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Why life is absurd

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Re: Why life is absurd

#141

Post by keane »

locopati wrote: post #134
keane wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of Zen and all Buddhism is to achieve "Enlightenment", a state of mind where one fully internalises the rather Daoist idea (remember the Yin Yang) that God does not exist and due to this Good and Evil are not different at all (an illusion) but are one and the same. Believing that Right and Wrong are equivalent is the same as denying they exist at all, hence Nihilism. All of the practices done before this (me…

This is a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Buddhism, which is the Middle Path between nihilism (a denial of existence) and eternalism (a belief in permanence or independence). Among the foundational beliefs are impermanence, interdependence, and the emptiness of self-existence all phenomena; or from another angle, suffering, the cause of suffering, that suffering can cease, the means of achieving th…

Not really. First off, Nihilism does not deny that we or the universe exist but instead "Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless". In Buddhism, both good and evil has no real existence, being part of the illusory world of phenomena. As I said before, believing that Right and Wrong are equivalent is the same as denying they exist at all and this is what I meant by Nihilism.

Additionally, the practices of Buddhism are said to lead to Enlightenment, but even for the Buddhist, wanting Enlightenment is a huge mistake as Moksha/Nirvana is available at all times, without the practices, as our default status. As Jed McKenna notes: Why does Buddhism rarely produce Buddhas? It is because Buddhist practices ("yogas") are not able to transmit the realization that Self is Illusion and All is Nothingness. If you read the Anathapindika you'll see that Siddhartha denied that the Creator God (issara-karaṇa-vāda) existed, that he claimed there was no free will, but even though every thing is deterministic we should practice good anyway.

  Let us, then, abandon the heresy of worshipping the Creator God and of praying to him;
  let us no longer lose ourselves in vain speculations of profitless subtleties;
  let us surrender self and all selfishness,
  and as all things are fixed by causation,
  let us practise good so that good may result from our actions.
Rather than attempt to understand Buddhism as if it exists in a vacuum, studying the wider Hindu philosophy that it developed from and especially Nondualism and Vedanta will likely help you understand what Siddhartha was trying to convey. It is absolutely Nihilistic.

Re: Why life is absurd

#142

Post by keane »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #136
keane wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the world is material (natural) only, then the maxim of Hitchens and Sagan applies: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim. This leaves you with Moral Nonrealism. Only if the world is posited to be something beyond material (supernatural), can we suggest values are Real and hold to Moral Realism. A…

>You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim. But of course there is. Humans have value to humans. You are assuming that "have value" requires a supernatural grounding.

This is where the Is-Ought problem comes in. We are unable to make an observation about the empirical universe ("Humans have value to humans") and then conclude an objective value statement from it ("Therefore humans should value other humans"). You either misunderstand the Is-Ought problem or you deny it (without explaining why you are able to deny it).

Re: Why life is absurd

#143

Post by keane »

tim333 wrote: post #135
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #47

We long for permanence, but death comes anyway. We long for a real basis for morals, but if all we are is matter obeying the laws of physics, morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules. We long for meaning, but that's hard to come by too. It usually comes down to randomly picking something and assigning meaning to it, and claiming that now you have meaning. But if all you are is a machine made of a…

>morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules Morals are more than made up rules because if we're just atoms, they have come about through evolution. Presumably any advanced creature would have senses for pain so it does not harm itself at the wrong time, something like happiness when things go well, an instinct to protect the offspring, a sense of beauty which quite likely corresponds to environment…

>Morals are more than made up rules because if we're just atoms, they have come about through evolution.

No one contests that if all is material we have developed rules that allow us to survive. The question is: Do our rules refer to Truth (Moral Realism) or are they invented (Moral Nonrealism). The hypothesis that they came about through evolution is not evidence that morals are Real. See the link at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9060768 to maybe better understand what is meant by "arbitrary".

Re: Why life is absurd

#144

Post by keane »

r721 wrote: post #85
rndn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone happen to know whether philosophers have tried to come up with optimal ethics assuming P(universe exists for no reason) is close to 1 and P(god exists) is close to 0? The best we can do is probably to maximize the life span of our species to continually improve these estimates and the best way to achieve that is possibly to minimize suffering. Is it that easy?

Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

Sam Harris simply ignores the Is-Ought problem like most Utilitarians. See this comment to understand his error(s): http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/item/moral_confusion_...

Re: Why life is absurd

#145

Post by dragonwriter »

rndn wrote: post #36
xlm1717 wrote: post #11

The absurdity of life is the absurdity of existence: that there is anything at all is completely absurd and it's doubtful that this will ever be explained satisfactorily.

Does anyone happen to know whether philosophers have tried to come up with optimal ethics assuming P(universe exists for no reason) is close to 1 and P(god exists) is close to 0? The best we can do is probably to maximize the life span of our species to continually improve these estimates and the best way to achieve that is possibly to minimize suffering. Is it that easy?

"Optimal" based on what criteria? Most moral philosophy that calls itself that (rather than theology) neither assumes the existence of God nor inherent purpose in the universe, however, it does (necessarily) start from some moral axioms (without ascribing them as purposes of the existence of the universe).

Morality doesn't require the universe have a purpose, but morality has to have a purpose.

Re: Why life is absurd

#146

Post by dragonwriter »

keane wrote: post #83
aikah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules. One could argue morals should be based on the survival of mankind. Because that's the only positive goal of it, to survive as long as possible,though, ultimately mankind will come to an end,that's inevitable. On the other hand, as long as there is energy,artificial intelligence could outlast us.It would be mankind's testament and ultimate legacy. I alwa…

No, AnimalMuppet is correct. We are unable to value the survival of mankind as objectively good, as we have no empirical evidence to do so (more accurately: we cannot infer an Ought from an Is). See this for more on why: http://liamk.org/is-love-real/ Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism. And if the former is true, it doesn't matter if we hold the latter. As CS Lewis put it, if the Theists are wrong after…

> Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism.

Utilitarianism -- and many others -- are equally possible. You can assume any set of moral axioms (including those of utilitarianism) without assuming God (the defining assumption of Theism) -- and, in fact, Theism in and of itself gets you nothing, except that it usually is coupled with assumptions about what God wills and the moral axiom that what God wills is what we ought to seek.

Re: Why life is absurd

#147

Post by rndn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #145
rndn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone happen to know whether philosophers have tried to come up with optimal ethics assuming P(universe exists for no reason) is close to 1 and P(god exists) is close to 0? The best we can do is probably to maximize the life span of our species to continually improve these estimates and the best way to achieve that is possibly to minimize suffering. Is it that easy?

"Optimal" based on what criteria? Most moral philosophy that calls itself that (rather than theology) neither assumes the existence of God nor inherent purpose in the universe, however, it does (necessarily) start from some moral axioms (without ascribing them as purposes of the existence of the universe ). Morality doesn't require the universe have a purpose, but morality has to have a purpose.

The assumption I made is that our knowledge can never be perfect, thus it's unknown whether there is a purpose or God in our universe and thus we have to continuously improve our knowledge just in case that there is indeed a purpose or God (even though it doesn't look like it).

Re: Why life is absurd

#148

Post by keane »

dragonwriter wrote: post #146
keane wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, AnimalMuppet is correct. We are unable to value the survival of mankind as objectively good, as we have no empirical evidence to do so (more accurately: we cannot infer an Ought from an Is). See this for more on why: http://liamk.org/is-love-real/ Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism. And if the former is true, it doesn't matter if we hold the latter. As CS Lewis put it, if the Theists are wrong after…

> Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism. Utilitarianism -- and many others -- are equally possible. You can assume any set of moral axioms (including those of utilitarianism) without assuming God (the defining assumption of Theism) -- and, in fact, Theism in and of itself gets you nothing, except that it usually is coupled with assumptions about what God wills and the moral axiom that what God wills is wha…

> Utilitarianism -- and many others -- are equally possible.

You misunderstand the dichotomy. This is not about what we can do, humans can delude themselves all the time. The question is about what is logically consistent.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence" applies in a purely natural universe, which means that if there is no God, we can dismiss Utilitarianism (and all the others) as there is no evidence for it. Only if the universe is supernatural (if God exists) do things change.

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