Nihilism vs. Existentialism [Archive]

Ensign Steve

01-09-2005, 07:10 PM

I lurves me some existentialism! My working definition, since that's what you asked for, as opposed to any dictionary definition, is simply the study of existence. What exists? What exists in our physical, known universe? Does anything exist outside of it? What exists at a sub atomic level? Does god exist? Do I exist? Do underpants gnomes exist? What does it mean for me to exist? Is it my phyiscal body, my consciousness? Blah blah blah. It's all very exciting for me.

Nihilism, me no likey. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This one I did look up:
From dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Nihilism%20), their definition #1, as relates to philosphyAn extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
Dunno, seems kind of pointless to me. Like solipsism (the differences I hope will be made glaringly obvious by the more educated members of this board). I mean, what's the point? If nothing exists, can be known, or communicated, then shut the fuck up and leave me to my fantasy.

viscousmemories

01-09-2005, 07:41 PM

Wikipedia has an interesting article on Nihilism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism) "Nihilism is often described as a belief in the nonexistence of truth"
Hey, I was just reading that article yesterday.

When I was about 23 I was having a discussion with some philosophy grad student from U of M*, and he told me my views struck him as nihilistic. Ever since then I've used the word (among others) to characterize my philosophy, but it didn't even occur to me how many different possible meanings that can have depending on the context. So now my working definition isn't working.

I don't know much about existentialism either, besides having read some authors who are frequently described as existentialists - like Camus, Sartre, Dostoevsky, etc. - when I was in my early 20's.

* As soon as I wrote that I remembered that this dude's cat died at some point, and it made him so sad that he put it in his backpack and carried it around with him for several days. :eek: So all I can say is it's quite possible that he had a dead cat in his knapsack while we discussed nihilism.

LadyShea

01-09-2005, 07:50 PM

Wikpedia discusses existentialism too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism)

Existentialism emphasizes the idea that existence precedes essence, i.e., that one must be alive in order to create meaning, and that each person is therefore gifted with individual moments to make choices.

Dragar

01-09-2005, 08:42 PM

I stay away from both terms, probably because the common definitions rather miss the point.

For instance, look at this:

"...but nihilism starts with relativism, the idea that there are no objective values, truths etc... and uses that to draw the conclusion that life is meaningless and valueless."

Let's look at values for a moment. Let's say there are no objective values. Fair enough.

It then goes on to draw the conclusion that life is valueless. But saying 'life is valuless' is looking at it from an objective standpoint. It's like saying, 'there is no objective beauty' and then drawing the conclusion 'the Mona Lisa is not beautiful'.

The problem comes from trying to look at subjective terms using an objective lens. Is the Mona Lisa objectively beautiful? No. Why? Because beauty is a subjective property. Saying it's objectively beautiful is ascribing some property, beauty, to the painting, which is denied by relativism.

What can instead be said is that the painting is beautiful-to-me. This is a property, not of the painting, but of me. Perhaps it should instead be said that while there is no such thing as objective beauty, there is such a thing as perceptions of beauty. Or it could be rephrased as 'I have the property of finding this painting beautiful'.

This confusion - I think Zoot has referred to it before as a period where a part of one's thinking has failed to catch up with the rest - is why the conclusions of nihlism (e.g. there is no such thing as beauty) are valid, but completely miss the point of relativism.

JoeP

01-09-2005, 09:39 PM

Often when people describe other people or points of view as nihilistic it's a simple derogatory term. "You don't value anything." I wouldn't assume this has anything substantial to do with a philosophical position.

Ymir's blood

01-09-2005, 10:26 PM

Wikipedia has an interesting article on Nihilism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism) "Nihilism is often described as a belief in the nonexistence of truth"
Hey, I was just reading that article yesterday.

Oh, sorry. Thought you were done with it. :wink:
When I was about 23 I was having a discussion with some philosophy grad student from U of M*, and he told me my views struck him as nihilistic. Ever since then I've used the word (among others) to characterize my philosophy, but it didn't even occur to me how many different possible meanings that can have depending on the context. So now my working definition isn't working.
Like JoeP said, 'nihilist' gets used as an epithet for someone who doesn't share your values. 'True' nihilism would be indistinquishable from an extremely depressed state, I would think. Without values, then there can be no joy or pleasure, because enjoyment is found only when we are experiencing something deemed valuable.

wade-w

01-09-2005, 10:59 PM

I lurves me some existentialism! My working definition, since that's what you asked for, as opposed to any dictionary definition, is simply the study of existence. What exists? What exists in our physical, known universe? Does anything exist outside of it? What exists at a sub atomic level? Does god exist? Do I exist? Do underpants gnomes exist? What does it mean for me to exist? Is it my phyiscal body, my consciousness? Blah blah blah. It's all very exciting for me.

What you describe here is Ontology, a subdiscipline of Metaphysics. Existentialism is a specific school of thought about how one should go about thinking about Ontology in relation to humanity. The specific maxim "existence precedes essence" means that for humans, essence is defined by existence; IOW we are what we do, or how we act.

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 12:53 AM

Thanks for the comments all!

Wade, you seem to have the kind of understanding/interpretation I was especially looking for. Could you compare and contrast nihilism and existentialism for me? Do you think they are mutually exclusive philosophies or worldviews (hell I don't even know what to correctly call them) or compatible?

I am asking all this based on an II discussion and the discussion of mortality here.

wade-w

01-10-2005, 03:00 AM

They both begin with relativism, the idea that there is no objective value or truth. Nihilism concludes from this that nothing matters, while existentialism concludes that what matters is what we do.

justaman

01-10-2005, 03:30 AM

aahhh my pet! Zoot and David Gould are going to strangle me mwahaha!

I call myself a non-practicing nihilist, because I intellectually acknowledge nihilism to be the One True Philosophy, but I'm too weak to be able to accept it. At an absolute rudimentary level, I believe everyone should suicide.

It's a long argument but it basically comes down to the fact that I personally believe everyone necessarily believes in some kind of objective meaning - even if we consciously say 'objective meaning' is itself meaningless (like I do).

Nihilism works - I think - because it follows strict logic. Why I don't like existentialism (and as an aside, saying 'existentialism' is like saying 'religion' and hoping everyone will know precisely what you mean, it's pretty broad) is because at some point somewhere there is a circular argument of "I pursue it because I pursue it". Nihilism requires no such logical anomoly. All that nihilism really violates is our peace of mind and it is why no one likes it very much, I think. It doesn't provide any solutions we would traditionally think of as being 'constructive'. It is necessarily destructive, since it denies any purpose to living.

I can prove with some effort that there is no more reason to live than to suicide. What I have been thusfar unsuccessful in acheiving is convincing anyone that it is in fact more logical to suicide than to live, though I honestly do believe that this is the case.

To boil it down: if there is no objective meaning to existence, then subjective meaning is arbitrary, decided upon purely by circumstance. I take as a logical assumption that if there is no reason to believe something, it is not logical to believe it. (You still can if you want to, however, but this isn't being logical). So if we reject subjective meaning (because it itself has no meaning) we find the value of all actions are equal. If all actions are equal, all we have to grade actions are the expenditure of energy. If all humans operate on a path-of-least-resistance paradigm (which they must) then humans should most logically choose the path of smallest energy expenditure, which is always suicide.

That's horrendously cut down, but it gives you an idea. :)

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 03:38 AM

justaman

01-10-2005, 03:48 AM

Thanks justaman. I appreciate your comments. Could you expand on a few points for me?. Why must we take everything to it's "logical" conclusion? What's wrong with "I pursue it because I pursue it" or "I value it because I value it" or even, my POV "I live because I am alive"?
In truth nothing. But I always equate it to someone worshipping pebbles. They aren't wrong to do it, there's little point in arguing, but there also would appear little reason in pursuing it.

I personally believe that while the logic is ultimately 'I value it because I value it', this isn't what we really believe. No one actually thinks their beliefs are so arbitrary. We think it is virtuous to believe what we do, so we believe there must be some element of importance.

So the reason I say it is by some measure 'wrong' to say 'I value it because I value it is good enough' is because you are sort of deceiving yourself. You actually believe there is a reason for you to value what you value, else you simply wouldn't value it. When we are most logical, then, when we remove emotive bias from our decision making, we cannot be satisfied by valuing for the sake of valuing.

The argument against this, of course, is that much of what we value results in pleasure, which provides this motivation. It is the argument I am most subjected to. It fails, however, because strictly logically pleasure amounts to the same circular reasoning. "I enjoy it because I enjoy it". So while this again cannot be criticised as being 'wrong' it is still equivalent to a pebble-worshipper. It is not logical, it is emotive.

This has, I think, implications on our ability to criticize the 'accuracy' of belief systems for any other. I really do liken atheists with wills to live on the precise same level as fundamentalist Christians living because God tells them to. (I put myself on this level also, though I'm occasionally dangling from it :P )

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 04:00 AM

Hmm, I still don't understand why you think we should choose logic over emotion. Sure, I think my reasons for valuing X are good ones, but I also know that my opinion is subjective and arbitrary.

I really do liken atheists with wills to live on the precise same level as fundamentalist Christians living because God tells them to.

Huh? I enjoy living, I like being alive because it's all I know. Non existence is the only alternative and the known eventuality, and I see no reason to hasten that. How does that equate with living because some deity tells you to?

Sorry to keep peppering your with questions. I am trying to understand, your points just don't make any sense to me...yet.

viscousmemories

01-10-2005, 04:03 AM

I'm tired and a bit mentally burned out right now, but one thing that seems to go missing in all these recent philosophy threads is the fact that we don't appear to always consciously choose how we behave. There seems to be this underlying assumption that we aren't the products of our genetics and environment, but these purely rational beings that weigh moral consequences and choose every action according to our beliefs.

I think a very large part of the reason I haven't killed myself despite my firm belief that I am nothing but a single link in a massive evolutionary chain in an indifferent universe is inertia. Certainly not because I think there's any meaning or value beyond whatever I pretend there is.

Clutch Munny

01-10-2005, 04:04 AM

Thanks justaman. I appreciate your comments. Could you expand on a few points for me?. Why must we take everything to it's "logical" conclusion? What's wrong with "I pursue it because I pursue it" or "I value it because I value it" or even, my POV "I live because I am alive"?

Nothing at all wrong with any of that. And it's all perfectly consistent with "taking things to their logical conclusions". Logic in itself doesn't tell you whether you've got a good theory of what values are, after all! It just tells you what would entail that theory, and what it would entail in turn.

Neither nihilism nor existentialism has a very precise definition. Wade's are as good as any for these purposes. A general existential attitude towards life might be this: There's no general principles of fairness or meaning or significance to life, beyond those we construct in one way or another. Nihilism is far less well-defined; it probably makes most sense as a topic-specific sort of thing. Eg., one can be a nihilist about art, about morality, and so forth. As to being a nihilist across the board, it's hard to know quite what that amounts to. Presumably anyone who says they are has managed find some value or meaning in the project of telling you, f'r instance. And what argument can be given for such a view, that doesn't presuppose the normativity of reasoning? I.e., the idea that you ought to believe the conclusions of sound arguments, etc?

There's a large and generally unreadable literature on existentialism. (Two large wars in France in 20 years but Sartre survives? Sheesh.) But the very readable bits in the literature include Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (great literature the way I like it: short and funny), Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (neither very short nor very funny, but flaming dogdish the man could write) and Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide five-part trilogy (as keen a limning of absurdity as anything Sartre ever imagined, but without the leaden prose and narcoleptic effect).

David Gould

01-10-2005, 04:05 AM

Justaman,

Happy New Year.

One of my objections to your formulation is that if there is no logical difference between staying alive and suiciding then the only reason to choose one over the other has to be emotional. There is no other means open to us. (This includes your energy formulation. There is no logical reason to choose not to expend energy. After all, in the context of our lives we can always get more.)

So we have to make an emotional choice: live, or not live. Most people exist in the emotional state of enjoying life sufficiently to choose to live.

justaman

01-10-2005, 04:08 AM

Hmm, I still don't understand why you think we should choose logic over emotion. Sure, I think my reasons for valuing X are good ones, but I also know that my opinion is subjective and arbitrary.
Because emotion is logic, but necessarily biased. If we (and atheists usually are) are interesting being as objective as possible, we need to remove as much bias from our reasoning as possible. So following emotive logic is following something we should be avoiding if we want to believe what is most likely to be objectively true.

Huh? I enjoy living, I like being alive because it's all I know. Non existence is the only alternative and the known eventuality, and I see no reason to hasten that. How does that equate with living because some deity tells you to?
Because there is no reason whatever to prefer life over nothingness. Even if you are enjoying the crap out of life, even if life is friggen awesome being dead is not worse. There is no regret in death, no avenue for comparison.

The interesting thing, however, is that it is quite possible to prefer death over life. When life starts biting the ass, death can become an attractive alternative because once again, there is no regret.

It is absolutely impossible for death to ever be a 'wrong' decision. The only way this could be so is if there are consequences. If we believe in a nihilistic death - as all atheists do by definition - then this premise will always hold true. It's only if there is a god to kick us in the ass for doing the wrong thing that this premise is false.

Sorry to keep peppering your with questions. I am trying to understand, your points just don't make any sense to me...yet.
Not at all. Nihilism is in fact why I started chatting on philosophy forums. Any excuse to talk about it is fine by me :P

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 04:13 AM

Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide five-part trilogy (as keen a limning of absurdity as anything Sartre ever imagined, but without the leaden prose and narcoleptic effect)

Oh I read the whole series twice, loved every word. Sartre sounds kinda boring, but I'll take a cautious look ;). I also enjoyed Camus' The Stranger, but I read it as a look at sociopathy rather than existentialism.

justaman

01-10-2005, 04:14 AM

Justaman,

Happy New Year.
Hey man! You too :)

One of my objections to your formulation is that if there is no logical difference between staying alive and suiciding then the only reason to choose one over the other has to be emotional. There is no other means open to us. (This includes your energy formulation. There is no logical reason to choose not to expend energy. After all, in the context of our lives we can always get more.)
This is only true so long as you choose to entertain the notion that emotive logic has value. Your decision to do that is a logical error, I think, though again it isn't objectively 'wrong'. It simply violates our usual stance of being objective and not believing purely out of desire.

So we have to make an emotional choice: live, or not live. Most people exist in the emotional state of enjoying life sufficiently to choose to live.
Which I have always conceded, but it is the choice to exist in the emotional state of enjoying life which - I think - can be made without emotion.

justaman

01-10-2005, 04:15 AM

Sartre sounds kinda boring, but I'll take a cautious look ;).
He was also a dwarf man, like 5"3 or something.

I think that's worth taking into account.

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 04:18 AM

wade-w

01-10-2005, 04:22 AM

Justaman, if nothing has any value, then why do you apparently value logic?

David Gould

01-10-2005, 04:26 AM

This is only true so long as you choose to entertain the notion that emotive logic has value. Your decision to do that is a logical error, I think, though again it isn't objectively 'wrong'. It simply violates our usual stance of being objective and not believing purely out of desire.

What is the logical reason people should suicide?

My suspicion is that there is not one. In other words, if this question is put:

'Should I stay alive?' is there a difference between the answer 'Yes' and the answer 'No'? It seems to me that your argument is based on the fact that both answers are equivalent - there is no logical reason to pick one over the other.

However, we still have no choice but to make a choice. Logic has failed us. Emotion is all we have to go on. And that is why suicide is an emotional decision.

Now, in your play you posited the notion of a person who suicided not with any emotion but simply due to the logical conclusion that it did not matter either way. If nothing matters then suicide is not a bad decision in any sense - I agree with that. But there is still no logical reason to suicide. (There is also no logical reason not to suicide, of course.) So the person made an non-logical decision. It had to be such a decision. And the only thing we have apart from logic is emotion.

Which I have always conceded, but it is the choice to exist in the emotional state of enjoying life which - I think - can be made without emotion.

Hmmm. I do not think that that is possible. I do not think that we can choose such a thing without emotion. Indeed, I do not see how emotion can be removed from the decision making process. I guess you could introduce a randomiser of some sort - for example, ask yourself every day whether you will live or die and toss a coin that will activate a laser to kill you if it lands heads down. But the decision to set up such a machine would have to be taken emotionally in the first place.

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 04:26 AM

Okay justaman, I think I see where our disconnect is here.

Because emotion is logic, but necessarily biased. If we (and atheists usually are) are interesting being as objective as possible, we need to remove as much bias from our reasoning as possible. So following emotive logic is following something we should be avoiding if we want to believe what is most likely to be objectively true.

It simply violates our usual stance of being objective and not believing purely out of desire.

I am not an atheist because I am objective and logical (I am not); I am an atheist because the concept of deity makes no sense to me on any level. I operate mostly on intuition and feeling quite frankly. I think this difference in how we approach the world is causing my confusion.

justaman

01-10-2005, 05:31 AM

Justaman, if nothing has any value, then why do you apparently value logic?
Because we cannot escape our need to decide. You are correct in that some kind of objective theoretical nihilism would in fact require us to do nothing, all action would be equally in 'error' in this context. But practicality requires us to act and we cannot act except in logic. (We are by definition logical entities, to deny this is to deny cause-and-effect in a way).

So it isn't a question of valuing logic so much as acting with the least possible amount of bias. It is not biased to behave logically, it is necessary.

David argues that it is equally necessary to behave emotionally and I haven't really been able to refute this challenge in any meaningful way so far. But I am convinced it should be possible, I just need to try a bit harder :P

justaman

01-10-2005, 05:42 AM

What is the logical reason people should suicide?
It's not so much a 'logical reason' as all that is left over once emotion has been removed from the equation.

My difficulty is proving that we can remove emotion. But I do think this is possible. Buddhist practices etc would appear to indicate we can, for example.

However, we still have no choice but to make a choice. Logic has failed us. Emotion is all we have to go on. And that is why suicide is an emotional decision.
I don't think logic ever fails us, precisely. We will always have different options because of the burden of living. If we could exist in some stasis where there was no pain vs pleasure paradigm constantly acting upon us, then perhaps, but of course this isn't the case.

Now, in your play you posited the notion of a person who suicided not with any emotion but simply due to the logical conclusion that it did not matter either way. If nothing matters then suicide is not a bad decision in any sense - I agree with that. But there is still no logical reason to suicide. (There is also no logical reason not to suicide, of course.) So the person made an non-logical decision. It had to be such a decision. And the only thing we have apart from logic is emotion.
But then that was all I was trying to do with it, if you know what I mean. I never attempted to go the next step and say suicide is preferable, only that it is equivalent.

Did I tell you I wound up putting that on in a festival?? The adjudicator called it 'intelligent but self-indulgent' :irked: hehehe, it's probably fair enough. I realised some time after doing it that making the difficult conept of nihilism more difficult by making its advocate speak like that was a bit isolating for the audience :P We did get a couple of minor awards so that was swell. :yup:

The point is that it was only designed to show suicide is a legitimate option, not the preferable one.

Hmmm. I do not think that that is possible. I do not think that we can choose such a thing without emotion. Indeed, I do not see how emotion can be removed from the decision making process. I guess you could introduce a randomiser of some sort - for example, ask yourself every day whether you will live or die and toss a coin that will activate a laser to kill you if it lands heads down. But the decision to set up such a machine would have to be taken emotionally in the first place.
I'm not really sure that it's quite as difficult as this. You only really need a moment of clarity, if you will. It's precisely the same as breaking an addiction. Your argument for not being able to get around emotion seems to me comparable with a smoker saying he could not get around the draw of the addiction. That is true, he will feel the pull but that doesn't mean he has to act accordingly. If he acknowledges the alternative option to the one he wants to be true, he can take it through sheer force of will. That is how I envision a nihilistic suicide.

viscousmemories

01-10-2005, 05:59 AM

justaman

01-10-2005, 06:08 AM

From what I know it's certainly possible to separate reason from emotion. Mental health professionals call it "isolation of affect", and it's an emotional defense mechanism symptomatic of numerous personality disorders that are commonly associated with suicide. So it seems like you're on the right track, justaman.
I've always hoped I had some kind of personality disorder, but I'm pretty sure I'm mentally disease free :P Well apart from occasional bouts of fairly severe depression, but that seems to be par for the course for anyone with an I.Q. over 50 these days :D

I can't imagine why, though... this seems kinda like intellectual masturbation to me. And I'm not saying that just 'cause it's a morbid line of thought. I'm all about the morbid. I just don't know what you hope to gain from it. I think people who effectively sever their intellect from their emotion are commonly referred to as sociopaths. :P
Well I mean really I'm accusing the entire world except me (and those few other nihilists, if I can even call myself one) of being deluded. It's sorta hardly surprising that I'm subject to being thought of in negative terms in that way.

Honestly, I really have pursued my own motivations. Is all this really because I just want to die and am trying to justify this desire with reason? I'm quite convinced it's not. I cannot help coming back to the realisation that it is never the wrong decision to suicide. That in itself is so completely at odds with everything people traditionally believe and yet it seems so obvious.

I've basically concluded that the reason I believe this and no one else does is because I can never stop deconstructing. That would be equivalent to your 'intellectual masturbation' thing - an observation which rocks, incidentally :D I must act for a reason and I must know what that reason is. I can never be satisfied with "Oh that's just the way it is, quit bitching".

For the record, I live like anyone else, I'm fairly normal, but I still think I'm wrong - by my standards - to do it.

justaman

01-10-2005, 06:14 AM

I am not an atheist because I am objective and logical (I am not); I am an atheist because the concept of deity makes no sense to me on any level. I operate mostly on intuition and feeling quite frankly. I think this difference in how we approach the world is causing my confusion.
Fair enough. I sort of doubt that you don't use logic when you dismiss a deity as making no sense, but of course I really don't know how you tick :P

To deny yourself as being logical is quite impossible, I think. Every human is logical, but most just happen to be irrational. A friend's father recently completed PhD thesis on that one - I didn't read it - and I tend to agree. In the context I'm talking about, logic is the method of evaluation. IF you see this THEN you will act in this way. You can't escape the way your brain works at the 'machine level' if you like. This is the realm of logic. People can be irrational, however, because the larger paradigms become out of kilter with observable reality, so while we are all logical, we all come to different conclusions.

So you really can't say you aren't logical, you have to be :yup:

wade-w

01-10-2005, 06:47 AM

I'm not sure that the way you use the term "logic" is an accurate usage. What does it mean to be a "logical entity?"

Logic is the study of reasoning. Thus it is concerned with arguments. An argument is considered valid if the conclusion logically follows from the premises. An argument is called sound if it is both valid and the premises are true. If we accept the extreme relativism necessary for nihilism, then it becomes impossible to know if a given argument is in fact sound.

As far as I can tell, you have not addressed David's basic point:

What is the logical reason people should suicide?

My suspicion is that there is not one. In other words, if this question is put:

'Should I stay alive?' is there a difference between the answer 'Yes' and the answer 'No'? It seems to me that your argument is based on the fact that both answers are equivalent - there is no logical reason to pick one over the other.

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 07:15 AM

I sort of doubt that you don't use logic when you dismiss a deity as making no sense, but of course I really don't know how you tick

My disbelief came first based on the concepts being presented to me not feeling correct..."I don't believe because I don't believe" so to speak ;). Learning about and researching the logical arguments against deity came later.

To deny yourself as being logical is quite impossible, I think. Every human is logical, but most just happen to be irrational. A friend's father recently completed PhD thesis on that one - I didn't read it - and I tend to agree. In the context I'm talking about, logic is the method of evaluation. IF you see this THEN you will act in this way. You can't escape the way your brain works at the 'machine level' if you like. This is the realm of logic. People can be irrational, however, because the larger paradigms become out of kilter with observable reality, so while we are all logical, we all come to different conclusions.

So you really can't say you aren't logical, you have to be :yup:

Okay, fair enough. Let me put it this way then, I don't really spend any time asking myself "is this belief/action the logical one", nor have I ever studied logic. I don't think I am an irrational person either though, but whatever innate logic I have runs as a subroutine, using your machine analogy.

justaman

01-10-2005, 07:31 AM

I'm not sure that the way you use the term "logic" is an accurate usage. What does it mean to be a "logical entity?"
I am using a kinda funny definition of it.

Basically, I am using 'logic' as being synonymous for cause-and-effect within the neural structures of our brains.

Just like computer 'logic' with IF/THEN/ELSE gates, etc.

Logic is the study of reasoning. Thus it is concerned with arguments. An argument is considered valid if the conclusion logically follows from the premises. An argument is called sound if it is both valid and the premises are true. If we accept the extreme relativism necessary for nihilism, then it becomes impossible to know if a given argument is in fact sound.
Well nihilism is, in fact, itself subject to post-modern deconstruction since it is certainly saying that there is a universal 'truth' which post-modernism says cannot exist.

Regardless, I think of nihilism as more of a practical philosophy of what humans should do. In all honesty, it makes no commentary on Life, the Universe and Everything, only about our role in it. But that happens to be the only role that matters, I'd argue.

As far as I can tell, you have not addressed David's basic point:

What is the logical reason people should suicide?

My suspicion is that there is not one. In other words, if this question is put:

'Should I stay alive?' is there a difference between the answer 'Yes' and the answer 'No'? It seems to me that your argument is based on the fact that both answers are equivalent - there is no logical reason to pick one over the other.

As I said to him, one doesn't really approach nihilism in this manner. It's inductive, in a way, in that nihilism is what is left after you remove emotion. It's not something you add to your present worldview.

I am beating around the bush a bit regarding David's question though.

In practice there will always be a difference between answering 'yes' and 'no' when asking whether you should continue to live. To suggest there might not be assumes a state where sensations do not impact upon us, when clearly no such state really exists. So if I say 'no' I acheive that state of non-existence I will acheive in 50 years time anyway. If I say 'yes' I am acheiving a state with a certain value on the scale of pain vs pleasure.

My argument is that pain is inescapable. Pleasure isn't. Pain is ultimately what makes it logical to suicide. This is because when you are in pain you have two options (let's say):

A: stay alive and feel better, then do X, then do X, then do X, then die.

B: die.

Choosing B is more logical, because it achieve the ultimate end more effectively. You remove the pain and acheive your inevitable state.

An important point that must be remembered is that all actions are erased at death. This doesn't mean they stop, it means they never happened in your estimation. That is because you have no chance for reflection in death. There is no future, present or past. Ergo, your past does not exist. It never happened.

I think it is most logical to acknowledge this and hasten it's arrival, since this is where you arrive anyway.

so

A: [action]+[action]+[action]+[action]+[action]+[action]=death

B: death

Because death removes past:

A = non-existence
B = non-existence

Both chains are identical, it is only a matter of how long you personally prolong this inescapable (non) reality.

justaman

01-10-2005, 07:36 AM

My disbelief came first based on the concepts being presented to me not feeling correct..."I don't believe because I don't believe" so to speak ;). Learning about and researching the logical arguments against deity came later.
Ok, but remember I believe emotive logic is still logic, it just has a greater potential for bias. I do see the distinction you're making, however. :)

Okay, fair enough. Let me put it this way then, I don't really spend any time asking myself "is this belief/action the logical one", nor have I ever studied logic. I don't think I am an irrational person either though, but whatever innate logic I have runs as a subroutine, using your machine analogy.
This is a good way of conceptualizing it, I think. But remember that rationality is subjective, of course. By my standards you are irrational, but then by your standards, I'm just as (if not more so) irrational. Logic, however, is objective and cannot be violated.

We're sort of quibbling here, but I think it's important that people do realise that they believe what they do because of logic. I think it is a common error to assumet that because you are an emotional person you are necessarily less logical. This isn't true, and that's important. It says much about the belief in the supernatural, for instance.

Dragar

01-10-2005, 07:55 AM

Choosing B is more logical, because it achieve the ultimate end more effectively. You remove the pain and acheive your inevitable state.

You seem to be valuing efficiency and effectiveness over pleasure, Justaman. Why?

Justaman...if I told you someone was completely rational, and believed X, Y and Z - say, that a train departed to London at 9.30am - you do not have enough information to deduce what the main might do.

If, on the other hand, I told you that that same man desired to go to London, and believed the train would depart for London at 9.30 am...now you can make a good guess at what he might do.

Do you see how your denial that we need anything else than logic to decide what to do ultimately fails?

justaman

01-10-2005, 08:03 AM

You seem to be valuing efficiency and effectiveness over pleasure, Justaman. Why?
It is the nature of logic. I believe all humans follow the path of least resistance, just as water must always collect in the lowest part of the bowl.

Justaman...if I told you someone was completely rational, and believed X, Y and Z - say, that a train departed to London at 9.30am - you do not have enough information to deduce what the main might do.

If, on the other hand, I told you that that same man desired to go to London, and believed the train would depart for London at 9.30 am...now you can make a good guess at what he might do.

Do you see how you're denial that we need anything else than logic to decide what to do ultimately fails?
How is your above analogy not logical? You simply introduce extra elements. Saying 'desire' doesn't make it any less of a logical decision, since desires operate logically also. The difference is when you have a desire with no logical basis, which is when you arrive at a "I do it because I do it" anomoly. It's still logical, but now it has become irrational.

Honestly, I don't think it is possible for a human to behave illogically.

Dragar

01-10-2005, 11:56 AM

It is the nature of logic. I believe all humans follow the path of least resistance, just as water must always collect in the lowest part of the bowl.

Why would I do this? Earlier you said there was no difference between the two paths ("Both chains are identical, it is only a matter of how long you personally prolong this inescapable (non) reality"), and now you are saying there is a difference which results in us doing one over the other...make up your mind! ;)

How is your above analogy not logical? You simply introduce extra elements. Saying 'desire' doesn't make it any less of a logical decision, since desires operate logically also. The difference is when you have a desire with no logical basis, which is when you arrive at a "I do it because I do it" anomoly. It's still logical, but now it has become irrational.

Honestly, I don't think it is possible for a human to behave illogically.

But this 'I do it because I do it' anomaly is because you've reached rock bottom for analysing human behaviour in terms of a subject. Instead, you have to look at neuroscience and evolution, or the laws of physics, or whatever. Then you can say, "Well, I do this because my d-fibres were firing, or because I evolved to desire X, or because if we solve the Shrödinger equation for my brain we find that..."

We find the same problem with, for instance, gravity. Why does mass attract mass? Well, we answer by pointing to general relativity. "Mass distorts spacetime," we explain.

Well, why does mass distort spacetime? "Mass distorts spacetime because that's what mass does!" Same anomaly.

You cannot deduce how reality operates from logic alone.

livius drusus

01-10-2005, 02:14 PM

Clutch Munny

01-10-2005, 03:04 PM

I'd just like to pipe up a moment to say that I very much enjoyed Sartre's No Exit and I bet you would too, Shea. It's a short little play and not at all dense or stultifying in any way. As presentations of misanthropy and hopelessness go, it's downright fun.

Unngghh... trying... to open... mind....

<slumps, exhausted>

Okay, sure. But I can't forgive him for Being and Nothingness.

livius drusus

01-10-2005, 03:10 PM

/me gently pats Clutch's sweated brow

There, there... Nobody will ever forgive him for Being and Nothingness.

viscousmemories

01-10-2005, 03:46 PM

Well now I know why I liked existential fiction when I found it. I only read the little books! No Exit by Sartre, Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky, The Stranger and The Plague by Camus, A Confession by Tolstoy, Candide by Voltaire... hmm, what am I missing? Any other standard fare? I confess I've never read any of the Douglas Adams books.

viscousmemories

01-10-2005, 03:52 PM

For the record, I live like anyone else, I'm fairly normal, but I still think I'm wrong - by my standards - to do it.
Our views are not so far apart as you might think...

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

~ Dorothy Parker

LadyShea

01-10-2005, 04:05 PM

I confess I've never read any of the Douglas Adams books.

Oh you should! Pure absurdity.

Dragar

01-10-2005, 04:08 PM

Pure absurdity, but with wonderful insights thrown in.

Today's equivalent, but with fantasy as opposed to science fiction, would be Terry Pratchett.

viscousmemories

01-10-2005, 04:12 PM

I don't know who Terry Pratchett is, but that name always makes me think of the Oklahoma City bombing for some reason...

Anyway I have intended to read those books for many years, but unfortunately I read about a book a decade. :blush:

JoeP

01-10-2005, 04:29 PM

I confess I've never read any of the Douglas Adams books.:eek: :stunned:
I don't know who Terry Pratchett is
:stunned: :damn: :rubeyes: :shock:
:shock:

Blake

01-10-2005, 05:08 PM

Dragar

01-10-2005, 05:19 PM

[And by the way, y'all are buggin' me: it's anomaly. :) ]

Edited. :D

Besides, Justaman started it. :wink:

viscousmemories

01-10-2005, 07:14 PM

I cannot help coming back to the realisation that it is never the wrong decision to suicide.
This is partly because you haven't framed the question (in this thread, at any rate) with reference to anybody besides yourself. With the exception of a universally hated person, from the perspective of others it's pretty much always the wrong decision to suicide. The self-immolater frees themself from pain at the cost of inflicting massive doses of it on everyone who cared about them.
Well I can't speak for justaman, but since I've had similar thoughts over the years I'm guessing he might argue that it's illogical to weight pain to others over pain to yourself. So the only logical reason to avoid hurting others while enduring pain yourself is to elude other consequences such as possible retaliation or personal guilt - neither of which would be a factor after death.

Blake

01-10-2005, 10:34 PM

Well I can't speak for justaman, but since I've had similar thoughts over the years I'm guessing he might argue that it's illogical to weight pain to others over pain to yourself. So the only logical reason to avoid hurting others while enduring pain yourself is to elude other consequences such as possible retaliation or personal guilt - neither of which would be a factor after death.
<shrug> In that case, I would say this species of logic has drifted away from the objective standards that purportedly recommended it into completely subjective territory.

justaman

01-11-2005, 01:39 AM

Unngghh... trying... to open... mind....

<slumps, exhausted>

Okay, sure. But I can't forgive him for Being and Nothingness.
Man I read that in a pub in Townsville when I had nothing good to do. Every beer made it less and less clear. The amount of times I re-read sentences was stupid :P

Nietzche's so much worse though.

justaman

01-11-2005, 01:51 AM

Why would I do this? Earlier you said there was no difference between the two paths ("Both chains are identical, it is only a matter of how long you personally prolong this inescapable (non) reality"), and now you are saying there is a difference which results in us doing one over the other...make up your mind! ;)
Sorry, I got lazy.

They are identical at a certain point. In the meantime, they are different, but that difference is temporary, you might remember me always saying 'you will one day never have lived'. It's not a common concept to think about time in this way.

But this 'I do it because I do it' anomaly is because you've reached rock bottom for analysing human behaviour in terms of a subject. Instead, you have to look at neuroscience and evolution, or the laws of physics, or whatever. Then you can say, "Well, I do this because my d-fibres were firing, or because I evolved to desire X, or because if we solve the Shrödinger equation for my brain we find that..."

We find the same problem with, for instance, gravity. Why does mass attract mass? Well, we answer by pointing to general relativity. "Mass distorts spacetime," we explain.

Well, why does mass distort spacetime? "Mass distorts spacetime because that's what mass does!" Same anomaly.

You cannot deduce how reality operates from logic alone.
This is where the 'practicality' part of my nihilism comes in. What you are saying is true, but remember I stated nihilism makes no commentary on reality itself. Only on us. So while I agree that we believe what we do because of the deterministic chemistry&biology in our brains, that is not relevant to us.

A paradigm all humans must surely have is that we must have a rationale for what we consciously believe. So when we turn that paradigm on ourselves, we - or at least I - find the will to live wanting. That isn't to deny the fact that there is indeed a rationale for why we possess that will to live, it denies that there is any reason to pursue it simply because we possess it and - in fact - that there is reason not to.

So when you say that it is the same anomaly as with gravity, I tend to agree, but the difference is that gravity doesn't require there to be a reason for it to continue its existence in reality.

justaman

01-11-2005, 01:53 AM

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I really don't like this :P

justaman

01-11-2005, 01:57 AM

This is partly because you haven't framed the question (in this thread, at any rate) with reference to anybody besides yourself. With the exception of a universally hated person, from the perspective of others it's pretty much always the wrong decision to suicide. The self-immolater frees themself from pain at the cost of inflicting massive doses of it on everyone who cared about them.
Sort of what vm said. The fact of the matter is you are not other people. You will never have the perspective of anyone but yourself. So it is, in fact, a universal truth that it would not be a wrong decision for you to suicide since you too would have no avenue for regret, or even knowledge of what you had done. The same goes for the hated guy. He is not the other people who are glad to see him go. He makes the decision for him and him alone, the value of that action is not impacted upon by others whatever.

Death is the same for everybody.

[And by the way, y'all are buggin' me: it's anomaly. :) ]
My bad :D

LadyShea

01-11-2005, 02:06 AM

'you will one day never have lived'
That's not a true statement though. Just because something or someone no longer exists doesn't mean they never existed. Unless you're positing that there is no such thing as existence.

My grandmother no longer exists, but I have pictures and memories of her having been.

So it is, in fact, a universal truth that it would not be a wrong decision for you to suicide since you too would have no avenue for regret, or even knowledge of what you had done

But while I am alive I can use empathy to predict how other people would feel if I committed suicide and base a decision on that. I value others' feelings.

justaman

01-11-2005, 02:54 AM

That's not a true statement though. Just because something or someone no longer exists doesn't mean they never existed. Unless you're positing that there is no such thing as existence.

My grandmother no longer exists, but I have pictures and memories of her having been.
Ahah! My favourite argument :) At death, you get a kind of enforced solipsism. Yes, objectively you'll be remembered, but that doesn't matter. You are not those who remember you. You are the entity which has been removed from existence, so you never existed by your estimation, the only one that matters. What you are saying would be true if there were another perspective for which to view your actions. But there isn't. When you die, so does reality as far as you (and you are nothing but you) are concerned.

The only way around this is to demonstrate to me that you have some avenue to review your past when you are dead. If you cannot, that past does not exist as far as you are concerned.

But while I am alive I can use empathy to predict how other people would feel if I committed suicide and base a decision on that. I value others' feelings.
Sure, and you are in error to do this in this context :) What you are doing is projecting your imagination onto what others feel. This completely ignores the fact that when you die, you will by definition not care about their feelings. So to be taking that into account now is to ignore the fact that you won't be taking it into account then. Other people are quite irrelevant when regarding your death, because you are not those other people.

Zoot

01-11-2005, 03:20 AM

Justaman, if nothing has any value, then why do you apparently value logic?
Because we cannot escape our need to decide.

We cannot escape our need to decide. In order to decide, we must evaluate options in terms of preferability. Our evaluation of preferability must refer back to criteria. Sets of criteria are what we call values. Values themselves can be evaluated in terms of their preferability, but such an evaluation would itself refer back to a value for its criteria.

Preferring less resistance to more may be a value held by many people. It may be a value held by all people. I will call that value "easevalue". Easevalue is one value among many, such as lifevalue (which finds continued existence preferable) or pleasurevalue (which finds sensual pleasure preferable) or utilitarianism (which finds people's happiness preferable).

Any evaluation of easevalue in comparison to lifevalue, pleasurevalue and utilitarianism, being an evaluation, itself must refer back to a value for its criteria. Evaluated in terms of pleasurevalue, easevalue is good (preferable) when it causes pleasure and avoids pain. Evaluated in terms of lifevalue, easevalue is bad when it finds death preferable to life. Evaluated in terms of utilitarianism, easevalue is good when it makes people happy.

However, there is no such thing as an evaluation that is not an evaluation-in-terms-of-something. There is no Evaluation with a capital E. There is no Preferable with a capital P. There is no Good with a capital G. There is only implicitly contextual evaluations.

Logic itself is not a value applicable to actions. Logic is a value applicable to statements and arguments. It can be used to return evaluations of true and false, and evaluations of logical or illogical, and valid or invalid, or sound and unsound. But it does not return a result of preferable or unpreferable (good or bad).

Logic can be applied to statements about actions that return logical values. It can be true or false that "hitting myself in the face with this hammer will cause me pleasure". If my logic is flawed and I incorrectly deduce that hitting myself in the face will cause me pleasure, I will experience hitting myself in the face with a hammer as a good-in-terms-of-pleasurevalue action. Logic can be used to evaluate the statement "hitting myself with a hammer will cause pleasure" as false, but it cannot evaluate the action "hitting myself with a hammer" as bad (unpreferable).

When evaluated purely in terms of easevalue, suicide is best. The human context, however, includes more values than just the one. And there is nothing "objectively superior" or "objectively more preferable" about easevalue, as such a notion of "objective evaluation" is incoherent.

justaman

01-11-2005, 03:36 AM

This is all too postively active, Zoot. You are forgetting that nihilism is about destruction, not about preference or in putting something forward of all else. Nihilism is what you are left with after you have reduced all that you are physically able to.

Lifevalue can be - and often is in suicide - reduced to nothing without trouble. Pleasurevalue can also be reduced, meditation is enough to show us this. You cannot reduce easevalue. It is not a 'value' so much as a logical requirement. And I find utilitarianism to be ambiguous in this context also. In one sense, the pursuit of happiness can be reduced, but in another sense we will also always prefer what we desire, which is a utilitarian axiom I would think, and one which could not be reduced (and is indeed necessary for a nihilistic suicide).

So while the human context does indeed have more than one value, many of those values can be ignored. Some cannot. Some are logical necessities, others are evolutionary kicks-in-the-asses which can be ignored.

So it isn't about easevalue being objectively superior, it is that easevalue cannot be reduced. If it could I would have in fact less of a leg to stand on, because it is our need to decide and act which spawns the active assertion 'it is easier to suicide'. If we could exist in stasis and have all values reduced, I would not be entitled to make such an assertion.

Zoot

01-11-2005, 03:46 AM

Lifevalue can be - and often is in suicide - reduced to nothing without trouble. Pleasurevalue can also be reduced, meditation is enough to show us this. You cannot reduce easevalue. It is not a 'value' so much as a logical requirement.

It's a value. It's a set of criteria for evaluating one action as preferable to another. Logic doesn't require; values require.

You are forgetting that nihilism is about destruction, not about preference or in putting something forward of all else. Nihilism is what you are left with after you have reduced all that you are physically able to.

Sounds like nihilism is itself a value.

I mean, "Nihilism is what you are left with..." Who cares? Why should one care? In other words, in terms of what value is reducing reducable values preferable?

justaman

01-11-2005, 04:03 AM

It's a value. It's a set of criteria for evaluating one action as preferable to another. Logic doesn't require; values require.
You know I honestly disagree here. I think the only way your position is correct is if you can demonstrate an action which does not take 'easevalue' into account.

This is what I mean by the path of least resistence. You will take the shortest path when you have taken all of your desires into account. To deny this is really to deny deterministic cause-and-effect.

'Value' sounds far too much like something we can choose to entertain. We have no choice with easevalue, we must act in accordance with it. And I think that easevalue is really just the macroscopic implication of the way logic works in humans.

Sounds like nihilism is itself a value.

I mean, "Nihilism is what you are left with..." Who cares? Why should one care? In other words, in terms of what value is reducing reducable values preferable?
The value is rejecting that which doesn't make sense, that which has no logical reason for being entertained. It is why you don't worship pebbles. It is requiring reason for any action you pursue and rejecting that action if the logic to that reason is circular and self-fulfilling.

Zoot

01-11-2005, 04:09 AM

The value is rejecting that which doesn't make sense, that which has no logical reason for being entertained.

Values are criteria for evaluating the preferability of actions. There is no such thing as a logical or illogical value. Logic applies to "is". Values apply to "should". The two don't meet.

It is why you don't worship pebbles. It is requiring reason for any action you pursue and rejecting that action if the logic to that reason is circular and self-fulfilling.

You seem to be saying two things here. Which one are you actually saying?

1. People unavoidably prefer the path of least resistance.
2. It is "logical" to prefer the path of least resistance.

LadyShea

01-11-2005, 04:21 AM

Ahah! My favourite argument :) At death, you get a kind of enforced solipsism. Yes, objectively you'll be remembered, but that doesn't matter. You are not those who remember you. You are the entity which has been removed from existence, so you never existed by your estimation, the only one that matters. What you are saying would be true if there were another perspective for which to view your actions. But there isn't. When you die, so does reality as far as you (and you are nothing but you) are concerned.

The only way around this is to demonstrate to me that you have some avenue to review your past when you are dead. If you cannot, that past does not exist as far as you are concerned.

So what? I never said a dead person knows they once existed, only those that remember them, and any work or art they leave behind is testimony of their existence. Their existence matters to those who still exist. Why is the self the only important element in this discussion??

Sure, and you are in error to do this in this context :) What you are doing is projecting your imagination onto what others feel. This completely ignores the fact that when you die, you will by definition not care about their feelings. So to be taking that into account now is to ignore the fact that you won't be taking it into account then. Other people are quite irrelevant when regarding your death, because you are not those other people.

Again, so what? I think other people are important now, during my existence, that I won't exist to care later makes no difference to my NOW.

justaman

01-11-2005, 06:19 AM

Values are criteria for evaluating the preferability of actions. There is no such thing as a logical or illogical value. Logic applies to "is". Values apply to "should". The two don't meet.
Of course they do! You should do that which is in accordance with what is. In fact this is so definite that I can equally say you will do that which is in accordance with what you believe to be what "is". Doing this is being logical.

1. People unavoidably prefer the path of least resistance.
2. It is "logical" to prefer the path of least resistance.
I am saying they are identical. What we prefer is dictated by logic. "Preference" is precisely a logical paradigm. When you say one, you are also saying the other.

justaman

01-11-2005, 06:26 AM

So what? I never said a dead person knows they once existed, only those that remember them, and any work or art they leave behind is testimony of their existence. Their existence matters to those who still exist. Why is the self the only important element in this discussion??
Because the self is the only perspective you experience reality from. Taking your legacy into account and the feelings of others is purely indulging in your own imagination now. The fact that your existence will matter to others is entirely irrelevant in the context of death, because there is no consequence of this fact on you and your soul perspective of reality.

Again, so what? I think other people are important now, during my existence, that I won't exist to care later makes no difference to my NOW.
That is a choice you make, but I would argue it is not a rational choice. It is rather like saying "the tree I have never seen matters to me and I don't want it cut down". Ok, I cannot argue with your decision to let it matter to you, but you see there is no actual reason for why it should. Relationships at death are precisely this irrelevant.

It is simply a question of whether or not one chooses to recognise that their current meaningful relationships will become meaningless at death. I would say it is in ignorance to not recognise this, but not necessarily in error if you are content with a certain amount of ignorance.

LadyShea

01-11-2005, 06:38 AM

Well justaman, unfortunately rather than understanding your position more through this conversation, I understand it less. I will have to give it up now I think, because quite frankly, you might as well be typing in Chinese characters.

I say that this life and what we do and who we know is ALL that matters because it is not permanent, you say life and everything and everyone in it doesn't matter at all because it is not permanent. I see no way of making those two points of view meet.

viscousmemories

01-11-2005, 06:41 AM

Values are criteria for evaluating the preferability of actions. There is no such thing as a logical or illogical value. Logic applies to "is". Values apply to "should". The two don't meet.
Of course they do! You should do that which is in accordance with what is. In fact this is so definite that I can equally say you will do that which is in accordance with what you believe to be what "is". Doing this is being logical.
This looks like the is/ought problem to me. If by we should do "that which is in accordance with what is" you mean "that which is purely logical", I don't think you've shown that. Humans aren't naturally purely logical. Our reason is informed by our emotion, for example. Why in your view should we be purely logical?

justaman

01-11-2005, 06:46 AM

Well justaman, unfortunately rather than understanding your position more through this conversation, I understand it less. I will have to give it up now I think, because quite frankly, you might as well be typing in Chinese characters.
You've done better than most ;)

I say that this life and what we do and who we know is ALL that matters because it is not permanent, you say life and everything and everyone in it doesn't matter at all because it is not permanent. I see no way of making those two points of view meet.
Well I mean that's the easy part. Consider how Gandhi now feels about what he did while he existed :)

justaman

01-11-2005, 06:57 AM

This looks like the is/ought problem to me. If by we should do "that which is in accordance with what is" you mean "that which is purely logical", I don't think you've shown that. Humans aren't naturally purely logical. Our reason is informed by our emotion, for example. Why in your view should we be purely logical?
Because we are by definition. Emotion is logic. Being emotional is being logical, its just a certain type of rationale.

What actually separates emotion from everything else is its instigation. We don't consciously decide to use an emotional-logic paradigm, it is forced upon us unconsciously. It is essentially evolution trying to force our hand, but that does not stop the fact that it is operating logically.

The reason why advocate avoiding emotive logic is the same reason why we surpress much of our instinctive, emotive reactions. Emotionally, we may want to murder the guy who cut us off, or at least pound the crap out of him. This is logical, it is a cause-and-effect paradigm, but it is thrust upon us by instinct, not be reason. Unemotional reason informs us of hefty lawsuits and jail time, so we resign ourselves to some fairly useless smacking-of-steering-wheel gestures of "I can't believe how stupid you and a lot of people like you are!"

Zoot

01-11-2005, 07:20 AM

Of course they do! You should do that which is in accordance with what is. In fact this is so definite that I can equally say you will do that which is in accordance with what you believe to be what "is". Doing this is being logical.

Assuming that you have somehow typed this without a belief in objective morality (that what one "should" do exists in some way in the world, and can therefore be perceived and discovered)...

Give me an example of a "logical" reason for doing something.

Dragar

01-11-2005, 12:02 PM

Sorry, I got lazy.

They are identical at a certain point. In the meantime, they are different, but that difference is temporary, you might remember me always saying 'you will one day never have lived'. It's not a common concept to think about time in this way.

Mostly because it's wrong. Spread out spacetime, like a map. Can you see me? I'm there, in a certain region of that map. I trace out a line, if you like, which has a finite length of spacetime.

If you are treating time any differently to space, you are doing something wrong in your analysis. :)

This is where the 'practicality' part of my nihilism comes in. What you are saying is true, but remember I stated nihilism makes no commentary on reality itself. Only on us. So while I agree that we believe what we do because of the deterministic chemistry&biology in our brains, that is not relevant to us.

But deterministic chemistry and biology (and physics!) in our brains is us. I don't distinguish between myself and reality.

A paradigm all humans must surely have is that we must have a rationale for what we consciously believe. So when we turn that paradigm on ourselves, we - or at least I - find the will to live wanting. That isn't to deny the fact that there is indeed a rationale for why we possess that will to live, it denies that there is any reason to pursue it simply because we possess it and - in fact - that there is reason not to.

I don't understand. You seem to be saying that there is no reason to follow a desire. Any desire. But part of the concept of 'desire' is that a (rational) system will act to fulfil those desires.

If you don't act to fulfil your desires, I don't think they're really desires. You're using a word which appears to be the same as the word I am using, but lacking the most important property.

"Sure, it's mass. But this is mass that doesn't distort spacetime!"

LadyShea

01-11-2005, 03:00 PM

Well I mean that's the easy part. Consider how Gandhi now feels about what he did while he existed :)

What about how I feel about what Gandhi did while he existed? And what about how he felt about his existence while he existed, which is all that matters since existence is all there is for any of us.

viscousmemories

01-11-2005, 08:14 PM

Emotion is logic.
Y'know I honestly never considered that. I've always thought of emotion and logic as opposing forces, instead of thinking of them as two different instances of logic. I'll have to think more about this with that in mind. :chin:

FormerFundie2004

01-11-2005, 09:29 PM

I think a very large part of the reason I haven't killed myself despite my firm belief that I am nothing but a single link in a massive evolutionary chain in an indifferent universe is inertia. Certainly not because I think there's any meaning or value beyond whatever I pretend there is.

Inertia? I don't see how that could keep you afloat...

Of course there is meaning and value. You aren't pretending...unless you're defining meaning and value differently from the way I define it.

Here's how I see it: given that we have intelligence, reason, emotions, (and I believe, souls), we are not pretending or living in a fantasy. This is all very real and what we do and say has a real impact.

There is inherent meaning in all of us. How do I figure? Well, how about starting with loved ones. You have meaning in their lives. And even if you didn't, or you had no loved ones, you could find someone who would consider you to have meaning in their lives.

The question at hand is, can small links in a large chain have inherent meaning or purpose? Yes, I believe so.

Here's how I measure inherent meaning and purpose:

1) Do we matter to ourselves?
2) Do we matter to others?
3) Do we matter to/in the universe--the big picure? Who knows.

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 12:52 AM

Inertia? I don't see how that could keep you afloat...

Of course there is meaning and value. You aren't pretending...unless you're defining meaning and value differently from the way I define it.
Sorry, I should've probably qualified that I was referring to objective meaning and value, which I don't currently believe in. And by pretending I didn't mean that my life doesn't have any subjective or intersubjective meaning or value and I pretend it does, I meant I pretend that's significant in view of the eternity of my non-being that preceded and will follow my existence.

There is inherent meaning in all of us. How do I figure? Well, how about starting with loved ones. You have meaning in their lives. And even if you didn't, or you had no loved ones, you could find someone who would consider you to have meaning in their lives.
Right. This is subjective and intersubjective.

The question at hand is, can small links in a large chain have inherent meaning or purpose? Yes, I believe so.
On a chain of infinite width and length, how important is any given link?

LadyShea

01-12-2005, 01:52 AM

The question at hand is, can small links in a large chain have inherent meaning or purpose? Yes, I believe so.
On a chain of infinite width and length, how important is any given link?

I prefer a tapestry metaphor to a chain. When future peoples look back on the tapestry, maybe your thread has a unique color, or perhaps the threads it is surrounded by form an interesting pattern. Maybe, of course, your thread and your area on the tapestry is all neutrally colored, but it still fills the spaces between the cool stuff, and has its place in the whole.

Another example, let's take January 11th 1982. That day no longer exists, I can't remember who I talked to, what I ate, where I went, what I watched on TV...nothing memorable about that date. Does that mean it didn't exist or wasn't important? Not to me, because it got me to the next memorable date, the next pretty color on my tapestry :)

David Gould

01-12-2005, 02:56 AM

Skip this rambling first part to jump the main argument part if you like

Everything we do is, when viewed from a particular context, simply the alteration of patterns of energy. For example, raising my arm is only different than lowering it in the sense that they are different energy configurations.

The raising or lowering of my arm is something that is done deterministically in response to a combination of factors - genetics, biology, physical environment, social environment and so on - but all those factors can be summarised as simply the energy pattern of the universe. What is happening when I raise my arm is that the universe is moving from one energy pattern to another.

Emotions in human beings are one set of causal factors (themselves caused by other things) that act to alter the energy state of the universe.

If we examine the energy states of the universe, there is nothing inherently better about one state or another. They are simply different.

The argument that one state is better-for-humans or more-conducive-to-human-happiness relies on the subjective viewpoint of humans (funnily enough ;)). Now, at some point it is likely that there will be no humans. Thus, this subjective viewpoint will not exist.

If we bring that down to an individual level, everything you do in life is pushed by your subjective notion of the best energy state for the universe to be in. Your subjective viewpoint will some day cease to exist. There will be no perspective from which you could, for example, look at your life and say, 'That was worth something to someone.'

note that the above is a ramble to get me to think about it more - it got me to the main point, which is below

Main argument

Now, imagine that you could do something which would achieve something you felt was worthwhile but which would also result in your painless death.

There is no rational reason to fear deat: you will never experience it, after all. There is also no need to concern yourself with the notion that you will feel guilty at putting your relatives through hell. Paradoxically, there will also be no you to see the amazing thing that your death brings about.

Thus, none of these considerations - fear of death, concern for others of the desire to bring something amazing about - should have any impact on the decision to die or not.

After all, the way we decide things is about consequences. If our decision to kill ourselves can have no consequences - consequences in decision making require a subject to see them, after all (in other words, for you there will be no death, no suffering relatives and no glorious dream fulfilled) - then it is a decision that does not matter.

When you take into account that you are going to die and that there are therefore no consequences to any decision you make in your life we are left with the only conclusion possible: that the choice to die is more rational than any other choice - if not the only rational decision - because every other choice is made on the assumption that there are consequences.

I am playing devil's advocate here. But what do people think of the argument? What are its rebuttals?

FormerFundie2004

01-12-2005, 03:00 AM

On a chain of infinite width and length, how important is any given link?

Let me ask you something:

1) If you were immortal, would that create objective meaning and purpose?
2) If there was no one/nothing that came before or will come after, would that create objective meaning and purpose?

FormerFundie2004

01-12-2005, 03:02 AM

Question of the day: What qualifies as objective meaning and purpose?

FormerFundie2004

01-12-2005, 03:06 AM

I prefer a tapestry metaphor to a chain. When future peoples look back on the tapestry, maybe your thread has a unique color, or perhaps the threads it is surrounded by form an interesting pattern. Maybe, of course, your thread and your area on the tapestry is all neutrally colored, but it still fills the spaces between the cool stuff, and has its place in the whole.

So then objective meaning and purpose are defined by how others see us?

Another example, let's take January 11th 1982. That day no longer exists, I can't remember who I talked to, what I ate, where I went, what I watched on TV...nothing memorable about that date. Does that mean it didn't exist or wasn't important? Not to me, because it got me to the next memorable date, the next pretty color on my tapestry :)

This is subjective.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 03:09 AM

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 03:13 AM

When you take into account that you are going to die and that there are therefore no consequences to any decision you make in your life we are left with the only conclusion possible: that the choice to die is more rational than any other choice - if not the only rational decision - because every other choice is made on the assumption that there are consequences.
I can't rebut that.

FormerFundie2004

01-12-2005, 03:21 AM

Question of the day: What qualifies as objective meaning and purpose?

An objective meaning must be one that depends on no viewpoint.
Unfortunately, viewpoints are inherent in the word meaning - something cannot have inherent meaning; it can only have meaning for someone.

Objective meaning and objective purpose are impossibilities.

Wow, I can't rebut that either.

Does this mean, then, that there is no such thing as objective meaning?

...I feel like a philosopher.............................oh well, it's fun.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 03:24 AM

Are there any Existentialists here?

David Gould

01-12-2005, 03:28 AM

Wow, I can't rebut that either.

Does this mean, then, that there is no such thing as objective meaning?

Yes, there is no such thing as objective meaning.

However, this does not mean that suicidal nihilism is something we should embrace.

The whole nihilistic argument may well depend on objective meaning being possible but not actual, for example. In other words, they might be saying:

'Married bachelors are required for people to choose to live.'
'There are no married bachelors.'
'Therefore, people should choose to die.'

If we look at this, the notion that married bachelors are required for people to choose to live is a nonsensical one because the concept of a married bachelor is an impossibility. The fact that many people argue that you need married bachelors to live - or, rather, objective meaning - is beside the point. The sentence actually says absolutely nothing at all.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 03:28 AM

If I can return back to the non-being from whence I came, ie: infinite non-existence, then how did I come to being at all? If all being reverts back to non-being and non-being is non-existent, then?

To be or not to be, that is the question, no?

David Gould

01-12-2005, 03:30 AM

Are there any Existentialists here?

Depending on what you mean, I might be one. ;)

I am someone who believes that while there is no meaning there is meaning-to-me. Everything I do, while having no meaning - such being an impossibility - has meaning-to-me.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 03:34 AM

I think I am one too though I am not very familiar with all the technical jargon most people use. Blaise Pascal was an Existentialist and I side with him on many issues, particularily First Principles.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 03:34 AM

If I can return back to the non-being from whence I came, ie: infinite non-existence, then how did I come to being at all?

You never not existed. There was no 'you' sitting around not existing and who was suddenly granted existence.

Existence is you. Non-existence is not. You did not spring from non-existence.

If all being reverts back to non-being and non-being is non-existent, then?

Nothing that 'is' never 'is not'.

When I blow out a flame, the flame is not sent to non-existence.

To be or not to be, that is the question, no?

And as we are, we always will be and never will not be.

LadyShea

01-12-2005, 03:36 AM

Are there any Existentialists here?

Me.

Oh and I do not believe in objective anything pretty much. Everything regarding human thought is subjective, IMO.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 03:39 AM

You never not existed. There was no 'you' sitting around not existing and who was suddenly granted existence.

Existence is you. Non-existence is not. You did not spring from non-existence.

Right, because if there was nothing but non-existence then nothing could spring from nothing.

Nothing that 'is' never 'is not'.

Right, but that depends on how you look at is, grades/degrees of being.

When I blow out a flame, the flame is not sent to non-existence.

The flame came to exist, the flame no longer exists, whether you want to charge that it reverted back to some form energy makes no difference. In that sense then, energy just is to you.

And as we are, we always will be and never will not be.

Sure, I'll buy that. :P

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 03:48 AM

I think, therefore I am.

I don't think very clearly, therefore I don't trust myself.

I think suicide is the more rational choice, but since I don't trust myself I just live.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 03:48 AM

Right, because if there was nothing but non-existence then nothing could spring from nothing.

This is not quite what I am saying.

We exist. At some point, we will be blown out like the flame. We will not 'not exist' at this point. There will be no us to not exist; there will be no us to be dead.

Right, but that depends on how you look at is, grades/degrees of being.

There are only processess, in any case.

The flame came to exist, the flame no longer exists, whether you want to charge that it reverted back to some form energy makes no difference. In that sense then, energy just is to you.

Again, I have not explained myself clearly. I will think a little more.

Sure, I'll buy that. :P

It sounds though, like your just saying energy is.

No. I am saying that there will never be a time when I am dead/do not exist. For me to be dead I would have to experience being dead. And that is an impossibility. So from my perspective I will never be dead/I will never not exist. Similarly, from my perspective I have never not been born/never not existed.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 03:49 AM

I think, therefore I am.

I don't think very clearly, therefore I don't trust myself.

I think suicide is the more rational choice, but since I don't trust myself I just live.

Even if suicide was the more rational choice we would still need to build a case for rationality in all things. :)

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 03:51 AM

I think, therefore I am.

I don't know if that stands as is in this day and age though it seems rational to me. What does not exist cannot question it's own existence. "I am" indicates personhood, a greater grade of "is" or "being" than matter, up to "Being" or "Is" which is God, to us at least. "I Am Who Am" = Existence, Being, Is

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 03:51 AM

Even if suicide was the more rational choice we would still need to build a case for rationality in all things. :)
Good point! :)

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 03:51 AM

Even if suicide was the more rational choice we would still need to build a case for rationality in all things. :)

Right, First Principles.

LadyShea

01-12-2005, 03:52 AM

Main argument

Now, imagine that you could do something which would achieve something you felt was worthwhile but which would also result in your painless death.

There is no rational reason to fear deat: you will never experience it, after all.

No rebuttal

There is also no need to concern yourself with the notion that you will feel guilty at putting your relatives through hell.

Um, there is need to concern oneself. If existence is all there is, and I care about others feelings during existence, then it doesn't matter that I won't experience the consequences. Imagined probable consequences are also valid and real concepts while I still exist. Gah I can't figure out how to put this into words.

Paradoxically, there will also be no you to see the amazing thing that your death brings about.

No, but you have imagined it and desire for it while you still exist, and feel it is worth your death.

Thus, none of these considerations - fear of death, concern for others of the desire to bring something amazing about - should have any impact on the decision to die or not.

Sure it should, because the consequences are determined or imagined and the decision made during existence, so they have an impact on the ALL of the self.

After all, the way we decide things is about consequences. If our decision to kill ourselves can have no consequences - consequences in decision making require a subject to see them, after all (in other words, for you there will be no death, no suffering relatives and no glorious dream fulfilled) - then it is a decision that does not matter.

Imagined consequences of the affect your actions will have on others are valid in decision making, IMO. The decision matters in the NOW based on empathy and probability. Sure I won't care when I am not here if my relatives are suffering, but I care NOW about their future suffering.

When you take into account that you are going to die and that there are therefore no consequences to any decision you make in your life we are left with the only conclusion possible: that the choice to die is more rational than any other choice - if not the only rational decision - because every other choice is made on the assumption that there are consequences.

Nope, I don't think that follows. The consequences, whether actualized or conceptualized, are part of existence, and existence is all.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 04:02 AM

This is not quite what I am saying.

We exist. At some point, we will be blown out like the flame. We will not 'not exist' at this point. There will be no us to not exist; there will be no us to be dead.

I get that. You would say that there is no "I" in the first place, I disagree though I don't know how we could find some way to discuss it. We assume different things, we will not meet. Two very different worldviews and belief systems.

There are only processess, in any case.
From what you know or see at least. From what can be proven by assumptions that cannot be proven. So the philosophers say that we possess our being succesively, but being Catholic, I think that there is an I that preceeds, how would you put that? How did Sartre put it? Hmm.. :chin:

No. I am saying that there will never be a time when I am dead/do not exist.

Right, on that point we would agree with qualifiers.

For me to be dead I would have to experience being dead.

Right.

And that is an impossibility. So from my perspective I will never be dead/I will never not exist. Similarly, from my perspective I have never not been born/never not existed.

Right, yes, I get what you're saying there.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 04:07 AM

The problem is when I speak of non-existence I am questioning the "it" that you call "I" to begin with, the body at the very least. To talk about the you not ever ceasing to be is not what I was speaking of and to me that's mostly just linguistics.

"You" or "I" designates personhood though "it" I think would work as well, if indeed the consciousness is just a product of the body.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 04:12 AM

Um, there is need to concern oneself. If existence is all there is, and I care about others feelings during existence, then it doesn't matter that I won't experience the consequences. Imagined probable consequences are also valid and real concepts while I still exist. Gah I can't figure out how to put this into words.

But aren't the consequences of the form of 'If I did this, my family would be hurt. I would not want to see my family hurt. Therefore ....'?

The thing is, you would not see your family hurt. From your perspective, there never would be such hurt.

Now, a different version could run like this, 'Thinking about my family being in pain in the future hurts me now.' This is a consequence of thinking about the act. Once the act is done, there will be no hurt.

No, but you have imagined it and desire for it while you still exist, and feel it is worth your death.

But an imagined consequence that can never come to pass is not a real consequence. Yes, they impact on our decision making. But the question is whether they should.

To explain what I mean, an imagined consequence of killing oneself is that one would be dead. But a person never is dead - there is no them to be dead; no them to experience being dead. So this is not a real consequence of killing oneself, and thus should not be referred to in the decision process.

Similarly, the suffering of your relatives is an imagined consequence that will never be. You will not see this suffering. Once you are dead, there will be no suffering from your perspective (because of course you will not have one). If you think rationally through it, there can be no consequences to your decision to kill yourself.

Sure it should, because the consequences are determined or imagined and the decision made during existence, so they have an impact on the ALL of the self.

Imagined consequences of the affect your actions will have on others are valid in decision making, IMO. The decision matters in the NOW based on empathy and probability. Sure I won't care when I am not here if my relatives are suffering, but I care NOW about their future suffering.

You care about future suffering that from your perspective will not exist? Is that a rational decision making process or a non-rational one? I think it is non-rational (not that there is anything wrong with that, necessarily).

Is it rational, for example, to make a decision based on events that you know will never come to pass?

We need to remember that, from your perspective, your relatives will not suffer.

Nope, I don't think that follows. The consequences, whether actualized or conceptualized, are part of existence, and existence is all.

Some people believe that if they die they will go to heaven. They may indeed make choices in their lives based upon this belief. Are they being rational in using these conceptualised yet non-actualised consequences as motivators for action?

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 04:26 AM

Now, a different version could run like this, 'Thinking about my family being in pain in the future hurts me now.' This is a consequence of thinking about the act. Once the act is done, there will be no hurt.

There will be no hurt to "I", but to me if the consciousness is totally dependent upon the body for existence, then this assumes an external world, and if this external world does exist, does not that mean that consequences exist?

Where is the if consciousness then no "real" consequences? Where is the tie that binds?

To explain what I mean, an imagined consequence of killing oneself is that one would be dead. But a person never is dead - there is no them to be dead; no them to experience being dead. So this is not a real consequence of killing oneself, and thus should not be referred to in the decision process.

But once again, if consciousness is dependent upon the body and the body thence, an external world and a mother and father, for instance, there is only no real consequences to you. Honestly though, who cares about only "you"? Who is selfish enough to only care about "I" to put it in those terms? I am value, value is I am?

LadyShea

01-12-2005, 04:30 AM

Um, there is need to concern oneself. If existence is all there is, and I care about others feelings during existence, then it doesn't matter that I won't experience the consequences. Imagined probable consequences are also valid and real concepts while I still exist. Gah I can't figure out how to put this into words.

But aren't the consequences of the form of 'If I did this, my family would be hurt. I would not want to see my family hurt. Therefore ....'?
The thing is, you would not see your family hurt. From your perspective, there never would be such hurt.

Hmm, make that 'If I did this, my family would be hurt. I would not want my family to hurt. Therefore ....'?. I don't need to see it for me to know it will happen, and I am still failing to understand why the self is the only important thing in this conversation. A large part of ME and EXISTENCE for me is empathy. Empathy requires imagining and possibly preventing non actualized consequences. Why is that not valid?

Now, a different version could run like this, 'Thinking about my family being in pain in the future hurts me now.' This is a consequence of thinking about the act. Once the act is done, there will be no hurt.

Okay, understood. But I still don't see why I need to be the one experiencing hurt to not want to hurt others with my actions regardless of my not experiencing the actual consequences.

But an imagined consequence that can never come to pass is not a real consequence. Yes, they impact on our decision making. But the question is whether they should.

Concepts and feelings are real, therefore yes, I think they should. Also the consequences will be experienced by someone, and that's important to me NOW.

To explain what I mean, an imagined consequence of killing oneself is that one would be dead. But a person never is dead - there is no them to be dead; no them to experience being dead. So this is not a real consequence of killing oneself, and thus should not be referred to in the decision process.

My "being dead" is not a consequence I imagine because I cannot imagine non-existence. I imagine my family's suffering and the consequences to others. Still nobody has explained why the self is the only thing that matters.

Similarly, the suffering of your relatives is an imagined consequence that will never be. You will not see this suffering. Once you are dead, there will be no suffering from your perspective (because of course you will not have one). If you think rationally through it, there can be no consequences to your decision to kill yourself.

Just because I won't experience it doesn't mean it won't be. It will be to THEM and that's important to ME. Since I am my existence my imaginings are of the utmost importance.

You care about future suffering that from your perspective will not exist? Is that a rational decision making process or a non-rational one? I think it is non-rational (not that there is anything wrong with that, necessarily).

Yes, I care about future suffering NOW, while I exist. I think that is the only rational line of thinking.

Is it rational, for example, to make a decision based on events that you know will never come to pass?

They will come to pass for someone.

We need to remember that, from your perspective, your relatives will not suffer.

They will suffer from my current perspective which is all there is.

Some people believe that if they die they will go to heaven. They may indeed make choices in their lives based upon this belief. Are they being rational in using these conceptualised yet non-actualised consequences as motivators for action?

From their POV, yes. Rational is a subjective term, is it not?

You know, in my head I am the only one making sense here....really the nihilistic POV sounds like gibberish to me. Why is that? VM mentioned something to me in IM, he said only depressives seem to be persuaded by or even comprehend the arguments for nihilism...wonder if our differing brain chemistries come into play ;)

David Gould

01-12-2005, 04:38 AM

There will be no hurt to "I", but to me if the consciousness is totally dependent upon the body for existence, then this assumes an external world, and if this external world does exist, does not that mean that consequences exist?

Where is the if consciousness then no "real" consequences? Where is the tie that binds?

There are no consequences at all.

Imagine an abreviated consquence chain from birth to death.

Born = > consequence is that you live = > consequence is that you suffer => consequence is that you die.

No matter what decisions you make, the final consequence is death (which is not a consequence at all, if you remember, as you never experience it.)

But once again, if consciousness is dependent upon the body and the body thence, an external world and a mother and father, for instance, there is only no real consequences to you. Honestly though, who cares about only "you"? Who is selfish enough to only care about "I" to put it in those terms? I am value?

Rationally, the only reason that you do not want your parents to suffer is because it would make you feel bad. After all, if making your parents suffer didn't make you feel bad, then you would not worry about it.

But you will not feel bad about their suffering after you die. There will be no suffering at their suffering. If there is no suffering at their suffering, then rationally their suffering should not affect you at all, should it?

The question then becomes: is a rational decision the way to approach this?

David Gould

01-12-2005, 04:41 AM

You know, in my head I am the only one making sense here....really the nihilistic POV sounds like gibberish to me. Why is that? VM mentioned something to me in IM, he said only depressives seem to be persuaded by or even comprehend the arguments for nihilsm...wonder if our differeing brain chemistries come into play

I think it is telling that people who argue for nihilism are generally not dead. ;) I am of the opinion that non-rational (emotional) processes keep them (and us!) alive. And I have no problem with that.

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 04:45 AM

I can attest that I live for purely non-rational reasons. :)

David Gould

01-12-2005, 04:46 AM

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 04:50 AM

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 04:52 AM

The reason I am arguing using perspective (or self) is that that is all we have. We only have our own perspective to go on in any decision making process.

The question is, if decisions are based on consequences then when we look at suicide there are no consequences.

It is all very well to say, 'I will not kill myself because if I did my family would be sad and I feel bad now at the thought of them being sad.' However, that is not a consequence of the decision to kill oneself. In other words, what you are feeling is a consequence of thinking about the decision to kill oneself. You feeling bad prior to killing oneself cannot be a consequence of you killing yourself. Rationally, therefore, it should not affect your decision.

What preceeds the rationalizing of suicide? Existence in the first place? What preceeds your existence?

You can't say I should kill myself (should= do what is rational) but then say but then I should not have existed in the first place. Then of course, but I do exist, therefore I should not kill myself. If I should kill myself, then another should kill me, and I should kill, etc., etc.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 04:55 AM

This is all simple enough, I won't feel it so why should it matter, that type of thing. Almost the same as killing another, it shouldn't make me feel bad to put them out of existence, they won't care, they won't be there to care.

Good question. What are the consequences to someone if you kill them? None. So, why should we not kill?

So thence, the question comes down to selfishness.

In a sense. We only have our self to go on. I firmly believe that all of our decisions are selfish ones. The only reason we do things is because they please us. As social animals, we are programmed to form empathic bonds with others and thus their pleasure and pain becomes our pleasure and pain. So when we help another and give them pleasure we are doing so because it gives us pleasure.

justaman

01-12-2005, 04:56 AM

Man I've got like 5 bucks which only buys me 30 mins in this internet cafe so I'm going to have to wait to answer some of the stuff in this thread.

In the meantime, I have virtually identical worldviews to David Gould and Zoot, we've established this over about a year of debating. At a guess I'd say vm is pretty much the same also, especially how you describe not 'trusting' yourself enough to suicide. That is such a good way of describing how I feel.

I wonder then what is it that makes us all deviate slightly at the last minute with our conclusions about life?

Like I said before, I have this constant thought of 'It's never wrong to suicide', sitting like a poster on my wall which keeps preventing me that accepting meaning-to-me is sufficiant, or anything beyond being arbitrary. Even when I'm having a thrilling time doing whatever, I still think "If I die now, it doesn't matter. The fact that I feel good doesn't actually mean anything to me at all."

Do you guys have something like this? Do you find yourself saying "You know I agree with everything he says, but I just can't get around [X]."

I'm very curious about why we all come to such different conclusions when we have such similar ways of thinking about reality.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 04:57 AM

What preceeds the rationalizing of suicide? Existence in the first place? What preceeds your existence?

You can't say I should kill myself (should= do what is rational) but then say but then I should not have existed in the first place. Then of course, but I do exist, therefore I should not kill myself. If I should kill myself, then another should kill me, and I should kill, etc., etc.

Big difference: we cannot choose to never have existed in the sense you mean. We exist. Hence, we work from there.

Sweetie

01-12-2005, 05:00 AM

Big difference: we cannot choose to never have existed in the sense you mean. We exist. Hence, we work from there.

Nah man, that is not what I mean. I mean if we start there, rationalizing from a certain point on, we are only rationalizing forward, we have not rationalized backwards, back to the need be assumption. This is tunnel vision, it only sees one way, to the not 'real' consequences, it hasn't looked backwards at all to the consequence and consequences of one's own existence.

It assumes I think, I should exist in order to show that it is rational not to.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 05:02 AM

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 05:13 AM

It might just be extremely subtle. My view is that it does not matter if I die but what reason is there to choose to do so? In other words, the very fact that I know that I will die at some point means that I do not have to worry about making the choice to suicide. In a sense, that choice has already been made for me. I can set it aside completely and just live my life and have fun in the now.
That's just about exactly how I feel about it. In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl talks about being in Auschwitz with people who have been stripped of everything that gave their lives meaning. Their homes, posessesions, families, careers, future hopes... condemned to spend the rest of their lives in horrible misery, surrounded by sickness and death, and most of all... the knowledge that their god allowed this. And yet they still found the will to live. His conclusion (as I remember it ... it's been 15 years since I read it) was basically that we make it up as we go along. We create our own meaning out of whatever we have to work with. Something like that. Anyway, that's basically where I'm at. :yup:

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 05:16 AM

Oh, and I have an irrational fear of being dead. :P

Dragar

01-12-2005, 09:33 AM

David's argument...I think...fails at the point where it talks about death having no consequences.

But if the only reason we do things is because of consequences, then what motivation is there to suicide?

And because of that, I don't want to suicide.

viscousmemories

01-12-2005, 04:15 PM

David's argument...I think...fails at the point where it talks about death having no consequences.
Even if he qualified it to say personal consequences?

But if the only reason we do things is because of consequences, then what motivation is there to suicide?
I think that was what he meant when he said "My view is that it does not matter if I die but what reason is there to choose to do so?" I'm pretty much in agreement with that.

And because of that, I don't want to suicide.
Glad to hear it. But I think his argument was that it's the only rational choice, not that everyone should want to do it. :)

LadyShea

01-12-2005, 05:18 PM

I think I still need a definition of "rational" as it is being used here. I don't think we can conclude that any choice is objectively rational, as I believe it is a subjective term. I may be wrong, though if I am I would like it demonstrated please.

Dragar

01-12-2005, 07:02 PM

Glad to hear it. But I think his argument was that it's the only rational choice, not that everyone should want to do it.

But look at what the word rational means:

"If a rational system desires X and believes Y is the best way of bringing about X, and has no conflicting desires, then the system will do X."

Now, that's what I think of when someone says 'rational' to me. You cannot predict the behaviour of a rational system based only on beliefs. You need to know the desires. Justaman must first show that we desire to suicide. Or, that we would desire to if we were thinking clearly.

Dragar

01-12-2005, 07:03 PM

I think that was what he meant when he said "My view is that it does not matter if I die but what reason is there to choose to do so?" I'm pretty much in agreement with that.

Yup, me too.

Zoot

01-12-2005, 09:57 PM

In the meantime, I have virtually identical worldviews to David Gould and Zoot, we've established this over about a year of debating.

Do you guys have something like this? Do you find yourself saying "You know I agree with everything he says, but I just can't get around [X]."

Nope. I find myself saying, "You know, he believes objective morality is a coherent notion and I don't. We have entirely different views of the world."

You seem to be saying the following. Correct me if I'm wrong.

1. We cannot avoid making decisions.
2. We evaluate our options in terms of values.
3. One value common to all humans is easevalue.
4. There are other values, but they are reducable.
5. Because easevalue is the only unreducable value, "it is logical" to evaluate options only by that value.
6. When evaluated only by that value, suicide is the most preferable option.

If that's an accurate portrayal of your position, my problem is primarily with (5). I haven't seen you say anything that doesn't essentially translate "it is logical" to "it is correct"/"it is objectively good"/"it is preferable for no reason".

That may make sense to, say, Seebs, who thinks that preferability is some property of actions somehow independent of preferrers, but it makes no sense to me. Preferability is, by its very nature, an evaluation that refers back to value criteria. There's no preferable that is not preferable-in-terms-of-something.

So my question is:

Can you provide a fact about the world that results in preferability of an option without referring back to other criteria?

David Gould

01-12-2005, 11:10 PM

I think my argument fails due to Lady Shea's points. The fact is, we make our decisions in the now and so how we feel in that now is what is important.

We cannot conceive non-existence. Therefore, non-existence cannot actually impact our thinking. If we think of Hamlet's speech, he goes straight from thinking death as sleep to worrying about the kinds of dreams he will have. Hamlet cannot imagine non-existence, and neither can we.

All we can do is use our experience of existence to make choices on. So when we think of killing ourselves in a noble cause weighed against the suffering our death will cause others then we are thinking in terms of our existence, not our non-existence as that is impossible.

I think that Justaman fails to convince precisely because we cannot conceive of our non-existence.

I think that the choice to die is non-rational. And the choice to live is non-rational. And thus we need other grounds on which to make that choice. And that is emotions. Now, Dragar (and Justaman) may be right in considering emotions as rational, but I think that rationality and irrationality are clear enough - a phobia of non-poisonous spiders is not rational (there is no reason to be afraid of them). Obviously, there is a cause for your fear but it is not a rational one.

Dragar

01-12-2005, 11:21 PM

Now, Dragar (and Justaman) may be right in considering emotions as rational...

Whoa! Where did I give the impression I thought they were 'rational'? Systems are rational. Beliefs are rational (assuming they're not just picked randomly). We don't pick and choose our emotions, so I never intended to suggest they were rational.

I also would class fear of a poisonous spider as irrational, David. There is no 'reason' to be afraid of anything, from the perspective of a subject. Sure, you could argue that you're afraid because it will kill you, or hurt you. But why are you afraid of those? It's not rational.

You don't conclude to be afraid!

There are, of course, good evolutionary reasons why. And doubtless biological and chemical and physical ones. But that's regarding yourself as an object, not a subject.

David Gould

01-12-2005, 11:32 PM

Whoa! Where did I give the impression I thought they were 'rational'? Systems are rational. Beliefs are rational (assuming they're not just picked randomly). We don't pick and choose our emotions, so I never intended to suggest they were rational.

I just got the impression from the way you were using rational. It seemed to me that it defined every action as rational. Sorry.

I also would class fear of a poisonous spider as irrational, David. There is no 'reason' to be afraid of anything, from the perspective of a subject. Sure, you could argue that you're afraid because it will kill you, or hurt you. But why are you afraid of those? It's not rational.

You don't conclude to be afraid!

There are, of course, good evolutionary reasons why. And doubtless biological and chemical and physical ones. But that's regarding yourself as an object, not a subject.

But fears can be alleviated by rational thinking about them. In other words, you see a spider and feel afraid. Then you say to yourself, 'It is not a poisonous one.' And you feel less afraid - or, indeed, the fear goes away entirely if you are just afraid of poisonous ones.

I am starting to think that it is pretty difficult to determine what is indeed a rational thought or conclusion. After all, two people coming to two different conclusion may both well be considered to be thinking rationally. Is it all about the input? The problem here is that then we are forced to conclude that everyone acts perfectly rationally.

So what is rationality?

Dragar

01-12-2005, 11:38 PM

Hmm.

Okay, you're right. I'm being very inconsistent in my definitions. This is what I think of by 'rational':

"If a rational system desires X and believes Y is the best way of bringing about X, and has no conflicting desires, then the system will do Y."

I'd probably extend the properties of a rational system to include basic logic processing (e.g. if a rational system belives A=B and B=C, then it will also believe A=C).

That's my best description of what 'rational' means when I say it.

Edited: Corrected, thanks to LadyShea. :)

LadyShea

01-12-2005, 11:49 PM

Dragar, I don't understand what you mean by system. Can you insert a person into your forumula so I can understand the definition?

Thanks again for all the discussion guys. I have learned a lot and thought a lot during it :)

Dragar

01-12-2005, 11:56 PM

Dragar, I don't understand what you mean by system. Can you insert a person into your forumula so I can understand the definition?

Sure. Just substitute 'system' for 'human' or 'person' or 'Justaman' ( ;) ), if you like.

LadyShea

01-13-2005, 12:01 AM

Okay cool. I wasn't sure if it applied to persons

If a rational person desires X and believes Y is the best way of bringing about X, and has no conflicting desires, then the person will do X

Although shouldn't it be

If a rational person desires X and believes Y is the best way of bringing about X, and has no conflicting desires, then the person will do Y

Dragar

01-13-2005, 12:01 AM

Erm...

Yes. :)

David Gould

01-13-2005, 12:22 AM

Dragar

01-13-2005, 12:25 AM

Can you provide an example where this would not be the case in a human? In other words, can you provide an example of an irrational human?

It seems to me that the 'conflicting desires' part cover any kind of so-called irrationality, making it impossible for a human to be irrational under this definition.

I'd agree. Humans are rational systems. But Justaman's problem is he is trying to completely ignore the 'desires' part.

Hmm. An example of an irrational human...

I'm afraid I can't. Possibly mental illnesses? We usally say, "You're acting irrationally!" when we either get a person's beliefs wrong, or their desires wrong. I'm not convinced anyone really does act irrationally, although I do not know precisely how mental illnesses work.

David Gould

01-13-2005, 12:28 AM

I'd agree. Humans are rational systems. But Justaman's problem is he is trying to completely ignore the 'desires' part.

Hmm. An example of an irrational human...

I'm afraid I can't. Possibly mental illnesses? We usally say, "You're acting irrationally!" when we either get a person's beliefs wrong, or their desires wrong. I'm not convinced anyone really does act irrationally, although I do not know precisely how mental illnesses work.

Fair enough. I think you are right that Justaman is ignoring the desires. But we should remember that he is looking at the desires and wondering what they are based on - for example, why do we desire to live?

Dragar

01-13-2005, 12:32 AM

David Gould

01-13-2005, 12:42 AM

Fair enough. I think you are right that Justaman is ignoring the desires. But we should remember that he is looking at the desires and wondering what they are based on - for example, why do we desire to live?

Because of physics, biology, evolution, etc.

Why does all matter desire to fall to Earth? ;)

I think Justaman's notion of rationality is a little different. In other words, all of our thoughts, dreams, wishes et cetera are products of physical laws. But those physical laws do not in themselves create any oughts. Yet one of our strongest desires/beliefs/wishes is that we should live. Yet there is actually no reason at all why we should live at all. We also know that our inclination to want to live is based on our biology. We know that we are programmed to want to live. There is no actual reason to want to live, other than the programming.

If we did the rational thing (under Justaman's definition) we would do our best to ignore the programming altogether. Of course, this is impossible. Indeed, the only way to do so is to suicide. The act itself would still be a programmed one, of course, but after the act the programming would no longer have a hold on us, for obvious reasons.

Nihilism has really only come to be thought about as we have understood more and more about how we work. I think it relates to the notion of human autonomy. The only way we can break out of the cause and effect chain that traps us into the paradox of believing that we are free is to suicide.

But of course this ignores the obvious: what is inherently wrong with being trapped in a cause and effect chain?

David Gould

01-13-2005, 12:43 AM

But the fact is that we do. It doesn't matter why, any more the 'why' of a stone falling to Earth matters to the fact it will.

I'm not making 'should' statements. I'm making 'is' statements. It is the case we have this desire, and it is the case we will follow it.

And Justaman is then asking 'Should we?' I think you are right in seeing this as a problem.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 12:46 AM

Right. I'm with you. But, as Zoot has been pointing out, this is straying very dangerously close to objective values. Look here:

Yet one of our strongest desires/beliefs/wishes is that we should live. Yet there is actually no reason at all why we should live at all.

Of course there is no reason why we should live. That's how objectivism works! Justaman is looking for a Reason with an upper-case R.

We're relativists.

If we did the rational thing (under Justaman's definition) we would do our best to ignore the programming altogether.

What is Justaman's definition?

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 12:59 AM

David Gould

01-13-2005, 01:05 AM

Right. I'm with you. But, as Zoot has been pointing out, this is straying very dangerously close to objective values.

Of course there is no reason why we should live. That's how objectivism works! Justaman is looking for a Reason with an upper-case R.

We're relativists.

Exactly. Nihilism is based on this:

1.) Objective values are required for us to choose to continue living.
2.) Objective values do not exist.
3.) We should not continue living.

We reject 1 as an incoherent statement. However, Justaman is saying that we all secretly believe 1 and secretly reject 2, which is why we do not come to 3.

What is Justaman's definition?

He has not given it explicitly, as far as I know. My best, possibly very poor, attempt is this: a rational person does things for logical reasons.

In other words, we have a sex drive. But we do not just obey it; we restrain it with our desire to not just be a puppet of our biology. Justaman is suggesting that we actually let the whole thing flap off with no basis because we do not face the fact that everything we do is us being puppets of our biology, including us not desiring to be puppets of our biology.

This is why he thinks that those people who reject free will and objective meaning should come to nihilism.

Zoot

01-13-2005, 01:10 AM

Aversion to a spider can be rational or irrational only in so far as one is judging the consistency of the aversion with the values to which it refers. For example, I am afraid of poisonous spiders because I have an aversion to pain. That is a reasonable application of aversion to pain to a particular instance of something that could cause me pain.

If I am afraid of all spiders because I am under the impression that they all have the capacity to cause me pain, that too is rational, though operating on mistaken information regarding the nature of the spiders.

If I am afraid of a poisonous spider in a glass cage, one that I perceive is incapable of causing me pain, that is irrational, because it is not a consistent application of the value to the situation.

However, all of these instances are rational or irrational in terms of their consistency with the value to which they refer - the aversion to pain. The aversion to pain itself, however, cannot be evaluated as rational or irrational. Applications of values can be rational or irrational, but values themselves cannot.

justaman

01-13-2005, 03:54 AM

Nope. I find myself saying, "You know, he believes objective morality is a coherent notion and I don't. We have entirely different views of the world."
Why does water collect in the lowest part of the bowl, objective morality, or the objective laws of the universe?

Are humans immune to the objective laws of the universe?

This isn't about objective morality and never has been. It is about
objectivity, but that doesn't = objective morality.

So your current objection to number 5 (FYI that list you did was pretty accurate, I think) is invalid. It is not 'correct' to choose to evalute by easevalue, it is simply rational. To not choose to evalute by easevalue, you are being irrational. But that's not to say you can't choose it still. It's just that in all other cases, humans like to think they are being rational.

So my question is:

Can you provide a fact about the world that results in preferability of an option without referring back to other criteria?
No. Again, if I could, my argument would hold less water than it does now :P

I'm not sure if you count the desire to be rational as a value or not, but it is the driving force behind the argument.

justaman

01-13-2005, 04:07 AM

Exactly. Nihilism is based on this:

1.) Objective values are required for us to choose to continue living.
2.) Objective values do not exist.
3.) We should not continue living.

We reject 1 as an incoherent statement. However, Justaman is saying that we all secretly believe 1 and secretly reject 2, which is why we do not come to 3.

:2thumbsup:

He has not given it explicitly, as far as I know. My best, possibly very poor, attempt is this: a rational person does things for logical reasons.

Pretty much. I should probably expound 'rational' more, since I'm using it so much here.

As an example, I believe the world came into existence from the big bang and there is no God. A fundamentalist beleives the world was created by God in 7 days.

Both beliefs are logical. They were learned, criteria was met, satisfactory answers were given to probing questions. They differ in their rationale, however. One is based primarily around observation, the other (as an example) is based primarily around the fact that the individual has something emotionally to gain by believing what he does. The smaller probability of the belief being objectively true is then offset by the emotional desire for the perceived rewards.

That would be irrational. A conclusion is preferred because of emotive drives impacting upon the individual and skewing his perception.

In the context of nihilism, I believe it is irrational to continue living because we do so purely out of emotional reasons - reasons which we don't like thinking we use in almost every other facet of life. I remain unconvinced that emotion should be used here. An argument you use often David is "Emotion is all that is left". But that's all that is left to convince one they should live. This is assuming that it is axiomatic that we should live.

I would in fact say that since emotion is all that is left to justify living, we are therefore bereft of rational reason and to do so is being irrational by definition.

justaman

01-13-2005, 04:13 AM

Erm... not all humans desire to live. And some desire not to live.

When I say rational, I mean an unemotional, logical decision. Hence since I agree with Justamans essential points about the essence of non-existence, I think the purely rational decision is to get off the mouse wheel now.

However, I don't think people are or should be purely rational. In my opinion, emotion matters and should be taken into account. But the problem I have with purely emotional arguments for living (think of the pain you'll cause people!) is the same problem I have with purely emotional arguments for dying (no more pain!). I just don't think we should trust something as volatile and malleable as emotional impulse when making important decisions.
Why is this an important decision? I agree with 99% of what you say, I think we simply differ in how we ultimately consider the endstate. I don't now believe suicide is necessarily a bad thing. In point of fact, it might be the smart thing to do, in which case all of the taboo vanishes, and you drive off a cliff as cheerfully as swigging from a beer :P

justaman

01-13-2005, 04:24 AM

Sorry I skipped this, been away doing stuff.

P.S. From now on I'm calling you 'Sheriff'. Get it?? Get it?? :wriggle: That's awesome I bet no one ever thought of that before, hey? I'm the best :yup:

Mostly because it's wrong. Spread out spacetime, like a map. Can you see me? I'm there, in a certain region of that map. I trace out a line, if you like, which has a finite length of spacetime.

If you are treating time any differently to space, you are doing something wrong in your analysis. :)
I'd be doing something wrong if I were trying to posit this was what reality was like. I'm not. I'm suggesting this is what your individual subjectivity will be like. That being the case, the reality of reality is in fact irrelevant because you aren't reality. You are the subjective bit which - when it stops existing - will cease to have a past.

But deterministic chemistry and biology (and physics!) in our brains is us. I don't distinguish between myself and reality.
You should. :) That part of reality which calls itself Dragar - and is called Sheriff by others - that bit which is typing responses, making decisions, etc, will cease to exist at a point and that part of it doing the thinking, processing, etc will never have existed by its own estimation.

You can intellectually deny there is a 'you'. I do as well, it's fun. But we both still yelp when we stub our toes.

I think the rest of your post has been addressed by the other guys, but lemme know if not.

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 05:06 AM

Why is this an important decision? I agree with 99% of what you say, I think we simply differ in how we ultimately consider the endstate. I don't now believe suicide is necessarily a bad thing. In point of fact, it might be the smart thing to do, in which case all of the taboo vanishes, and you drive off a cliff as cheerfully as swigging from a beer :P
Hehe. I hesitated to say important, but decided to let it go. It's subjectively important to me now, to do that which will cause the least amount of pain to those people who care about me. Hence while I agree that this consideration would be irrelevant were I to die, it is relevant to the choices I make until then.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 10:43 AM

Sorry I skipped this, been away doing stuff.

P.S. From now on I'm calling you 'Sheriff'. Get it?? Get it?? :wriggle: That's awesome I bet no one ever thought of that before, hey? I'm the best :yup:

I don't get it...

But I'm sure I'll laugh when you clue me in. :)

You should. :) That part of reality which calls itself Dragar - and is called Sheriff by others - that bit which is typing responses, making decisions, etc, will cease to exist at a point and that part of it doing the thinking, processing, etc will never have existed by its own estimation.

No, there won't be any estimation. Its not there, remember?

You can intellectually deny there is a 'you'. I do as well, it's fun. But we both still yelp when we stub our toes.

Maybe we're not yelping?

That would be irrational. A conclusion is preferred because of emotive drives impacting upon the individual and skewing his perception.

In the context of nihilism, I believe it is irrational to continue living because we do so purely out of emotional reasons - reasons which we don't like thinking we use in almost every other facet of life.

This is where you're going wrong. You're using 'rational' in one sense to mean 'drawing conclusions about reality using emotional reasons'.

You're using 'rational' in another sense to mean 'acting due to emotional reasons'.

You do not decide what you want to do based on logic. What you want to do is never chosen; it is your desires. You do not choose desires. Logic merely allows true/false to be returned on beliefs about various paths to take to satisfy those desires.

I'm quite happy to be irrational by your second definition (all humans are irrational, by those standards), and I strive not to be irrational by your first.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 10:46 AM

Erm... not all humans desire to live. And some desire not to live.

Sure. And they're the ones that, if that desire overpowers the rest, will suicide.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 11:44 AM

In other words, we have a sex drive. But we do not just obey it; we restrain it with our desire to not just be a puppet of our biology.

But...we are restraining it due to our biology. It just happens to be more recently evolved parts.

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 03:27 PM

Erm... not all humans desire to live. And some desire not to live.
Sure. And they're the ones that, if that desire overpowers the rest, will suicide.
But should they?

I think there's some confusion here.

Justaman appears to be saying that we desire to live, but we shouldn't.

You appear to be saying that we desire to live... but stopping short of a should.

So back to my question. Should someone who loses the desire to live commit suicide?

LadyShea

01-13-2005, 03:37 PM

[QUOTE=Dragar]
But should they?

I think there's some confusion here.

Justaman appears to be saying that we desire to live, but we shouldn't.

You appear to be saying that we desire to live... but stopping short of a should.

So back to my question. Should someone who loses the desire to live commit suicide?

Hmm, someone mentioned they weren't thinking in terms of "should", but simply what is. "Should" is a subjective term.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 06:04 PM

You appear to be saying that we desire to live... but stopping short of a should.

That's right. Or at least, I believe we all desire to live. I'm only really certain that I desire to live (or at least, it seems like I desire to live - but I can't be mistaken about that).

I could be wrong. Maybe some people here don't desire to live. I know some people don't - they suicide. I almost did, once, so I know first hand what it was like. ;)

So back to my question. Should someone who loses the desire to live commit suicide?

I think someone probably will, unless they have some other desires.

But I cannot answer a 'should' question. 'Should' is subjective. Should-to-me? Certainly. But I can't persuade anyone of that. I can't make you like chocolate. I can't even persuade you to. It's the same with 'shoulds'. I can't make it should-to-you.

At least, not without messing with your brain.

Step into the laboratory, for a second? :doctor2:

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 08:25 PM

That's right. Or at least, I believe we all desire to live. I'm only really certain that I desire to live (or at least, it seems like I desire to live - but I can't be mistaken about that).

I think I'm still unsure what you mean about "desire to live". I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm thirsty, I sleep when I'm tired, I breathe when I need oxygen, etc. None of these actions reflects an unemotional, logical choice between living and dying. These are simply indications of 'normal' human brain function. Acting not rationally, but out of instinct and habit. What I described early in this thread as 'inertia'. No conscious "desire to live" required.

But I cannot answer a 'should' question. 'Should' is subjective. Should-to-me? Certainly. But I can't persuade anyone of that. I can't make you like chocolate. I can't even persuade you to. It's the same with 'shoulds'. I can't make it should-to-you.
And I'm also not sure what you mean that you can't answer a 'should' question. I mean I know you don't believe in objective morality, but what about intersubjectively?

:doctor2:
:wave:

Dragar

01-13-2005, 09:05 PM

I think I'm still unsure what you mean about "desire to live". I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm thirsty, I sleep when I'm tired, I breathe when I need oxygen, etc. None of these actions reflects an unemotional, logical choice between living and dying. These are simply indications of 'normal' human brain function. Acting not rationally, but out of instinct and habit. What I described early in this thread as 'inertia'. No conscious "desire to live" required.

I agree. Bug hunger produces discomfort, and we desire to remove that discomfort. Unless, I suppose, you enjoy feeling hungry. Sometimes I do, since it means that I'll enjoy my meal more. So I suppose you could say my desire for further pleasure is greater than my immediate desire to remove my discomfort at hunger.

But I also desire to live. I'm assuming you do, but I could be wrong.

In what sense are you using the word 'rational'? Justaman has given two definitions, I have given one...is it one of those, or are we to bring a fourth version into this thread? :)

And I'm also not sure what you mean that you can't answer a 'should' question. I mean I know you don't believe in objective morality, but what about intersubjectively?

That's just shared subjective values, isn't it? We all find chocolate tasty. But I can't say I'm familiar with the word, so if that's wrong, correct me.

What I meant by the 'I can't answer a should' question is that there I cannot tell you if something is Good, or if we Should do something. I can only tell you that it is good-to-me, or that it is a should-from-my-perspective. But saying those things I am making statements about me, not the concept.

I think we should live. But that is a statement about me, and my perceptions and evaluations. Not a statement about living.

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 09:46 PM

I agree. Bug hunger produces discomfort, and we desire to remove that discomfort. Unless, I suppose, you enjoy feeling hungry. Sometimes I do, since it means that I'll enjoy my meal more. So I suppose you could say my desire for further pleasure is greater than my immediate desire to remove my discomfort at hunger.

But I also desire to live. I'm assuming you do, but I could be wrong.
I don't think I desire to live, no. I mean contrasted with non-existence, life is not particularly attractive. Consider this hypothetical question:

You have two choices:

You spend the next 60 or so years with someone alternately punching and kissing you, or leaving you alone. If you play your cards right, you can get kissed (or at least left alone) more than punched. But no matter what you do you're going to get punched a lot.

Alternatively, you could experience nothing at all for eternity.

In the big picture, which is more desirable and why?

In what sense are you using the word 'rational'? Justaman has given two definitions, I have given one...is it one of those, or are we to bring a fourth version into this thread? :)
I'm not even sure how I'm using the word generally. I honestly worked on that post for an hour and went through many revisions. There's a very good chance I don't have the slightest idea what I'm trying to say, so this time I'm just gonna think aloud and post it. :)

But... in that particular instance I was using it to mean making an unemotional, logical choice.

That's just shared subjective values, isn't it? We all find chocolate tasty. But I can't say I'm familiar with the word, so if that's wrong, correct me.
Right. As I understand it intersubjective values are values we reach by social agreement.

What I meant by the 'I can't answer a should' question is that there I cannot tell you if something is Good, or if we Should do something. I can only tell you that it is good-to-me, or that it is a should-from-my-perspective. But saying those things I am making statements about me, not the concept.
So you aren't willing to make any moral judgements? Like say, people shouldn't eat children?

I think we should live. But that is a statement about me, and my perceptions and evaluations. Not a statement about living.
Fair enough. :)

Dragar

01-13-2005, 10:02 PM

I don't think I desire to live, no.

Oh.

I mean contrasted with non-existence, life is not particularly attractive. Consider this hypothetical question:

You have two choices:

You spend the next 60 or so years with someone alternately punching and kissing you, or leaving you alone. If you play your cards right, you can get kissed (or at least left alone) more than punched. But no matter what you do you're going to get punched a lot.

Alternatively, you could experience nothing at all for eternity.

In the big picture, which is more desirable and why?

I'm not sure. I can't comprehend the idea of 'nothing at all', to be honest.

But, regardless, right now life doesn't appear to consist of many punches. It consists of lots of kisses. I honestly love living. I can't express how much joy it gives me, just to be able to breathe in and out!

I'm in no pain. I have more food than my ancestors ever dreamed of. I have plenty of intellectual stimulation, social contact as well as games to play. I'm having an awesome time!

Will there be punches along the way? Sure. But, to be honest, they often make the kisses all the sweeter.

Now, if I were to be locked up in a tower and beaten for the rest of my natural life, perhaps with a kiss once a week, suicide might start to look appealing.

There's a very good chance I don't have the slightest idea what I'm trying to say, so this time I'm just gonna think aloud and post it. :)

That's okay. I'm sure we'll figure out what you're trying to say as we progress. :)

But... in that particular instance I was using it to mean making an unemotional, logical choice.

Could you give me an example of a 'logical choice', so I know what the heck one is? Or how it differs from an illogical choice (since I don't know what one of those is, either)?

So you aren't willing to make any moral judgements? Like say, people shouldn't eat children?

Sure, I can say 'people shouldn't eat children'. But I view it in completely the same light as 'chocolate tastes nice'. Both these things are statements about me. And just as my actions will be influenced by the fact I experience chocolate as tasty (and I will seek out chocolate) I will be influenced by the fact I experience eating children as wrong (and I will attempt to stop people eating children - should I come across such behaviour).

And, obviously, the magnitude 'people should not eat children' affects my behaviour is far greater than 'chocolate is nice'.

Zoot

01-13-2005, 10:05 PM

Why does water collect in the lowest part of the bowl, objective morality, or the objective laws of the universe?

Are humans immune to the objective laws of the universe?

Why do animals avoid death as much as they can? Are humans immune to the laws of animal life?

This isn't about objective morality and never has been. It is about
objectivity, but that doesn't = objective morality.

It became about objective morality the moment you evaluated one value as superior to others.

So your current objection to number 5 (FYI that list you did was pretty accurate, I think) is invalid. It is not 'correct' to choose to evalute by easevalue, it is simply rational. To not choose to evalute by easevalue, you are being irrational. But that's not to say you can't choose it still. It's just that in all other cases, humans like to think they are being rational.

What is rational about picking one value from many and declaring it supreme?

Zoot

01-13-2005, 10:22 PM

Again, there's no such thing as a rational or irrational value. There are only rational or irrational applications of a value.

LadyShea

01-13-2005, 10:33 PM

You have two choices:

You spend the next 60 or so years with someone alternately punching and kissing you, or leaving you alone. If you play your cards right, you can get kissed (or at least left alone) more than punched. But no matter what you do you're going to get punched a lot.

Alternatively, you could experience nothing at all for eternity.

In the big picture, which is more desirable and why?

Why would there ever be only two choices? Being alive means you have the ability to act and possibly change or affect any given circumstance. So, you could choose to simply disengage from the punch/kiss/ignore cycle person, or try to find a way of increasing the kisses and decreasing the punches, or start punching back, etc. You are never really locked into a set of circumstances...even people who are incarcerated can spend their time learning, devising elaborate escape plans, masturbating, whatever to make the circumstances more preferable.

Of course, I also believe it is better to experience something, anything, over nothing.

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 10:37 PM

I'm not sure. I can't comprehend the idea of 'nothing at all', to be honest.
I keep hearing these words from people here, and I can't comprehend them. :P You seem to understand the meaning of "ceasing to exist", yet you are unable to comprehend it? How do you define comprehend?

But, regardless, right now life doesn't appear to consist of many punches. It consists of lots of kisses. I honestly love living. I can't express how much joy it gives me, just to be able to breathe in and out!

I'm in no pain. I have more food than my ancestors ever dreamed of. I have plenty of intellectual stimulation, social contact as well as games to play. I'm having an awesome time!

Will there be punches along the way? Sure. But, to be honest, they often make the kisses all the sweeter.

Now, if I were to be locked up in a tower and beaten for the rest of my natural life, perhaps with a kiss once a week, suicide might start to look appealing.
Oh.

Could you give me an example of a 'logical choice', so I know what the heck one is? Or how it differs from an illogical choice (since I don't know what one of those is, either)?
I actually said "unemotional, logical choice" and I contrasted it with instinct and habit. I believe all 'choices' are logical by definition, but some are emotion-based and some aren't.

Sure, I can say 'people shouldn't eat children'. But I view it in completely the same light as 'chocolate tastes nice'. Both these things are statements about me. And just as my actions will be influenced by the fact I experience chocolate as tasty (and I will seek out chocolate) I will be influenced by the fact I experience eating children as wrong (and I will attempt to stop people eating children - should I come across such behaviour).
So do you think everyone should be free to do whatever they feel is morally right and act to stop people doing whatever they feel is morally wrong? In other words is it morally okay for me to eat children if I think it is?

LadyShea

01-13-2005, 10:51 PM

So do you think everyone should be free to do whatever they feel is morally right and act to stop people doing whatever they feel is morally wrong? In other words is it morally okay for me to eat children if I think it is?

I read him not as saying that it's okay, only that you would think it's moral and he would think it's immoral. No real statement about "should" or "free", just again, a statement of what is.

l

David Gould

01-13-2005, 11:08 PM

Exactly, Lady Shea. There is only what I feel is wrong and what you feel is wrong. The reason there is conflict is that people are different - in other words, their genetics, biology and experiences have led them to feel differently about what is right and wrong. We cannot escape from the way we feel about things such as chocolate and baby eating. Some people may well have a 'let everyone do what they want to do' attitude but the problem with this is that things that others do affect you, at least emotionally. We respond to the tsunami appeal and so forth, and react with horror at the atrocities committed in Rwanda.

viscousmemories

01-13-2005, 11:19 PM

David Gould

01-13-2005, 11:40 PM

Well I disagree with that. I believe the statement "It is wrong to eat babies" is true, regardless of who is speaking, because of a nearly universal social agreement that the subjective moral argument against baby eating is compelling; hence eating babies is intersubjectively morally wrong.

But all that means is that lots of people are genetically, biologically and environmentally programmed to believe that eating babies is wrong. I would suggest that the moral argument is not the factor - our biology is the key here.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 11:40 PM

I keep hearing these words from people here, and I can't comprehend them. :P You seem to understand the meaning of "ceasing to exist", yet you are unable to comprehend it? How do you define comprehend?

I mean...difficult for me to imagine what it will be like.

Like being asleep, I suppose.

I actually said "unemotional, logical choice" and I contrasted it with instinct and habit. I believe all 'choices' are logical by definition, but some are emotion-based and some aren't.

What's an unemotional choice, then?

An emotional choice would be, like, going to see a play because it will make you happy?

So do you think everyone should be free to do whatever they feel is morally right and act to stop people doing whatever they feel is morally wrong?

No, I said people will do whatever they feel is morally right and act to stop people doing what is morally wrong.

What we should do is subjective, remember?

In other words is it morally okay for me to eat children if I think it is?

Here's a tip for thinking about subjective morality. Whenver you say 'should' or 'good' always make sure you specify to who.

Now, is it okay-to-me? No. Is it okay-to-you? I don't know. We'd have to peek inside your brain, and see how you experience it, or ask you. If you did experience it as okay, then yes, it would be okay-to-you.

Dragar

01-13-2005, 11:44 PM

Well I disagree with that. I believe the statement "It is wrong to eat babies" is true, regardless of who is speaking, because of a nearly universal social agreement that the subjective moral argument against baby eating is compelling; hence eating babies is intersubjectively morally wrong.

"It is wrong to eat babies" is an evaluation. This statement, under subjectve morality, is meaningless unless you specify who it is wrong to.

Sweetie

01-13-2005, 11:45 PM

In the context of nihilism, I believe it is irrational to continue living because we do so purely out of emotional reasons - reasons which we don't like thinking we use in almost every other facet of life. I remain unconvinced that emotion should be used here. An argument you use often David is "Emotion is all that is left". But that's all that is left to convince one they should live. This is assuming that it is axiomatic that we should live.

If emotion is all that is left, well then, there is the entrance to the arguements of some Liberal Christians often a modified version of Pascal's Wager, or so it seems to me.

Sweetie

01-13-2005, 11:55 PM

I think someone probably will, unless they have some other desires.

But I cannot answer a 'should' question. 'Should' is subjective. Should-to-me? Certainly. But I can't persuade anyone of that. I can't make you like chocolate. I can't even persuade you to. It's the same with 'shoulds'. I can't make it should-to-you.

At least, not without messing with your brain.

This is dependent upon your definition of should which doesn't make any sense. You can't then say "I shouldn't cause this person suffering if I believe that I shouldn't cause someone suffering." Even if you can't persuade anybody, you can still show that this or that is more consistent or this or that is not consistent. We know that from premises flow fallicies, many people think some things prove this or that but it doesn't necessarily, because their reasoning is faulty. If X equals Y but they figure X equals Z and they do Z, that's unreasonable. That may be what they base their systems on, but they have reached a faulty conclusion and are acting against reason.

You can say, if you believe that you shouldn't cause someone suffering and yet you are stealing from them you are acting irrationally, because the stealing causes suffering. It may not equate in their minds but that doesn't mean even still, that they have acted rationally. Too, they can choose to do even what they know to be irrational.

I don't know, I have some theist friends, two of which are obviously highly intelligent and both claim the same thing, that pyschology has some interesting things to say on this subject which affect the way they see these cases as presented here. I hope to one day be well-versed in pyschology.

Dragar

01-14-2005, 12:01 AM

I feel I need to make a quick post on clarifications.

First, let's look at objective values.

In this scenario, statements like 'X is good' and 'X is beautiful' and 'X is wrong' are either true or false. It doesn't matter who you are, what you are. These things are features of X. 'X is good' means 'X has the property of being good' and that's not going to change depending on who you are.

The probelm is that nobody has ever found a way of demonstrating, either by empirical methods or deductive reasoning, how to determine if something is good, beautiful or wrong.

Now, subjective values.

In this scenario, statements like 'X is good' or 'X is beautiful' or 'X is wrong' are meaningless. What is normally assumed is that the speaker has intended to attach '-to-me' at the end, and forgotten.

In this situation, good, beautiful and wrong are properties of the how the person experiences X, not of X itself.

There is also a crucial difference. Saying 'X is good-to-me' is stating an is, not an ought statement. "It is the case that 'X-is-good-to-me'."

In theory, and if we were clever enough, we could find out if something was 'good-to-Dragar', by ripping open Dragar's skull and looking at his brain. Of course, this assumes a complete theory and understanding of neuroscience, which we do not have.

A simpler method would be to ask him.

It avoids confusion if you follow simple rules. When you are discussing relative morality, always specify who things are good/beautiful/wrong to. When you are discussing objective morality, there is no need to.

Dragar

01-14-2005, 12:04 AM

You can say, if you believe that you shouldn't cause someone suffering and yet you are stealing from them you are acting irrationally, because the stealing causes suffering. It may not equate in their minds but that doesn't mean even still, that they have acted rationally. Too, they can choose to do even what they know to be irrational.

Objective morality mode:

Sometimes, yes, people fail to draw the correct conclusions about actions from their initial experiences (sorry, assumptions) about what is good and what is bad. This can either be due to faulty reasoning or false beliefs.

Dragar

01-14-2005, 12:09 AM

And with that, I'm going to bed. I hope that removed some of the confusion.

:bed:

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 12:09 AM

I may not do X because Y.

If I do X then I am acting irrationally if I have reasoned/accepted Y.

Simple:

Rational= follows from premises, consistent, etc.

Irrational= is inconsistent, contradicts, doesn't follow from the already accepted premise.

We should do what is rational, we should not do what is irrational. We should accept a scientific claim if it is rational, logical, follows from the premise, is consistent and works both by experimentation and in theory. It is irrational to accept an irrational, illogical, inconsistent claim that fails under experiment and theory, etc., etc.

You may accept an irrational scientific claim and you may reject a rational claim.

But that doesn't change that you should reject the irrational and accept or at least consider the rational claim.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 12:15 AM

Sometimes, yes, people fail to draw the correct conclusions about actions from their initial experiences (sorry, assumptions) about what is good and what is bad. This can either be due to faulty reasoning or false beliefs.

Or Ego.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 12:32 AM

You could of course, argue then that you should accept a rational claim if you value science/knowledge/learning/education, and you should not if you don't, because of course, everybody's values are different. And then, look at the absurdity of that. Ack, I can't even put it at present into the terms I would like, that's like using reason to disprove reason, using logic to show that logic is illogical.

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 01:09 AM

Exactly, Lady Shea. There is only what I feel is wrong and what you feel is wrong.
Well I disagree with that. I believe the statement "It is wrong to eat babies" is true, regardless of who is speaking, because of a nearly universal social agreement that the subjective moral argument against baby eating is compelling; hence eating babies is intersubjectively morally wrong.

Isn't this an argument from numbers more or less?

If someone came along who did not personally feel it was morally wrong, then he wouldn't agree with the majority. Again, no shoulds, just what is.

viscousmemories

01-14-2005, 01:51 AM

I mean...difficult for me to imagine what it will be like.

Like being asleep, I suppose.
Okay, I understand that.

What's an unemotional choice, then?

[quote]An emotional choice would be, like, going to see a play because it will make you happy?
One of the dictionary.com definitions of emotion is (in part): "A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort..."

That's what I meant. I was differentiating between decisions made as a result of conscious effort (non-emotional, logical choice) and decisions made in response to emotional impulses (instinct, habit).

No, I said people will do whatever they feel is morally right and act to stop people doing what is morally wrong.

What we should do is subjective, remember?
I remember that you believe that, yes. I believe that what we should do is sometimes subjective, other times intersubjective.

Here's a tip for thinking about subjective morality. Whenver you say 'should' or 'good' always make sure you specify to who.

Now, is it okay-to-me? No. Is it okay-to-you? I don't know. We'd have to peek inside your brain, and see how you experience it, or ask you. If you did experience it as okay, then yes, it would be okay-to-you.
That would be why I specified in my later post that I was not talking about subjective morality, but intersubjective morality. No brain-peeking is necessary to find a moral agreement with others, but discussion is. And when the agreement is that baby-eating is immoral, then it is wrong for everyone. Again, in accordance with intersubjective morality.

David Gould

01-14-2005, 01:55 AM

justaman

01-14-2005, 03:06 AM

Hehe. I hesitated to say important, but decided to let it go. It's subjectively important to me now, to do that which will cause the least amount of pain to those people who care about me. Hence while I agree that this consideration would be irrelevant were I to die, it is relevant to the choices I make until then.
Of course. :) But appart from being a little facetious, it is an interesting question. We realise it is questionable to use 'important' yet it quite definitely is important to us. This is exactly point where I believe our unconscious need for objective meaning lies. We realise that importance is nonsensical in objective terms, yet we maintain it subjectively without really knowing why.

justaman

01-14-2005, 03:17 AM

I don't get it...

But I'm sure I'll laugh when you clue me in. :)
You'll work it out soon enough, Sheriff. :whitehat:

No, there won't be any estimation. Its not there, remember?
Exactly. :) If it's not there, neither is any facet of you. *ding*

Maybe we're not yelping?
Maybe we aren't. But so long as we are forced to think we are, nihilism holds a claim.

This is where you're going wrong. You're using 'rational' in one sense to mean 'drawing conclusions about reality using emotional reasons'.

You're using 'rational' in another sense to mean 'acting due to emotional reasons'.
You're losing me... Did you mean irrational in those?? Rational has always been anti-emotion in my argument yet you say it is using emotional reasons in both examples...

You do not decide what you want to do based on logic. What you want to do is never chosen; it is your desires. You do not choose desires. Logic merely allows true/false to be returned on beliefs about various paths to take to satisfy those desires.
You're looking at it the wrong way, I think. I agree with what you say about logic, but that's got nothing to do with desires whatever.

What I am suggesting is we reject rationales that are clearly born from emotive instinct. Believing because we want to is bad in this light. So if you can trace the source of a particular rational to be purely emotional, it's probably a good idea to reject it. If, on the other hand, it is based upon some empirical observation about the universe, then it's probably more preferable. This is true of every other approach we have to life, I question why it isn't true also for our consideration of whether or not we should live.

justaman

01-14-2005, 03:29 AM

Why do animals avoid death as much as they can? Are humans immune to the laws of animal life?
What law states we must survive?? It isn't a law, it's an impulse. It's apples and oranges here. I'm illustrating that humans, when left with only one evaluation method, deterministically must agree with the conclusion of that method. That is determinism and the physical laws of the universe.

Your rejoinder doesn't address this.

It became about objective morality the moment you evaluated one value as superior to others.
No. It's determinism. At this level, evaluating one value superior to others is like saying a rock values the gravitational value of the earth greater than that of the moon, and so chooses to stay on Earth because of objective morality. It's missing the point completely.

What is rational about picking one value from many and declaring it supreme?
Again, this is precisely what nihilism doesn't do. It doesn't pick one and say it's supreme, it rejects all of them and says "aw, crap we physically can't get rid of this one." Determinism follows from there.

P.S. Let's not argue to the stage like last time where you got fed up, aight?? You've been extremely tolerant over the past year, please don't feel honour-bound to keep arguing with me or anything. I'd prefer we remain friends :P

viscousmemories

01-14-2005, 03:37 AM

That would be why I specified that I was not talking about subjective morality, but intersubjective morality. No brain-peeking is necessary to find a moral agreement with others, but discussion is. And when the agreement is that baby-eating is immoral, then it is wrong for everyone. Again, in accordance with intersubjective morality.

If everyone agrees, it is wrong-for-everybody. As soon as one person disagrees, it is not wrong-for-everybody.

What does the notion of intersubjective morality add?
I guess I'm thinking something like this:

Is it wrong for X to kill himself?

1) Objective morality: No, suicide is wrong because god says so.
2) Subjective morality: No, suicide is wrong according to X's own values, derived from his own reason.
3) Intersubjective morality: No, suicide is wrong according to X's values, derived from his own reason and/or social agreement.

Now if X doesn't believe in god 1) doesn't work.

2) works only as long as X is not suicidal.

3) works even when X is suicidal, until such a time as there is a change in the values of the society X is a part of.

David Gould

01-14-2005, 03:40 AM

I guess I'm thinking something like this:

Is it wrong for X to kill himself?

1) Objective morality: No, suicide is wrong because god says so.
2) Subjective morality: No, suicide is wrong according to X's own values, derived from his own reason.
3) Intersubjective morality: No, suicide is wrong according to X's values, derived from his own reason and/or social agreement.

Now if X doesn't believe in god 1) doesn't work.

2) works only as long as X is not suicidal.

3) works even when X is suicidal, until such a time as there is a change in the values of the society X is a part of.

What do you mean by 'works'?

viscousmemories

01-14-2005, 03:54 AM

What do you mean by 'works'?
By 'works' I mean "is useful in making a sound moral determination".

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 03:57 AM

So if you can trace the source of a particular rational to be purely emotional, it's probably a good idea to reject it. If, on the other hand, it is based upon some empirical observation about the universe, then it's probably more preferable. This is true of every other approach we have to life, I question why it isn't true also for our consideration of whether or not we should live.

This is all your subjective opinion, yet you seem to present it as objective fact. Just because you think non-emotive reasoning is preferable, doesn't mean anyone or everyone else does. I certainly do not, so it is not true that 'we' all approach life like Vulcans.

David Gould

01-14-2005, 03:57 AM

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:10 AM

This is all your subjective opinion, yet you seem to present it as objective fact. Just because you think non-emotive reasoning is preferable, doesn't mean anyone or everyone else does. I certainly do not, so it is not true that 'we' all approach life like Vulcans.
It's demonstrably incorrect to suggest my opinion is 'objective fact' given that the overwhelming majority of the world's population don't suicide in nihilistic despair. So I'm not sure why you would think this to be my aim.

I am simply drawing some distinctions around what we consider to be rational or not. As I said some time ago, rationality is subjective, I do understand this. But humans do operate on an objectively identical paradigm at the lowest level when making decisions. That should mean that we have the potential to be in agreement with what we consider acceptable (and more often than not, this is precisely the case, hence we have society and intersubjective morality).

If two people ever disagree about something quite strongly, I can virtually guarantee it will be because of a particular emotive drive somewhere within the reasoning. If such a drive does not exist, one will generally convince another. This is how we learn.

I can accept that you believe your way of considering the world is different to mine, but I would suggest that if you so openly embrace emotion within that reasoning, you run a much greater risk than myself of being irrational. You are not wrong to do this. But I'm willing to bet a billion dollars that you don't like to think your beliefs are 'irrational'.

Maybe it would be constructive to hear what your definition of rational is.

viscousmemories

01-14-2005, 04:20 AM

By 'works' I mean "is useful in making a sound moral determination".
What is a sound moral determination? Is it, for example, morally unsound to reject slavery if the society in which you are in upholds slavery as morally correct? Why or why not?
It depends. A sound moral determination in my example would be the most reasonable answer -- all things considered -- to the question "Should X kill himself?" I don't think your question is really analogous because you've introduced intersubjective moral conditions a priori. If we reduce your question to "Should X reject slavery?" then I think the answers would be the same as in my example.

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 04:20 AM

Quite frankly I have never defined rational because I don't really use it. Read all of my posts in this thread, have I based any of my opinions on their being the most "rational"?

Since I don't really use the term, and haven't bothered to define it for myself, being called irrational doesn't bother me.

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:22 AM

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:31 AM

hehe Time Beavers :P

I don't know wtf one is but it sounds hilarious :)

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:37 AM

A Sheriff and a Cowboy in one place? :chin: :suave:

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:40 AM

If a man ought to kill himself, why "ought-not" he be killed?

If George killed John and Sarah says, "George, you should not have killed John," what if George says, "well he ought to have killed himself"?

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:41 AM

David Gould

01-14-2005, 04:41 AM

It depends. A sound moral determination in my example would be the most reasonable answer -- all things considered -- to the question "Should X kill himself?" I don't think your question is really analogous because you've introduced intersubjective moral conditions a priori. If we reduce your question to "Should X reject slavery?" then I think the answers would be the same as in my example.

I am still unclear, then, what you mean by 'works'. You gave the example of objective morality only working if people believe in God, and of subjective morality only working provided the person did not want to kill themselves and intersubjective morality working even if an individual wanted to kill themselves.

What do you mean by 'work'?

David Gould

01-14-2005, 04:46 AM

hehe Time Beavers :P

I don't know wtf one is but it sounds hilarious :)

The Time Beavers guard the Dam of Time. They are beavers who are armed with futuristic guns and grenades and dressed in green and white combat suits. They are pretty funny dudes, to be honest. And of course there is the other connatation. Beaver, Dam of Time and so forth ...

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 04:48 AM

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:49 AM

Shouldn't we all be dead then?

Let's go back, shall we, to before the present then suicide to the circumstances and consequences of one's own existence to begin with, and I mean just primarily, from birth, from the circumstances of your birth, your being allowed to live, etc.
I don't getcha...

Too, I ran into a quote I can't find again, they were saying, "we hold it as self-evident that all men have the right to life, liberty and happiness."
It may be axiomatic for a flourishing society. It's a little different for each individual, though. There is no society any more than there is a traffic jam. There are only individuals to which the above quote is quite irrelevant. :)

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:52 AM

It may be axiomatic for a flourishing society. It's a little different for each individual, though. There is no society any more than there is a traffic jam. There are only individuals to which the above quote is quite irrelevant.

Can you use your freedom to deny your freedom?

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 04:53 AM

Too, I ran into a quote I can't find again, they were saying, "we hold it as self-evident that all men have the right to life, liberty and happiness."

Um, you mean "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"? That would be the Declaration of Independence.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:54 AM

I don't getcha...

Eh, other thread, the one that caused me to cry because I was once again turning into a gibbering lunatic. :sadcheer: :P

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:55 AM

Okay, I just did a search for all uses of the word "rational" in my posts on this board. Only two instances were not quoted material. In both cases I simply meant "having reasons" or "been thought out". So, if I say someone is being irrational, I mean they espouse opinions with no reasoning behind them. I consider emotional reasons equally valid to non emotional ones.
Ah, but the point is that at some level emotional reasons - by defintion -have no reasoning behind them.

X - I really want that guy!
Y - Why?
X - Because he keyed my car, man! Jesus!
Y - But why does him keying your car make you want to hit him?
X - Because...well...I'm mad and...
Y - What do you achieve?
X - I'll hurt him! I want to hurt him!
Y - Why?
X - AHAH! So he will learn to not key people's cars!
Y - He won't learn that. He will think you are an asshole and will fight you.
X - He ... what?
Y - The reason you have is BS. So why do you really want to hit him?
X - Look I don't know why and I don't care. Get out of my way please.

etc.

So being emotional is ultimately being irrational.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:55 AM

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:57 AM

Can you use your freedom to deny your freedom?
Uhm...yes. :)

But again, I don't think this is really the point. Considering others isn't helpful because you aren't others. You have to consider this in terms of you and you alone.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:57 AM

So, we're all dead and we never should have existed, energy/Universe just is. :chin:

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:58 AM

But again, I don't think this is really the point. Considering others isn't helpful because you aren't others. You have to consider this in terms of you and you alone.

Well, I know I'm pretty dumb but I don't know, it just kinda strikes me odd that there were conditions for your existence in the first place, and your continued existence to this point. Mother and Father? Rights? Freedoms? It's odd. :chin:

justaman

01-14-2005, 04:59 AM

So, we're all dead and we never should have existed, energy/Universe just is. :chin:
No. We are all alive but will one day be dead, and from that moment we will never have existed. The universe is irrelevant, we are not the universe :)

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 05:00 AM

No. We are all alive but will one day be dead, and from that moment we will never have existed.

And?

The universe is irrelevant, we are not the universe :)

This is irrelevant.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 05:02 AM

Eh, night all! :wave:

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 05:12 AM

But again, I don't think this is really the point. Considering others isn't helpful because you aren't others. You have to consider this in terms of you and you alone.

Why? Your reasons for setting conditions appear quite arbitrary to me.

No. We are all alive but will one day be dead, and from that moment we will never have existed.

We will have existed in the fabric of spacetime and as a piece of history to future generations. Just because we no longer exist doesn't mean we never did.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 05:14 AM

Um, you mean "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"? That would be the Declaration of Independence.

No, it wasn't that, it had the words self-evident. :chin: Doesn't matter though.

Oh, yes, I wasn't paying attention, I see that that says self-evident but the quote I was looking for wasn't worded like that. :doh: It had self-evident twice in the same sentence and what followed was different but similar.

viscousmemories

01-14-2005, 05:15 AM

I am still unclear, then, what you mean by 'works'. You gave the example of objective morality only working if people believe in God, and of subjective morality only working provided the person did not want to kill themselves and intersubjective morality working even if an individual wanted to kill themselves.

What do you mean by 'work'?
Hmm. I don't know any clearer way to say it than I already have, but I'll try to clarify. It may very well be that I'm just talking crazy, I realize. But...

By 'work' I meant "is useful in making a sound determination". As in, "The most useful mechanism for making a sound determination of the wrongness of suicide is to assess it from an intersubjective moral viewpoint".

justaman

01-14-2005, 05:15 AM

justaman

01-14-2005, 05:20 AM

We will have existed in the fabric of spacetime and as a piece of history to future generations. Just because we no longer exist doesn't mean we never did.
To 'us' the people who did the existing, that's precisely what it means.

I mentioned a traffic jam before, it's from a favourite analogy of mine. Traffic jams as an entity don't really exist. Traffic jams, like reality, are made up of individual cars travelling through it. It is a perspectiveless approximation. That the traffic jam remains after the cars get through is irrelevant to that car. Just so, the fact that reality exists after us is irrelevant, we are through the traffic jam and have no notion of it any further. But in the case of life, of course, we equally have no notion of ourselves either.

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 05:27 AM

Why? Your reasons for setting conditions appear quite arbitrary to me.
Arbitrary?? The reasons are derived from the fact you can never experience reality from any other perspective from your own. Surely that's an axiom we can both agree on? It's hardly arbitrary :P

So, that doesn't prevent us from emotionally trying to empathize with others. I believe that other people's perspective of their existence, which you/I might be an important part of, matters as much as my perspective.

It's the "doesn't matter" thing you keep using that bugs me...it's a value judgement I don't share.

David Gould

01-14-2005, 05:30 AM

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 05:34 AM

We will have existed in the fabric of spacetime and as a piece of history to future generations. Just because we no longer exist doesn't mean we never did.
To 'us' the people who did the existing, that's precisely what it means.

Again I ask, so what if I never exixted from my own perspective? If people who no longer exist never existed you wouldn't exist. It's a chain of individuals. I care about them now, during existence.

I mentioned a traffic jam before, it's from a favourite analogy of mine. Traffic jams as an entity don't really exist. Traffic jams, like reality, are made up of individual cars travelling through it. It is a perspectiveless approximation. That the traffic jam remains after the cars get through is irrelevant to that car. Just so, the fact that reality exists after us is irrelevant, we are through the traffic jam and have no notion of it any further. But in the case of life, of course, we equally have no notion of ourselves either.

This makes no sense to me. There is still the history and possibly consequences of the traffic jam. Maybe it made you late for work and you got fired and had to move to another state where you met the love of your life and had 10 kids...all because of the traffic jam. It matters, see. I have made a small but indelible mark here, and though I won't know about it after I cease, I can think about it NOW, while I am here in the ALL THAT IS.

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 05:36 AM

double post

justaman

01-14-2005, 05:36 AM

It's the "doesn't matter" thing you keep using that bugs me...it's a value judgement I don't share.
Ok. Explain how anything will matter to you when you die?

Clearly, it won't. You will also, I'm confident, agree that you will in fact, die.

So we have an agreed 100% fact that at some time in the future these things won't matter to you, since there won't be a you for things to matter to.

Saying that things therefore don't matter to you now is being rational. Saying things matter means you are concerned about consequences. There are no consequences in death, therefore it is most rational to say nothing but our immediate sensations matter to us right now. That's believing through objective truth rather than emotion, which has no such grounding. I would argue - quite vehemently - that it is in fact your position which is the arbitrary one :)

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 05:45 AM

It's the "doesn't matter" thing you keep using that bugs me...it's a value judgement I don't share.
Ok. Explain how anything will matter to you when you die?

It won't. But that I will die doesn't matter to me now because I am alive.

Clearly, it won't. You will also, I'm confident, agree that you will in fact, die.
I will. But I see no reason why that should affect my existence.

So we have an agreed 100% fact that at some time in the future these things won't matter to you, since there won't be a you for things to matter to.

Correct. They matter now because I am here to care about them.

Saying that things therefore don't matter to you now is being rational.

Um, no. Everything matters now because now is all there is.

Saying things matter means you are concerned about consequences. There are no consequences in death, therefore it is most rational to say nothing but our immediate sensations matter to us right now.

The consequences exist now, or in our future part of existence or in our imaginings of the world after we cease. All of those things matter to me, within the context that I am here and I care.

That's believing through objective truth rather than emotion, which has no such grounding. I would argue - quite vehemently - that it is in fact your position which is the arbitrary one :)

Go ahead. You're wrong, in my subjective opinion. The only reason you get to argue or want to argue is because you exist and you think it matters.

Seriously if nothing matters, why are you still here living, having discussions? Should you be sitting in a dark room waiting to die or something? It matters to you I assume?

David Gould

01-14-2005, 05:49 AM

Justaman,

I think that one of the problems is that we cannot envisage non-existance. Thus, it is impossible to take it into account in our decision making.

justaman

01-14-2005, 06:05 AM

Justaman,

I think that one of the problems is that we cannot envisage non-existance. Thus, it is impossible to take it into account in our decision making.
And as I've always said, it does not matter that we cannot conceive of non-existance, all we need to be able to understand are the implications. That we can do. That is all that you need in this argument. Saying "I can't envision death so I'm not going to bother considering it" is somewhat of a copout.

viscousmemories

01-14-2005, 06:06 AM

Hmm. I don't know any clearer way to say it than I already have, but I'll try to clarify. It may very well be that I'm just talking crazy, I realize. But...

By 'work' I meant "is useful in making a sound determination". As in, "The most useful mechanism for making a sound determination of the wrongness of suicide is to assess it from an intersubjective moral viewpoint".
Do you mean, 'You are most likely to assess suicide as wrong if you assess it intersubjectively'?
Hmm... well that might be true, but it's not what I meant.

I meant it seems to me that the most reasonable moral system is an intersubjective one. Specifically, stating that such-and-such is wrong-for-me doesn't help me live as a member of society unless I measure it alongside wrong-for-us.

And it gets later and later... :eek:

Zoot

01-14-2005, 06:07 AM

What law states we must survive?? It isn't a law, it's an impulse. It's apples and oranges here. I'm illustrating that humans, when left with only one evaluation method, deterministically must agree with the conclusion of that method. That is determinism and the physical laws of the universe.

Your rejoinder doesn't address this.

That's because it was a parody of your own position, which is itself apples and oranges.

It became about objective morality the moment you evaluated one value as superior to others.

No. It's determinism. At this level, evaluating one value superior to others is like saying a rock values the gravitational value of the earth greater than that of the moon, and so chooses to stay on Earth because of objective morality. It's missing the point completely.

You don't see the humour in this? You say that something is as crazy as saying "a rock makes a value decision to stay on earth", but then turn around and try to apply physical laws to the value decisions made in the human context.

Quote:
What is rational about picking one value from many and declaring it supreme?

Again, this is precisely what nihilism doesn't do. It doesn't pick one and say it's supreme, it rejects all of them and says "aw, crap we physically can't get rid of this one." Determinism follows from there.

It arbitrarily says that values you can't get rid of are superior to values you can get rid of.

P.S. Let's not argue to the stage like last time where you got fed up, aight?? You've been extremely tolerant over the past year, please don't feel honour-bound to keep arguing with me or anything. I'd prefer we remain friends

No need. I understand your mistake clearly now, and have the language in which to express it. "You can't derive an ought from an is" is no longer just a vague rule to me, but something I understand very clearly.

You talk about easevalue being rational. I've pointed out repeatedly that evaluations can only be rational in their application of a value. It is unintelligible to speak of values themselves "rational" or "irrational".

To make it more clear, try breaking your reasoning up into steps and locating the exact point where you move from "this is a fact" to "therefore this is preferable". Find exactly where you more from "this is true about the world" to "therefore we should act like this".

1. Objects move towards each other in space.
2. Temperatures of objects tend towards a static mean.
...
23. Therefore killing ourselves is preferable.

Fill in the gaps.

David Gould

01-14-2005, 06:12 AM

Hmm... well that might be true, but it's not what I meant.

I meant it seems to me that the most reasonable moral system is an intersubjective one. Specifically, stating that such-and-such is wrong-for-me doesn't help me live as a member of society unless I measure it alongside wrong-for-us.

And it gets later and later... :eek:

But you only want to live as a member of society because that is good-to-you, right?

You also seem to be under the impression that good-for-me judgments ignore the social environment. They do not. Indeed, the social environment is the main influencer of good-to-me judgments.

justaman

01-14-2005, 06:19 AM

It won't. But that I will die doesn't matter to me now because I am alive.

I will. But I see no reason why that should affect my existence.
Of course you don't. That's because it's so far away that you need not trouble yourself about it.

Do you, however, fill out a tax return on your death bed? Death matters only when we are dragged kicking and screaming by circumstance to actually face up to it. It is instinctive to ignore it as energetically as we can. But it is also - of course - irrational to do so:)

Um, no. Everything matters now because now is all there is.
No. It isn't all there is. It is all there presently is. In time, there will be nothing, not even this.

Go ahead. You're wrong, in my subjective opinion. The only reason you get to argue or want to argue is because you exist and you think it matters.

Seriously if nothing matters, why are you still here living, having discussions? Should you be sitting in a dark room waiting to die or something? It matters to you I assume?
As I said way back at the start of the thread, I am a non-practicing nihilist. I am too weak to suicide. Constantly I try. There is not a single day which passes that I don't think about suicide. But I can't do it, I'm far too irrational and ignorant :) I just happen to admit this.

David Gould

01-14-2005, 06:19 AM

And as I've always said, it does not matter that we cannot conceive of non-existance, all we need to be able to understand are the implications. That we can do. That is all that you need in this argument. Saying "I can't envision death so I'm not going to bother considering it" is somewhat of a copout.

But the implications are inconceivable, too. For example, you might remember that I argued that the implications of non-existence at death include the fact that I exist for an infinitely longer time than I am non-existent, considering the fact that I never do not exist. The logical implication here is that from my perspective existence should logically be of infinite more significance than non-existence. As your entire argument relies on non-existence being taken into at least some account, your entire argument fails.

But neither you nor I can conceive of non-existence without imagining ourselves sitting there being non-existent, which is an unresolvable paradox. How do we logically include non-existence in our considerations?

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 06:30 AM

It won't. But that I will die doesn't matter to me now because I am alive.

I will. But I see no reason why that should affect my existence.
Of course you don't. That's because it's so far away that you need not trouble yourself about it.

Do you, however, fill out a tax return on your death bed? Death matters only when we are dragged kicking and screaming by circumstance to actually face up to it. It is instinctive to ignore it as energetically as we can. But it is also - of course - irrational to do so:)

I don't ignore it, I have a will, final wishes, and lists of all assets in a folder marked "Open upon my death" in a safe. I have accepted death. Shit, I have been under anesthesia 8 times, and every time had to sign a paper saying I accepted the 1 in whatever chance of my death.

Um, no. Everything matters now because now is all there is.
No. It isn't all there is. It is all there presently is. In time, there will be nothing, not even this.

To throw your own argument back at you. From MY perspective, this is all there is because I cannot experience anything that isn't existence.

As I said way back at the start of the thread, I am a non-practicing nihilist. I am too weak to suicide. Constantly I try. There is not a single day which passes that I don't think about suicide. But I can't do it, I'm far too irrational and ignorant :) I just happen to admit this.

Are you that depressed? Perhaps your nihilism stems from the chemical imbalance in your brain and therefore you aren't really rational at all. In fact, all of this seems like an excercise in justifying suicide. Have you sought help?

justaman

01-14-2005, 06:34 AM

You don't see the humour in this? You say that something is as crazy as saying "a rock makes a value decision to stay on earth", but then turn around and try to apply physical laws to the value decisions made in the human context.
How are they any different?? Honestly, I don't understand where your objection lies here. You sound as if you are disputing determinism. Surely you agree determinism makes human value judgements just as definite and predictable as forces like gravity etc.

It arbitrarily says that values you can't get rid of are superior to values you can get rid of.
Well they are, by definition, values. Values aren't values by choice, they are motivators which, if we are exposed to them, will force us to act in a predictable way. If we remove all of them but one, we will have a predictable manner in which we will act.

Nihilism - in its penultimate argument to what we're talking about - states that values should be rejected. So we do that. But we can't reject one particular value, the burden of living. That - being that it is a motivator - forces us to then act.

I honestly can't understand why you would seriously believe this to be arbitrary. You cannot deny the way humans operate as you appear to try to be doing.

No need. I understand your mistake clearly now, and have the language in which to express it. "You can't derive an ought from an is" is no longer just a vague rule to me, but something I understand very clearly.
Ok.

You talk about easevalue being rational. I've pointed out repeatedly that evaluations can only be rational in their application of a value. It is unintelligible to speak of values themselves "rational" or "irrational".
Any fundamentalist Christian is disproves what you've just said. Values can be irrational when they are themselves based upon an irrational framework. Sexual values in Christians especially show this. This is because values themselves are capable of being subjected to superior values.

Given that easevalue cannot be reduced, it is clearly at the top of the heirarchy. We cannot physically escape it or ignore it as we can the value of not having sex before marriage etc.

To make it more clear, try breaking your reasoning up into steps and locating the exact point where you move from "this is a fact" to "therefore this is preferable". Find exactly where you more from "this is true about the world" to "therefore we should act like this".

1. Objects move towards each other in space.
2. Temperatures of objects tend towards a static mean.
...
23. Therefore killing ourselves is preferable.

Fill in the gaps.
I'll tell you precisely the point (though I'm not going to fill in the other 19 positions around it :P ):

15(or so). We must act.

Subjectivity forces us to find preference in that which we personally find more true.

justaman

01-14-2005, 06:45 AM

I don't ignore it, I have a will, final wishes, and lists of all assets in a folder marked "Open upon my death" in a safe. I have accepted death. Shit, I have been under anesthesia 8 times, and every time had to sign a paper saying I accepted the 1 in whatever chance of my death.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you haven't considered death, you just clealry haven't considered it in the context I'm talking about. In fact you admit this, because you do not think it is necessary.

I have another analogy which uses chess. Taking a rook with a pawn is a good thing. But then if taking that rook means that your queen is taken, then taking the rook was a bad thing. But if having your queen taken means you can bring your opponent into checkmate, then taking the rook was a good thing.

The thing is, we know we will never win with life. We always die at the end of it. So every move is equally without meaning when we take the time to forecast that far ahead. It is quite possible to ignore the future and feel happy about taking the rook and ignore the future futility of the move. But it is precisely ignorance which allows this.

To throw your own argument back at you. From MY perspective, this is all there is because I cannot experience anything that isn't existence.
This argument collapses instantly because you know very will you will not live infinitely :) That's where the logic of this one winds up.

Are you that depressed? Perhaps your nihilism stems from the chemical imbalance in your brain and therefore you aren't really rational at all. In fact, all of this seems like an excercise in justifying suicide. Have you sought help?
In all honesty I've considered this, but it doesn't ring true. I can certainly get quite depressed, but I don't think it's anything exceptional. The deperession is also never about suicide, always about some stupid life thing or other. The point is - I can be be extremely happy and still realise suicide is more rational. It is most definitely not an emotional decision because it never wavers with my emotional mood. In fact I remember once becoming extremely ill with acute gastro and feeling like shit. I remember a thought flitting through my head 'you know suicide would solve this' and I couldn't think of anything I wanted to think about less. Feeling bad doesn't spark this concept, it actually makes me quite adverse to suicide. It is mostly when I'm more or less emotionally neutral that it comes to the forefront. All other times I still believe it to be true, but I ignore it and try and forget about it.

Zoot

01-14-2005, 07:26 AM

Nihilism - in its penultimate argument to what we're talking about - states that values should be rejected. So we do that.

I honestly can't understand why you would seriously believe this to be arbitrary.

And what's nihilism's non-arbitrary reason for valuing the rejection of values?

Given that easevalue cannot be reduced, it is clearly at the top of the heirarchy. We cannot physically escape it or ignore it as we can the value of not having sex before marriage etc.

And by what criteria does that make it "the top of the hierarchy"? By what criteria does one evaluate easevalue above others? It being unreducible may possibly, currently, be a fact. But you make an unsupported leap from "it is unavoidable" to "it is more preferable". Things can only be preferable-in-terms-of-a-value. So in terms of what value is it preferable because it's unavoidable?

I'll tell you precisely the point (though I'm not going to fill in the other 19 positions around it ):

15(or so). We must act.

Subjectivity forces us to find preference in that which we personally find more true.

Statements are true or false. Preferences are not true or false, or more true or more false. You might as well talk about which colour they are. Subjectivity forces us to find preference in that which we find more preferable-in-terms-of-values. Values provide the criteria for evaluating preferability, and those value-evaluations return an answer of "preferable" to "unpreferable", not "true" to "false".

How do you propose the truth of a preference is evaluated?

And seriously, give me the other 19 steps.

1. Objects move towards each other in space.
2. The temperature of material tends towards a static mean.
...
15. We must act.
...
C. Therefore suicide is most preferable.

I agree with those three premises you've stated so far. Explain how they work together to support that conclusion.

Dragar

01-14-2005, 11:10 AM

I have another analogy which uses chess. Taking a rook with a pawn is a good thing. But then if taking that rook means that your queen is taken, then taking the rook was a bad thing. But if having your queen taken means you can bring your opponent into checkmate, then taking the rook was a good thing.

Ah-ha! Got you!

Poor Justaman, you must be fighting on three fronts, here.

Let's use this example, shall we?

If someone is at the end of their game of chess, and they can do a great many things, including taking a rook with a pawn and taking a queen with a pawn, which of those is the most logical choice?

You cannot answer this question without making certain assumptions Justaman. But I am going to wait until you try, to see if you notice. :)

LadyShea

01-14-2005, 03:25 PM

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you haven't considered death, you just clealry haven't considered it in the context I'm talking about. In fact you admit this, because you do not think it is necessary.

I know I will die. So, since existence is all there is for me, all meaning is tied with being alive. Your context simply makes no sense.

I have another analogy which uses chess. Taking a rook with a pawn is a good thing. But then if taking that rook means that your queen is taken, then taking the rook was a bad thing. But if having your queen taken means you can bring your opponent into checkmate, then taking the rook was a good thing.

Since I don't play chess, this analogy does nothing for me.

The thing is, we know we will never win with life. We always die at the end of it. So every move is equally without meaning when we take the time to forecast that far ahead. It is quite possible to ignore the future and feel happy about taking the rook and ignore the future futility of the move. But it is precisely ignorance which allows this.

The goal isn't to "win" anything, every move is meaningful in and of itself. To use your chess example, I assume most people find value in the playing, not only the final outcome. It's not ignorance, it's valuing the now precisely because now is all we have.

To throw your own argument back at you. From MY perspective, this is all there is because I cannot experience anything that isn't existence.
This argument collapses instantly because you know very will you will not live infinitely :) That's where the logic of this one winds up.

I don't see that it fails. What does infinite have to dow with anything? Existence is all there is, so my eventual non-existence has no meaning in the context of living. I exist, therefore I am not non-existent, therefore infinite is a meaningless concept in this discussion. Life is all there is.

In all honesty I've considered this, but it doesn't ring true. I can certainly get quite depressed, but I don't think it's anything exceptional. The deperession is also never about suicide, always about some stupid life thing or other. The point is - I can be be extremely happy and still realise suicide is more rational. It is most definitely not an emotional decision because it never wavers with my emotional mood. In fact I remember once becoming extremely ill with acute gastro and feeling like shit. I remember a thought flitting through my head 'you know suicide would solve this' and I couldn't think of anything I wanted to think about less. Feeling bad doesn't spark this concept, it actually makes me quite adverse to suicide. It is mostly when I'm more or less emotionally neutral that it comes to the forefront. All other times I still believe it to be true, but I ignore it and try and forget about it.

Depression doesn't always manifest itself as palpable sadness nor is clinical depression an emotional decision. Depression causes loss of hope, feelings of meaningless, and devaluation of all experience. You talk like you are clinically depressed.

Now, we could just assume that the wiring in your brain is different than mine, in which case all your talk of rationality and nihilism is completely subjective and only "rings true" for people who are wired similarly.

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 04:40 PM

I wrote a bit of nothing the other day, but two of the lines/thought went like this:

What does it matter anyway
if it only matters to me?

and:

I held you down in the snow
it wasn't cold
why wasn't it cold

Anyways, so I walked to the store a few days ago, fresh blanket of snow, I had just fallen through some snow that looked like it was hard enough to walk on and I got snow in my boots so then, snow on my ankles. Yikes, it was cold. So then, I looked at the snow while I was walking and I thought, is snow cold? Maybe for instance, snow isn't cold to a polar bear, however, then I started thinking of a thermometer, above zero, warmer than, below zero, colder than. So, I questioned whether or not there is any possible absolutes about temperature, which I've questioned along time ago, it was just once again brought to mind.

Is there a point, perhaps something like terminal velocity, whereas something can get this hot and no hotter maybe because at those temperatures the thing it is burning disintegrates though I don't know how that would apply to radiation, and too, is there a point where it can only get this cold and no colder?

If there are absolutes in these cases than that would reduce subjectivity, no? If you can gauge the absolutes, then you have a means to determine is ought.

If we take, as justaman has already alluded to, the game of chess, there is a point where you can say this move was the greatest move, when the object of the game is realized, to take the King. In the totality of that game, the possibility of subjectivity is lessened, if you know what you have to work with and if you know the ends but that suggests that there is a goal or an absolute.

Now, I'm curious how Buddhists even, can get away with not declaring a goal or absolute? What is Nirvana but a goal or absolute?

Sweetie

01-14-2005, 06:28 PM

Hm, too, value.

Now, we all are ultimately seeking happiness/beatitude.

So, there's a man who is convinced that money can buy him happiness so he seeks wealth. He gets wealthy, sated with things and money and over time he realizes that he's not happy. He always heard the phrase that absolute power corrupts absolutely, so perhaps it is the nature of the case of too much money.

"There's a lady who's sure
all that glitters is gold
and she's buying a stairway to heaven"

Now, so this man has stumbled upon something, something that people had been saying for years, money can't buy happiness. Perhaps it can by proportion, if his money provides some creature comforts and necessities for others and that makes them happy, then perhaps that makes him happy, but wealth itself cannot make him happy. This is just a truth. Can we prove it? No, but do we know it? Yes, most of us do either by experience or by the testimony or example of the experience of others.

Is it bad to value wealth? No, it's only bad to value wealth in and of itself if indeed the ultimate goal is happiness.

So, I mean, there are things in this world, things we know that will not bring about happiness. The fool might be convinced that it will, but even still, we know it will not, this is wisdom but I think it's also something akin to a law as much as it is a law that absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is only something you can learn from the witness of history, from wasted human lives, from alot of pain, from history repeating itself over and over and over again. Should we seek to be foolish or wise?

"And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter. "

"Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zeppelin

justaman

01-15-2005, 05:59 AM

Ah-ha! Got you!

Poor Justaman, you must be fighting on three fronts, here.
Just call me Neo. :chucks:

Let's use this example, shall we?

If someone is at the end of their game of chess, and they can do a great many things, including taking a rook with a pawn and taking a queen with a pawn, which of those is the most logical choice?

You've just proven nihilism :)

I'm assuming you mean the game is lost in a move, but you still have to move something in order for the game to progress, yes? Do you see then that there is no importance whatever to any different move? Value has been destroyed because of the inevitability of defeat. This is what occurs when we know we will lose. Given that we should in fact know this from the start of the game, all moves are equally without value from the beginning.

But we must move. How then to decide? Quite simply, which ever brings about the quickest path to check-mate.

This is why in professional chess, you find a great majority end in 'surrender', rather than playing out until mate.

viscousmemories

01-15-2005, 06:17 AM

Value has been destroyed because of the inevitability of defeat. This is what occurs when we know we will lose.
I suspect the existentialist would say the analogy falls apart there, since there is no winning or losing in life, only how you play the game. :feedingbirds:

justaman

01-15-2005, 06:21 AM

And what's nihilism's non-arbitrary reason for valuing the rejection of values?
"We all shall die". There are no consequences, therefore value is meaningless.

And by what criteria does that make it "the top of the hierarchy"? By what criteria does one evaluate easevalue above others? It being unreducible may possibly, currently, be a fact. But you make an unsupported leap from "it is unavoidable" to "it is more preferable". Things can only be preferable-in-terms-of-a-value. So in terms of what value is it preferable because it's unavoidable?
It's preferable because there is no other value to compare it against. You'll always choose it as you'll always choose to get your hand off the hot-plate.

"Preferable" implies there are other options. At this stage of nihilism, there aren't.

Statements are true or false. Preferences are not true or false, or more true or more false. You might as well talk about which colour they are. Subjectivity forces us to find preference in that which we find more preferable-in-terms-of-values. Values provide the criteria for evaluating preferability, and those value-evaluations return an answer of "preferable" to "unpreferable", not "true" to "false".

How do you propose the truth of a preference is evaluated?
Is it not true that people will always prefer to take their hands off hotplates?

'Preferable' and 'true' become interchangable when there is only one practical available course of action to an individual.

I'm gunna give this next bit a shot but I may give up, given that I'm trying to compress a year's argument into point form and I really don't like my chances.

1. Objects move towards each other in space.
2. The temperature of material tends towards a static mean.

3. Humans operate on a cause-and-effect paradigm.
4. In thought, this paradigm is known as 'logic'.
5. Humans are required to conceive their constituent parts as a subjective whole. An 'I'.
6. Conscious action is decided by considering future consequences.
7. 'Importance' is an emotional drive designed to motivate humans.
8. Importance is based entirely on the cosideration of future consequences.
9. Short term importance is affected by knowledge of future events.
10. The 'I' will cease to exist at a certain point in time.
11. Knowledge of 10 reduces the importance and value of all present actions.

12. From 11, there is no theoretical logical action that humans can take.
13. Humans feel an unavoidable burden of living. (Enter easevalue).
14. Humans must act (I lied about 15).
15. Humans should (would if they accepted previous premises) act to best alleviate 13.

C. Therefore suicide is most preferable.

Man there's shit missing all over the place but do you see where we go from an is to an ought? Emotion will prevent us accepting any number of the above premises, but if someone was successful in completely assimilating the implications of 9-12, 'should' becomes acceptable.

The trouble is emotion works very hard to not let us accept 9-12. Remove emotion, and you'd have something like what we've got here. Kinda.

justaman

01-15-2005, 06:23 AM

justaman

01-15-2005, 06:36 AM

I know I will die. So, since existence is all there is for me, all meaning is tied with being alive. Your context simply makes no sense.
Would you write a book if you knew that at the end of it, it would be deleted and lost from memory forever? Creation and life are the same. We engage in them because we think the result will be rewarding.

Since I don't play chess, this analogy does nothing for me.
You really don't need to understand chess to understand the analogy of relative value...

The goal isn't to "win" anything, every move is meaningful in and of itself. To use your chess example, I assume most people find value in the playing, not only the final outcome. It's not ignorance, it's valuing the now precisely because now is all we have.
I can fairly well guarantee that the loser of a chess game doesn't say to the opponent "Yeah, you won, but that move I did to take your rook was pretty awesome!"
- "no it wasn't it opened the way for me to beat you."
- "But...eh."

Valuing the now is ignoring the fact that that value is relative to the future, and the future tells you quite demonstrably that you are being irrational to value what you do.

I don't see that it fails. What does infinite have to dow with anything? Existence is all there is, so my eventual non-existence has no meaning in the context of living. I exist, therefore I am not non-existent, therefore infinite is a meaningless concept in this discussion. Life is all there is.
Infinity is precisely what you are describing. "Life is all there is". If there is nothing else, the implication is that life must therefore be infinite. If it isn't - which it's not - then life is not all there is. There is also death.

Depression doesn't always manifest itself as palpable sadness nor is clinical depression an emotional decision. Depression causes loss of hope, feelings of meaningless, and devaluation of all experience. You talk like you are clinically depressed.
Yes, I do know what depression is. I have experienced it. But I am happy now. You just aren't hearing me. I'm happy :) Suicide is not an axiomatically depressing thing. Depression and suicide do not equate in my world-view, in fact they are somewhat at odds with each other.

Now, we could just assume that the wiring in your brain is different than mine, in which case all your talk of rationality and nihilism is completely subjective and only "rings true" for people who are wired similarly.
It's a legitimate argument. The only problem is, of course, if my argument was so obviously driven by emotion, that should become observable somewhere in my reasoning.

I can't for the life of me pick where such a point might exist. I have looked long and hard for it. I am gradually becoming more and more confident that it simply isn't there, there is nothing irrational in what I suggest, there are just some parts which appear immediately counter-intuitive. The logic, however, is quite sound.

viscousmemories

01-15-2005, 06:37 AM

I spent most of my day today carefully reading a thread at IIDB called To Gurdur: On the Objectivity and Subjectivity of Value (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=82227). In that thread this guy Alonzo Fyfe argues for a kind of soft moral objectivism. One of the main thrusts of his argument being that Hume was wrong about the is/ought problem.

He's not a Randian objectivist, he just doesn't like the subjectivists solution to value ethics. In fact at one point he calls the subjectivist's answer to the problem "playing let's pretend", which I thought you'd appreciate. ;)

It's too late and I'm too tired to give a summary, but Gurdur eventually created a new thread for his response to Alonzo's arguments, called Answering Alonzo, Part I (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=1620736), and though I've only read the first 1/4 of the first page of that thread, Alonzo rehashes much of the essence of the arguments from the first thread in those first posts. His is an interesting perspective, I think. But I'm no philosopher. :)

Sweetie

01-15-2005, 03:40 PM

I'm assuming you mean the game is lost in a move, but you still have to move something in order for the game to progress, yes? Do you see then that there is no importance whatever to any different move? Value has been destroyed because of the inevitability of defeat. This is what occurs when we know we will lose. Given that we should in fact know this from the start of the game, all moves are equally without value from the beginning.

This makes the most sense so far. I can look into the box though, but I've never been able to believe that any set of numbers 5-550 for instance, is just subsisting as 5-550, ie: What preceeds 5, what comes after 550? ie: the Chessboard/drama of the human life is just simply subsisting, like the set of numbers. Do you have to move first to discover that you have to move and that all moves are equal? Do you have to exist first to discover that you should never have existed and shouldn't continue to exist?

This is why in professional chess, you find a great majority end in 'surrender', rather than playing out until mate.

Once you get to a certain point in chess, surrender is just a gamble, gauging the enemy's team, who has the greatest chance of winning and then choosing not to sit there for days and days. Last time I played chess, a few weeks ago, we just quit, it would take just too damned long though I figured he would win, so I surrendered.

LadyShea

01-15-2005, 04:02 PM

I suspect the existentialist would say the analogy falls apart there, since there is no winning or losing in life, only how you play the game. :feedingbirds:
I always respond that in fact the enjoyment of playing the game only ever exists so long as you think there is a chance of winning. It's my analogy for why I believe we unconsciously require a belief in objective importance.

No, playing is fun in and of itself. Children are great existentialists...they'll play games with no end goal and no rules, just for the joy of kicking a ball around or running in circles.

Sweetie

01-15-2005, 04:06 PM

I suspect the existentialist would say the analogy falls apart there, since there is no winning or losing in life, only how you play the game. :feedingbirds:

Or that there is no death. Death to me at least is not an end, death is a seperation of body and soul, the soul continuing to exist with or without the body. The soul, as such, cannot experience death as in non-existence, and will never cease, intimations of immortality.

Even still, if existence to the nihilist is dependent upon the body, why can't we look at the context of the body's existence? Can we really use the body to say that the body should never have existed because if you have to act, and if you should recognize that all values are equal and therefore, that all are equally meaningless then you should kill yourself, but that to me says that you should never have existed to begin with, doesn't it? If everybody should commit suicide because it's the only rational choice, then everybody should have committed suicide, etc., etc. To me, this arguement is self-subsisting like the set of numbers with no 4 or 551.

viscousmemories

01-15-2005, 04:12 PM

Or that there is no death. Death to me at least is not an end, death is a seperation of body and soul, the soul continuing to exist with or without the body. The soul, as such, cannot experience death as in non-existence, and will never cease, intimations of immortality.

Even still, if existence to the nihilist is dependent upon the body, why can't we look at the context of the body's existence? Can we really use the body to say that the body should never have existed because if you have to act, and if you should recognize that all values are equal and therefore, that all are equally meaningless then you should kill yourself, but that to me says that you should never have existed to begin with, doesn't it? If everybody should commit suicide because it's the only rational choice, then everybody should have committed suicide, etc., etc.
Hmm... I've never heard of a variety of existentialism that presupposes the existence of an eternal soul. Is that what you're saying, or are you arguing against existentialism?

LadyShea

01-15-2005, 04:34 PM

I know I will die. So, since existence is all there is for me, all meaning is tied with being alive. Your context simply makes no sense.
Would you write a book if you knew that at the end of it, it would be deleted and lost from memory forever? Creation and life are the same. We engage in them because we think the result will be rewarding.

I wouldn't, no, because I am not a writer. Some people do in fact write for themselves though for whatever reason. Journals or little scraps of poetry, just to get their thoughts on paper. Some people then easily toss or burn these writings.

I like to go dancing. There is no reward...I go with my husband so I have no goal of attracting men....I just like to dance. I dance alone in my living room sometimes.

Why are you engaging in this discussion? What's the reward for you?

I can fairly well guarantee that the loser of a chess game doesn't say to the opponent "Yeah, you won, but that move I did to take your rook was pretty awesome!"
- "no it wasn't it opened the way for me to beat you."
- "But...eh."

Maybe not in chess. But I have seen this exact conversation in other games. To the loser: "Hey good game, that home run you hit was awesome". The home run, or the touchdown, or the hole in one or whatever can stand as great moments in and of themselves even if the game is ultimately lost.

Valuing the now is ignoring the fact that that value is relative to the future, and the future tells you quite demonstrably that you are being irrational to value what you do.

I disagree that value is relative to the future. What is the future reward of my dancing alone in the living room?

Infinity is precisely what you are describing. "Life is all there is". If there is nothing else, the implication is that life must therefore be infinite. If it isn't - which it's not - then life is not all there is. There is also death.

That's a non-sequitur. Life is all there is for me, death is not anything.

Yes, I do know what depression is. I have experienced it. But I am happy now. You just aren't hearing me. I'm happy :) Suicide is not an axiomatically depressing thing. Depression and suicide do not equate in my world-view, in fact they are somewhat at odds with each other.

Happy people do not want to die, they enjoy life for what it is. I counter that you are not happy at all, that you have never experienced existential joy so you don't know how to compare happy and depressed appropriately.

It's a legitimate argument. The only problem is, of course, if my argument was so obviously driven by emotion, that should become observable somewhere in my reasoning.

The very fact that you reject emotion as being as valid as logic demonstrates that you're brain is wired differently. I would even say that you're desire to reject emotion is at base emotionally driven.

I can't for the life of me pick where such a point might exist. I have looked long and hard for it. I am gradually becoming more and more confident that it simply isn't there, there is nothing irrational in what I suggest, there are just some parts which appear immediately counter-intuitive. The logic, however, is quite sound.

Logic and rationality as you define them aren't all there is.

LadyShea

01-15-2005, 04:38 PM

Hmm... I've never heard of a variety of existentialism that presupposes the existence of an eternal soul. Is that what you're saying, or are you arguing against existentialism?

May I introduce you to Christian Existentialism (http://christian-philosopher.com/doc/ChristianExistentialism.html)

Sweetie

01-15-2005, 04:53 PM

Hmm... I've never heard of a variety of existentialism that presupposes the existence of an eternal soul. Is that what you're saying, or are you arguing against existentialism?

Existentialism - existence preceeds esse.

"Sartre accepted the demanding task of explaining the character of consciousness. He said

consciousness is perpetually escaping itself, belief becomes non-belief, the immediate becomes mediation, the absolute becomes relative, and the relative becomes absolute (278).

Explaining separation from 'facticity' he said, "I am the self which I will be, in the mode of not being it" (257). He defines consciousness as "a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this implies a being other than itself" (266-7). "

http://www.mala.bc.ca/www/ipp/bbond.htm

"The Three writers who appear invariably on every list of "existentialists" - Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre - are not in agreement on essentials. Such alleged precursors as Pascal and Kierkegaard differed from all three men by being dedicated Christians; and Pascal was a Catholic of sorts while Kierkegaard was a Protestant's Protestant. If, as it is often done, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky are included in the fold, we must make room for an impassioned anti-Christian and a even more fanatical Greek-Orthodox Russian imperialist, By the time we consider adding Rilke, Kafka, and Camus, it becomes plain that one essential feature shared by all these men is their perfervid individualism.

The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic; and remote from life - that is the heart of existentialism."

http://www.interchg.ubc.ca/cree/kaufmann.htm

That latter though, contradicts itself. The refusal to belong to any body is contradicted by them being members of bodies of thought or creating their own body of thought.

But anyways, the term existentialist I don't think implies or denies theism in and of itself.

LadyShea

01-15-2005, 04:55 PM

Yes, I do know what depression is. I have experienced it.

Wanted to expand on this because I think it proves my "brain wiring" point. I have never met a nihilist or someone who agreed with nihilistic thought who didn't have some level of clinical depression. I started thinking about it after VM mentioned it.

I myself, have only experienced situational depression, which isn't the same as someone who is diagnosed as depressive.

Sweetie

01-15-2005, 04:56 PM

http://www.piddingworth.com/theexistentialists.htm

Oh sorry, just ran into these things in my search, thought they were pretty cool:

"William Barrett’s Irrational Man has been accepted as the finest definition of existentialism ever written. With superb clarity and understanding, he describes the roots of existentialism in ancient thought, and traces its appearances in the art and reflection of such men as Saint Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book is four long chapters in which he explains the views of its foremost spokesmen—Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre.

Professor Barrett makes clear that existentialism is anything but a barren abstraction fit only for the classroom. Whenever men have insisted on the limits of reason, declaring that logic alone cannot account for the guilt, dread, anxiety, alienation, and latent meaninglessness of life, they have been taking an existentialist stand. For “Existentialism,” as William Barrett writes, “whether successfully or not, has attempted to gather all the elements of human reality into a total picture of man,” and any picture of man that fails to consider the irrational element, the absurd, will be incomplete. In Pascal’s phrase, the heart has its reasons, which reason does not know; and, because existentialism will not ignore these reasons, because it insists that the subterranean impulse, the Furies within all of us, must be recognized, because it realizes that in this atomic age we are in such peril of ceasing to exist before we have even known what our existence means—because of these acute and urgent insights into the crisis of modern man, existentialism has become the philosophy for our time. "

http://www.philosophymagazine.com/others/MO_Barrett_Irrational.html

I am definately going to read that later!

viscousmemories

01-15-2005, 05:00 PM

Interesting. Thanks for the info, Shea and Sweetie. I had previously thought existentialism and theism were intrinsically mutually exclusive. Learn somethin' new every day, I do. :yup:

Sweetie

01-15-2005, 05:13 PM

Hmm... I've never heard of a variety of existentialism that presupposes the existence of an eternal soul.

Sorry, last post for awhile, lol.

No, I do not presuppose an eternal soul, I have concluded there is one mainly because of the irrational and to me contradictory nature of many philosophies which has backed me into a Catholic corner, so to speak. That's just an answer as such, it is presupposed by the others that there is no possible soul, there is no reason to believe there is, and thence all there is death, I disagree. To me, for a man, there is really no such thing as death.

Hmm, I wonder. If, for instance, there is no such thing as non-existence because it cannot be conceived, but then there must have been non-existence if I had not existed, hmmmm. :chin:

If there is such a thing as absolute heat, ie: a point when you can say this hot and no hotter or this is the hottest then you can no longer say or think that this heat seems cold to me. You couldn't feel it of course, but the very definition of hot and cold means that you must say this is hottest and you can no longer say hottest is cold to me, hottest is simply hot, there is no room for subjectivity without utter and complete irrationality or the development or language which says the same thing in a different way.

Blather, my mind is meandering. :P