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"Nothing matters" This is true in the biggest sense of the word. But it's also false. We all have things that matter to us and the various communities that we

"Nothing matters" This is true in the biggest sense of the word. But it's also false. We all have things that matter to us and the various communities that we belong to. In some ways, to me anyway, it's very liberating: life as a blank canvas to imbue it with the meaning we want on. That won't resonate with everyone or even most people, but it's motivating for me.

malfist 5y ago
Check out the philosophy of "Thrownness": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrownness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrownness It's a branch, kinda of absurdist. Nothing matters, nothing ever has, but that's liberating, just enjoy and make the most of what comes.
krylon 5y ago
Albert Camus wrote a beautiful (IMHO, at least) book about it, The Myth of Sisyphus. His point, as I understand it, is that nothing matters in the sense that the universe is vast and empty does not care what happens to you or me. But that also means we get to choose what matters to us. Life has no meaning, but it has meaning to us, and we can, in a way, choose what we want it to mean. I agree, I find this perspective very liberating and positive, but I can see how some people might find it bleak.
- NateEag 5y ago
  In this framework, Stalin and Kim Jong-Il created their own meaning and no one has a basis for saying what they chose is worse than anyone else's choice. To many of us, that is horribly demoralizing.
  - eludwig 5y ago
    >>no one has a basis for saying what they chose is worse than anyone else's choice. Of course they do! If your parents were killed by Stalin you probably have an opinion one way or the other. That is exactly what this thread is talking about.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      Okay, you're right - I can use any basis I want. There's no shared basis I can legitimately use to argue with them, though, if they don't happen to share my chosen values.
      - salt-thrower 5y ago
        That is true. You can't debate everyone on an even playing field, because not everyone has the same baseline views of morality and reason. More and more, I have come to think that debates are better for convincing undecided bystanders than convincing the other person you're debating with. At least for arguments or debates held online or in a public space. One-on-one you might be able to show someone a new value system if they're willing to sit down and talk about it, though.
  - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
    You allocating a particular meaning to your life's actions does not mean that other's allocate that same meaning; you're making an unjustified logical leap.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      I'm not trying to say others have to accept anyone's chosen meaning. I'm saying you could not legitimately argue to them that their choices are wrong, philosophically speaking. You can say "tons of us hate this", but that doesn't get you much of a leg to stand on, really. They still get to choose what they want their meaning to be, and if it's in violent conflict with yours, there's nothing further to be done but avoid each other and fight when the situation and your respective values make it unavoidable.
  - wwweston 5y ago
    Sure they do -- I can pick any basis I want for saying their ideas are worse. I can make that basis arbitrary (because I don't like their names), or I can ground it in appeals to things that people value widely. One can get lost in the idea that things are meaningless on a purely narrative/mental basis, but you're embedded in a biological matrix that will very likely re-orient you on the idea that some things matter if you pay attention to it. If nothing else, everyone acts as if suffering matters and acts to reduce it personally and in their close circles, so that's a pretty solid baseline to engage. There are questions about what it means to reduce suffering and perhaps even people like Stalin thought they were reducing it, but once you've agreed that reducing suffering is meaningful then you have a standard and can talk in terms of observed results and dynamics around it.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      Sure, but if someone doesn't grant that they want to reduce suffering for others, you have no legitimate way to argue to them that they should. You get to pick your meaning and they get to pick theirs. It's "do what you want", at the end of the day.
      - NoGravitas 5y ago
        That's what it's always been. Even if there were a moral framework that's provably true, people could still choose to act against it (assuming some kind of free will, even if it's compatibilist). What do you do when someone hears all your arguments and says "so what"? The same thing you have to do in a universe where meaning/morality is not intrinsic: convince those you can, and force those you can't, if it's important to you.
      - rovolo 5y ago
        In each of your responses, you're saying there needs to be a shared base of ethics. > you have no legitimate way to argue to them that they should > There's no shared basis I can legitimately use to argue with them > you could not legitimately argue to them that their choices are wrong, philosophically speaking But you're not answering these questions: Which values are included in that shared basis? Where do those values come from? How do we know that those values are correct? The idea that values are arbitrary isn't saying you can't criticize other people's values. It's acknowledging that you don't have some authoritative source of ethics. How do you try to convince people that something is worthwhile or wrong? Do you appeal to this authority of ethics, or are you making some other argument?
  - krylon 5y ago
    Either you are twisting my words, or I phrased what I said very badly. Let me rephrase what I said, hopefully more clearly: First, from the perspective of "the universe", the very concept of meaning is meaningless (sorry, no pun intended). From THAT perspective, Stalin or Pol Pot or Hitler or Djenghis Khan killing millions of people is no more or less meaningful or morally good or bad than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. But you and I are not "the universe". Nor is any other human being. To us, it DOES matter, a lot, what choices Stalin, Djenghis Khan or Napoleon make. As well as the choices you and I make, every minute of every day. From a cosmological perspective, life is quite likely nothing more than a chemical curiosity. From our perspective, it is pretty much everything. The sun doesn't care if you are happy or sad or angry or scared. It cannot care (at least as far as we know). I can. So can anyone else who is reading this. Ethics, I am trying to say, does not exist outside ourselves the way gravity or time does. But to us, it is just as real, maybe even more real, than any force of nature. This is what makes us human.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      Thank you for trying to clarify your thoughts. I understand that you think ethics exist inside human minds and not anywhere else. I still don't see why Stalin, Pol Pot, and company don't get to decide that they value mass murder to achieve their personal goals, in absentia transcendence. I find their choices appalling, but it seems they did not. It's the meaning they chose to make in their life. If that's their code of ethics, and those ethics exist solely inside our heads, then there's nothing to be said beyond "I hate that," as far as I can see.

malfist 5y ago

Check out the philosophy of "Thrownness": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrownness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrownness It's a branch, kinda of absurdist. Nothing matters, nothing ever has, but that's liberating, just enjoy and make the most of what comes.

krylon 5y ago

Albert Camus wrote a beautiful (IMHO, at least) book about it, The Myth of Sisyphus. His point, as I understand it, is that nothing matters in the sense that the universe is vast and empty does not care what happens to you or me. But that also means we get to choose what matters to us. Life has no meaning, but it has meaning to us, and we can, in a way, choose what we want it to mean. I agree, I find this perspective very liberating and positive, but I can see how some people might find it bleak.

NateEag 5y ago
In this framework, Stalin and Kim Jong-Il created their own meaning and no one has a basis for saying what they chose is worse than anyone else's choice. To many of us, that is horribly demoralizing.
- eludwig 5y ago
  >>no one has a basis for saying what they chose is worse than anyone else's choice. Of course they do! If your parents were killed by Stalin you probably have an opinion one way or the other. That is exactly what this thread is talking about.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    Okay, you're right - I can use any basis I want. There's no shared basis I can legitimately use to argue with them, though, if they don't happen to share my chosen values.
    - salt-thrower 5y ago
      That is true. You can't debate everyone on an even playing field, because not everyone has the same baseline views of morality and reason. More and more, I have come to think that debates are better for convincing undecided bystanders than convincing the other person you're debating with. At least for arguments or debates held online or in a public space. One-on-one you might be able to show someone a new value system if they're willing to sit down and talk about it, though.
- Ar-Curunir 5y ago
  You allocating a particular meaning to your life's actions does not mean that other's allocate that same meaning; you're making an unjustified logical leap.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    I'm not trying to say others have to accept anyone's chosen meaning. I'm saying you could not legitimately argue to them that their choices are wrong, philosophically speaking. You can say "tons of us hate this", but that doesn't get you much of a leg to stand on, really. They still get to choose what they want their meaning to be, and if it's in violent conflict with yours, there's nothing further to be done but avoid each other and fight when the situation and your respective values make it unavoidable.
- wwweston 5y ago
  Sure they do -- I can pick any basis I want for saying their ideas are worse. I can make that basis arbitrary (because I don't like their names), or I can ground it in appeals to things that people value widely. One can get lost in the idea that things are meaningless on a purely narrative/mental basis, but you're embedded in a biological matrix that will very likely re-orient you on the idea that some things matter if you pay attention to it. If nothing else, everyone acts as if suffering matters and acts to reduce it personally and in their close circles, so that's a pretty solid baseline to engage. There are questions about what it means to reduce suffering and perhaps even people like Stalin thought they were reducing it, but once you've agreed that reducing suffering is meaningful then you have a standard and can talk in terms of observed results and dynamics around it.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    Sure, but if someone doesn't grant that they want to reduce suffering for others, you have no legitimate way to argue to them that they should. You get to pick your meaning and they get to pick theirs. It's "do what you want", at the end of the day.
    - NoGravitas 5y ago
      That's what it's always been. Even if there were a moral framework that's provably true, people could still choose to act against it (assuming some kind of free will, even if it's compatibilist). What do you do when someone hears all your arguments and says "so what"? The same thing you have to do in a universe where meaning/morality is not intrinsic: convince those you can, and force those you can't, if it's important to you.
    - rovolo 5y ago
      In each of your responses, you're saying there needs to be a shared base of ethics. > you have no legitimate way to argue to them that they should > There's no shared basis I can legitimately use to argue with them > you could not legitimately argue to them that their choices are wrong, philosophically speaking But you're not answering these questions: Which values are included in that shared basis? Where do those values come from? How do we know that those values are correct? The idea that values are arbitrary isn't saying you can't criticize other people's values. It's acknowledging that you don't have some authoritative source of ethics. How do you try to convince people that something is worthwhile or wrong? Do you appeal to this authority of ethics, or are you making some other argument?
- krylon 5y ago
  Either you are twisting my words, or I phrased what I said very badly. Let me rephrase what I said, hopefully more clearly: First, from the perspective of "the universe", the very concept of meaning is meaningless (sorry, no pun intended). From THAT perspective, Stalin or Pol Pot or Hitler or Djenghis Khan killing millions of people is no more or less meaningful or morally good or bad than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. But you and I are not "the universe". Nor is any other human being. To us, it DOES matter, a lot, what choices Stalin, Djenghis Khan or Napoleon make. As well as the choices you and I make, every minute of every day. From a cosmological perspective, life is quite likely nothing more than a chemical curiosity. From our perspective, it is pretty much everything. The sun doesn't care if you are happy or sad or angry or scared. It cannot care (at least as far as we know). I can. So can anyone else who is reading this. Ethics, I am trying to say, does not exist outside ourselves the way gravity or time does. But to us, it is just as real, maybe even more real, than any force of nature. This is what makes us human.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    Thank you for trying to clarify your thoughts. I understand that you think ethics exist inside human minds and not anywhere else. I still don't see why Stalin, Pol Pot, and company don't get to decide that they value mass murder to achieve their personal goals, in absentia transcendence. I find their choices appalling, but it seems they did not. It's the meaning they chose to make in their life. If that's their code of ethics, and those ethics exist solely inside our heads, then there's nothing to be said beyond "I hate that," as far as I can see.