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Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

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Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#41

Post by stcredzero »

white-flame wrote: post #33
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…

> If you don't know the future, how do you know if what you do will or won't matter in the grand scheme of things? If future understanding of the grand scheme is unpredictable, then that form of decision making seems equally likely to miss the mark as reactionary non-decisions or intentionally tribally inclusive decisions. You don't really gain anything by switching between those perspectives, or by dismissing one of…

You don't really gain anything by switching between those perspectives, or by dismissing one of them, by your premise.

I don't care if you call yourself a buddhist or a "happy nihilist" so long as you live with yourself and interact with others as if you had a basis for hope. As for your assertion that "You don't really gain anything" -- hope is something truly valuable to gain or to lose.

In other words, "Don't be an asshole, selfish or otherwise."

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#42

Post by Avshalom »

stcredzero wrote: post #36
Avshalom wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fram…

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. We now have an inkling that this taxonomy of understanding may well be too limited.…

>>For one thing, the notion of a "beginning" might not actually have a concrete meaning. There may simply be no time before "time zero."

Is not relevant to the end (or not) of the everything.

>>The universe may well unfold in a series of such incomprehensible remixings in a way analogous to Roger Penrose's 5-way symmetrical tiling, where an infinity may be "covered" by a predetermined non-cyclic pattern which never repeats.

Is usefully distinct from an un-ending universe for philosophic purposes... how?

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#43

Post by toren »

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.

Ah the old "Peterson is a con artist/fraud", aka "I automatically disagree with what he says because he's not a left-wing atheist" or some slight variation of that.

The more people are told to stay away from his work for such intellectually lazy reasons (such that he's inflammatory, offensive, etc, primarily pushed by journalistic hit pieces), the greater the odds of the uninitiated taking a look at his work and finding some value in it. Ironically, the dynamic somewhat resembles your overly religious parents on that damn devil's music.

Note: "finding value in his ideas" does not correspond to agreeing with everything he says. There are many valid critiques of Peterson. It also does not mean that you discard everything he says because you disagree. These strike me as symptoms of lazy ideologically driven thinking, most often political, and particularly speaks volumes of the left vs right divide in America.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#44

Post by stcredzero »

Avshalom wrote: post #34
stcredzero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the grand scheme of things every one dies and the universes freezes from entropic heat death, so yeah... {facepalm} We don't know what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are. We have no idea what happens if/when the expansion of space itself starts pulling quarks apart. https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-you-pull-apart-a-pai... You only think you know what's going to happen, based on the limited toy understanding of…

The entropic heat death of the universe comes more from the notion that R=1 is implied by the conservation of energy and so while the universe might stop expanding at t=∞ the average energy of any particle at that time will be 0. if R>1 same thing but faster. The other option is that we all die and then the universe collapses... which is just as final for anything hanging around as heat death would be.

The entropic heat death of the universe comes more from the notion that R=1 is implied by the conservation of energy

{facepalm}

Physicists already know that on the scales of the universe, there is no conservation of energy.

I hate to break it to you folks, but most of you are dead wrong about conservation laws. Conservation laws are a fundamental part of your education, but they are not a fundamental part of the universe. They are dependent on symmetry, as German mathematician Emmy Noether figured out. What this means is that energy is not conserved on universal scales, though it is still a very powerful analysis tool on smaller scales. We already have good reasons to believe that there is no time symmetry in deep time. The part relevant to the above specifically is at 10:15, but the whole video is worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUn2izowBkw

We know that the universe is expanding, and that this expansion is accelerating. So, do you know what happens when the expansion of space itself starts pulling quarks apart? Can you describe the physics? Do we even know that is going to happen?

Also: Physics Girl -- On universal scales, energy is not conserved! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHCc9b2phn0

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#45

Post by state_less »

Avshalom wrote: post #26
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 fram…

What if the universe doesn't end, or at least hasn't appeared to yet, and yet you're not sure if it's infinite. Like a computer that may halt, but you can't decide if it will or not.

I hope you don't upset the operator and have the simulator suspended with this bickering about what it is. :)

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#46

Post by white-flame »

stcredzero wrote: post #41
white-flame wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't know the future, how do you know if what you do will or won't matter in the grand scheme of things? If future understanding of the grand scheme is unpredictable, then that form of decision making seems equally likely to miss the mark as reactionary non-decisions or intentionally tribally inclusive decisions. You don't really gain anything by switching between those perspectives, or by dismissing one of…

You don't really gain anything by switching between those perspectives, or by dismissing one of them, by your premise. I don't care if you call yourself a buddhist or a "happy nihilist" so long as you live with yourself and interact with others as if you had a basis for hope . As for your assertion that "You don't really gain anything" -- hope is something truly valuable to gain or to lose. In other words, "Don't be…

No, I specifically mean that within the premise you lay out, you don't present any advantage in predicting the future grand scheme meaning, compared to the nihilists.

If I understand your post correctly, the problem is the narcissistic thought that one can declare now about what future things will and won't matter, and things can change in the interim. That doesn't seem linked to nihilism at all (ie, positive personal philosophies of meaning have the same problem of picking the right target), nor does there seem to be a counterpoint presented which would allow you to predict the future more correctly.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#47

Post by toren »

ahussain wrote: post #30
scythe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Exactly. One doesn't have to agree with every single thing he says to find something of value in his ideas. Similarly, it's idiotic to discard his entire set of ideas because you have found some disagreements.

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#48

Post by stcredzero »

Avshalom wrote: post #31
samirillian wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

a) math, even if not entropic heat death, a basic grasp of history show that 99.999...% of our lives are meaningless after some cut off. b)I am specifically claiming that while "nothing means anything" is the--lie that tells the truth--summation of nihilism it, by it's very nature, doesn't imply a course of action. So it doesn't matter how metaphysical of a claim it is.

a basic grasp of history show that 99.999...% of our lives are meaningless after some cut off

Why shouldn't we be grateful to the totality of our ancestors for getting us this far? Who is to say that we could change even a butterfly wing's flutter of the distant past and still have everything turn out as now?

b)I am specifically claiming that while "nothing means anything" is the--lie that tells the truth--summation of nihilism it, by it's very nature, doesn't imply a course of action. So it doesn't matter how metaphysical of a claim it is.

You know nothing, Jon Snow!

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#49

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #44
Avshalom wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entropic heat death of the universe comes more from the notion that R=1 is implied by the conservation of energy and so while the universe might stop expanding at t=∞ the average energy of any particle at that time will be 0. if R>1 same thing but faster. The other option is that we all die and then the universe collapses... which is just as final for anything hanging around as heat death would be.

The entropic heat death of the universe comes more from the notion that R=1 is implied by the conservation of energy {facepalm} Physicists already know that on the scales of the universe, there is no conservation of energy. I hate to break it to you folks, but most of you are dead wrong about conservation laws. Conservation laws are a fundamental part of your education, but they are not a fundamental part of the univ…

[deleted]

Re: Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

#50

Post by Avshalom »

stcredzero wrote: post #44
Avshalom wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entropic heat death of the universe comes more from the notion that R=1 is implied by the conservation of energy and so while the universe might stop expanding at t=∞ the average energy of any particle at that time will be 0. if R>1 same thing but faster. The other option is that we all die and then the universe collapses... which is just as final for anything hanging around as heat death would be.

The entropic heat death of the universe comes more from the notion that R=1 is implied by the conservation of energy {facepalm} Physicists already know that on the scales of the universe, there is no conservation of energy. I hate to break it to you folks, but most of you are dead wrong about conservation laws. Conservation laws are a fundamental part of your education, but they are not a fundamental part of the univ…

>>Do we even know that is going to happen?

no one you can conceive of caring about will be alive and nothing you do now will have any noticeable effect on them.

But also yes we have worked out the math for a hyperbolic universe and it is still not effected by 21st century morality.

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