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A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

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Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#61

Post by dgreensp »

ebbv wrote: post #2

I've never read this guy's writing before but in this article I think he is way over-intellectualizing things. Meaning is whatever you want it to be. Some people find meaning in easing the suffering of others. Some people find meaning in raising children who will raise children, etc. even if in the fullness of time they will all cease to exist. Some people find meaning in really good sushi. It doesn't need to be any…

Thanks for bringing this up. Small things can have huge personal significance. I think the article makes sense until it tries to model meaning in an impersonal way; there's a bit of a switcheroo when the author goes from saying meaning is an emotion to saying it is a matter of fact.

I'd say that meaning, as a cognitive emotion, is heavily dependent on what "facts" we hold to be true and what stories we tell ourselves. Most people are not telling themselves stories about the entirety of time and space, so it literally has no impact on their experience of meaning. Death, on the other hand, affects us all; everyone has an attitude towards their own future and eventual death, however unexamined it is. That doesn't mean everyone has the same attitude, though. Some people would like to become immortal above all else, while others are not bothered in the slightest by having a finite lifespan, or believe that their "spirit" is somehow infinite.

It is possible to intellectualize about where meaning comes from in order to bring more into your life, as a kind of therapy; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#62

Post by kens »

The article measures meaning by the amount of directed connection to other meaningful things. Interesting that this is almost exactly the same as PageRank. I think there's actually a significant relationship here.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#63

Post by rimantas »

jonstaab wrote: post #47

Really enjoyed this. I love how practical, humble, and respectful (even of religions, which I really appreciate) uncompromising nihilists tend to be. I happen to be a Christian, so I could go on all day about meaning, but if I could say one thing, it's this: We all die, and it's more than likely even humanity will die out as well (even if it's at the heat death of the universe). You've pretty much rejected the possib…

One can find much more objective meaning to existence without outsorcing it to some imaginable friend.

  > Christians believe that for folks who don't know Jesus,
  > nihilism is essentially true
And folks who don't give a rat ass about what Christians believe do know that nobody has monopoly on meaning and don't see the need to reduce everything else to nihilism. It would be much nicer if religious people would only use religion to measure those who are part of it, not those who are outside.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#64

Post by Double_Cast »

Here's an observation of mine which Simler misses: I suspect that Meaning is the categorical dual of Power. In this context, Power is defined as "your influence on the state of world". Whereas Meaning is defined as "a phenomenon's influence on your state-of-mind and decision-making".

E.g. when a Vietnam Vet looks at a War Monument, that's meaningful because it impacts his emotional state. Maybe his buddy Bubba Gump died in the war. Maybe he'll resolve to live life to the fullest and open a Shrimpin Business.

Connections make it more likely that a phenomenon will impact your decision making, or carry an affect on something you value highly. The connections/gravitas hypothesis that Simler discusses is just a corollary.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#65

Post by DigitalJack »

seletskiy wrote: post #4

I think, that meaning can be only defined in the case, when one is immortal. If I'm mortal, everything I do, good or bad, is meaningless for consciousness, because it will cease to exist and everything that will happen after death will have no effect on it. Any meaning, that's is defined while one is mortal is no more than illusion, in which people immerse themselves for whatever reason.

Well, I think this is easily falsifiable. You are here because your ancestors, long deceased, reproduced. Clearly their life had meaning as expressed by your existence.

Whether or not they continue to exist in some other reality has no bearing on the fact that you exist now, thanks to them.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#66

Post by rimantas »

njohnson41 wrote: post #24
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

> Science taught me that it's all just atoms and the void, so there can't be any deeper point or purpose to the whole thing; the kind of meaning most people yearn for — Ultimate Meaning — simply doesn't exist. I don't think that is something science can teach you. Science can give you the scientific method, but answering the question "Is the scientific method the only valid means of knowledge?" is philosophy not scie…

Especially if you assume that the scientific method is always valid--that all true statements can be determined empirically--you can't make statements like "Ultimate Meaning doesn't/does exist". If Ultimate Meaning cannot be defined, it cannot be tested for or measured, so no statements about it can be true or false. The answer to meaning would not be false, but null (or maybe 42). Just like 42, "atoms and the void"…

But if it cannot be measured it by definition cannot have any effect on reality so can be safely ignored.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#67

Post by jokoon »

One thought I have, is that human thinking is just one perspective which is limited to the realm of living thoughts. Meaning our thoughts are biased towards what we can see and think about, so we cannot see anything else. Human thinking has a limited range.

That's always what I conclude when I hear about life or intelligent life in the universe. We are made of life, but intelligence may be specific only to the life on earth, or maybe there are other forms of intelligence that are so different from our own that we could not even recognize them as intelligent of even communicate with them.

That's essentially what I think when I hear "we are a speck of dust in the universe". We're no just small and far from everything, we are not able to understand how our brain can be intelligent. That's why I'm a nihilist. I don't really see any interesting food for thought to chew on. What's "meaningful" is beyond our reach for now, and it will stay that way until our brain evolve, or we create AI smarter than us, or we just find ways to directly improve our intelligence (more neuron connections, neuro-stimulants or drugs, brain extensions, what have you).

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#68

Post by tim333 »

DigitalJack wrote: post #59
jonstaab wrote: post #47

Really enjoyed this. I love how practical, humble, and respectful (even of religions, which I really appreciate) uncompromising nihilists tend to be. I happen to be a Christian, so I could go on all day about meaning, but if I could say one thing, it's this: We all die, and it's more than likely even humanity will die out as well (even if it's at the heat death of the universe). You've pretty much rejected the possib…

Well, barring space transit, humanity will be wiped out by the Sun long before the heat death of the universe, if not by some other catastrophe first. I am Christian as well, but I didn't think the article handled religion well. In Christianity, "God's chosen people" are the tribes of Israel, not Christians. In Christianity, the meaning of life is love, something you don't have to be a Christian to believe or underst…

If we can't build space transit in 100 million years we're not much of a species.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#69

Post by jonstaab »

pmarreck wrote: post #55
jonstaab wrote: post #47

Really enjoyed this. I love how practical, humble, and respectful (even of religions, which I really appreciate) uncompromising nihilists tend to be. I happen to be a Christian, so I could go on all day about meaning, but if I could say one thing, it's this: We all die, and it's more than likely even humanity will die out as well (even if it's at the heat death of the universe). You've pretty much rejected the possib…

I think the (seeming) existence (or open question) of meaning hints at least at something "spiritual," but I think it's an extra stretch to paint it as some proof of theism and by association religious beliefs, some of which are (in a secular context) ethically debatable (but which are unable to be debated simply by nature of being deemed "sacred" and the debating of which is considered "blasphemy") Personally, I thi…

Funny to apply evolutionary principles to a critique of religion ;) But I do think you're making the incorrect assumption that religion hasn't already undergone that sort of strenuous debate. Jesus is probably the most discussed/doubted/critiqued figure in history - certainly we've had more time to find out his flaws and the flaws of his followers than we have of science. And yet he hasn't been relegated to the dust heap of history like Baal and Thor.

Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

#70

Post by dcre »

Double_Cast wrote: post #53
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

> Science taught me that it's all just atoms and the void, so there can't be any deeper point or purpose to the whole thing; the kind of meaning most people yearn for — Ultimate Meaning — simply doesn't exist. I don't think that is something science can teach you. Science can give you the scientific method, but answering the question "Is the scientific method the only valid means of knowledge?" is philosophy not scie…

Guys, he's not talking about the Scientific Method. He's talking about Reductionism. As recent as a few centuries ago, it was in no way obvious to us that the universe was made out of Atoms and Math (as opposed to say, Adam Kadmon and Divine Inspiration). Continental Philosophers spent tons of energy on these types of questions.

It still isn't obvious to me ;)
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