Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 8:16 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:52 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:50 pm

One doesn't need to understand what delights one, the radiance of beauty affects one without permission and undoubtedly penetrates to one's core. As to generalizing it's all biology. All meanings are affected by changes in one's biology. Yes, I know it sounds rather cold, but it is the process which gives us our reality. As long as there is biology the physical world will be provided with the meanings we need, Nihilism is a world without biology. The big question is, what is the meaning of life, it depends--lol! It depends on whether you identify with the body or the consciousness it contains, the body perishes, consciousness marches on. All words are qualifications and/or limitations, and as far as higher values go they are created in the self- interest of our common biology without which our finer sensibilities would go unrealized in the struggle to survive.

I agree, with the reservation that the body is also experience. Unless the body is experience the body is nothing. I'd rather say "the material world vanishes ,experience marches on". Or "the baseless fabric of this vision -------melts into air into thin air".(The Tempest )

Another inadequate argument is that because we are going to die, all chains of justification must leave off in mid-air: one studies and works to earn money to pay for clothing, housing, entertainment, food, to sustain oneself from year to year, perhaps to support a family and pursue a career---but to what final end? All of it is an elaborate journey leading nowhere.

There are several replies to this argument. First, life does not consist of a sequence of activities each of which has as its purpose some later member of the sequence. Chains of justification come repeatedly to an end within life, and whether the process as a whole can be justified has no bearing on the finality of these end-points.

No further justification is needed to make it reasonable to take aspirin for a headache, attend an exhibit of the work of a painter one admires, or stop a child from putting his hand on a hot stove. No larger context or further purpose is needed to prevent these acts from being pointless.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:09 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 5:50 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:09 pm

ambiguous,

LOL!! I'll take that as a compliment!

With some, that doesn't surprise me at all.

But if, in my opinion, the most important function of philosophy revolves around 1] bringing technical arguments relating to the rules of language and 2] an exploration into what we can know down out of the scholastic, academic clouds and out into the world of human interactions that [over and again] come into conflict over moral and political and spiritual value judgments, a discussion of nihilism becomes profoundly existential.

Or, as Will Durant once put it...

"In the end it is dishonesty that breeds the sterile intellectualism of contemporary speculation. A man who is not certain of his mental integrity shuns the vital problems of human existence; at any moment the great laboratory of life may explode his little lie and leave him naked and shivering in the face of truth. So he builds himself an ivory tower of esoteric tomes and professionally philosophical periodicals; he is comfortable only in their company...he wanders farther and farther away from his time and place, and from the problems that absorb his people and his century. The vast concerns that properly belong to philosophy do not concern him...He retreats into a little corner, and insulates himself from the world under layer and layer of technical terminology. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes an epistemologist."

Is that what you are, one of Durant's "epistemologists"?

ambiguous,
And you an ambiguous politician?

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:51 am I do like the use of the word 'nihilism' for an affect. Previously I had assumed nihilism was an intellectual concept.

Naming how clinical depression affects the sufferer 'nihilism' helps a lot to understand clinical depression. My bipolar friend is dead now but he would have appreciated this. Loss of faith that existence can mean anything at all is devastating and can result in suicide. This discussion is an example of philosophy serving therapy.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:00 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:51 am I do like the use of the word 'nihilism' for an affect. Previously I had assumed nihilism was an intellectual concept.

Naming how clinical depression affects the sufferer 'nihilism' helps a lot to understand clinical depression. My bipolar friend is dead now but he would have appreciated this. Loss of faith that existence can mean anything at all is devastating and can result in suicide. This discussion is an example of philosophy serving therapy.

I think alone the idea that existence has no meaning only gets dangerous for someone if there are other problems, and likely severe ones. If such a person has friends, a job they like, intimacy, access to X (say, nature) that they appreciate, they may find the idea disturbing, but it cannot drag them down. If they are already a depressed person, it could become the obsessed over thought that gets used or contributes to them having suicidal ideation. Generally, even if we believe there is no objective meaning, we still find some things meaningful. They are meaningfull to us. And so there is a reason, for us, to get out of bed, to try to achieve X, to meet Z, to get closer to Y, to create R and so on.

But if you don't have things that are meaningful to you, then this idea can be dangerous (which should not be conflated with it being false). Some nihilists are happy. I suppose they are less likely to call themselves nihilists, but would answer as a nihilist to questions like 'is there objective meaning?'

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:20 am Clinical depression can be so bad that all these nice things you mention lack any meaning.

However my friend 's clinical depression was so bad that nothing, friends, job, nothing except the music of Mozart, had any meaning, yet he had insight and could discuss his feelings objectively.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:51 am I do like the use of the word 'nihilism' for an affect. Previously I had assumed nihilism was an intellectual concept.

Naming how clinical depression affects the sufferer 'nihilism' helps a lot to understand clinical depression. My bipolar friend is dead now but he would have appreciated this. Loss of faith that existence can mean anything at all is devastating and can result in suicide. This discussion is an example of philosophy serving therapy.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:28 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:51 am I do like the use of the word 'nihilism' for an affect. Previously I had assumed nihilism was an intellectual concept.

Naming how clinical depression affects the sufferer 'nihilism' helps a lot to understand clinical depression. My bipolar friend is dead now but he would have appreciated this. Loss of faith that existence can mean anything at all is devastating and can result in suicide. This discussion is an example of philosophy serving therapy.

Belinda,

So sorry for your loss, tragedy visits us all, but if we can begin to understand what it is all about, and what is the reality of human existence we might save ourselves and our loved ones too. You'll need bare with me for I am like most of us playing it by ear. First Nihilism is a reality if one is talking about objective meanings that are to be found out there. We are the creators, biology creates all meanings and then bestows those meanings upon a meaningless physical world. If there is to be an Eden, we must create it. Context defines is a good start, generally, the individual is forced to take full responsibility for being messed up which is totally unjust. We are all adult children, but as adults, we are pretty hard on one another. Meaning/s, like I said before Nihilism is a problem for unhealthy biology. I remember something the great mythologist the late Joseph Campbell said, " I don't think that people are necessarily looking for greater meaning in their lives, I think they are yearning to experience the rapture of being alive." This is the experience that we are all so removed from, a greater problem for modern humanity than it was for our hunter-gathering ancestors living to much in our heads.

Keep in mind this is a personal tangent, so here we go. To begin with life tends to make us believe that living is a humdrum experience we are not to expect it to be different, but the complexity of it all is incredible. The routines we are forced into often go against our very natures and kill the spirit removing us ever more from that rapture of being alive. We are reactionary creatures and as such, we need experiences that are meaningful to our biology, to much repetition of stimulus that goes against our natures is again spirit killing. That business of context defines, if we can get a good grasp upon what our natures require of context we can transform it. It is the old problem of is the system going to serve you or are you going to serve the system. serving a system unkind to human nature is spirit killing and the norm. Another thing if we are to be kinder to ourselves we must gain a great knowledge of our own natures for we are all part of the context of our fellows, bumper cars on a merrygoround, we are reactionary creatures. What causes a great deal of the dumping on this merrygoround is the belief in human action, when in fact there is no such thing as human action there is only human reaction. So, in trying to understand our fellows we need to ask, what are they reacting to? Humans are complex creatures often the stimulus the motivations are registered memories of past experiences but humanity cannot move without, without first being moved from within, motivation spells reaction. Well, I'll leave it there for now until I get some feedback.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:21 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:28 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:51 am I do like the use of the word 'nihilism' for an affect. Previously I had assumed nihilism was an intellectual concept.

Naming how clinical depression affects the sufferer 'nihilism' helps a lot to understand clinical depression. My bipolar friend is dead now but he would have appreciated this. Loss of faith that existence can mean anything at all is devastating and can result in suicide. This discussion is an example of philosophy serving therapy.

Belinda,

So sorry for your loss, tragedy visits us all, but if we can begin to understand what it is all about, and what is the reality of human existence we might save ourselves and our loved ones too. You'll need bare with me for I am like most of us playing it by ear. First Nihilism is a reality if one is talking about objective meanings that are to be found out there. We are the creators, biology creates all meanings and then bestows those meanings upon a meaningless physical world. If there is to be an Eden, we must create it. Context defines is a good start, generally, the individual is forced to take full responsibility for being messed up which is totally unjust. We are all adult children, but as adults, we are pretty hard on one another. Meaning/s, like I said before Nihilism is a problem for unhealthy biology. I remember something the great mythologist the late Joseph Campbell said, " I don't think that people are necessarily looking for greater meaning in their lives, I think they are yearning to experience the rapture of being alive." This is the experience that we are all so removed from, a greater problem for modern humanity than it was for our hunter-gathering ancestors living to much in our heads.

Keep in mind this is a personal tangent, so here we go. To begin with life tends to make us believe that living is a humdrum experience we are not to expect it to be different, but the complexity of it all is incredible. The routines we are forced into often go against our very natures and kill the spirit removing us ever more from that rapture of being alive. We are reactionary creatures and as such, we need experiences that are meaningful to our biology, to much repetition of stimulus that goes against our natures is again spirit killing. That business of context defines, if we can get a good grasp upon what our natures require of context we can transform it. It is the old problem of is the system going to serve you or are you going to serve the system. serving a system unkind to human nature is spirit killing and the norm. Another thing if we are to be kinder to ourselves we must gain a great knowledge of our own natures for we are all part of the context of our fellows, bumper cars on a merrygoround, we are reactionary creatures. What causes a great deal of the dumping on this merrygoround is the belief in human action, when in fact there is no such thing as human action there is only human reaction. So, in trying to understand our fellows we need to ask, what are they reacting to? Humans are complex creatures often the stimulus the motivations are registered memories of past experiences but humanity cannot move without, without first being moved from within, motivation spells reaction. Well, I'll leave it there for now until I get some feedback.

"Our hunter gatherer ancestors " were killed all at once nearly always before they were thirty whereas we moderns are most usually killed bit by bit until we are too old or diminished to have any bits left to be killed. This is all about the one direction of time. We can't escape entropy. Creation takes a lot of kinetic energy and life forms are too frail to last. That's why we marvel at
some thousand year old yew tree in a church graveyard.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 9:09 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:21 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:28 am

Belinda,

So sorry for your loss, tragedy visits us all, but if we can begin to understand what it is all about, and what is the reality of human existence we might save ourselves and our loved ones too. You'll need bare with me for I am like most of us playing it by ear. First Nihilism is a reality if one is talking about objective meanings that are to be found out there. We are the creators, biology creates all meanings and then bestows those meanings upon a meaningless physical world. If there is to be an Eden, we must create it. Context defines is a good start, generally, the individual is forced to take full responsibility for being messed up which is totally unjust. We are all adult children, but as adults, we are pretty hard on one another. Meaning/s, like I said before Nihilism is a problem for unhealthy biology. I remember something the great mythologist the late Joseph Campbell said, " I don't think that people are necessarily looking for greater meaning in their lives, I think they are yearning to experience the rapture of being alive." This is the experience that we are all so removed from, a greater problem for modern humanity than it was for our hunter-gathering ancestors living to much in our heads.

Keep in mind this is a personal tangent, so here we go. To begin with life tends to make us believe that living is a humdrum experience we are not to expect it to be different, but the complexity of it all is incredible. The routines we are forced into often go against our very natures and kill the spirit removing us ever more from that rapture of being alive. We are reactionary creatures and as such, we need experiences that are meaningful to our biology, to much repetition of stimulus that goes against our natures is again spirit killing. That business of context defines, if we can get a good grasp upon what our natures require of context we can transform it. It is the old problem of is the system going to serve you or are you going to serve the system. serving a system unkind to human nature is spirit killing and the norm. Another thing if we are to be kinder to ourselves we must gain a great knowledge of our own natures for we are all part of the context of our fellows, bumper cars on a merrygoround, we are reactionary creatures. What causes a great deal of the dumping on this merrygoround is the belief in human action, when in fact there is no such thing as human action there is only human reaction. So, in trying to understand our fellows we need to ask, what are they reacting to? Humans are complex creatures often the stimulus the motivations are registered memories of past experiences but humanity cannot move without, without first being moved from within, motivation spells reaction. Well, I'll leave it there for now until I get some feedback.

"Our hunter gatherer ancestors " were killed all at once nearly always before they were thirty whereas we moderns are most usually killed bit by bit until we are too old or diminished to have any bits left to be killed. This is all about the one direction of time. We can't escape entropy. Creation takes a lot of kinetic energy and life forms are too frail to last. That's why we marvel at
some thousand year old yew tree in a church graveyard.

Belinda,

Well, we do not really have a choice we are creators of meaning, and Nihilism is far more likely to visit the physically and spiritually ill biology. This business of modern western religions misses the point entirely what they sell is certainty, security and community this is not spirituality. Spirituality is feeling the rapture of being alive and/or at least being refreshed by the natural context of the world. I somehow think personally that the misconception of human action in the world is playing a negative role in the killing of the human spirit. It is the wrong mindset for a healthy relationship with the natural environment/world. If meanings could be found laying around on the ground like apples in an orchard Nihiism would have no credibility whatsoever. What would societies look like if people knew that they are creators and the centres of their own universe? " There is no difference between a long life and a short life both are but a moment in time."

Even if someone wished to supply a further justification for pursuing all the things in life that are commonly regarded as self justifying, that justification would have to end somewhere too. If nothing can justify unless it is justified in terms of something outside itself, which is also justified, then an infinite regress results, and no chain of justification can be complete. Moreover, if a finite chain of reasons cannot justify anything, what could be accomplished by an infinite chain, each link of which must be justified by something outside itself?

Since justifications must come to an end somewhere, nothing is gained by denying that they end where they appear to, within life or by trying to subsume the multiple, often trivial ordinary justifications of action under a single, controlling life scheme.

We can be satisfied more easily than that. In fact, through its misrepresentation of the process of justification, the argument makes a vacuous demand. It insists that the reasons available within life are incomplete, but suggests thereby that all reasons that come to an end are incomplete. This makes it impossible to supply any reasons at all. The standard arguments for absurdity appear therefore to fail as arguments. Yet I believe they attempt to express something that is difficult to state, but fundamentally correct.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:28 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:51 am I do like the use of the word 'nihilism' for an affect. Previously I had assumed nihilism was an intellectual concept.

Naming how clinical depression affects the sufferer 'nihilism' helps a lot to understand clinical depression. My bipolar friend is dead now but he would have appreciated this. Loss of faith that existence can mean anything at all is devastating and can result in suicide. This discussion is an example of philosophy serving therapy.

Belinda,

So sorry for your loss, tragedy visits us all, but if we can begin to understand what it is all about, and what is the reality of human existence we might save ourselves and our loved ones too. You'll need bare with me for I am like most of us playing it by ear. First Nihilism is a reality if one is talking about objective meanings that are to be found out there. We are the creators, biology creates all meanings and then bestows those meanings upon a meaningless physical world. If there is to be an Eden, we must create it. Context defines is a good start, generally, the individual is forced to take full responsibility for being messed up which is totally unjust. We are all adult children, but as adults, we are pretty hard on one another. Meaning/s, like I said before Nihilism is a problem for unhealthy biology. I remember something the great mythologist the late Joseph Campbell said, " I don't think that people are necessarily looking for greater meaning in their lives, I think they are yearning to experience the rapture of being alive." This is the experience that we are all so removed from, a greater problem for modern humanity than it was for our hunter-gathering ancestors living to much in our heads.

Keep in mind this is a personal tangent, so here we go. To begin with life tends to make us believe that living is a humdrum experience we are not to expect it to be different, but the complexity of it all is incredible. The routines we are forced into often go against our very natures and kill the spirit removing us ever more from that rapture of being alive. We are reactionary creatures and as such, we need experiences that are meaningful to our biology, to much repetition of stimulus that goes against our natures is again spirit killing. That business of context defines, if we can get a good grasp upon what our natures require of context we can transform it. It is the old problem of is the system going to serve you or are you going to serve the system. serving a system unkind to human nature is spirit killing and the norm. Another thing if we are to be kinder to ourselves we must gain a great knowledge of our own natures for we are all part of the context of our fellows, bumper cars on a merrygoround, we are reactionary creatures. What causes a great deal of the dumping on this merrygoround is the belief in human action, when in fact there is no such thing as human action there is only human reaction. So, in trying to understand our fellows we need to ask, what are they reacting to? Humans are complex creatures often the stimulus the motivations are registered memories of past experiences but humanity cannot move without, without first being moved from within, motivation spells reaction. Well, I'll leave it there for now until I get some feedback.