10 ms·

Optimistic Nihilism (2017)

45 points by adambyrtek 9y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
>It's clear that in our modern era, with our extremely robust theories of physics, backed by extremely precise observations of the universe, that the religious explanations of existence are false. I think that's up for debate still.
- kreutz 9y ago
  What is the basis for debate? We have observable, testable, repeatable, data backed hypotheses on one hand and stories on the other.
  - loupeabody 9y ago
    Monistic Idealism vs. Monistic Physicalism/Materialism
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- CryoLogic 9y ago
  I'd agree. I think it would be better to say: "Now that we have developed tools and processes for validating truths against falsehoods which seem to be accurate across all applications thus far - for a religion to exist it must violate one or more of the rules that are true elsewhere or bypass these rules entirely." So "false" vs "unprovable".
  - lemagedurage 9y ago
    Well they're not hiding it. "Miracles" inherently bypass those rules.
- baddox 9y ago
  It might be fairer to look at the scientifically falsifiable claims that are or were important to major religions and determine which of those have been scientifically falsified. Some conspicuous examples have certainly been falsified, like young earth creationism, but that certainly doesn’t mean that all of Christianity’s claims have been falsified.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    > Some conspicuous examples have certainly been falsified, like young earth creationism The classic counter-argument is that God has created the world N years ago in a way that makes it appear older, in order to test our faith or sth like that. You cannot really disprove that. Scientists discard such theories because of Alder's Razor: "What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating." I think your misconception is that science is the method by which all truths can be discovered. That has not been shown. Science is merely a narrowed down version of philosophy (with restrictions on which tools and methods may be used) that is vastly better at finding a consistent and useful model of reality than average philosophy. This is why something like Occam's Razor (or Alder's Razor from above) is used by scientists. Occam does not say that the simpler hypothesis is always correct, but it suggests that you will usually be more productive when you work with simpler rather than more complex hypotheses.
    - baddox 9y ago
      I don’t think that is a common counter-argument. The young earth creationism I’m aware of explicitly denies that God made things look as if the Earth was actually older, that humans evolved from other primates, etc. In the US, Answers in Genesis is probably the most prominent advocate of supposedly scientific arguments for a young earth. Here’s one article from them: https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/ https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/
goodroot 9y ago
Nihilism need not be an end-point. There are many positive and motivating philosophies that are less bleak and more illuminating. The author's positions on most of their anecdotes do not seem to convey a sense of optimism. Buddhism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Shamanism; there are all sorts of neat philosophies you can abide by that have deciphered the non-dualistic nature of reality. In doing so, they provide you with tools to cope with this truth and lead a full and joyful life of belief.
- __jal 9y ago
  I dunno. I didn't invent a term for it, but my beliefs map relatively well to the author's. And I've always considered myself a nihilist - it just seems (to me) basically irrefutable. There is exactly one escape. I'm having enough fun that I don't want to take it, but that could change. That's nothing empty or baleful about that (again, to me).
- samirillian 9y ago
  Buddhism and Stoicism could both be interpreted as nihilisms. They were by Nietzsche, at least.
stcredzero 9y ago
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 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 ago been able to predict the world of today? In many regards, they would not even have had the conceptual framework to ask the right questions in the first place! 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? How do you know if you can even properly conceptualize "consequence" or what "matters" for your future self? When I was growing up, books were something to be treasured. Now I'm quite aware that it's only the knowledge in those books which really matters, and the particular form they take is only a medium with certain properties. Even our concepts of identity and mind are changing, and they are bound to change much further. Given all that, how do you know if you aren't already a part of something of universal consequence? To fully understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)
- Avshalom 9y ago
  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'?"
  - samirillian 9y ago
    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."
ahussain 9y ago
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 questions seem to fade. The second is from Jordan Peterson, who argues that nihilism is too easy of a solution. If you find yourself drifting too much into pessimistic nihilism, then you should ask yourself whether this worldview also "conveniently" relieves you of certain responsibilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death
- knuththetruth 9y ago
  Let’s please not conflate someone like Becker with the Disney Movie Conspiracy Theory Alt-Right philosopher king.
  - loupeabody 9y ago
    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.
    - knuththetruth 9y ago
      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.
      - loupeabody 9y ago
        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.
undoware 9y ago
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 experience is intelligence. The value of embodied experience itself -- of being mortal, of having flesh, of eating food and sleeping and fucking and laughing, is never mentioned; presumably it just sort of falls out of the main thing. Gotta get those mind-MIPS up. It wraps with the bromide that, because empathy is a form of intelligence, a superintelligence would be super-empathetic. Because of all the sociopaths drooling in the corner. Sorry, I would like to return my kool-aid, is there a refund
- undoware 9y ago
  Watching everyone downvote me without an argument is also hilarous. Thanks, I can see I'm not welcome in this church, I'll see myself out
  - ahussain 9y ago
    Well, for what it's worth, I thought your point was valid and well made. I think it represents a strong critique of the oft-stereotyped "Silicon Valley tech culture" - it's the same tendency that leads people to try and "optimize" their social relationships, not realizing the optimization is the wrong instinct to have when it comes to dealings with other people.
  - ambrosite 9y ago
    No downvote from me; I agree with what you said and I appreciate your having the courage to say it. The writer of this article has dumped one form of religion and replaced it with another, right down to the wishful thinking about a "super empathetic" supreme intelligence, and hope for immortality.
- hengheng 9y ago
  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.
lemagedurage 9y ago
If i were to abstract the entire universe to one formula with perfect soundness it would not be some model of society or physics, but 0=0. This formula is not debatable, it's perfect in its simplicity, and it has 0 real world value. I feel the same about nihilism. "If we abstract everything away then we end up with nothing", and then claims are made based upon that ("so live for yourself"), but that's not valid reasoning. You can't prove anything with an empty premise. The entirety of morality (doing things for yourself vs doing things for the group) isn't restricted by accepting nihilism while people often (including this article) make it out to be the answer of it.
- thecrash 9y ago
  The author is negating some concepts but not others, which is inconsistent, true. But nihilism cannot be advanced as a universal philosophy, as it represents pure negation, and universal negation is impossible. In practice, nihilism is about the selective negation of concepts or bodies of thought, not as an end in itself but to open up new possible lines of reasoning.
danschumann 9y ago
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. They teach thought!
- rglover 9y ago
  First in the series for those who are curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w
- Stanleyc23 9y ago
  I get your point but also want to point out that dictators ban religions because it usually tells people there is something more powerful than the dictator.
  - danschumann 9y ago
    Did you know the same regions of the brain light up for self when people think of God? Maybe the dictator doesn't want anyone to think THEY'RE more important than the dictator, like in our society, where every individual is sovereign with rights, every individual is like a king.
    - Stanleyc23 9y ago
      does it work that way for non-monotheisticly based ideas of religion/God like the paganism or Buddhist varieties?
      - danschumann 9y ago
        Not sure. I think it wouldn't, because it needs all domains. Like, I know myself can delve into any arena of life, whereas those gods are typically refered to as one domain. Perhaps something to do with a functional hierarchy, you'd think of yourself.
__s 9y ago
I was trying to meditate on this topic a few months ago, https://serprex.github.io/w/My%20Thesis https://serprex.github.io/w/My%20Thesis Didn't come together very coherently. It's coming from someone who's both stoic & hedonist. Mostly trying to find explanation for causality of behavior Written somewhat while gasping from the end of a noose, so not as optimistic as this article, but the call to action ends up the same (where action is deemed voluntary)
bobthechef 9y ago
Whoever this 15 year old is, it looks like he's wandered into the neckbeard section of Youtube.
Buddyzv 9y ago
This is just sad...
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>The consequence of this understanding? You are the rarest of rare matter in the universe. You are much more precious than gold. You are the type of matter that can walk and discuss and build. That doesn't sound nihilistic to me at all. >Some worry that an artificial consciousnesses could turn against humans. I am not concerned about this. First of all, we are many years away from such technology. The "AI" that I deal with in my research is so laughably far from consciousness, it's like worrying about lawnmowers turning against us. But this meme has gotten enough attention that I want to address it: supposing that somehow we created an artificial consciousness that was able to spontaneously improve itself and escape from our control: are we doomed? Oh God, this is painful, please stop.
husainalshehhi 9y ago
If nihilism is true, then it follows that our lives are very little to no significance. And if that's the case, then we should do what pleases us rather what is right, since we have one life to live. In any case, I think Alvin Plantinga has something good to say about science and religion in his book: science, religion, and naturalism, where the conflict really lies.
- uoaei 9y ago
  The point of nihilism is that there is no "should." There are no logical conclusions from nihilism except all of them. If you feel a connection to fellow sentient beings, act in accordance with that. If you see them as your tools, then act so. This frees up your moralistic framework to be solely realized by your own ethics. It takes some time to clarify and arrive at them, sure, but it necessitates an active engagement with the world and your influences upon it. Or not. You could just use it as an excuse to live in hedonism or to off yourself. But that choice is entirely yours and you take ownership of it whether you want to or not.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

45 points by adambyrtek 9y ago

>It's clear that in our modern era, with our extremely robust theories of physics, backed by extremely precise observations of the universe, that the religious explanations of existence are false. I think that's up for debate still.

kreutz 9y ago
What is the basis for debate? We have observable, testable, repeatable, data backed hypotheses on one hand and stories on the other.
- loupeabody 9y ago
  Monistic Idealism vs. Monistic Physicalism/Materialism
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
CryoLogic 9y ago
I'd agree. I think it would be better to say: "Now that we have developed tools and processes for validating truths against falsehoods which seem to be accurate across all applications thus far - for a religion to exist it must violate one or more of the rules that are true elsewhere or bypass these rules entirely." So "false" vs "unprovable".
- lemagedurage 9y ago
  Well they're not hiding it. "Miracles" inherently bypass those rules.
baddox 9y ago
It might be fairer to look at the scientifically falsifiable claims that are or were important to major religions and determine which of those have been scientifically falsified. Some conspicuous examples have certainly been falsified, like young earth creationism, but that certainly doesn’t mean that all of Christianity’s claims have been falsified.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > Some conspicuous examples have certainly been falsified, like young earth creationism The classic counter-argument is that God has created the world N years ago in a way that makes it appear older, in order to test our faith or sth like that. You cannot really disprove that. Scientists discard such theories because of Alder's Razor: "What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating." I think your misconception is that science is the method by which all truths can be discovered. That has not been shown. Science is merely a narrowed down version of philosophy (with restrictions on which tools and methods may be used) that is vastly better at finding a consistent and useful model of reality than average philosophy. This is why something like Occam's Razor (or Alder's Razor from above) is used by scientists. Occam does not say that the simpler hypothesis is always correct, but it suggests that you will usually be more productive when you work with simpler rather than more complex hypotheses.
  - baddox 9y ago
    I don’t think that is a common counter-argument. The young earth creationism I’m aware of explicitly denies that God made things look as if the Earth was actually older, that humans evolved from other primates, etc. In the US, Answers in Genesis is probably the most prominent advocate of supposedly scientific arguments for a young earth. Here’s one article from them: https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/ https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/

goodroot 9y ago

Nihilism need not be an end-point. There are many positive and motivating philosophies that are less bleak and more illuminating. The author's positions on most of their anecdotes do not seem to convey a sense of optimism. Buddhism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Shamanism; there are all sorts of neat philosophies you can abide by that have deciphered the non-dualistic nature of reality. In doing so, they provide you with tools to cope with this truth and lead a full and joyful life of belief.

__jal 9y ago
I dunno. I didn't invent a term for it, but my beliefs map relatively well to the author's. And I've always considered myself a nihilist - it just seems (to me) basically irrefutable. There is exactly one escape. I'm having enough fun that I don't want to take it, but that could change. That's nothing empty or baleful about that (again, to me).
samirillian 9y ago
Buddhism and Stoicism could both be interpreted as nihilisms. They were by Nietzsche, at least.

stcredzero 9y ago

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 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 ago been able to predict the world of today? In many regards, they would not even have had the conceptual framework to ask the right questions in the first place! 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? How do you know if you can even properly conceptualize "consequence" or what "matters" for your future self? When I was growing up, books were something to be treasured. Now I'm quite aware that it's only the knowledge in those books which really matters, and the particular form they take is only a medium with certain properties. Even our concepts of identity and mind are changing, and they are bound to change much further. Given all that, how do you know if you aren't already a part of something of universal consequence? To fully understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)

Avshalom 9y ago
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'?"
- samirillian 9y ago
  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."

ahussain 9y ago

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 questions seem to fade. The second is from Jordan Peterson, who argues that nihilism is too easy of a solution. If you find yourself drifting too much into pessimistic nihilism, then you should ask yourself whether this worldview also "conveniently" relieves you of certain responsibilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death

knuththetruth 9y ago
Let’s please not conflate someone like Becker with the Disney Movie Conspiracy Theory Alt-Right philosopher king.
- loupeabody 9y ago
  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.
  - knuththetruth 9y ago
    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.
    - loupeabody 9y ago
      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.

undoware 9y ago

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 experience is intelligence. The value of embodied experience itself -- of being mortal, of having flesh, of eating food and sleeping and fucking and laughing, is never mentioned; presumably it just sort of falls out of the main thing. Gotta get those mind-MIPS up. It wraps with the bromide that, because empathy is a form of intelligence, a superintelligence would be super-empathetic. Because of all the sociopaths drooling in the corner. Sorry, I would like to return my kool-aid, is there a refund

undoware 9y ago
Watching everyone downvote me without an argument is also hilarous. Thanks, I can see I'm not welcome in this church, I'll see myself out
- ahussain 9y ago
  Well, for what it's worth, I thought your point was valid and well made. I think it represents a strong critique of the oft-stereotyped "Silicon Valley tech culture" - it's the same tendency that leads people to try and "optimize" their social relationships, not realizing the optimization is the wrong instinct to have when it comes to dealings with other people.
- ambrosite 9y ago
  No downvote from me; I agree with what you said and I appreciate your having the courage to say it. The writer of this article has dumped one form of religion and replaced it with another, right down to the wishful thinking about a "super empathetic" supreme intelligence, and hope for immortality.
hengheng 9y ago
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.

lemagedurage 9y ago

If i were to abstract the entire universe to one formula with perfect soundness it would not be some model of society or physics, but 0=0. This formula is not debatable, it's perfect in its simplicity, and it has 0 real world value. I feel the same about nihilism. "If we abstract everything away then we end up with nothing", and then claims are made based upon that ("so live for yourself"), but that's not valid reasoning. You can't prove anything with an empty premise. The entirety of morality (doing things for yourself vs doing things for the group) isn't restricted by accepting nihilism while people often (including this article) make it out to be the answer of it.

thecrash 9y ago
The author is negating some concepts but not others, which is inconsistent, true. But nihilism cannot be advanced as a universal philosophy, as it represents pure negation, and universal negation is impossible. In practice, nihilism is about the selective negation of concepts or bodies of thought, not as an end in itself but to open up new possible lines of reasoning.

danschumann 9y ago

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. They teach thought!

rglover 9y ago
First in the series for those who are curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w
Stanleyc23 9y ago
I get your point but also want to point out that dictators ban religions because it usually tells people there is something more powerful than the dictator.
- danschumann 9y ago
  Did you know the same regions of the brain light up for self when people think of God? Maybe the dictator doesn't want anyone to think THEY'RE more important than the dictator, like in our society, where every individual is sovereign with rights, every individual is like a king.
  - Stanleyc23 9y ago
    does it work that way for non-monotheisticly based ideas of religion/God like the paganism or Buddhist varieties?
    - danschumann 9y ago
      Not sure. I think it wouldn't, because it needs all domains. Like, I know myself can delve into any arena of life, whereas those gods are typically refered to as one domain. Perhaps something to do with a functional hierarchy, you'd think of yourself.

__s 9y ago

I was trying to meditate on this topic a few months ago, https://serprex.github.io/w/My%20Thesis https://serprex.github.io/w/My%20Thesis Didn't come together very coherently. It's coming from someone who's both stoic & hedonist. Mostly trying to find explanation for causality of behavior Written somewhat while gasping from the end of a noose, so not as optimistic as this article, but the call to action ends up the same (where action is deemed voluntary)

bobthechef 9y ago

Whoever this 15 year old is, it looks like he's wandered into the neckbeard section of Youtube.

Buddyzv 9y ago

This is just sad...

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

>The consequence of this understanding? You are the rarest of rare matter in the universe. You are much more precious than gold. You are the type of matter that can walk and discuss and build. That doesn't sound nihilistic to me at all. >Some worry that an artificial consciousnesses could turn against humans. I am not concerned about this. First of all, we are many years away from such technology. The "AI" that I deal with in my research is so laughably far from consciousness, it's like worrying about lawnmowers turning against us. But this meme has gotten enough attention that I want to address it: supposing that somehow we created an artificial consciousness that was able to spontaneously improve itself and escape from our control: are we doomed? Oh God, this is painful, please stop.

husainalshehhi 9y ago

If nihilism is true, then it follows that our lives are very little to no significance. And if that's the case, then we should do what pleases us rather what is right, since we have one life to live. In any case, I think Alvin Plantinga has something good to say about science and religion in his book: science, religion, and naturalism, where the conflict really lies.

uoaei 9y ago
The point of nihilism is that there is no "should." There are no logical conclusions from nihilism except all of them. If you feel a connection to fellow sentient beings, act in accordance with that. If you see them as your tools, then act so. This frees up your moralistic framework to be solely realized by your own ethics. It takes some time to clarify and arrive at them, sure, but it necessitates an active engagement with the world and your influences upon it. Or not. You could just use it as an excuse to live in hedonism or to off yourself. But that choice is entirely yours and you take ownership of it whether you want to or not.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]