nihilism

[Pistolero]

Definitions of words is important...as it is when trying to understand any concept, like free-will, or god, or morality....

In this case whith is the meaning of meaning?
Interconnectivity - relationship between phenomena.
Matrices of meaning permeate the cosmos.

But...you use the term as a synonym of 'purpose.'

Does existence have a purpose?
No.
Life only has purpose because only life wills.

Look to the deniers of free-will for a cosmic purpose, since all is determined.

Free-will implies that there is no overriding purpsoe, otherwise the will would not be free.

So, what purpsoe does life have, from a proto-cell to a complex multicellular mammal?
The propagation of life, is the primary purpose.
But in man life can acquire purposes that transcend this primal purpose, and those we call ideals.
Ideals become man's objectives, and they give his life purpose, and gives to his suffering meaning.

Instead of purpsoe say objectives.
Objectives are the necessary factor for determining value.
All value-judgments are relative to an objective - the third point in a triangulation, including a conscious subject, and its estimation of the effort/distance required to attain its objective.

In animals, as I said, survival is the only objective - procreation being an aspect of survival.
It judges, values, everything relative to this objective.
In man, who can project his will ion space/time, other objectives exceed even that of survival.

------------------
For the Christians god is their primary objective.
For nihilists?
Nothing. Code for chaos.
Chaos is where '[no-things' can be perceived, apriorily.....because 'things' are how conscious minds interpret energy patterns and chaos is a state where there are no energy patterns....so no-thingness.

[iambiguous]

What is nihilism?
master class

Forms of Nihilism

Since the twentieth century, there have been various takes on nihilism that put forth different perspectives. Forms of nihilism include:

1. Epistemological nihilism: This form of nihilism goes one step further beyond the thinking of a skeptic who questions the validity of information. In this case, nihilism states that knowledge does not exist. Alternatively, if there is knowledge in the universe, we cannot attain it, therefore it might as well not exist at all.

On the other hand, how would an epistemological nihilist go about demonstrating that?! It may well be true but going back to how the human condition fits into the existence of existence itself, the gap here suggests that other than in a philosophical argument, the final truth is simply beyond our reach. Even beyond the reach of science here and now.

2. Ethical nihilism: Someone who considers ethical nihilism to be their moral philosophy believes that there are no ethics. Therefore, there’s no reason to hold themselves or anyone else to any ethical standards.

That's me according to any number of posters here. Only that's not me at all. I would never argue that ethics do not exist. I would never argue that ethics are not objective or universal. I would only point out that "here and now" I'm just not able to believe this myself.

3. Existential nihilism: Here the position is that life has no meaning. Everyone everywhere, at every point, has no value to the universe. Existential nihilism overlaps with the branch of philosophy called existentialism. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about existential nihilism.

No, in my view, it's the position that life has no essential meaning. Also, that Sartre believed existentialism "somehow" had to be intertwined in political economy.

4. Passive nihilism: This philosophy of nihilism states that nihilism is its own end, and there is no reason to pursue higher values.

Uh, whatever, "for all practical purposes" that means?

5. Political nihilism: This methodology states that nobody should hold any political views and should instead try to tear down all political institutions.

On the other hand, how [of late] is that working out for you?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Well, I've read the first and last pages. And I'm cautiously engaged. Apart from any you, you, you obviously.

[iambiguous]

Dancing with Absurdity
Fred Leavitt argues that our most cherished beliefs are probably wrong.

Imagine that you’ve developed a new lie detector test and recruit a thousand people to try to beat it. You give them a series of questions and ask them to tell one or more lies among their answers. Your device detects every lie and never calls an honest response a lie.

Here we go again...

In other words, the part where truths and lies are more readily distinguished in regard to the laws of nature, the empirical world around us, objective facts, etc., than in regard to value judgments and conflicting goods.

You're hooked up to this lie detector and asked "who is now the president of the United states"?

Donald Trump, right? That's the only correct answer.

On the other hand, you are asked, "is Trump doing a good job as president?"

Yes? No? What reflects the objective truth here?

Then comes subject 1001. Asked a question, he answers “yes” and your device indicates that he’s telling the truth. But you ask virtually the same question immediately afterwards, he says “no,” and the device again registers truthfulness. The man swears that he believes what he said. He submits to a psychiatric evaluation and is found free of any major disorder. He is not delusional. How is this possible?

Well, if he's me, that would revolve around my own "fractured and fragmented" sense of reality pertaining to value judgments and conflicting goods. There are facts that all can agree on and there are our reactions to those facts regarding whether they reflect a good thing or a bad thing.

[iambiguous]

Well, I've read the first and last pages. And I'm cautiously engaged. Apart from any you, you, you obviously.

Sounds like a personal problem.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Well, I've read the first and last pages. And I'm cautiously engaged. Apart from any you, you, you obviously.

Sounds like a personal problem.

Then I'm in the right place. The right company.

[iambiguous]

In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
John Marmysz looks on the funny side of absolute nothingness.

God is dead. Nothing matters. All is meaningless. Nothing is true. These are the sorts of laments often associated with nihilism, a philosophical perspective premised on the belief that the world is incurably imperfect, flawed, defective.

Ever and always in my view this has to be contrasted with those who choose instead to go in the opposite direction. In other words, those who embody the belief that their own value judgments are as close to perfection as mere mortals are ever likely to get.

According to the nihilist, the way that the world actually exists is not the way it ought to be.

According to other nihilists, however, how the world ought to be [teleologically, deontologically] is beyond the grasp of mere mortals in a No God world.

We hope for Truth, but we never seem to grasp it in its entirety. We desire Beauty, but find only blemished examples of it in the concrete world. We want things to have value, but nothing seems ultimately all that important. We want the world to be perfect, but it always disappoints us with its flawed nature.

On the other hand, I suspect each particlar nihilist has his or her own account of what "for all practical purposes" this amounts to given their day to day interactions with others. Why? Because nihilists and their own value judgments are no less embedded existentially in dasein.

This might not be so bad if only the nihilist had faith in our potential to somehow improve things. However, nihilists reject this sort of optimism, instead claiming that it is beyond humanity to mend the eternal rift between our real state of existence and the way we ideally desire things to be. For the nihilist, the real and the ideal are in everlasting conflict with one another, and there is nothing that can be done to alter this condition.

I never go this far myself. After all, it seems to suggest this can actually be demonstrated to be true. As though certain nihilists are themselves able to render The Gap and Rummy's Rule moot. Sure, it may be possible to reconfigure the real into one or another ideal. After all any number of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philosophies

...are convinced of it.

[iambiguous]

Well, I've read the first and last pages. And I'm cautiously engaged. Apart from any you, you, you obviously.

Sounds like a personal problem.

Then I'm in the right place. The right company.

On the other hand, from my frame of mind here and now -- click -- the focus of "personal problems" in regard to morality and politics revolves largely around dasein existentially.

This part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

So, given a moral or a political conflagration that is of particular interest to you, let's explore why the points I raise in the OP above regarding value judgments are not applicable to you.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Sounds like a personal problem.

Then I'm in the right place. The right company.

On the other hand, from my frame of mind here and now -- click -- the focus of "personal problems" in regard to morality and politics revolves largely around dasein existentially.

This part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

So, given a moral or a political conflagration that is of particular interest to you, let's explore why the points I raise in the OP above regarding value judgments are not applicable to you.

I liked the OP. How could they not apply to me? The false dichotomy of absolute morality vs. random morality when we are genetically hard and pre-wired for moral taste experience, by evolution, is absurd. In the intervening 85 pages, how much is projection? Polemical? Nihilism is just a point in development I got to on the cusp of puberty. With a brief revisitation half a century later with the paradox of Christian nihilism. Peter Rollins seems to excel in that. Love 'being there'. Metaphysics emerging from physics.

PS Sampled anadromously, not bad with respect to you, you, you. Pretty civil.

PPS I oscillatingly inhabit the space of in/'authentic' Dasein. You? The hippy response, 'Hey man', keeps coming to mind. And what misled Heidegger down the Nazi garden path?

PPPS My morality is be kind. My politics is equality of outcome for all, the pivot for which is geoism: land cannot be owned.

[iambiguous]

Then I'm in the right place. The right company.

On the other hand, from my frame of mind here and now -- click -- the focus of "personal problems" in regard to morality and politics revolves largely around dasein existentially.

This part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

So, given a moral or a political conflagration that is of particular interest to you, let's explore why the points I raise in the OP above regarding value judgments are not applicable to you.

I liked the OP. How could they not apply to me? The false dichotomy of absolute morality vs. random morality when we are genetically hard and pre-wired for moral taste experience, by evolution, is absurd.

Okay, let's take that here...

"So, given a moral or a political conflagration that is of particular interest to you, let's explore why the points I raise in the OP above regarding value judgments are or are not applicable to you."

...then.

And, really, what on Earth does it mean to speak of human morality and meaning as either absurd or not absurd? Given, among other things, these parts: https://youtu.be/VUfdZHL8Hhw?si=nF-ONUlGECEyoRt0

As for all of this...

Here is how I encompassed my own understanding
In the intervening 85 pages, how much is projection? Polemical? Nihilism is just a point in development I got to on the cusp of puberty. With a brief revisitation half a century later with the paradox of Christian nihilism. Peter Rollins seems to excel in that. Love 'being there'. Metaphysics emerging from physics.

PS Sampled anadromously, not bad with respect to you, you, you. Pretty civil.

PPS I oscillatingly inhabit the space of in/'authentic' Dasein. You? The hippy response, 'Hey man', keeps coming to mind. And what misled Heidegger down the Nazi garden path?

PPPS My morality is be kind. My politics is equality of outcome for all, the pivot for which is geoism: land cannot be owned.

...if you say so? What this has to do with the points I raise escapes me.

How about this...

My own grasp of meaning, morality and metaphysics is encompassed more specifically in regard to abortion here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/moral ... live/45989

How about you?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

On the other hand, from my frame of mind here and now -- click -- the focus of "personal problems" in regard to morality and politics revolves largely around dasein existentially.

This part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

So, given a moral or a political conflagration that is of particular interest to you, let's explore why the points I raise in the OP above regarding value judgments are not applicable to you.

I liked the OP. How could they not apply to me? The false dichotomy of absolute morality vs. random morality when we are genetically hard and pre-wired for moral taste experience, by evolution, is absurd.

Okay, let's take that here...

"So, given a moral or a political conflagration that is of particular interest to you, let's explore why the points I raise in the OP above regarding value judgments are or are not applicable to you."

...then.

And, really, what on Earth does it mean to speak of human morality and meaning as either absurd or not absurd? Given, among other things, these parts: https://youtu.be/VUfdZHL8Hhw?si=nF-ONUlGECEyoRt0

As for all of this...

Here is how I encompassed my own understanding
In the intervening 85 pages, how much is projection? Polemical? Nihilism is just a point in development I got to on the cusp of puberty. With a brief revisitation half a century later with the paradox of Christian nihilism. Peter Rollins seems to excel in that. Love 'being there'. Metaphysics emerging from physics.

PS Sampled anadromously, not bad with respect to you, you, you. Pretty civil.

PPS I oscillatingly inhabit the space of in/'authentic' Dasein. You? The hippy response, 'Hey man', keeps coming to mind. And what misled Heidegger down the Nazi garden path?

PPPS My morality is be kind. My politics is equality of outcome for all, the pivot for which is geoism: land cannot be owned.

...if you say so? What this has to do with the points I raise escapes me.

How about this...

My own grasp of meaning, morality and metaphysics is encompassed more specifically in regard to abortion here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/moral ... live/45989

How about you?

I feel for you. Nam, my God. I don't have a problem with inauthenticity. Unlike a former partner. Physics trumps metaphysics for me, with psychology in between. As for abortion, it's a woman's right to choose, end of. Love should cover everything. It doesn't of course. I had to leave too. As in all art, what my unlearned, intellectually handicapped responses are is still my beholder's share. God is fair.

[iambiguous]

In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
John Marmysz looks on the funny side of absolute nothingness.

In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir characterizes nihilists as frustrated idealists, condemning them as exemplars of ‘bad faith’.

Let's just say that my own understanding of nihilism has "very little...almost nothing" to do with being a frustrated idealist. And while "bad faith" is often attributed to those who embrace one or another essentialist, deontological, "my way or the highway" philosophy of life, from my frame of mind "bad faith" can often revolve around the assumption that if others don't share your own frame of mind, that's what they are guilty of.

That is, instead of grabbing hold of their imperfect situation like good existentialists, she claims nihilists resign themselves to a sort of impotent fatalism in which all worldly undertakings are doomed to failure since they must inevitably fall short of perfection.

Okay, if you share this frame of mind, note what you construe to be either perfect or imperfect regarding a particular situation in which there are many, many conflicting moral assessments. An assessment which is anything but a failure for those who insist that success revolves entirely around their own One True Path.

If perfection is the criterion of success, then nothing that we accomplish in the real world could ever measure up. The greatest of human achievements are still disappointments, and all worldly activity amounts to a vain struggle toward impossible goals.

Again, run this by those who do claim that their own assessment of meaning and morality is...metaphysically perfect? 

The Ayn Randroid Syndrome, let's call it.

As for the greatest of human achievements, says who? And while "here and now" I believe "all worldly activity amounts to a vain struggle toward impossible goals", I would never argue that this is actually true objectively. 

[iambiguous]

In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
John Marmysz looks on the funny side of absolute nothingness.

This seemingly bleak and depressing philosophy of life has been wrestled with by many of the world’s greatest thinkers, most of whom, like Beauvoir, have endeavored to reject it, and move beyond it.

Here and now, I don't see how that is possible without a God, the God. Also, in my view, existentialists who champion "authenticity" while rejecting those said to embody "bad faith" are rather far removed from my own "fractured and fragmented" moral and political philosophy. I understand what they are aiming to accomplish in going this route but who really gets to say in regard to human interactions what is unequivocally authentic or inauthentic. 

That's why I believe my own moral philosophy truly disturbs others. Nothing said or done is inherently a manifestation of bad faith or good faith, nothing said or done is necessarily authentic or inauthentic. And to the extent that some existentialists reject this is the extent to which, in my view, they blink. Just as Nietzsche did with his Ubermensch mentality. 

Thus we find philosophers such as the Buddha, Immanuel Kant, Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, and perhaps most explicitly, Friedrich Nietzsche, struggling with the problem of nihilism, proposing their own ‘solutions’, and suggesting ways that might guide us on a path toward the overcoming of our despair.

And the last thing any number of existentialists will accept is the futility of overcoming it. In other words, moral and political idealism are not within reach but as long as some behaviors are said to actually be more or less authentic, existentialists can still claim sets of behaviors said to be more or less appropriate.

Thus, instead of accepting moderation, negotiation and compromise -- democracy and the rule of law -- as the best of all possible worlds, there are existentialists who often seem no less committed to a "my way or the highway" mentality regarding certain behaviors. Then those existentialists who took a leap of faith to God. Or a leap of faith to political economy.

[iambiguous]

In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
John Marmysz looks on the funny side of absolute nothingness.

Despite the efforts of these great intellects, by some accounts nihilism is a more urgent philosophical syndrome today than it ever has been.

It certainly helps to explain the never ending world-wide proliferation of "my way or the highway" One True Paths. After all, how many people do you know who are willing to accept that human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless, that morality is rooted existentially in dasein and that death = oblivion?

In fact, part of the reason I post here and in other philosophy venues, is the hope that someone might be able to, well, make all that go away. How? By convincing me that moral nihilism is able to be transcended by one or another God/No God moral philosophy. And I'm certainly not arguing that it can't be. Only that "here and now" I am unable myself to transcend it.

It certainly continues to be a challenge not to be taken lightly, and certainly not something most people feel inclined to laugh at. And yet this is precisely what I propose here. In what follows I shall argue that the most appropriate response to nihilism consists not in despair, but in the adoption of a humorous attitude – one that allows us to laugh into the void of nothingness that separates us from our highest ideals.

Over and over and over again, so much here revolves around the actual circumstances of your life. If from day to day to day your life is in the toilet with no end in sight, you will almost certainly be inclined existentially to despair. And that certainly does not exclude nihilists.

Also, as many get closer and closer to the abyss, there is a likelihood here as well to feel despair. And that doesn't exclude nihilists either.

[iambiguous]

In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
John Marmysz looks on the funny side of absolute nothingness.

The central connection between humor and nihilism lies with incongruity. Incongruity is where two or more features of the world fail to reach consistency with each other: we say that two features of reality are incongruous when they lack harmony, clashing in a manner that resists any sort of stable resolution.

On the other hand, this particular nihilist focuses more on the incongruities that crop up over and over again in regard to conflicting goods. 

In other words, incongruities that do not crop up when conveying what we mean about ourselves in the world around us materially, empirically, demographically, etc.

The laws of nature are seemingly applicable to all of us. Objectively, as it were. Here one might assert something that he or she believes is objectively true. But it can then either be demonstrated to be true or not. 

So, for instance, it would be incongruous to be a Christian and at the same time to deny the existence of God, since the denial of God’s existence is contradictory to the basic beliefs that define Christianity. Contradiction – in which two statements cannot both be true and cannot both be false at the same time – is one especially dramatic form of incongruity, but there are many others.

Here, however, everything revolves around statements pertaining to beliefs that either can be demonstrated or cannot. Or, rather, so it seems to me. Go to the dictionary and look up Christianity and atheism. Enough said?

Contrariety – in which two statements cannot both be true at the same time but can both be false at the same time – is another. Irony – in which a person says the opposite of what he or she really means – is yet another.

Then the part where we see what people do and hear what people say. And are then tasked with "somehow" interpreting it from our own frame of mind...which might be entirely at odds with how others interpret it. Jay believes in Christianity, Jai believes in Hinduism. Both religions are said to be true, but they can't both be. But in a No God universe they would both be wrong. 

Traditionally, philosophers have recoiled from incongruity, seeing in it something illogical, irrational. As such, incongruities have normally been thought of begging for resolution, eradication, or at the very least, some sort of clarification.

Not counting those who recoil only from those who do not share the existential parameters of their own One True Path. And those here who are not interested in any resolution that does not resolve entirely around their own set of assumptions regarding the human condition. On the contrary, for some, eradicating the "infidels" is all the clarification they will ever need.