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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 bein
by incompatible 7y ago
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 through natural selection; morality and expectations originate with peoples attempts to control how other people behave as mediated by power structures in society.
- anongraddebt 7y agoI've not infrequently found nihilism intellectually attractive. Usually, something like political nihilism. One problem that I think has long been overlooked is the foundation of human rights. Only in the past roughly five years has there been much scholarly contribution on the matter. What could possibly ground human rights? And if they have no ground, then aren't they simply the same as the preference for, say, peeing standing up vs peeing sitting down?
- incompatible 7y agoHuman rights are just a concept that humans have come up after thousands of years experience with systems of laws. The fact that some societies manage to do without them shows that they aren't really essential. Edit: Or to put it another way, ideas about legal systems can evolve over time, by analogy to how biological systems can evolve. Ideally, we'd be looking at what works and what doesn't and adopting best practices.
- analbumcover 7y agoHuman rights are just an exercise by Western Society in self-aggrandizing entitlement.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoThere 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.
- incompatible 7y agoSure, 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.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoBasically, "atheism" has several specific definitions along with the general one of "doesn't believe in god." Nihilism often wouldn't fit the specific definitions, but would the general one.
- MrQuincle 7y agoThat 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.
- incompatible 7y agoThis would be some sort of emergent theory of "meaning", originating from individual organisms once they are sufficiently evolved to understand the concept, much like consciousness could perhaps arise. "Meaning" then starts out as the significance that an organism attaches to its own existence.
- thrwaway69 7y agoIf there are biological reasons that make you believe your existence is important and you should live, then suicide would be a way of showing freedom from the restraints?
- incompatible 7y agoWhy would you need freedom from the restraints? You are what you are, and the will to continue living is part of that.
- MacsHeadroom 7y agoYou just came close to disproving your own point above by responding with this comment. You are what you are and the meaning you experience is part of that- part of you. In regards to emergence, the dominant view of consciousness in physics and philosophy and neuroscience alike is that the first person "subjective" perspective of reality is the inherent intrinsic perspective of physical matter and not an emergent phenomenon (unlike say self-awareness or intelligence)- ie. panpsychism. Anyway, under this paradigm meaning is nothing more or less than a kind of experience and as such is necessarily subjective. More specifically "meaning" is an account of the type of experiences which are most significant from a subjective perspective. If receiving meaning by fiat or dictum as if it were objective is something you subjectively find meaningful then that is your perspective and it says nothing of objective reality as such, other than that such subjective experiences are possible.