31–40 of 88 posts
Huh. I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism and depression. So this makes sense to me: > If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. But not this: > Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding fr…
Nihilism goes hand-in-hand with atheism, doesn't it? If you don't believe that the Universe is operating according to the scheme(s) of some kind of "divine being(s)", it's hard to see where any "meaning" would come from. It's just mindless and possibly deterministic motion. That is unless you can somehow derive "meaning" as an emergent concept and see it as significant. Desires originate in biology that has evolved t…
Someone can tell you your life has a lot of meaning... but what does that mean to you. It's vacuous if you don't think that yourself.
I won't say meaning is something emergent. It's something about point of view.
Or perhaps even stronger. If you don't find meaning in your life, there's none.
First, I think we've all most commonly seen the "colloquial" form of Nihilism, which is a sort of despair over a lack of meaning in life. I'm pretty sure most people are aware that this is oversimplified, but it is partially grounded in actual Nihilism. The emphasis is put on despair, but the despair isn't the philosophy, just a product of it.
To sum up Nihilism in a sentence: reality lacks inherent meaning, and any meaning we attempt to fulfill is ultimately chosen, not given to us. Importantly, most of the sense of purpose we see as being "real" comes from our desire to continue existing, (hence Existentialism.) But, existence is a choice. You simply choose to continue to exist, or you don't. (In which case you die.) This is the main insight which makes Nihilism disturbing. Philosophically, if our existence has no purpose, then it seems that everything else we believe and value is built on a foundation of sand.
Huh. I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism and depression. So this makes sense to me: > If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. But not this: > Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding fr…
If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself).
Nihilism opens door to countering positions such as above. By using it, one can either accept life without meaning and move on or they can counter it with different position that doesn't bind them from construction of their own structure.
off topic
> It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar
I am curious how do you trust yourself dealing with that. In a similar position, I find it a bit complicated to retain trust in myself (messy part is I have trauma related to trusting others as well). The feeling of being able to do anything devolving into sleeping like a rotten piece of meat within a few months. When I noticed the pattern, I had to stop thinking anything ambitious long term.
Currently, I have a few yes/no questions that highly depend on ny emotional and psychological state. I ask myself when I am unsure whether it's a good phase or bad phase. When am I myself? Is it when I can be high or low? Or somewhere between combining both.
Obviously, I can ignore the emotions and look at things objectively but then, I would start disagreeing with lot of people including doctors and become more 'robot' like. I start thinking about incentives, motive, biases, biological coding and what not to rationalize 'something' but that 'something' ultimately depends on my emotional underlying. The argument proposed are hard to deny unless someone has an irrational absolute stance originating from a position of faith or bias they are unaware of.(I am not saying things directly, I know)
Aa for drugs (they don't really work that much for me), do you not see yourself as intoxicated though? If someone was under the effect of alcohol, would you say that someone has control or actually thinking by their own? Comparing medical drugs to alcohol might be a bit stretched but some of what I took in the past was relatively similar in effects after a bit of research. What if you had to take drugs forever to retain that person? Who is judging what is ultimately good for you?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There would be nothing stopping a "divine being" from creating a meaningless world, but they approach things from the other direction. The world as they can see it has no meaning, so there would be no reason to believe there is a designer.
Sure, it may be possible to be a nihilist who believes in divine beings who perhaps are also nihilists and who created a meaningless world. Or to be an atheist who thinks that life is meaningful. But I do think that atheism and nihilism more logically go together.
Nihilism goes hand-in-hand with atheism, doesn't it? If you don't believe that the Universe is operating according to the scheme(s) of some kind of "divine being(s)", it's hard to see where any "meaning" would come from. It's just mindless and possibly deterministic motion. That is unless you can somehow derive "meaning" as an emergent concept and see it as significant. Desires originate in biology that has evolved t…
That would define "meaning" only as something that can be imposed by an entity outside of yourself. Someone can tell you your life has a lot of meaning... but what does that mean to you. It's vacuous if you don't think that yourself. I won't say meaning is something emergent. It's something about point of view. Or perhaps even stronger. If you don't find meaning in your life, there's none.
"Nihilism: the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless;" Oxford. Concise and seems pretty clear to me. While the article is well written, it doesn't really adds much IMO.
> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true, our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars. Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however.
Definitely not 'objectively true'.
It's only 'objectively true' from a narrow materialist perspective, and there are other ways to look at it.
"our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars.
Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however."
This is really quite some contradiction.
First - the materialist assumption (which I would say is a fallacy, or rather it's only partly true) which postulates that the universe is merely energy/matter bouncing around according to laws ...
... and second - then the acceptance that 'it's meaningful to ourselves'.
Consider what 'ourselves' (i.e. life, consciousness) are - something that's by definition not possible to describe with 'physics' because we've ruled it out (energy and matter acting according to rules cannot be 'aware' or 'conscious').
Contemplate for half a second that the expression of life is the meaningful, real thing, and that materiality is just the measure of the matter it's expressed in, and that science is just a tool for that. Or at least that's another, pretty reasonable way to consider it. And there are definitely other ways.
Huh. I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism and depression. So this makes sense to me: > If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. But not this: > Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding fr…
What is "applied nihilism"? I've not heard this term before.
Also, I don't recall anything explicit about Landmark and nihilism. It's just my opinion.
Huh. I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism and depression. So this makes sense to me: > If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. But not this: > Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding fr…
Personally, I see nihilism as part of strategic deployment like any other philosophical position. If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself). Nihilism opens door to countering positions such as above. By using it,…
As I understand it, that is, in fact, existentialism, not nihilism.
I wasn't satisfied with the essay, so I thought I'd share my understanding of Nihilism. This is coming from someone who has never read Nietzsche so take it with a grain of salt, I'm curious to know where I might be off. First, I think we've all most commonly seen the "colloquial" form of Nihilism, which is a sort of despair over a lack of meaning in life. I'm pretty sure most people are aware that this is oversimplif…
Only if you assume that only "inherent" or externally supplied meaning or purpose is valid.
Why make that assumption, though?