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[NT] Nihilism

A

A_priori

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The West is based on four pillars - Ancient Greek philosophy, Judaism, Christianity and the Enlightenment. And it was the Enlightenment that gave us the scientific method of evidence and reason.

Until the Enlightenment we had authority and faith. And the Enlightenment put authority and faith to the test of evidence and reason.

And evidence and reason have given us science and technology, modern medicine, universal literacy, electronic media, modern economics, liberal democracy, and much of what we take for granted around us.

The Enlightenment also gave us the values of freedom and equality.

And so the Enlightenment led to the abolition of institutional slavery for the first time in history by the House of Commons in 1833.

And the Enlightenment gave us the emancipation of women for the first time in history in Australia and New Zealand in 1904.

And the Enlightenment gave us the ending of institutional child abuse for the first time in history in Ireland in 2009 with the Judicial Ryan Commission.

And as you read Australia is following Ireland's example with a National Royal Commission into institutional child abuse.

So to answer your question, the evidence is scientific evidence to which reason is applied. And this method is called the scientific method.

Your posts keep getting dumber and dumber.. More jargon not worth my time to sift through. If your argument is inlightmentment your still not proving anything. I find your posts to be rather random and somwhat tangential. Anyways, I've prety much said what I have to say, you can believe what you want. This argument is dead and has been derailed.
 

murkrow

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nihilism that is pursued to finality does not bring you to despair but through it, it doesn't keep you from enjoying the predictability illuminated by quantum mechanics, all it does is take you out of a mindset where the perceiver has to find value through the mediation of higher principles.

But I am curious about your idea of intersubjectivity, very curious!

You think that you can know what I'm thinking, and I have no doubt that you could predict the linguistic form of my thoughts, but wouldn't the words have very different referents arising from our unique experiences?

(sorry for losing my temper, Victor. Gears had to be shifted)
 

Mole

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it doesn't keep you from enjoying the predictability illuminated by quantum mechanics

Just as the quanta are both wave and particle, it seems, so quantum mechanics says that the world is both inherently unpredictable and predictable.

So as you can see we really don't know what quantum mechanics means only that it works brilliantly.
 

Mole

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But I am curious about your idea of intersubjectivity, very curious!

Yes, the idea of inter-subjectivity is a corrective to our taken for granted idea of literate individuality.

Yes, it's plain inter-subjectivity has been selected for survival.

Yes, we have been inter-subjective for 200,000 years but literate individuals for 100 years.

And as we move into the internet, inter-subjectivity is now moving to the fore of our consciousness.

See, dear murkrow, you know what I am thinking right now, across the globe. And I have some idea what you are thinking too. So in a sense we have become a very large animal indeed.

We are like one animal with one psyche. The parts of our psyche can co-operate, or we can lose our temper, and we can even change gears.
 

murkrow

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We are like one animal with one psyche. The parts of our psyche can co-operate, or we can lose our temper, and we can even change gears.

Maybe more like one animal with three psyches?

That I'd accept, and in the agreements we both recognize out loud there could even be a sort of subject transcending being.
 
S

Society

Guest
the question is broken:
meaning demands both a subject and an observer in which the meaning will exist.
  • ask what does your life mean for others.
  • ask what other's lives mean for you.
  • ask what does your life mean for you.
the process of deriving meaning has to happen somewhere on some tapestry.
but if your going to ask what does life mean [for nothing], then ofcourse the answer would be nothing.
 

Mole

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the question is broken:
meaning demands both a subject and an observer in which the meaning will exist.
  • ask what does your life mean for others.
  • ask what other's lives mean for you.
  • ask what does your life mean for you.
the process of deriving meaning has to happen somewhere on some tapestry.
but if your going to ask what does life mean [for nothing], then ofcourse the answer would be nothing.

Sure, the meaning of any communication is its response.

Imagine if we took this to heart on Central. It would mean the death of pathological narcissism, the end of extreme individualism, the end of the literate individual, and the rise of the tribe in the global village.

What would this mean?

What is the bright side of the tribe in the global village and what is the dark side of the tribe in the global village?
 

Evil Otter

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If nothing matters, then humans would not be wired to love nor appreciate good.

The fact that we do, means that we are not, in our essence, dual creatures, even if we live in a dualistic, or trialistic, environ.

Our 'heart' (soul) leans toward something Good and Pure, even if part of our being--our earthly bodies and minds--is at home in our world, the part of us that isn't makes all the difference, skewing us toward something asymmetrical and otherworldly. We are unique in this as far as we know.

Therefore Nihilism is a fallacious notion, because humans always strive to betterment, or would if they could.

First, we cannot violate that which we have a knowledge of. That means that just like every other creature on this earth our inner workings prevent us from doing ourselves harm or attempting an action which we know will not bring about the desired outcome (unless our minds/bodies are not functioning correctly). This is by no means unique. All beasts seek preservation.

If anything, I would argue that we have surpassed the threshold where preservation is no longer much of an issue for our species (at least not for those in 1st world nations) and as a result we now seek pleasure. That doesn't exclusively mean "sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll"; it means living out of intellectual curiosity, living to increase power or prestige, or living for any other self-imposed purpose.

The reason nihilism is appealing to such a perspective is that ultimately none of those purposes is enduring (eternal if you will). This makes them ultimately meaningless. Only a believe that man is more than flesh, bone, and blood and that he has an eternal element (call it a soul if you wish) has the potential to make nihilism false.
 

SpankyMcFly

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"Nihilism (pron.: /ˈnaɪ.ɨlɪzəm/ or /ˈniː.ɨlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.[1] Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological or metaphysical/ontological forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist..."

I read once that INTP's struggle with this. The older I get, the more I am feeling this way.

I was raised devoutly religious, but as I got older, I started picking all the fallacies in religion apart. I sometimes wish, however, that I was more ignorant. Ignorance is bliss, right? I know that believing in religion, and thinking that all the pretty stories is probably more pleasant than feeling like nothing matters.

...Then, I think, who am I fooling?? I AM IGNORANT!! I am, after all, this little tiny speck floating through space & time. WTF could I actually know?? WTF could ANYONE actually know?? I have even argued & doubted science/scientists. I see science on the same level of religion. Maybe it is more accurate, BUT it's all still based on HUMAN DATA & experiments. Whose to say they were done correctly, and whose to say that just b/c we observe something as one way that is TRULY that way??

I found this orgasmic website (yes, I said orgasmic) that explains everything in the most simple, logical manner. I LOVE it! However, it makes me feel like it IS true, nothing does matter.
www.spaceandmotion.com

Do you struggle with similar questions? Any thoughts??

Your post reminded me of a movie, which reminded me of a quote from Ghandi ~ Everything you do in this life will be insignificant but it's very important that you do it because nobody else will.

P.S. Nihilism is boring. That nothing matters only matters if you care and frankly, who cares? Go get laid, drink/eat, go breathe some fresh air.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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First, we cannot violate that which we have a knowledge of. That means that just like every other creature on this earth our inner workings prevent us from doing ourselves harm or attempting an action which we know will not bring about the desired outcome (unless our minds/bodies are not functioning correctly). This is by no means unique. All beasts seek preservation.

If anything, I would argue that we have surpassed the threshold where preservation is no longer much of an issue for our species (at least not for those in 1st world nations) and as a result we now seek pleasure. That doesn't exclusively mean "sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll"; it means living out of intellectual curiosity, living to increase power or prestige, or living for any other self-imposed purpose.

The reason nihilism is appealing to such a perspective is that ultimately none of those purposes is enduring (eternal if you will). This makes them ultimately meaningless. Only a believe that man is more than flesh, bone, and blood and that he has an eternal element (call it a soul if you wish) has the potential to make nihilism false.

I agree that expression through art flourishes when cultures flourish. When man has time to do more than just survive, ideally, he thrives.

I think your bolded corroborated my statement?
 

Evil Otter

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I think your bolded corroborated my statement?

Absolutely, it wasn't meant as an argument against you. Simply meant to state the requirement for nihilism to be false. The biggest problem here is that it requires the acceptance of said theological assumptions.
 
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