Nihilism vs. Existentialism

[David Gould]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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]

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]

Originally Posted by David Gould

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]

Originally Posted by Sweetie

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]

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]

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

[David Gould]

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.

[Sweetie]

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.

So thence, the question comes down to selfishness.

[Sweetie]

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]

Originally Posted by Sweetie

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Sweetie

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]

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]

Originally Posted by justaman

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.

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.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by David Gould

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.

[viscousmemories]

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

[Dragar]

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]

Originally Posted by Dragar

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Dragar

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?