Nihilism vs. Existentialism

[Blake]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

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.

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]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

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



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

Nietzche's so much worse though.

[justaman]

Originally Posted by Dragar

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]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

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

[justaman]

Originally Posted by Blake

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

[LadyShea]

'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]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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]

Originally Posted by justaman

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Zoot

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]

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]

Originally Posted by justaman

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]

Originally Posted by Zoot

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]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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]

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]

Originally Posted by justaman

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]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by justaman

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]

Originally Posted by justaman

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.

[FormerFundie2004]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

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]

Originally Posted by FormerFundie200419

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.

Originally Posted by FormerFundie200419

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?