nihilism

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

The materialists are not actually materialists in the sense that people like Hegel aren’t. Husserl bracketed out the transcendent. He didn’t say there is no transcendent. Marx wanted it out but also realized the material can’t be changed without ideas… so he self-destructed.

There’s a way outta that. Go back to the beginning & start over.

Like Descartes.

Burn this mutha down! To the ground!

No launching w/o a launch pad.

[iambiguous]

No, seriously.

[iambiguous]

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

What makes doubt inescapable with regard to the limited aims of individual life also makes it inescapable with regard to any larger purpose that encourages the sense that life is meaningful.

Inescapable only if you accept the premise that human existence is in fact essentially meaningless and absurd. But those who champion this frame of mind are no more able to demonstrate that this is true than those who insist that the manner in which they give life meaning is that which all reasonable men and women are then obligated to share.

Then the inescapable fact that none of us on either end of the “meaning of life” spectrum are able to go much beyond that which “here and now” we profess to believe about it “in our head”. And, down through the ages, what has not been believed is true by mere mortals in the staggering vastness of all there is?

That’s the beauty – the ugly truth? – about the human condition. This: that you believe something is all that matters. Why? Because your behaviors are predicated on what you believe and not on what you can demonstrate is, in fact, true. And it is as a result of our behaviors that there are actual consequences. For example, what Hitler believed. Or, today, what Putin believes?

Once the fundamental doubt has begun, it cannot be laid to rest.

That can be true. It is certainly true of me. But I have been planting that doubt for years now. And yet how many “fulminating fanatic objectivists” – God or No God – have, uh, “seen the light”?

Nope. For most True Believers, the psychological rewards of being able to anchor their Real Me…their one true Intrinsic Self…onto one or another one true objectivist Path are such that they simply refuse to accept that my own “fractured and fragmented” “self” is an option that makes any sense at all.

Besides, who would want to think like “I” do.

Camus maintains in The Myth of Sisyphus that the absurd arises because the world fails to meet our demands for meaning. This suggests that the world might satisfy those demnands if it were different. But now we can see that this is not the case. There does not appear to be any conceivable world (containing us) about which unsettlable doubts could not arise. Consequently the absurdity of our situation derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves.

And, I suspect, Camus met the same reactions from others back then that I do now. After all, the objectivists have their moral and political and spiritual font of choice. It does comfort and console them. It does anchor them to the One True Path.

So: what collision within them? No, the collisions still unfold between their own objectivist Self [one of us…the smart guys, the good guys] and the objectivist selves of others [one of them…the dumb guys, the bad guys].

[HumAnIze]

I remember trying to read Nagel, was not impressed. Couldn’t get past the constant errors.

Nihilism is a psychological reaction to what are otherwise philosophical questions/problems. When you attempt to address the problems in your life philosophically, as everyone does even if only to a very minimal degree, you will eventually reach a limit. This limit represents a cognitive ideational limit within and as your own mind. The proper response is to keep pushing and developing your ideas, expand your philosophy, make it better. Learn more truth.

But many people don’t know how to do that or have an instinct not to, for whatever reason. So they revert to mere psychology and start warping their own personality, emotions, motivations etc. in order to try and cope with their own cognitive limitations that prevent them from solving the problems at hand.

Nihilism is stupid and silly; just like radical skepticism and solipsism it is self-defeating. But what’s interesting is that the adherents of these ideas are unable to understand how the ideas are self-defeating, I suppose because having integrated these into their own personalities they become unable to properly analyze them philosophically. They cannot be objective.

Nihilistic “philosophy” is a contradiction in terms. Philosophy is about expanding meaning and truth, not curtailing and retarding it.

[HumAnIze]

It likens the difference between being a handrail against the storm, vs being a crutch, as Nietzsche wrote. One is properly necessary at times and serves to enhance rather than confuse and retard the meaning and truth, the other is pathological and merely a hard cope and weakness simp.

[iambiguous]

Is this you, Pedro? I smell Corner in your posts.

@HumAnIze

I remember trying to read Nagel, was not impressed. Couldn’t get past the constant errors.

Great, just what we need here, another “my way or the highway”, “arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian” objectivist.

So…

Not sure if you are in error?

Well, do you agree with HumAnIze about nihilism and Nagel? No? Then you are in error.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a psychological reaction to what are otherwise philosophical questions/problems. When you attempt to address the problems in your life philosophically, as everyone does even if only to a very minimal degree, you will eventually reach a limit. This limit represents a cognitive ideational limit within and as your own mind. The proper response is to keep pushing and developing your ideas, expand your philosophy, make it better. Learn more truth.

But many people don’t know how to do that or have an instinct not to, for whatever reason. So they revert to mere psychology and start warping their own personality, emotions, motivations etc. in order to try and cope with their own cognitive limitations that prevent them from solving the problems at hand.

Okay, let’s bring this down to earth. For me, nihilism revolves around the is/ought world. That’s why I call myself a moral nihilist.

With the either/or world of math and science and nature and the empirical world around us and the logical rules of language, I’m not a nihilist at all. Nihilism doesn’t come into play here in my view until we get to sim worlds, dream world, solllipsism and the Matrix.

So…

Let HumAnIze choose a particular context – Mary, Jane and abortion being my own personal favorite – and we can dig in regarding nihilism and our respective moral philosophies.

In regard to the question, “how ought one to live morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and in contingency, chance and change?” I make the philosophical assumption that, in a No God world, the arguments I make in my signature threads are reasonable.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is stupid and silly; just like radical skepticism and solipsism it is self-defeating. But what’s interesting is that the adherents of these ideas are unable to understand how the ideas are self-defeating, I suppose because having integrated these into their own personalities they become unable to properly analyze them philosophically. They cannot be objective.

Nihilistic “philosophy” is a contradiction in terms. Philosophy is about expanding meaning and truth, not curtailing and retarding it.

Context please.

[iambiguous]

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

It may be objected that the standpoint from which these doubts are supposed to be felt does not exist—that if we take the recommended backward step we will land on thin air, without any basis for judgment about the natural responses we are supposed to be surveying. If we retain our usual standards of what is important, then questions about the significance of what we are doing with our lives will be answerable in the usual way. But if we do not, then those questions can mean nothing to us, since there is no longer any content to the idea of what matters, and hence no content to the idea that nothing does.

Back to why I point out time and again that abstract assessments of this sort can mean practically anything if they revolve solely around what we think he means by the words put in this particular order. Doubts about what given what particular set of circumstances? What “natural responses” in regard to what sequence of events? How about the mid-term elections in America? Your usual standards of what is important here or mine? Our usual significance or theirs?

Backward or forward here given what set of political prejudices?

But this objection misconceives the nature of the backward step. It is not supposed to give us an understanding of what is really important, so that we see by contrast that our lives are insignificant. We never, in the course of these reflections, abandon the ordinary standards that guide our lives. We merely observe them in operation, and recognize that if they are called into question we can justify them only by reference to themselves, uselessly. We adhere to them because of the way we are put together; what seems to us important or serious or valuable would not seem so if we were differently constituted.

In a word: dasein.

But how is this made clearer without illustrating the text? The liberals step back in regard to the Tuesday election result and see significance and insignificance quite differently from the backward steps the MAGA camp takes. After all, how many liberals and conservatives stepped back on Wednesday and did abandon their own political prejudices? Our standards are our prejudices. Though that is hardly a “useless” conclusion. Not out in the real world.

In fact, I’m the one emphasizing this part:

“We adhere to them because of the way we are put together; what seems to us important or serious or valuable would not seem so if we were differently constituted.”

Dasein in a nutshell of course.

[HumAnIze]

Ah, you tempt me to make some coffee and form a proper response to all this. Despite your silly little insults and ad hom.

Ok fine. Coffee incoming, response incoming.

[HumAnIze]

@iambiguous

Is this you, Pedro? I smell Corner in your posts.

I am not “Pedro” and I don’t know what you mean by “Corner”.

@HumAnIze

I remember trying to read Nagel, was not impressed. Couldn’t get past the constant errors.

Great, just what we need here, another “my way or the highway”, “arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian” objectivist.

So…

Not sure if you are in error?

Oh right, the supposed arrogant autocratic response of saying someone was making errors. Oh yes. Very “arrogant” and “autocratic”.

Not like your flippant dismissal of what I said reeks of arrogance or autocratic impulse, oh no. Certainly not. Just the mere fact that someone would criticize one of your hallowed AUTHORITY FIGURES is grounds enough for you to get triggered, lol. Certainly not at all an ‘objective’ emotional delineation on your part, is it?

Well, do you agree with HumAnIze about nihilism and Nagel? No? Then you are in error.

Are you ok? I mean seriously. All I said is that I had a hard time getting past the errors.

I mean is this guy your guru or God or something? Someone mentions he made errors and you can’t cope? But we will get into the errors below, thankfully you provided some substance to digest here.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a psychological reaction to what are otherwise philosophical questions/problems. When you attempt to address the problems in your life philosophically, as everyone does even if only to a very minimal degree, you will eventually reach a limit. This limit represents a cognitive ideational limit within and as your own mind. The proper response is to keep pushing and developing your ideas, expand your philosophy, make it better. Learn more truth.

But many people don’t know how to do that or have an instinct not to, for whatever reason. So they revert to mere psychology and start warping their own personality, emotions, motivations etc. in order to try and cope with their own cognitive limitations that prevent them from solving the problems at hand.

Okay, let’s bring this down to earth. For me, nihilism revolves around the is/ought world.

And that is?

That’s why I call myself a moral nihilist.

And that means what? That you don’t think morality has meaning?

Nihilism is a teenage cope for emo-type simps who are mad at their fathers. That is why they all inevitably treat their favorite writers/artists/philosophers as gods who cannot be criticized. Then they borrow some of that “holiness” to themselves by virtue of they’re being SO SMART to recognize the supreme godliness of their hallowed visionary gurus (Nietzsche simps come to mind here).

It’s basically not even philosophy, it’s psychology. Emotion, cope, dissonance, react, repeat. Find something to solidify the personality around, which we all go through in our more formative earlier years. Because a true nihilist would deny even the meaning of his own nihilism, which I have yet to see anyone do. Since if they did it they would no longer be a nihilist.

Nihilism is self-refuting in the same way that radical skepticism or solipsism are. It’s just another form of the same basic error, a failure of logic in the troubled sea of “muh feels”.

With the either/or world of math and science and nature and the empirical world around us and the logical rules of language, I’m not a nihilist at all. Nihilism doesn’t come into play here in my view until we get to sim worlds, dream world, solllipsism and the Matrix.

So…

Bro I’m sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about. The Matrix, dream worlds. Either/or? Sorry but you’ll need to elaborate. I’m not familiar with your particular pet terms or concepts yet.

Let HumAnIze choose a particular context – Mary, Jane and abortion being my own personal favorite – and we can dig in regarding nihilism and our respective moral philosophies.

I am always up for a discussion/debate about abortion. The issue is inherently about morality. Make a new thread and I’ll be there.

In regard to the question, “how ought one to live morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and in contingency, chance and change?” I make the philosophical assumption that, in a No God world, the arguments I make in my signature threads are reasonable.

Well I can’t see your signature right now, I could open another window but I mean. Can’t you just make your point clearly? It should be sufficient to read your actual response here, in order to understand what it is you are claiming.

“how ought one to live morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and in contingency, chance and change?” …so what?

Conflicting goods, contingency, chance, and change are all inevitable facts of existence. This is why we are compelled toward moral understanding. Certainly of human existence and probably of existence itself. These are logically undeniable. So what you are saying is basically how can we be moral in something other than a made-up fantasy perfect world that doesn’t exist? Well no wonder you are a “moral nihilist” lol. You are still yearning for the very thing you claim not to need.

Morality itself, our understanding of it, or our acting in terms of it is not at all belied, refuted or contradicted by these inevitable facts of existence. I have already explained in my other thread about how morality is process of optimization and not a black and white thing. Morality involves taking proper stock of all the relevant parts and facts of the situation, all relevant parties and respective meanings and values, applying proper logic and extrapolating anticipated likely future outcomes, running all of that through a filter of what are the goods and bads at stake and to what degrees and why and how, and then once you have that structure in place you “run” it i.e. allow it to naturally optimize for goods over bads. Then you know what you ought to do, whatever that optimization is.

And not only am I saying this is the proper process for determining morality but I am also saying this is what we all are already always doing when it comes to moral questions or situations. This is how it actually works, this is what is happening in your mind and in your “instincts” whether or not you realize it in the moment. And there is always room to improve this process. For example most people have erroneous meaning and value prioritization with respect to me vs others delineations, i.e. they over-value themselves and under-value others morally.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is stupid and silly; just like radical skepticism and solipsism it is self-defeating. But what’s interesting is that the adherents of these ideas are unable to understand how the ideas are self-defeating, I suppose because having integrated these into their own personalities they become unable to properly analyze them philosophically. They cannot be objective.

Nihilistic “philosophy” is a contradiction in terms. Philosophy is about expanding meaning and truth, not curtailing and retarding it.

Context please.

Context: Nihilism is just like radical skepticism and solipsism, it only exists as a contradiction of itself.

Nihilism is a supposed rejection of meaning. In which case it should reject the meaning of nihilism, in which case nihilism would no longer exist or it would exist as some kind of empty placeholder term. But that isn’t how nihilists use nihilism, they use it to ADD more meaning into their own lives, thoughts and emotions. Nihilism is precisely meaningful to a nihilist, which is pretty ironically funny. And you can tell how meaningful it is to them because they always get super emotional about it, defend it, or talk about it all the time. Like you know, making entire huge threads and writing about it almost every day. And not only this, but nihilism is a lie, a self-lie that nihilists tell themselves when they close their eyes and pretend that meaning isn’t there, when it always and absolutely is there.

Radical skepticism is a supposed default position of doubt, not realizing that doubt just like belief also requires to have reasons for being that which it is. A belief without reasons is stupid just like a doubt without reasons is stupid. There is no default position of either absent any kind of reasoning or causality. Principle of Sufficient Reason: there is nothing that “just exists” and for literally no reason at all. And if radical skepticism would be legit then it would be skeptical of itself and of its presupposition of default doubting without reason or cause, which I have never seen it be. And if it were then it would quickly unravel and cease to exist.

Solipsism is the idea that somehow “you” or “I” or just one person could be the only mind/being/experience in existence, which is absurd because it requires denying and pretending we don’t know things that we obviously already know. For example the fact that other people are alive in the same way that we are, are having some kind of inner experience and operating on some kind of physiological and psychological framework in the same way that we are. This is among the most basic and obvious extrapolations possible to us, when we see and interact with other people and are able to realize “oh yes, they are clearly having the same kind of experience/inner self thing as I am” even if you cannot directly access the contents of their minds. You infer the existence of those contents unless you are either radically autistic or simply a liar. And solipsism loops back into radical skepticism as one example of it, as if we are supposed to take seriously a claim for which we have absolutely no reason or evidence on its behalf and every reason and evidence we do have points toward its refutation, however it is technically not impossible that it could somehow be the case (it is not directly logically contradictory in its claim). So basically the mere fact of “isn’t technically logically impossible” outweighs A) all reason and evidence against the claim being true and B) absence of any reason and evidence in support of the claim being true. You just willfully ignore 99.99999999% of relevant facts, data, reasons and logic and pick a little 0.00000001% aspect to cling to and somehow this little fraction outweighs everything else, in your mind. Which indicates a pathological thinking process and a gross inability to introspect.

[HumAnIze]

@iambiguous

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

It may be objected that the standpoint from which these doubts are supposed to be felt does not exist—that if we take the recommended backward step we will land on thin air, without any basis for judgment about the natural responses we are supposed to be surveying. If we retain our usual standards of what is important, then questions about the significance of what we are doing with our lives will be answerable in the usual way. But if we do not, then those questions can mean nothing to us, since there is no longer any content to the idea of what matters, and hence no content to the idea that nothing does.

Back to why I point out time and again that abstract assessments of this sort can mean practically anything if they revolve solely around what we think he means by the words put in this particular order. Doubts about what given what particular set of circumstances? What “natural responses” in regard to what sequence of events? How about the mid-term elections in America? Your usual standards of what is important here or mine? Our usual significance or theirs?

Backward or forward here given what set of political prejudices?

Well no wonder you call yourself a nihilist if this is the kind of trash you read. I’d be a nihilist too if I thought there was meaning to be found in this nonsense.

You can’t realize that he isn’t saying anything true or meaningful at all, that this is simply jargony babble meant to cause a quasi-emotional response in you? You are supposed to react as “wow yes I feel what he is saying! Let’s turn up the knob on the default doubting-meter and the radical skepticism-meter. I feel justified in my mentality of a constant surfeit of self-proud denialism”.

“No longer any content to the idea of what matters”? Simply by not “retaining our usual standards”? Dude. You should stop reading this garbage. These academics are priests murmuring nonsense to each other and cloaking it in the form of profundity or respectability.

But this objection misconceives the nature of the backward step. It is not supposed to give us an understanding of what is really important, so that we see by contrast that our lives are insignificant. We never, in the course of these reflections, abandon the ordinary standards that guide our lives. We merely observe them in operation, and recognize that if they are called into question we can justify them only by reference to themselves, uselessly. We adhere to them because of the way we are put together; what seems to us important or serious or valuable would not seem so if we were differently constituted.

Oh ok, so we are so meaningless that we cannot even comprehend how meaningless we are. Lol.

In fact you should keep going with this, be the world’s top nihilist. Push for meaninglessness as far as you can, and maybe someday you’ll actually find it.

Then again I wonder what you might be running from, what meaning in your life or past has caused you to set upon this course of denialism and obfuscation? I suppose it could be culmination of chance circumstances and insufficient intelligence for this kind of logical abstraction, but I would guess there is something more personal to it. Just based on the devotion you exude.

In a word: dasein.

No, this has nothing to do with dasein. Dasein is being-there, it is precisely phenomenologically indicating the essential condition of [b]meaningfulness[/b] that exists at the heart of being. Of which humans are, as far as we know, the closest example.

In fact dasein means quite literally the exact opposite of what you seem to think it means, if you are in any way relating it to the meaningless rambling denialism of Nagel.

But how is this made clearer without illustrating the text? The liberals step back in regard to the Tuesday election result and see significance and insignificance quite differently from the backward steps the MAGA camp takes. After all, how many liberals and conservatives stepped back on Wednesday and did abandon their own political prejudices? Our standards are our prejudices. Though that is hardly a “useless” conclusion. Not out in the real world.

In fact, I’m the one emphasizing this part:

“We adhere to them because of the way we are put together; what seems to us important or serious or valuable would not seem so if we were differently constituted.”

Dasein in a nutshell of course.

None of this is saying anything at all except for the most basic platitude like “MuH hUmAns hAvE sTandArDs Or SuMtHinG”. Yeah, we have standards, prejudices, ideas, values, patterns, algorithms, ways of doing things. We have our beliefs and our ideas. These things are important to us. And if we were a different person we might not have these same beliefs/ideas/etc.

Wow, really?! Holy Shit what an insight! You mean to tell me that humans HAVE BELIEFS, which are IMPORTANT TO US and that if we were a different person we MIGHT NOT HAVE those same beliefs? Omfg, brilliant. Get this man a Nobel over here.

[iambiguous]

@HumAnIze

@iambiguous

Is this you, Pedro? I smell Corner in your posts.

I am not “Pedro” and I don’t know what you mean by “Corner”.

@HumAnIze

I remember trying to read Nagel, was not impressed. Couldn’t get past the constant errors.

Great, just what we need here, another “my way or the highway”, “arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian” objectivist.

So…

Not sure if you are in error?

Oh right, the supposed arrogant autocratic response of saying someone was making errors. Oh yes. Very “arrogant” and “autocratic”.

Not like your flippant dismissal of what I said reeks of arrogance or autocratic impulse, oh no. Certainly not. Just the mere fact that someone would criticize one of your hallowed AUTHORITY FIGURES is grounds enough for you to get triggered, lol. Certainly not at all an ‘objective’ emotional delineation on your part, is it?

Well, do you agree with HumAnIze about nihilism and Nagel? No? Then you are in error.

Are you ok? I mean seriously. All I said is that I had a hard time getting past the errors.

I mean is this guy your guru or God or something? Someone mentions he made errors and you can’t cope? But we will get into the errors below, thankfully you provided some substance to digest here.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a psychological reaction to what are otherwise philosophical questions/problems. When you attempt to address the problems in your life philosophically, as everyone does even if only to a very minimal degree, you will eventually reach a limit. This limit represents a cognitive ideational limit within and as your own mind. The proper response is to keep pushing and developing your ideas, expand your philosophy, make it better. Learn more truth.

But many people don’t know how to do that or have an instinct not to, for whatever reason. So they revert to mere psychology and start warping their own personality, emotions, motivations etc. in order to try and cope with their own cognitive limitations that prevent them from solving the problems at hand.

Okay, let’s bring this down to earth. For me, nihilism revolves around the is/ought world.

And that is?

That’s why I call myself a moral nihilist.

And that means what? That you don’t think morality has meaning?

Nihilism is a teenage cope for emo-type simps who are mad at their fathers. That is why they all inevitably treat their favorite writers/artists/philosophers as gods who cannot be criticized. Then they borrow some of that “holiness” to themselves by virtue of they’re being SO SMART to recognize the supreme godliness of their hallowed visionary gurus (Nietzsche simps come to mind here).

It’s basically not even philosophy, it’s psychology. Emotion, cope, dissonance, react, repeat. Find something to solidify the personality around, which we all go through in our more formative earlier years. Because a true nihilist would deny even the meaning of his own nihilism, which I have yet to see anyone do. Since if they did it they would no longer be a nihilist.

Nihilism is self-refuting in the same way that radical skepticism or solipsism are. It’s just another form of the same basic error, a failure of logic in the troubled sea of “muh feels”.

With the either/or world of math and science and nature and the empirical world around us and the logical rules of language, I’m not a nihilist at all. Nihilism doesn’t come into play here in my view until we get to sim worlds, dream world, solllipsism and the Matrix.

So…

Bro I’m sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about. The Matrix, dream worlds. Either/or? Sorry but you’ll need to elaborate. I’m not familiar with your particular pet terms or concepts yet.

Let HumAnIze choose a particular context – Mary, Jane and abortion being my own personal favorite – and we can dig in regarding nihilism and our respective moral philosophies.

I am always up for a discussion/debate about abortion. The issue is inherently about morality. Make a new thread and I’ll be there.

In regard to the question, “how ought one to live morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and in contingency, chance and change?” I make the philosophical assumption that, in a No God world, the arguments I make in my signature threads are reasonable.

Well I can’t see your signature right now, I could open another window but I mean. Can’t you just make your point clearly? It should be sufficient to read your actual response here, in order to understand what it is you are claiming.

“how ought one to live morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and in contingency, chance and change?” …so what?

Conflicting goods, contingency, chance, and change are all inevitable facts of existence. This is why we are compelled toward moral understanding. Certainly of human existence and probably of existence itself. These are logically undeniable. So what you are saying is basically how can we be moral in something other than a made-up fantasy perfect world that doesn’t exist? Well no wonder you are a “moral nihilist” lol. You are still yearning for the very thing you claim not to need.

Morality itself, our understanding of it, or our acting in terms of it is not at all belied, refuted or contradicted by these inevitable facts of existence. I have already explained in my other thread about how morality is process of optimization and not a black and white thing. Morality involves taking proper stock of all the relevant parts and facts of the situation, all relevant parties and respective meanings and values, applying proper logic and extrapolating anticipated likely future outcomes, running all of that through a filter of what are the goods and bads at stake and to what degrees and why and how, and then once you have that structure in place you “run” it i.e. allow it to naturally optimize for goods over bads. Then you know what you ought to do, whatever that optimization is.

And not only am I saying this is the proper process for determining morality but I am also saying this is what we all are already always doing when it comes to moral questions or situations. This is how it actually works, this is what is happening in your mind and in your “instincts” whether or not you realize it in the moment. And there is always room to improve this process. For example most people have erroneous meaning and value prioritization with respect to me vs others delineations, i.e. they over-value themselves and under-value others morally.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is stupid and silly; just like radical skepticism and solipsism it is self-defeating. But what’s interesting is that the adherents of these ideas are unable to understand how the ideas are self-defeating, I suppose because having integrated these into their own personalities they become unable to properly analyze them philosophically. They cannot be objective.

Nihilistic “philosophy” is a contradiction in terms. Philosophy is about expanding meaning and truth, not curtailing and retarding it.

Context please.

Context: Nihilism is just like radical skepticism and solipsism, it only exists as a contradiction of itself.

Nihilism is a supposed rejection of meaning. In which case it should reject the meaning of nihilism, in which case nihilism would no longer exist or it would exist as some kind of empty placeholder term. But that isn’t how nihilists use nihilism, they use it to ADD more meaning into their own lives, thoughts and emotions. Nihilism is precisely meaningful to a nihilist, which is pretty ironically funny. And you can tell how meaningful it is to them because they always get super emotional about it, defend it, or talk about it all the time. Like you know, making entire huge threads and writing about it almost every day. And not only this, but nihilism is a lie, a self-lie that nihilists tell themselves when they close their eyes and pretend that meaning isn’t there, when it always and absolutely is there.

Radical skepticism is a supposed default position of doubt, not realizing that doubt just like belief also requires to have reasons for being that which it is. A belief without reasons is stupid just like a doubt without reasons is stupid. There is no default position of either absent any kind of reasoning or causality. Principle of Sufficient Reason: there is nothing that “just exists” and for literally no reason at all. And if radical skepticism would be legit then it would be skeptical of itself and of its presupposition of default doubting without reason or cause, which I have never seen it be. And if it were then it would quickly unravel and cease to exist.

Solipsism is the idea that somehow “you” or “I” or just one person could be the only mind/being/experience in existence, which is absurd because it requires denying and pretending we don’t know things that we obviously already know. For example the fact that other people are alive in the same way that we are, are having some kind of inner experience and operating on some kind of physiological and psychological framework in the same way that we are. This is among the most basic and obvious extrapolations possible to us, when we see and interact with other people and are able to realize “oh yes, they are clearly having the same kind of experience/inner self thing as I am” even if you cannot directly access the contents of their minds. You infer the existence of those contents unless you are either radically autistic or simply a liar. And solipsism loops back into radical skepticism as one example of it, as if we are supposed to take seriously a claim for which we have absolutely no reason or evidence on its behalf and every reason and evidence we do have points toward its refutation, however it is technically not impossible that it could somehow be the case (it is not directly logically contradictory in its claim). So basically the mere fact of “isn’t technically logically impossible” outweighs A) all reason and evidence against the claim being true and B) absence of any reason and evidence in support of the claim being true. You just willfully ignore 99.99999999% of relevant facts, data, reasons and logic and pick a little 0.00000001% aspect to cling to and somehow this little fraction outweighs everything else, in your mind. Which indicates a pathological thinking process and a gross inability to introspect.

Note to others:

Does he actually bring his own understanding of nihilism down to earth here pertaining to a particular set of circumstances – a context – in which we can explore our respective moral philosophies? Or is it just another harangue directed at me from yet another fulminating fanatic objectivist. A pinhead even, perhaps?

Again, with access to those more inclined to pursue philosophy as it was once practiced here, I don’t engage them anymore.

[HumAnIze]

Yep, another peteretard. Low level scum in the pond. Can’t even respond and pretends like his own inability is some kind of high and mighty position. Truly astounding to see such a putrid worm-mind having infested a human organism.

But thank you for conceding all the points I made, I will gladly take those wins

And more so thank you for confirming to me that you are in fact an insanely retarded and lobotomized pre-programmed fuckwad. It is good to have one’s suspicious confirmed, although I was holding out just to give you an honest chance.

Carry on with your little nihilism fake philosophy games. God knows why you types even bother logging in here, if you can’t even do philosophy and have no interest in it. I suppose this is your social hub, somehow? Really pathetic indeed. But to each his own =D>

[HumAnIze]

And to think that I spent all that time writing such a detailed and honest response to every thing he said to me. Wow. What a collossal waste of my time.

Sorry I had given you the benefit of the doubt, sorry I assumed you might be a decent human being and not another kind of troll scumfucker trashnoob cunt. Well. Good luck with that!

[iambiguous]

No, seriously,

Note to her:

That’s okay, right? [-o<

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

Thanks, ~iAmBiggyUs,

Question: because it looks or seems pointless DEFINITELY means it IS pointless… right?

You’re the launching pad & rocket fuel to my space flight, Biggy.

[Ben_JS]

There are multiple types of nihilism, each with their own scope.
iambiguous refers to being a moral nihilist, the scope being nihilism regarding morality.
I consider myself an existential nihilist - I don’t think existence has objective meaning, but we can create our own.
I could agree with iambiguous that there is no basis for objective morality, but I do believe there is one for subjective morality.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a teenage cope for emo-type simps who are mad at their fathers.

I haven’t been following the conversation, so responding to this may be cherry picking - if so, forgive me.

This statement appears very dismissive. Nihilists can be very happy, optimistic and loving people.
I can understand how your statement may apply to Young nihilists, who may very well be lashing out.
My point is there’s more to nihilism than a teenager’s conception of nihilism.

@HumAnIze

That is why they all inevitably treat their favorite writers/artists/philosophers as gods who cannot be criticized. Then they borrow some of that “holiness” to themselves by virtue of they’re being SO SMART to recognize the supreme godliness of their hallowed visionary gurus (Nietzsche simps come to mind here).

I never really had a Nietzche phase [preferred Schopenhauer] - I took issue with the community that hijacked ‘Will to Power’ as a ticket to be assholes.
However, if one interprets WtP as: life bestows a surplus of energy within each of us [energy = power], and our will is to express this energy - then it sits fine with me.
I was really influenced by his life affirmation:

If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event – and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. - Nietzsche

Eternal return proceeds from the assumption that the probability of a world coming into existence exactly like our own is greater than zero (we know this because our world exists). If space is infinite, then cosmology tells us that our existence will recur an infinite number of times.

“If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion.”

The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life.

Nietzsche celebrates the Greeks who, facing up to the terrors of nature and history, did not seek refuge in “a Buddhistic negation of the will,” as Schopenhauer did, but instead created tragedies in which life is affirmed as beautiful in spite of everything.

As I grow older, mend the wounds of the past, experience more, and come to have different beliefs about the nature of reality - I come closer to being in agreement with Nietzsche and affirming existence - whilst remaining an existential nihilist, as I think Nietzsche was.

==

EDIT: Ok, I see a more considerable response from you.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a supposed rejection of meaning. In which case it should reject the meaning of nihilism, in which case nihilism would no longer exist or it would exist as some kind of empty placeholder term.

The etymology of nihilism stems from the Latin word ‘nihil’ which means nothing.
So nihilism is saying something at a certain scale is nothing or meaningless.
As said earlier in my post, there are scales/scopes to which one can be a nihilist.
Your argument stands if one claims to be a global nihilist.
To say there is absolutely no meaning, defeats the need to communicate or even define the term.
But again, not all nihilists claim there is absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

@HumAnIze

But that isn’t how nihilists use nihilism, they use it to ADD more meaning into their own lives, thoughts and emotions. Nihilism is precisely meaningful to a nihilist, which is pretty ironically funny. And you can tell how meaningful it is to them because they always get super emotional about it, defend it, or talk about it all the time. Like you know, making entire huge threads and writing about it almost every day.

I think given my previous marks, you can follow the dots to see how it’s still rational [not the only rational position btw] and consistent to claim the universe doesn’t have inherent meaning, but due to the bias of the living, who create their own subjective meaning, we still have skin in the game - and discussion of this issue remains relevant to us.

@HumAnIze

And not only this, but nihilism is a lie, a self-lie that nihilists tell themselves when they close their eyes and pretend that meaning isn’t there, when it always and absolutely is there.

Different scales, different scopes. Objective meaning vs subjective meaning. So I disagree that it’s a misconception, let alone a lie.

[HumAnIze]

@Ben JS

There are multiple types of nihilism, each with their own scope.
iambiguous refers to being a moral nihilist, the scope being nihilism regarding morality.
I consider myself an existential nihilist - I don’t think existence has objective meaning, but we can create our own.

Since when would meaning, which is produced by specific meaning-capable beings in their own particular contexts and purviews, need to be “objective”? I assume you mean something like universal, or “exists everywhere all at once forever” or something absurd like that.

Nonetheless it is objectively a fact that ‘subjective’ meaning exists. And even the most subjective meaning has objective reasons for being that which it is.

So this whole false dichotomy and misuse of language of “objective and subjective” is just a bunch of silly nonsense invented by bad philosophers.

I could agree with iambiguous that there is no basis for objective morality, but I do believe there is one for subjective morality.

And how do you not see that any basis for subjective morality is already coming from something more objective than itself? Where do you think “subjectivities” come from, emerge from, operate in terms of, trace their causalities back into? You think they suddenly pop into existence ex nihilo? Well I guess that is what a nihilist would think.

You people act like stuff just exists in a vacuum, isolated by itself separate from anything else. That is the only way you can talk this nonsense about “objective” or “subjective”.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a teenage cope for emo-type simps who are mad at their fathers.

I haven’t been following the conversation, so responding to this may be cherry picking - if so, forgive me.

This statement appears very dismissive. Nihilists can be very happy, optimistic and loving people.

No, those aren’t nihilits. Nihilism means a denial of meaning. To be happy, optimistic and loving means you are operating within and in terms of meanings, therefore you are not being nihilistic.

Nihilism in these cases is just a cover word, a kind of trendy label people attach to themselves to continue the non-confirming emo-ness as trying to feel special in a way they deem is distinct from others around them.

I can understand how your statement may apply to Young nihilists, who may very well be lashing out.
My point is there’s more to nihilism than a teenager’s conception of nihilism.

No there isn’t.

@HumAnIze

That is why they all inevitably treat their favorite writers/artists/philosophers as gods who cannot be criticized. Then they borrow some of that “holiness” to themselves by virtue of they’re being SO SMART to recognize the supreme godliness of their hallowed visionary gurus (Nietzsche simps come to mind here).

I never really had a Nietzche phase [preferred Schopenhauer] - I took issue with the community that hijacked ‘Will to Power’ as a ticket to be assholes.
However, if one interprets WtP as: life bestows a surplus of energy within each of us [energy = power], and our will is to express this energy - then it sits fine with me.
I was really influenced by his life affirmation:

If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event – and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. - Nietzsche

It’s nothing but empty platitudes. His attempt to be spiritual after he already rejected spirituality. You can tell a platitude by how easy it is to replace the key words with their opposites and the statement will still seem just as “profound” as before.

“If we deny one single moment, we thus deny not only ourselves but all of existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with sadness and sounded like a sharp broken string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of disaffirmation all eternity was called bad, damned, unjustified, a denied.”

Wow, amazing. How profound. So now we can’t affirm any specific thing without also affirming everything else too. LOL

Why can’t people see when fancy form is empty of content? Weird. Humans are silly.

Eternal return proceeds from the assumption that the probability of a world coming into existence exactly like our own is greater than zero (we know this because our world exists). If space is infinite, then cosmology tells us that our existence will recur an infinite number of times.

“If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion.”

The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life.

Eternal return is the biggest cope ever. Even if you thought things would recur like that infinitely, why would it matter? And why would you “affirming it” have any bearing upon anything (it doesn’t)? And why would you not then seek to affirm something better, greater, with less errors? Because all you are trying to do is COPE with your own emotions. This is not philosophy. This is a therapy session.

“OMG in 10000 trillion years there will occur a universal big bang cycle that happens to produce another “earth” with another “me” on it!!”

Probably that would never happen, not even with infinite time. But even if it did, so what, who cares? How does that matter AT ALL to ANYTHING? Other than some kind of weird psychological game you are playing with yourself regarding the meaning of your own life?

“I am 100% determined and have no freedom of will, so I will affirm this!” Ok, and? This shit is hilarious.

Can’t you just be honest about meaning and what it really is, rather than inventing fables cloaked in empty platitudes to try and “profundize” it? Meaning is already plenty profound as it actually is in reality. No fantasy required.

Nietzsche celebrates the Greeks who, facing up to the terrors of nature and history, did not seek refuge in “a Buddhistic negation of the will,” as Schopenhauer did, but instead created tragedies in which life is affirmed as beautiful in spite of everything.

That’s great, yes there were a lot of prolific old Greeks who did a lot of great stuff whether in philosophy or in art. And? How is that relevant to anything here? They certainly were not nihilists.

As I grow older, mend the wounds of the past, experience more, and come to have different beliefs about the nature of reality - I come closer to being in agreement with Nietzsche and affirming existence - whilst remaining an existential nihilist, as I think Nietzsche was.

I have no idea what any of that means, “affirming existence” or being an “existential nihilist” but if it works for you they more power to you I guess.

EDIT: Ok, I see a more considerable response from you.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a supposed rejection of meaning. In which case it should reject the meaning of nihilism, in which case nihilism would no longer exist or it would exist as some kind of empty placeholder term.

The etymology of nihilism stems from the Latin word ‘nihil’ which means nothing.
So nihilism is saying something at a certain scale is nothing or meaningless.
As said earlier in my post, there are scales/scopes to which one can be a nihilist.
Your argument stands if one claims to be a global nihilist.
To say there is absolutely no meaning, defeats the need to communicate or even define the term.
But again, not all nihilists claim there is absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

Yeah, I bolded that part for you. Because nihilism actually means a denial of meaning. Yes this can be related conceptually to “nothingness”. For example there will come a time when we will not exist, therefore you could argue that “we” will be “nothing” in that future time, therefore you could claim that “we” will be meaningless at that future time. So what? Is your standard of meaning that it must exist infinitely and everywhere? Do nihilists secretly long for a hidden God which they deny exists? Yes they do, in fact. That is the basic logical ‘meme’ of nihilism when you get right down to it: they are upset because there is no God (so they claim); they NEED there to be a God in order for them to think there is sufficient meaning in existence, but they deny God and they deny this level of “objective meaning” at the same time. Ironic how their denial of God is just as farcical and derivative as is their claim that without “God” meaning is somehow empty or non-existent.

The simple truth: meaning exists for meaning-capable beings, those beings that are made in such a way as to respond to meaning and produce meaning. This is not done in a vacuum but with regard to other beings and to the natural world around them as well as with regard to the universe of meaning itself, meaningfulness per se which becomes a sort of form and standard for those beings (yes they flavor it with their own unique contents and preferences and idiosyncrasies, but as form it is standardized as meaningfulness as such).

So there is no need to cry about how the sun has no meaning or we won’t exist in a trillion years, or if you think there is no God and no afterlife. So what? Meaning exists anyway, and is not only all around but literally IS YOU. That is why nihilism implies contradiction, because the nihilist cannot actually deny meanings in the way he thinks he can, not even small ones or ones that to him seem separate from a more “global” scale. Meaning is an undeniable fact, and is even necessary in order to attempt to deny meaning. That is why and how I explained nihilism implies self-contradiction just like radical skepticism and solipsism do.

Just be honest about what has meaning, how it is what it is and why it is what it is. That is the road to truth which is the basis of philosophy and mental sanity. Don’t deny reality, simple done.

@HumAnIze

But that isn’t how nihilists use nihilism, they use it to ADD more meaning into their own lives, thoughts and emotions. Nihilism is precisely meaningful to a nihilist, which is pretty ironically funny. And you can tell how meaningful it is to them because they always get super emotional about it, defend it, or talk about it all the time. Like you know, making entire huge threads and writing about it almost every day.

I think given my previous marks, you can follow the dots to see how it’s still rational [not the only rational position btw] and consistent to claim the universe doesn’t have inherent meaning, but due to the bias of the living, who create their own subjective meaning, we still have skin in the game - and discussion of this issue remains relevant to us.

How would you know if the universe has inherent meaning or not? And why would that matter to any meanings that we can easily so and experience which do exist? The answer is the same in both cases. You are creating an ASSUMPTION about “universal meaning” which is fine, you are justified to believe that if you want to , but like I said it has no bearing upon YOU because YOU are not “the universe”.

So in your own mind you can assume “I do not believe the universe itself has any intrinsic meaning, it is just random natural processes and mechanical particles and energies flowing around and happens to exist just by accident or coincidence and not because of any meaning or intention or design or higher function and purpose beyond itself”. Ok, great. That is your position. But why are you creating an entire term or philosophy “existential nihilist” out of that one basic assumption? Just have your belief, assumed as it is, and then live your life. None of the actual meanings in your life should be impacted, unless they relied specifically on the universe itself being somehow inherently meaningful. And why would you want to cling to those type of beliefs anyway when you are already choosing to assume that the universe is meaningless?

It’s a bunch of psychological compensations and reification games, it isn’t philosophy. Terms like nihilism, objective, subjective, these aren’t concepts. They are more like clunky unformed obfuscations and half-statements stuck together in the mere form of a concept and used to allow for psychological compensations to take the place of proper clear thinking. What would be the purpose of that? To borrow against the future into the present; to sustain an unearned level psychologically. Well go for it, I guess. I got bored with that sort of thing and moved into real thinking, real philosophy, reality and truth. To places where nihilism doesn’t even exist and could not possibly exist.

@HumAnIze

And not only this, but nihilism is a lie, a self-lie that nihilists tell themselves when they close their eyes and pretend that meaning isn’t there, when it always and absolutely is there.

Different scales, different scopes. Objective meaning vs subjective meaning. So I disagree that it’s a misconception, let alone a lie.

It is a self-lie because they claim things that they know they cannot possibly know, or they know are not true. The former with regard to so-called universal meaning, the latter with regard to more specific delineated meanings.

Nihilists are simply motivated by a need to deny, to refute, to aggress against, to bury and to destroy. It is a psychological impulse they operate by, not a philosophical one. Nihilism is a way to reconfigure one’s thoughts and thinking process in order to “live above his means” so to speak, conceptually speaking. Technically a form of debt. And that kind of debt is not interest free over time…

[HumAnIze]

Nihilism is replacing philosophy with a therapy session.

That’s probably the most succinct way of putting it.

[iambiguous]

@HumAnIze

@Ben JS

There are multiple types of nihilism, each with their own scope.
iambiguous refers to being a moral nihilist, the scope being nihilism regarding morality.
I consider myself an existential nihilist - I don’t think existence has objective meaning, but we can create our own.

Since when would meaning, which is produced by specific meaning-capable beings in their own particular contexts and purviews, need to be “objective”? I assume you mean something like universal, or “exists everywhere all at once forever” or something absurd like that.

Nonetheless it is objectively a fact that ‘subjective’ meaning exists. And even the most subjective meaning has objective reasons for being that which it is.

So this whole false dichotomy and misuse of language of “objective and subjective” is just a bunch of silly nonsense invented by bad philosophers.

I could agree with iambiguous that there is no basis for objective morality, but I do believe there is one for subjective morality.

And how do you not see that any basis for subjective morality is already coming from something more objective than itself? Where do you think “subjectivities” come from, emerge from, operate in terms of, trace their causalities back into? You think they suddenly pop into existence ex nihilo? Well I guess that is what a nihilist would think.

You people act like stuff just exists in a vacuum, isolated by itself separate from anything else. That is the only way you can talk this nonsense about “objective” or “subjective”.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a teenage cope for emo-type simps who are mad at their fathers.

I haven’t been following the conversation, so responding to this may be cherry picking - if so, forgive me.

This statement appears very dismissive. Nihilists can be very happy, optimistic and loving people.

No, those aren’t nihilits. Nihilism means a denial of meaning. To be happy, optimistic and loving means you are operating within and in terms of meanings, therefore you are not being nihilistic.

Nihilism in these cases is just a cover word, a kind of trendy label people attach to themselves to continue the non-confirming emo-ness as trying to feel special in a way they deem is distinct from others around them.

I can understand how your statement may apply to Young nihilists, who may very well be lashing out.
My point is there’s more to nihilism than a teenager’s conception of nihilism.

No there isn’t.

@HumAnIze

That is why they all inevitably treat their favorite writers/artists/philosophers as gods who cannot be criticized. Then they borrow some of that “holiness” to themselves by virtue of they’re being SO SMART to recognize the supreme godliness of their hallowed visionary gurus (Nietzsche simps come to mind here).

I never really had a Nietzche phase [preferred Schopenhauer] - I took issue with the community that hijacked ‘Will to Power’ as a ticket to be assholes.
However, if one interprets WtP as: life bestows a surplus of energy within each of us [energy = power], and our will is to express this energy - then it sits fine with me.
I was really influenced by his life affirmation:

If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event – and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. - Nietzsche

It’s nothing but empty platitudes. His attempt to be spiritual after he already rejected spirituality. You can tell a platitude by how easy it is to replace the key words with their opposites and the statement will still seem just as “profound” as before.

“If we deny one single moment, we thus deny not only ourselves but all of existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with sadness and sounded like a sharp broken string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of disaffirmation all eternity was called bad, damned, unjustified, a denied.”

Wow, amazing. How profound. So now we can’t affirm any specific thing without also affirming everything else too. LOL

Why can’t people see when fancy form is empty of content? Weird. Humans are silly.

Eternal return proceeds from the assumption that the probability of a world coming into existence exactly like our own is greater than zero (we know this because our world exists). If space is infinite, then cosmology tells us that our existence will recur an infinite number of times.

“If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion.”

The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life.

Eternal return is the biggest cope ever. Even if you thought things would recur like that infinitely, why would it matter? And why would you “affirming it” have any bearing upon anything (it doesn’t)? And why would you not then seek to affirm something better, greater, with less errors? Because all you are trying to do is COPE with your own emotions. This is not philosophy. This is a therapy session.

“OMG in 10000 trillion years there will occur a universal big bang cycle that happens to produce another “earth” with another “me” on it!!”

Probably that would never happen, not even with infinite time. But even if it did, so what, who cares? How does that matter AT ALL to ANYTHING? Other than some kind of weird psychological game you are playing with yourself regarding the meaning of your own life?

“I am 100% determined and have no freedom of will, so I will affirm this!” Ok, and? This shit is hilarious.

Can’t you just be honest about meaning and what it really is, rather than inventing fables cloaked in empty platitudes to try and “profundize” it? Meaning is already plenty profound as it actually is in reality. No fantasy required.

Nietzsche celebrates the Greeks who, facing up to the terrors of nature and history, did not seek refuge in “a Buddhistic negation of the will,” as Schopenhauer did, but instead created tragedies in which life is affirmed as beautiful in spite of everything.

That’s great, yes there were a lot of prolific old Greeks who did a lot of great stuff whether in philosophy or in art. And? How is that relevant to anything here? They certainly were not nihilists.

As I grow older, mend the wounds of the past, experience more, and come to have different beliefs about the nature of reality - I come closer to being in agreement with Nietzsche and affirming existence - whilst remaining an existential nihilist, as I think Nietzsche was.

I have no idea what any of that means, “affirming existence” or being an “existential nihilist” but if it works for you they more power to you I guess.

EDIT: Ok, I see a more considerable response from you.

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is a supposed rejection of meaning. In which case it should reject the meaning of nihilism, in which case nihilism would no longer exist or it would exist as some kind of empty placeholder term.

The etymology of nihilism stems from the Latin word ‘nihil’ which means nothing.
So nihilism is saying something at a certain scale is nothing or meaningless.
As said earlier in my post, there are scales/scopes to which one can be a nihilist.
Your argument stands if one claims to be a global nihilist.
To say there is absolutely no meaning, defeats the need to communicate or even define the term.
But again, not all nihilists claim there is absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

Yeah, I bolded that part for you. Because nihilism actually means a denial of meaning. Yes this can be related conceptually to “nothingness”. For example there will come a time when we will not exist, therefore you could argue that “we” will be “nothing” in that future time, therefore you could claim that “we” will be meaningless at that future time. So what? Is your standard of meaning that it must exist infinitely and everywhere? Do nihilists secretly long for a hidden God which they deny exists? Yes they do, in fact. That is the basic logical ‘meme’ of nihilism when you get right down to it: they are upset because there is no God (so they claim); they NEED there to be a God in order for them to think there is sufficient meaning in existence, but they deny God and they deny this level of “objective meaning” at the same time. Ironic how their denial of God is just as farcical and derivative as is their claim that without “God” meaning is somehow empty or non-existent.

The simple truth: meaning exists for meaning-capable beings, those beings that are made in such a way as to respond to meaning and produce meaning. This is not done in a vacuum but with regard to other beings and to the natural world around them as well as with regard to the universe of meaning itself, meaningfulness per se which becomes a sort of form and standard for those beings (yes they flavor it with their own unique contents and preferences and idiosyncrasies, but as form it is standardized as meaningfulness as such).

So there is no need to cry about how the sun has no meaning or we won’t exist in a trillion years, or if you think there is no God and no afterlife. So what? Meaning exists anyway, and is not only all around but literally IS YOU. That is why nihilism implies contradiction, because the nihilist cannot actually deny meanings in the way he thinks he can, not even small ones or ones that to him seem separate from a more “global” scale. Meaning is an undeniable fact, and is even necessary in order to attempt to deny meaning. That is why and how I explained nihilism implies self-contradiction just like radical skepticism and solipsism do.

Just be honest about what has meaning, how it is what it is and why it is what it is. That is the road to truth which is the basis of philosophy and mental sanity. Don’t deny reality, simple done.

@HumAnIze

But that isn’t how nihilists use nihilism, they use it to ADD more meaning into their own lives, thoughts and emotions. Nihilism is precisely meaningful to a nihilist, which is pretty ironically funny. And you can tell how meaningful it is to them because they always get super emotional about it, defend it, or talk about it all the time. Like you know, making entire huge threads and writing about it almost every day.

I think given my previous marks, you can follow the dots to see how it’s still rational [not the only rational position btw] and consistent to claim the universe doesn’t have inherent meaning, but due to the bias of the living, who create their own subjective meaning, we still have skin in the game - and discussion of this issue remains relevant to us.

How would you know if the universe has inherent meaning or not? And why would that matter to any meanings that we can easily so and experience which do exist? The answer is the same in both cases. You are creating an ASSUMPTION about “universal meaning” which is fine, you are justified to believe that if you want to , but like I said it has no bearing upon YOU because YOU are not “the universe”.

So in your own mind you can assume “I do not believe the universe itself has any intrinsic meaning, it is just random natural processes and mechanical particles and energies flowing around and happens to exist just by accident or coincidence and not because of any meaning or intention or design or higher function and purpose beyond itself”. Ok, great. That is your position. But why are you creating an entire term or philosophy “existential nihilist” out of that one basic assumption? Just have your belief, assumed as it is, and then live your life. None of the actual meanings in your life should be impacted, unless they relied specifically on the universe itself being somehow inherently meaningful. And why would you want to cling to those type of beliefs anyway when you are already choosing to assume that the universe is meaningless?

It’s a bunch of psychological compensations and reification games, it isn’t philosophy. Terms like nihilism, objective, subjective, these aren’t concepts. They are more like clunky unformed obfuscations and half-statements stuck together in the mere form of a concept and used to allow for psychological compensations to take the place of proper clear thinking. What would be the purpose of that? To borrow against the future into the present; to sustain an unearned level psychologically. Well go for it, I guess. I got bored with that sort of thing and moved into real thinking, real philosophy, reality and truth. To places where nihilism doesn’t even exist and could not possibly exist.

@HumAnIze

And not only this, but nihilism is a lie, a self-lie that nihilists tell themselves when they close their eyes and pretend that meaning isn’t there, when it always and absolutely is there.

Different scales, different scopes. Objective meaning vs subjective meaning. So I disagree that it’s a misconception, let alone a lie.

It is a self-lie because they claim things that they know they cannot possibly know, or they know are not true. The former with regard to so-called universal meaning, the latter with regard to more specific delineated meanings.

Nihilists are simply motivated by a need to deny, to refute, to aggress against, to bury and to destroy. It is a psychological impulse they operate by, not a philosophical one. Nihilism is a way to reconfigure one’s thoughts and thinking process in order to “live above his means” so to speak, conceptually speaking. Technically a form of debt. And that kind of debt is not interest free over time…

Just for the record, if either of them is interested in taking their own “philosophical”/“spiritual” assessment of nihilism to a discussion pertaining to a particular moral conflagration of note given a particular set of circumstances, let’s do it.

And, sure, for one of them, here or in The Rant House.

[MagsJ (..a chic geek)]

@HumAnIze

Nihilism is replacing philosophy with a therapy session.

That’s probably the most succinct way of putting it.

…and nicely put, too.

…coz it sure ain’t philosophy.