Optimistic Nihilism (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#21

Post by loupeabody » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:28 AM UTC

knuththetruth wrote: post #15

loupeabody wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peterson's arguments against Nihilism are substantive and deeply involved with his thesis about individual responsibility. Your description of him is merely hand-waving, uncharitable, and reactionary.

Peterson is a con artist who appeals to desperate and impressionable men that can’t be bothered to read the Nietzsche and Jung that he only skims for sound bites.

That you feel he is a con artist does nothing but indicate to me that all you know of Peterson is from headlines and hit pieces.

On the contrary, he is probably responsible for droves of new readers of Nietzsche, Jung, Solzhenitsyn, Piaget, William James and other important thinkers, which is certainly not a bad thing. Whether you find yourself at odds with what you think his audience is makes no difference to the strength of his arguments.

If you were honestly concerned with challenging Peterson's ideas and fans, you could squarely engage his work critically. Others have productively challenged his ideas and, as a result, have added to the progress of the discussion surrounding them. Before you do that, you're just adding to the noise which confuses and obscures issues of actual importance.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#22

Post by hengheng » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:35 AM UTC

undoware wrote: post #11

This is a fantastic sample of the sort of romantic philosophizing that animates the technosphere. It elides from some reasonable, nineteenth-century claims about atheism and materialsm to full-on AI worship without a moment's hesitation or reflection. It uses ecological and physiological fragility to justify the headlong embrace of more durable, synthetic minds -- as though all that were valuable about the human expe…

I agree with your stance, though my take on it is a little differently headed.

Why do some people choose to define their personal values and motivation along abstract concepts that are only ever read about, never felt, and never even seen live in person? Usually, people just go with whatever lets them get along best with their peers. Don't be ripped off by anyone, form meaningful friendships, do what fills your heart with joy, and then distill from that whatever you think is worth fighting for in life. No need to resort to machine learning here.

It might be true that strong ai will take over in ten or thirty years. But should this really change your outlook? What happens if your bets are off, what did you then spend your life preparing for?

It might be true that science disagrees with traditional metaphysical ideas. (it cannot disprove those, by definition.) but does satellite data really mean that you shouldn't give your church a second chance? Maybe the traditional way of telling the story is funky, maybe the organization at large has some rot (don't they all), but I'm sure there's something to learn from it when it comes to how we can make people get along with each other. At the very least, LIGO and LHC won't.

What does it say about your personal striving that you have to look at Mars to reflect on your limits?

I'm not saying let's stop pursuing those things. I've been wanting a PC interface to my brain since the day I was able to imagine it, and never stopped wanting it. But over the last decade, I've learned to decouple my personal identity from humanity's technological advancement. Because after all, my grandparents knew how to be happy, too.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#23

Post by rglover » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

danschumann wrote: post #18

Check out Jordan Petersons biblical series: the psychological significance of the bible stories. The bible tells a deep story about the workings of the human mind. To discard them because you don't believe them to be historically accurate is missing the point. There is a reason people have kept those stories alive for thousands of years, and why functional societies have them, and why dictatorships tend to ban them.…

First in the series for those who are curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#24

Post by Avshalom » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:51 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Nihilists are often guilty of something which many teenagers are guilty of, which I call epistemological narcissism. Basically, they think they know it all, pretty much. The cure for this is to take the extrapolation strategy which PG uses in "What You Can't Say." ( http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ) However, you should instead apply it to "what you can't predict." Would any of our ancestors of 400 or 1000 years ag…

In the grand scheme of things every one dies and the universes freezes from entropic heat death, so yeah...

That said Nihilism isn't necessarily pessimistic. The French Existentialist were basically weak nihilism and Camus was almost celebratory of the lack of meaning of life. "Nothing Means Anything" can be taken as "fuck it burn it all down" OR it can be taken as "there are no unforgivable sins, there is no eternal reward for martyrdom, so why not maximize our fleeting existence for 'happiness'?"

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#25

Post by scythe » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC

knuththetruth wrote: post #12

ahussain wrote: post #9

With a title like this I was expecting a little more from this piece. The best responses I've heard to nihilism are from Ernst Becker's Denial of Death [1] which argues that the best way to overcome nihilism is to stop thinking so hard. Another way to phrase this is that you need to move away from the abstract and towards the concrete. As you focus on a more specific set of experiences, the bigger existential questio…

Let’s please not conflate someone like Becker with the Disney Movie Conspiracy Theory Alt-Right philosopher king.

I don't watch or study Jordan Peterson, but I'm flabbergasted by how inflammatory he manages to be. I read a critical article about Peterson in a major publication which excoriated his -- apparently awful -- misunderstanding of Derrida and Foucault (whom he apparently faults for modern leftism) but barely even described his theories, whatever they are. I came away fully convinced that Peterson does not understand Derrida, and better aware of the intellectual dispute between postmodernism and Marxism, but unsure of how important this is to refuting Peterson's broader cultural criticisms, and also unsure of what those were.

I guess my point is, if you disagree with someone's thinking, try to be clear about why, and don't assume everyone else is familiar with them.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#26

Post by Avshalom » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Nihilists are often guilty of something which many teenagers are guilty of, which I call epistemological narcissism. Basically, they think they know it all, pretty much. The cure for this is to take the extrapolation strategy which PG uses in "What You Can't Say." ( http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ) However, you should instead apply it to "what you can't predict." Would any of our ancestors of 400 or 1000 years ag…

As a side note--and I stole this idea from an essay that I thought was by Asimov called the Scientist and the Sage but: 400 or 1000 years ago there were still basically three possible predictions: the universe will end; the universe is infinite; the universe will cycle.

It is then trivial to find philosophers who take one of those notions as a cornerstone of their philosophy and thus absolutely have a conceptual framework for the right questions.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#27

Post by ahussain » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:03 AM UTC

knuththetruth wrote: post #12

ahussain wrote: post #9

With a title like this I was expecting a little more from this piece. The best responses I've heard to nihilism are from Ernst Becker's Denial of Death [1] which argues that the best way to overcome nihilism is to stop thinking so hard. Another way to phrase this is that you need to move away from the abstract and towards the concrete. As you focus on a more specific set of experiences, the bigger existential questio…

Let’s please not conflate someone like Becker with the Disney Movie Conspiracy Theory Alt-Right philosopher king.

I'm not conflating the two. I'm merely citing two examples of people (among many others) who have offered approaches to dealing with nihilism.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#28

Post by samirillian » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #24

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Nihilists are often guilty of something which many teenagers are guilty of, which I call epistemological narcissism. Basically, they think they know it all, pretty much. The cure for this is to take the extrapolation strategy which PG uses in "What You Can't Say." ( http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ) However, you should instead apply it to "what you can't predict." Would any of our ancestors of 400 or 1000 years ag…

In the grand scheme of things every one dies and the universes freezes from entropic heat death, so yeah... That said Nihilism isn't necessarily pessimistic. The French Existentialist were basically weak nihilism and Camus was almost celebratory of the lack of meaning of life. "Nothing Means Anything" can be taken as "fuck it burn it all down" OR it can be taken as "there are no unforgivable sins, there is no eternal…

But you just did that exact same thing!

a) Do we know for sure that's what happens to the universe?

and

b) It doesn't matter anyway. "Everybody dies" is only a fact. What does the fact of heat death have to do with the question of meaning? The implication that "nothing means anything" is just as metaphysical an assumption as "everything means something."

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#29

Post by ahussain » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:06 AM UTC

knuththetruth wrote: post #15

loupeabody wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peterson's arguments against Nihilism are substantive and deeply involved with his thesis about individual responsibility. Your description of him is merely hand-waving, uncharitable, and reactionary.

Peterson is a con artist who appeals to desperate and impressionable men that can’t be bothered to read the Nietzsche and Jung that he only skims for sound bites.

It is a shame that people cannot engage substantively with Jordan Peterson's decent arguments because of his tendency to be inflammatory.

What exactly about his argument that nihilism is "the easy way out" is problematic?

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#30

Post by ahussain » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

scythe wrote: post #25

knuththetruth wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s please not conflate someone like Becker with the Disney Movie Conspiracy Theory Alt-Right philosopher king.

I don't watch or study Jordan Peterson, but I'm flabbergasted by how inflammatory he manages to be. I read a critical article about Peterson in a major publication which excoriated his -- apparently awful -- misunderstanding of Derrida and Foucault (whom he apparently faults for modern leftism) but barely even described his theories, whatever they are. I came away fully convinced that Peterson does not understand Der…

I guess one of the problems with Peterson (and also with people like Zizek) is that he manages to say some completely indefensible things (i.e. he seems to tie so many of the world's problems to "liberal professors in the universities"), while also managing to say some very poignant and insightful things that do genuinely improve one's thinking. I think the second part is the reason why he has built up such a large following.