—where the internal standard of achievement provides the justification for one's life.
• Competitive Mattering: A zero-sum game where one matters only by mattering more than others. This is the realm of power and status, where significance is stolen rather than earned.

The Golden Nugget: "To matter is to be deserving of attention. We are creatures of matter who long to matter, which means we are normative creatures at our core."

Why This Episode Matters

This conversation is a masterclass in filtering the noise of modern life to find the signal of human motivation. By framing our need for significance as a biological necessity rather than a personality flaw, Goldstein offers a more empathetic way to view our social and political divisions. Many of our most vitriolic conflicts are not actually about policy; they are about people feeling that their sense of mattering is being threatened or erased.

Goldstein’s insight that "it is hard to be human" isn't just a platitude. It is a recognition of the immense energy required to keep our internal worlds from collapsing. For anyone trying to build a life that feels justified, this episode is a vital piece of the puzzle.