Editing Absurdism (section)

=== Metacognitive ===
According to some researchers, a central aspect of the absurd is that the agent is [[Awareness|aware]] of the existence of the corresponding conflict. This means that the person is conscious both of the seriousness they invest and of how it seems misplaced in an arbitrary world.<ref name="Nagel2012"/><ref name="Hamer2020"/> It also implies that other entities that lack this form of consciousness, like non-organic matter or lower life forms, are not absurd and are not faced with this particular problem.<ref name="Nagel2012"/> Some theorists also emphasize that the conflict remains despite the individual's awareness of it, i.e. that the individual continues to care about their everyday concerns despite their impression that, on the large scale, these concerns are meaningless.<ref name="Fox2019"/> Defenders of the [[Metacognition|metacognitive]] component have argued that it manages to explain why absurdity is primarily ascribed to human aspirations but not to lower animals: because they lack this metacognitive awareness. However, other researchers reject the metacognitive requirement based on the fact that it would severely limit the scope of the absurd to only those possibly few individuals who clearly recognize the contradiction while sparing the rest. Thus, opponents have argued that not recognizing the conflict is just as absurd as consciously living through it.<ref name="Gordon1984"/><ref name="Nagel2012"/><ref name="Hamer2020"/>