I would not use happiness but peace, — Augustusea

Addresses that earlier on.

Why would you appreciate the fact of you existing? why would you do that may I ask?
Anywho what you're saying is correct, but I'd say the longing for living and life in Camus' works is a clear manifestation of his will to live, so the fact that someone lives would be meaningless to appreciate or not, and peace would be hard to find in the suffering found in that one life. — Augustusea

This is somewhat referenced from Albert Camus “A Happy Death”. When the man was facing death, he appreciates the fact that he existed and that somewhat gave his life some meaning.

It’s possible to be indifferent. — Pinprick

Yes I agree with this, this is possibly an alternative to embracing death.
Your explanation is quite logical, most people fear the unknown and death will forever be something that’s unexplainable. Like give me a person who can describe the experience lol.

From my understanding, one is unable to fear death while feeling peace. Maybe embracing death isn’t such an appropriate term, accepting may be the better term. Haha but embracing death comes from my somewhat absurdist or nihilistic view. But yes you do bring out a great point, there are many ways to get to your goals be it peace or other things and depending on your beliefs it’ll show through your actions. Hence from what I’ve said, you could infer that I have an absurd mindset, where I somewhat embrace death in some form of masochism lol.

Ok I get where y’all coming from. Sometimes peace is equated to happiness. I mean who doesn’t find a peaceful life happy? Then again it’s not the same thing, as mentioned by y’all.

I find true happiness can only be enjoyed when holding no regard for death, or as if to forget it altogether and everything else beyond the moment. — Dylan Law

Agree to disagree, views on death comes in a variety of answers, then again “Momento Mori” is a common saying used to somewhat appreciate life better. Hence my point that embracing the uncertainty of death allows you to treasure the immediate moment.

One of my stepping stones to a harmonious life is the realization there's no death for me.
In all objective meaning, I will die, but I will never be able to experience death.
This realization (or "belief" if you will) came to me after receiving general anaesthetic for surgery. — John Onestrand

Haha I never thought of it this way. People always group death as an experience but what it actually is the end of the experience of life.

So lemme rephrase it:
The moment you’re able to appreciate your existence while also embracing death is where you’ll find peace.

that’s an amazing analogy, I’m unable to contribute anymore with that, it gives an encompassing answer to the question. Aut tace aut loquere meliora silencio. Guess I have nothing to add on.

No. Sisyphus is happy in the end (Camus),ennobled, perhaps, by sacrilegious - absurdist - spite. That absurd 'grace' has yet to be achieved by (my) socratic moron. — 180 Proof

Haha yes I agree that there’s a somewhat happy ending but the idea of it seems somewhat gloomy.

Imagine a happy group of morons who are engaged in work. They are carrying bricks in an open field. As soon as they have stacked all the bricks at one end of the field, they proceed to transport them to the opposite end. This continues without stop and every day of every year they are busy doing the same thing. One day one of the morons stops long enough to ask himself what he is doing. He wonders what purpose there is in carrying the bricks. And from that point on, he is not quite as content with his occupation as he had been before. I AM THE MORON WHO WONDERS WHY HE IS CARRYING THE BRICKS.

A less humorous version of this would be Sisyphus. Great book which explores this concept is Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.

The Catch-22 is that if you have a good and working education sector, the society already has to be prosperous. Or then you have the typical divide of good or tolerable education for the rich and poor and outright nonexistent education for the poor. — ssu

Haha guess it’s somewhat a chicken an egg story. Is this country prosperous because of their education or it’s because they’re prosperous hence they can afford quality education. Won’t deny this is an issue worth questioning. After all education is not necessary to survive. Food and shelter is more essential. To obtain both you don’t need a Phd in any field, just turn to tribes and watch them flourish with their medieval skills.

Just for fun, here's a random thought I came up with: — Wandering-Philosopher

Haha I think this is beside the point of his question, some people start off like that to create a sense of informality. Maybe it was a casual thought, but most thoughts derive from a subconscious desire or idea, so some experience may have directed you to that thought without you knowing. Anyways I guess this is beside the point of the question.

That’s the question nihilist face, since life is filled with suffering, why do many fear death. I personally think the reason why people fear death is because they fear the unknown. What happens after death? That’s the real issue. To overcome this fear, they submit themselves to religious beliefs which assure them life after death is more than it seems. A true world theory like what Nietzhe presents. Hence it’s not really death per se but the mystery surrounding it.

To add on to this, there’s the common phrase Momento Mori. The greeks don’t really fear death, instead they remind themselves of it. Supposedly, this is to remind themselves that they have one life to live and to live it to the fullest. This can somewhat go into the idea of regret which is something most people fear. They fear not being able to accomplish what they want in their life, hence they are afraid of not being able to life live to its fullest.

Lastly is somewhat the attachment to things. People are afraid to die because they fear losing everything. With death, you can’t bring anything to you to the grave. The emptiness somewhat also strikes fear into others as they don’t want to part with what they accomplish. Then again, why do you earn so much just to lose it all. Somewhat paradoxical as it seems.

Also a side detour into suicide. Many would argue since life is inherently meaningless, why don’t we just kill ourselves? Albert Camus put this nicely in which he says (probably butchered it) suicide is an acknowledgement of the absurdity of life and doing so just makes one’s life more absurd. Instead we should rebel against this and find the search for the meaning of life meaningful itself.

Apologies for the incoherent flow of thoughts, it’s just random suggestions and I hope it helps.

This approach is unusual, but not unheard of. However, Tao's students, who were eager to learn, went through a traditional curriculum to reach this point. Normally, undergraduate classes include some who are not eager, even in their major subject. — jgill

From what you quoted, sounds like an interesting suggestion, however society is so rigid and it’ll take much work to implement such changes.

Yes. Because we use the quantity of those diplomas as a number showing the success of the education system. The more people have diplomas the better, it seems. — ssu

That is what most people will argue for, if you don’t have any credentials how can people trust you in the workforce.

It's not an economic equation that if we only have more a) natural resources, b) infrastucture, c) education that the prosperity increases. Education should not be looked upon from such narrow viewpoint. — ssu

True that nothing guarantees economic success, it’s probably comprised of multiple factors which play key parts and education does play a component of it.

A good example of this is to enlargen education really to "lifelong learning". The positive aspects of lifelong learning are that it enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, personal development, self-sustainability, as well as competitiveness and employability. — ssu

Haha this probably be the end goal of education, but it’s somewhat idealistic and hopeful considering our current state.

I like to think that I am not alone in always wanting to learn more about a wide variety of subjects. Too much time spent in one specific area of study leads to boredom and eventual distraction. — Wandering-Philosopher

Not really in moderation, but perhaps what the school teaches is not what interests you? There are some researchers who dive deep into their area of expertise and never seem to get bored or burned out as many would say. It’s probably the subject does not interest you and the depth of it makes it even more boring.

In fairness, the American education system has some advantages compared to other countries. In the English speaking West Indies, the primary schools are modeled on the British school system. Where we lived, children had to pass the Common Entrance Exam to be able to go on to secondary school. At the time, the number of students who passed the exam was low. There would be villages where only a handful of students would continue their education past the age of 12 or 13. — elphidium55

This is quite similar to Singapore, haha probably an Asian thing where we take pride in comparing and grading ourselves.

However for the important decisions, where purpose and freedom are in conflict we tend to choose that which brings the most net happiness. — Pop

Haha I like the term net happiness, I know we subconsciously do it, however when used like that, I imagine playing The Sims where there’s a happiness meter.

Stoics conquer desire, monks have eternal happiness in the afterlife. We all put it together differently, but to much the same end. — Pop

Ahhh ok, thanks for the clarification.

Sorry to complicate things, but IMO any mental state has an associated emotional state ( qualia ). This emotional state provides the impetus for action / inaction ( purpose ). — Pop

Curious what happens when you dissociate emotional state? Like you become somewhat stoic or like a monk. Does that mean that every action happens out of your mental state?

One has divided into the observer and the observed. but one cannot do this; actually they are the same thing. — unenlightened

Haha not quite sure on this so please correct me, is it buddhism (or maybe other philosophy) that encouraged you to view your actions from a third person view and not to judge yourself.

It is as though one were to look in the mirror, and try to work out what one was thinking from the expression on one's face. Try it some time, you might be good at it. — unenlightened

Sounds similar to reflections and journaling your thoughts, after which you ponder on what you’ve said and done. Both gives you the self reflection that allows you to understand yourself better.

Two psychologists meet in town.
A. Hello, how am I?
B You're fine. How am I? — unenlightened

Pardon my lack of knowledge but I don’t quite this joke, from what I understand about psychologist, they always ask their patient questions about themselves.

Sure. If you wonder if you are rationalising your actions, and you decide you are not, you have to wonder whether you are just rationalising in your decision. and if you decide you are rationalising then you cannot trust that result either. — unenlightened

It’s somewhat hard to determine that really, because you somewhat could lie to yourself and say you’re not rationalising, so a better way would be to get help from another party like a psychiatrist. Then again, what they perceive may not align with your thoughts so in the sense we may be in this never ending cycle of delusion of one’s ideas. Or maybe it’s me just trying to make stuff more complex than it has to me. Haha maybe I’m just a little crazy with my ideas, we’ll never know for sure lol.

I’ve basically tried to psycho-analyse myself, and started wondering if I was just rationalising my own actions lol.

but there is a philosophical problem with self help that the helper has the same problem at the one to be helped. — unenlightened

Can you elaborate on this point, I don’t quite understand.

If you have read it, could you give a brief summary? Have quite a lot of readings to do, will try to squeeze this in sometime.

Quite balanced approach, from what I’ve read u understand the benefits that items bring, but acknowledge that there are vices that come with excessive consumption.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing, what’s your philosophical stance, to help me better understand the view you’re taking this from.

I think you touched on it: the analysis of capitalism. So probably Marx being an important read. — Xtrix

Not quite sure about this, but Marxism mainly criticised capitalism and not consumerism, but there are some overlaps.

Ah i see. I get your point, what I meant to say was consumerism is now more common I guess, and this is due to capitalism etc, where consuming items are more convenient which then exacerbates the issue.

Overall well structured arguments for both side, however I feel that this discussion is like a möbius strip where the arguments are flowing into one another in a never ending cycle.

I’ll try to briefly conclude the points being said.
Freedom and purpose are not mutually exclusive, but there can be conflict between each other.
Nihilism does not ensures freedom, but a nihilist can be free in some aspects and yet constrained in others.

If anyone has anything to add to the above statements please do so. I appreciate everyone who have contributed, I’ll be less active in this discussion, but feel free to add more pointers to it if you have anything extra to contribute. Thanks!

He willingly deceives himself, in that his actions betray his beliefs. — Pinprick

I never thought of it that way, it’s an interesting concept where a nihilist is leaving in denial of the meaning of life. This goes back to human nature where we somewhat rationalise our actions after doing them. So after a nihilist does something, he shoots down the idea of why he did it and accepts that it was meaningless.

I think that it is important to recognize, as the nihilist does, that there is a conflict between freedom and purpose. However, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Once you have chosen a course of action, as long you initially freely chose it, it is a free action. And one is free to choose otherwise at any point in time. As so often happens, our ideologies or beliefs or values that we hold so dearly conflict with an event that occurs in our lives. When this happens, we are presented with the opportunity to reevaluate and choose again, and redirect our purpose, which we now hold of higher value. — Mickey

Your first statement well explains the question, I guess the issue most people have is that they believe freedom is being able to choose everything without sacrificing anything, that may be the initial thought I had when coming up with this statement, but your point is worth taking note.

Our ability to fashion an ideology is, in some sense, our ability to create meaning in our life. So it is not that meaning does not exist. It is rather that it limits our freedom. The problem is the tendency to propose a gloomy alternative to living a meaning filled life. Without religion or morality or ideology or a grand story about the universe, what is left? — Mickey

Haha there’s somewhat irony or paradox in that statement. [Nihilism: Everything has no meaning.] Wait there’s some meaning in that statement. Some in goes in a never ending loop I guess

Life is happening, has been happening, and continues to happen irrespective of our attempt to make sense of it or make it meaning. The point of life is just to live and to cultivate your awareness of it. — Mickey

Again, this is somewhat Absurdism. Acknowledging that there’s no meaning to life and embracing it by finding meaning in the search itself.
Apologies for repeating myself, it’s basically the best answer to all of this that I can think off.

Your

But what about someone who's life purpose is to speculate, to question everything? What if one were to dedicate their life to the pursuit of knowledge or to simply defining a purpose worth achieving in the first place? Then the boundaries to which path they take is essentially limitless as theres always more knowledge to attain -Philosophy being an inherent and unending quest to argue reason and which seemingly has many answers. — Benj96

This seems to be the message of Absurdism, you acknowledge the absurdity of life but embrace and try to rebel it by finding in meaning in the search of meaning.

In my opinion it comes down to this; a decision "defines". When you direct or focus your energy and willpower in a certain direction you have defined it as a directed motive has parameters. The minute a purpose is defined there will naturally be actions and behaviours that negate , supress or hinder it which you must overcome and similarly those which will perpetuate encourage and amplify it. Limits are useful for concentration of effort but as you said...provide a means to restrict. The key is to know where to place them and when to revise them. — Benj96

Yup this well concludes your points and I agree with it, every action has a consequence, and you have to acknowledge that what you do will affect you in the long run.

Sorry for the lack of response, you didn’t “reply” to me so it didn’t show up in my inbox.

Anyways, haha yup I agree with the first point being that “Self-Help” can sometimes be a being marketing scam. All the self-help gurus out there to help you make millions. Haha guess that’s part of society, when there’s a market for such bs there’ll be people who exploit it.

Overall I can sense a strong hatred for Self-Help coming from you. I do agree that life it not so simple that the secrets can be compressed into a single book, but there’s some benefits or worth in reading such books. Cheers!

The sheer number of fashion shows exemplify this shallowness... while simultaneously devaluing another based upon something other than their character. American culture has glorified such for so long. It is of no real surprise that the likes of Trump attained the presidency. He's a symptom. — creativesoul

Haha with Covid 19 around, there won’t be any. On a serious note, you can look at fashion as one’s own expression of their identity or character as those do affect one's fashion choice. However, I do agree that society as a whole has become shallow by just priding themselves with consumption of goods. I would say consumerism is somewhat a distraction from the pains of life.

Others had no choice but to be minimalists. Made fun of for being poor, as if it was all up to them... — creativesoul

Not really, with the upcoming fast fashion brands, clothing has never been cheaper to throw you money on. But there are other aspects to minimalism than simply cost savings.

What we're seeing in this regard is a revisitation of personal, familial, and finally... cultural values. — creativesoul

Yes I agree that now some people have realisations that their consumerism behaviour is somewhat toxic and decided to drop the rat race.

Quality will be of utmost importance in the minds of more people... Surely there are enough people that have been taken advantage of with business malpractices resulting in shoddy unreliable products made from inferior materials and all at a huge cost to the consumers' own pocketbooks in more ways than that! — creativesoul

I acknowledge that this may be a future trend as they commonly say vote with your money, hence big brands are trying to adopt good practices to increase their brand popularity. Personally I don’t really care much of quality or quantity, if it’s a shirt it’s a shirt, I see no meaning in comparing a $100 one or $10. Both just covers my body, does it really matter if things have differences here and there.

How about "addicts getting a fix", as more realistic analogy. — unenlightened

I don’t think this is also a correct analogy, as consumerism is briefly one finding purpose and happiness in acquiring consumers goods. But I do see the similarities, between them. They do have a lot in common with shopping addicts.

I think it's simply the way the upper class takes pains to distinguish itself from the hoi-poloi. — unenlightened

That’s one way to look at it, the rich pride themselves of the extravagant luxuries. However from societal view, the rich somewhat do whatever they want, while those with lesser money try to keep up appearances. Those poorer try to acquire consumer goods like the rich hence that’s why most people end up in debt. So I understand the consumerism behaviour somewhat is an effect where the poor try to obtain respect and power by having something to show for.

I was under the impression that Hedonism is more sophisticated than that. Hedonism isn't just about happiness per se. It's about, what I feel is, particular kinds of happiness, kinds which may exclude consumerism as a consequence. I'm not sure about this though. — TheMadFool

From what I understand, Hedonism is just pursuing pleasure. To some consuming materialistic stuff or sometimes food does give you a dopamine hit and hence there’s a sense of reward and pleasure. Not sure whether there’s a deeper meaning in hedonism but this is roughly what I understand.

A nihilist does not desire any particular end or outcome, so rational choices seem unavailable. Irrational choices may be a possibility, but I think it would be very difficult to determine where to draw the line between them. I find it hard to find a choice that is completely devoid of feeling. So determining whether or not a choice was caused by emotion or reasoning seems difficult. It depends on how strong the emotion is, I suppose. But like I said, I don’t really think nihilism has any practical application in everyday life. — Pinprick

Ahahahaha, I found this very amusing. After going through whether to choose rationally or irrationally, I can imagine a nihilist thinking,” Hmmmm, should I choose or don’t choose?” Which goes into a never ending cycle. Hence

But like I said, I don’t really think nihilism has any practical application in everyday life. — Pinprick

concludes it nicely.

Even if nihilism was false, and we could prove that life was inherently meaningful, we still couldn’t justify acting. — Pinprick

I guess we all roughly understand nihilism, but I don’t seem to quite get the mechanics of a nihilist. Maybe this is a different topic of psychology but I still think it’s worth exploring. Possibly from psychoanalysing a group of nihilist, we may get some answers. Anyways thanks for sharing, really broaden my view on nihilism.

Hopefully, this does not distort your argument in any way; if so, please correct me. — Gilbert

Haha no worries, it’s a well structured argument, and since (I assume) everyone in this forum is very knowledgeable, you do bring up some valid counterpoints!

I would thus argue that the autonomous option (which always entails the option of freely choosing to discontinue the pursuit of purpose x) — Gilbert

This may be a point which I may have overlooked. It’s quite true that when a choice conflicts with your belief, you are free to choose which one you want to follow.

truly unfree in the sense that one has to obsess himself with the extermination of anything that would 'infringe upon' this freedom and hopefully realize that the underlying notion of freedom is more dogmatic and restrictive than any purpose or meaning one may choose to pursue. — Gilbert

This I’m not so sure, I don’t think a nihilist will obsess himself over anything as he will find it meaningless to do so. Then again my knowledge on nihilism is quite limited as I’m not one myself, so it’s somewhat hard to view it from ones perspective.

From what I understand from your view, you do not decline that nihilism does bring some form of freedom (negative freedom as you stated). But you also pointed out that other philosophical views have their own freedom in other ways. That’s something worth considering deeper, and I guess that’s the complexity of philosophy, there’s no one right answer as each have their paradoxes and issues.

To me that’s evidence of him having motivations for his actions, and deriving meaning in them. — Pinprick

I may have neglected that, but sure it’s a point worth considering. His motivation may be to break the Bat mentally. But many times he does say that he doesn’t have an end goal, so his motivations are questionable.

Both options are meaningless, but one of them still fulfills a need, and therefore is preferable to the other. — Pinprick

I’m not familiar with nihilism, from my view, if everything is meaningless, both options seems equally possible as both won’t have an impact in any way. This is an area I’m trying to grasp about Nihilism, I’m unable to understand how a nihilist make decisions (or maybe they don’t). Anyone who can help enlighten me on this point is greatly appreciated!

You’re more familiar with this than I am. — Pinprick

Haha I don’t claim to be familiar to this topic, you probably have more experience and knowledge in this field than me. But I am trying to understand Absurdism a bit more.

Nihilism itself doesn’t seem to provide a reason to support any particular stance or course of action, because it still can’t bridge the is-ought gap. — Pinprick

I don’t quite understand what you mean by is-ought gap. Are you referring to moral obligations and purpose?

Haha your response is like a one shot kill, in the sense it answers everything.

Your first part gave me a quick run of the history of philosophy, really interesting.

Your second part bring about more complex concepts and ideas. I agree with most of it, and it shows the paradoxes and questions of the universe and how no one single philosophy has the absolute answer to everything.

I guess I wasn’t really questioning rather what I seek was affirmation on this idea, I still do hope that others will share their hybrid philosophy! Cheers :)

Oh really? Didn’t know that its no longer considered scientific. I thought the results haven’t been replicated because of ethical concerns? Thanks for the clarification!

My freedom isn’t constrained or expanded due to this belief. I simply accept that all my actions, feelings, and things I find meaningful are irrational or illusory. But since everything is meaningless, I also have no obligation to act or think rationally. So practically speaking I do whatever I want, same as always.

- @Pinprick

Just to add on, this seems more of absurdism than nihilism. I’m not completely sure about this, just a though. It just resonates with the story The Stranger by Albert Camus, and the the concepts of it.

Actually I like to believe that the opposite is true, we are experiencing less physical pain in modern society due to advancement in technology. Also I think that pain equates suffering is not always the case. There is a saying,” Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” So in this case, I would like to state that pain is more of a physical state while suffering is more of a mental state. This may be a bad example but I would like to bring up the Monks in Vietnam that set themselves on fire. They sat in the middle of the street and burned without much reaction. I may be misinterpreting your question but these are my thoughts. Cheers :)

Haha with regard to this, I’m not sure what you mean human error, but I agree that greed will be removed. But look at it this way, greed is the extreme motivation, so there is one flaw of communism which is it stifles work incentive, why will you work more if you reap the same results. During Soviet Russia, there was a brief period where Stalin slightly incorporated capitalism in his 4 year plans which resulted in more growth. So even the most communist state had to shift out of communism just to advance further.

As lame as it sounds, only you know the answer and a general answer is “it depends”. That is what religions and philosophy are for, to answer the simple question,” What is the meaning/purpose of life?” Hence your life philosophy will decide your own answer.

With regards to this, there are various ways it can go. Existentialism, Stoicism, Hedonism, Nihilism. These are a few philosophy which answers your question. Your purpose may be very complex or so simple.

Just for fun of it, let’s end of with a quote from Albert Camus who discussed absurdism,” The literal meaning of life is whatever you're doing that prevents you from killing yourself.“

I would say mental. Break a man’s leg and he will stand in a few months, break his mind and he will never stand again. Probably butchered a similar quote.

This may be a bad example but the Stamford Prison Experiment is worth considering in this case. The implications we can draw from it is amazing as I would not consider it somewhat like a mental prison for both the guards and prisoners as both were trapped in their roles, resulting in their mental beliefs changing. Maybe this example could help advance the discussion further. Cheers :)

Escape from Freedom - Erich Fromm
Do the Work - Steven Pressfield