From the perspective of a secure attachment to a religious view, nihilism will seem deplorable, but not experienced as any kind of direct or indirect threat to oneself.
— baker

Sure. But you can still be critical of it from a philosophical perspective. — Wayfarer

Said Tom Storm:

Most of my days are filled with joy despite my position that life is inherently without meaning. Perhaps it's because I've had practice? I've been a nihilist for close to 50 years. Of course, as meaning making creatures, we can't help but find or make meaning wherever we go. Those who can't do this probably have some survival deficits. — Tom Storm

How do you counter? Especially on his point on "survival deficit"?

Trouble is, you don't know what you will do next. That's the case, even if what you do is already determined.

So the question remains, what will you do?

Fatalism and nihilism are of no help here. — Banno

In certain contexts, they can have a psychologically soothing effect, releasing brain capacity, thus lending to action.



Katsumoto : You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren : I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.

However, what is no longer attached to this usefulness is why Pythagoras cared about math. — schopenhauer1

Rather, a plebeian answer to it is taken for granted. As in, "He wanted to figure out the numbers so that he could control his surroundings."

It's like those facile plebeian explanations to the effect of, "Ancient peoples invented deities in order to explain the workings of the world and the things they feared".

I just want to quote this, because it fits right here as well:

There's an interesting article from a few years back, Quantum Mysticism - Gone but not Forgotten (and published in phys.org, not some new-age website) which points out that the pioneers of quantum mechanics - Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Bohr and Pauli, among others - were deeply cultured and philosophical thinkers (product of a classical European education, one might presume). But after the War, the research dollars and focus switched to the US, driven mainly by investments from the military-industrial complex, which is why the pragmatic approach of 'shut up and calculate' won out over 'I wonder what that means'. — Wayfarer

And my question here is the following: what are the longer term impact of people when we literally take the physical books out of the hands of students? — ssu

I think the scenario actually resembles oral culture the most.

In the computer learning scenario you describe above, people read things mostly just once and have to work with that, however much or however little they remember or misremember. Which is the same thing that happens in oral culture -- one has one chance to hear something and has to make the most of it.

Of course, the amount of study matter that can effectively be studied that way is not much, for most people. So the computer learning scenario enforces competition between people: those who can handle a lot of new information at once vs. those who can't. This competition has always existed, but the physically written word form has allowed many slower people to catch up and keep up. In an oral culture or a culture functionally the same as oral culture, these slower people will fall behind.

What happens to our society when we don't read as many books as we used to? — ssu

Society becomes less romantic.

Then when you don't have any necessity to read books, you simply won't read them. You will just read articles, newspapers, magazines. — ssu

Which isn't necessarily bad. This trend is a trend that counteracts the plebeification of education and culture.

The idea that has permeated the public school system for the last hundred years or so (depending on the country) was that all children should get the same basic education. Which meant that all children, regardless of their socioeconomic background, should read Homer and Shakespeare etc., study history in detail, mathematics to considerable intricacy etc., ie. the classical educational canon. This has led to the plebeification of education and culture 1. in that the classical canon has to be dumbed down in order to make it teachable even to students who have no basis for such learning in their socioeconomic background, and no prospect for using such learning ever in their lives either; and 2. in that the socioeconomic class of people who traditionally had no access to this canon (and who never contributed to it) now got it for free.

Computerization is reversing this. The upper classes who want their children to receive a classical education will make sure they do so. For the rest, it should remain the luxury it has always been.

Which actually segues back to the theme of nihilism. As far as we're concerned today, life begins at birth and ends at death. And considering the vastness of space and time, it is a mere blip. But that's all there is, and all there can be, as there is nothing on the other side of death, save decomposition, as everything material will always decompose. — Wayfarer

I think this isn't actually a problem. It can become a problem if one's default is a, let's call that "traumatic attachment to a religious view". Emphasis on "traumatic".

Because whether nihilism will seem depressing or not depends on one's vantage point. If one comes from the position of a tense, anxious, insecure attachment to a religious view, then nihilism will seem like a threat. From the perspective of a secure attachment to a religious view, nihilism will seem deplorable, but not experienced as any kind of direct or indirect threat to oneself.

If this means what I think it means, it seems awfully mean spirited. Are you mocking someone for dieing? — flannel jesus

Why? Whence this emotion?
He said he was a robot.

I worked for many years closely with people practicing in the Catholic Church. If you want an example of depressives, try there. Of all the folk I've known, these were amongst the most miserable I've ever seen. — Tom Storm

Sure. Roman Catholicism has one of the most, if not the most strict dogma with eternal, irrepairable consequences. Per said dogma, a person is capable of forsaking God even on their deathbed, with their last breath, even after a life of piety, and thus enter eternal damnation, eternal suffering. I've known people who converted from Roman Catholicism to some school of Protestantism because they found it too unbearable to constantly live in a state of not knowing whether they are/will be saved or not.
It's hard not to be miserable if one knowns Roman Catholic dogma. Supposedly this misery can be mitigated with sufficient humility ...

I think it you already tend to look at life negatively, this might be your conclusion. For me, as a nihilist, I find the idea that there is no transcendent meaning rather joyous and exciting and one full of possibilities. I am unencumbered by dogma and doctrine and need not concern myself with following any preordained path.

The question is how you have arrived at this nihilism.

Most of my days are filled with joy despite my position that life is inherently without meaning. Perhaps it's because I've had practice? I've been a nihilist for close to 50 years. Of course, as meaning making creatures, we can't help but find or make meaning wherever we go.

Those who can't do this probably have some survival deficits. — Tom Storm

Braggart.

Camus insists on seeing Sisyphus happy. Is this something approaching my position? Am I, perhaps, an absurdist too? — Tom Storm

So far, I don't see reason to think so. I think you were just really fortunate not to have had your spirit crushed early on. From what you've said so far, I surmise you can't take credit for being a happy nihilist.



Not to focus on you in particular, but we could use you as a case study in how happy nihilists come about.

Which is interesting because, if there is a considerable correlation between a person's specific state of mind and a school of philosophical thought that they lean toward, perhaps other philosophies reflect other mindstates? — Benj96

Certainly.
However, there appears to be a crucial difference between professional philosophers and philosophical amateurs.

Professional philosophers can juggle their theories all day long, and then set them aside and go have a beer as if nothing happened.

Philosophical amateurs are not capable of such detachment; what they (try to) think about philosophically really gets to them. They bet their life on those theories.

It seems that professional philosophers generally arrive at their theories by a process of rigorous thought. In contrast, amateurs start off with a certain feeling, emotion, or general attitude toward life which they then try to put into words.

If there isn't, please post what sort of option I should have included to match what you think. — flannel jesus

The theory of evolution has token value; its relevance is in declaring it in order to gain social approval.

So, if that's what you're saying is 'ideologically-driven', then I agree, but I don't agree it is characteristic of science as such. — Wayfarer

Can one do science without scientism?

Vicarious atonment is an immoral doctrine and is central to Christianity. No one can do your repentence for you. — Gregory

The real problem for all Christianities is the whole eternal damnation business -- "If you don't get it right this time around and don't pick the right Christian denomination, you'll burn forever."

It's not clear why the Supreme Being would bring about such a creation a significant portion of which will suffer forever, while he watches on, apparently happily, as they failed to pick the right religion.

Catholics must believe the doctrine /.../ because it's a dogma. — BillMcEnaney

A frequently underappreciated point, yet crucial to holding that God is more than merely a product of one's imagination.

One is supposed to believe in God through divine revelation, ie. from the top down, with God revealing himself, and then a particular person coming in contact with that revelation via disciplic succession (that goes back directly to God himself).

Not from the bottom up, the way philosophers and Protestants do it, where a particular person comes up with various "reasons for believing in God".

Meh, enlightened people are a dime a dozen these days.

Silence has power. — unenlightened

Only if one already has power.
Who cares if I'm silent?

Given Boethius' definition of happiness, I was thinking that the machine would produce a rigorous training environment for the development of the virtues, since it is attaining these virtues that makes one happy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Virtues, in order to have a chance of making one happy, would also need to be attained the right way -- through blood, sweat, and tears. And this cannot be done in a machine.

It's also why fairy tales (roughly an equivalent of an "experience machine") have only a limited use for teaching people virtue: fairy tales can give people ideas of virtue, but until a person actually puts them into practice in relevant real life situations, they won't have the desired effect. One cannot wish oneself happy, but one might work oneself happy.

Present three sentences from scientific texts of your choosing that contain the word "we" and talk about mankind in general and I'll explain it on your examples.

Are you talking about the influence of positivism on science? — Joshs

It's earlier than positivism, you can see it with the ancient Greeks already. That characteristic brand of normativisim -- "It's like this and no other way".

Not all approaches in science are positivistic. There are postmodern sciences, for instance.

What/whom do you have in mind?
Surely postmodernists can go beyond the positivism that the OP likes to criticize.

But there's something else, that I'd like to get at with your quoting Thompson several times by now --

"In Buddhism, we have a case study showing that when groundlessness is embraced and followed through to its ultimate conclusions, the outcome is an unconditional sense of intrinsic goodness that manifests itself in the world as spontaneous compassion.”

You say, "But I never understood how assuming a groundless ego leads to spontaneous compassion and benevolence."

To which I replied earlier that what Thompson is stating as fact is actually Mahayana/Vajrayana doctrine; it's not even universally Buddhist (he should have named his book "Why I am not a Mahayani/Vajrayani/modernist Buddhist", because this is all that he says he isn't, as far as Buddhism goes).

I'm baffled that anyone would even try to understand specific terms from a particular Buddhist discourse in an atomistic, context-independent manner.

Would it even be possible for someone outside of Mahayana/Vajrayana to "embrace groundlessness" and "follow it through to its ultimate conclusions"? At best, such a person would have to work with whatever they think those terms mean, and the outcome would be who knows what (possibly a mental breakdown, as is not that rarely the case for "spiritual practitioners").

How does it hurt you politically to think of people as individuals?

I'm not disagreeing, but we have to get by somehow. We can't just give in to silence and let the others rule as they please.

Possibly because you don't see any meaningful difference between I-statements and you-statements.

Im not asking you for what you think their motivations are, I'm asking you what has led you to believe they are doing that. — flannel jesus

The language they use; namely, you-statements; and we-statements (which are veiled you-statements).

Pick up any scientific piece of writing, and insofar it makes claims in the form of "we humans", as if the generalizations the writer makes apply to all people.

Obviously, the texts in the hard sciences will have less of that. But those in the humanities, neuroscience, neurobiology will have plenty.

And why do you think scientists are telling you what you think so frequently? — flannel jesus

Because they want to have control over people.
It's a standard mode of operation for people anyway; scientists have just elevated it to a whole new level, much like religion/spirituality.

Disagreeing with scientists potentially comes with a cost.
— baker
Do you think that's unjust in some way? What specific examples of this unjustness have you experienced?

Well, you can always dismiss my experience on the grounds of them being a statistically irrelevant sample.
All in all, I think it makes for a waste of time to utter words without actually communicating.
You can see the downside of this mode of non-communication in medicine (as an applied science) when doctors don't listen to people describing their symptoms and instead jumping to conclusions, followed by wrong medical treatment, side-effects, wasted time, money, and missed opportunities for healing.

When scientists say "we think X", why are you interpreting that into "You think X, because you think what we tell you you think"? — flannel jesus

Where do you get that from??

I'm talking about the use of you-language, you-messages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message

“You are such a slob. You just expect me to clean up after you.”
“You are always working. Work is more important to you than your family.”
“You are so frivolous. You just think money grows on trees.”
“You always leave your mess lying everywhere.”
“You don’t care about me or my feelings.”
“You didn’t text me like you said you would.”
“You embarrassed me at dinner the other night, like you always do.”
“You never tell me how you’re feeling.”

The speaker of such statements doesn't say, in first person singular, what he thinks, feels, intends, wants, but makes claims about the other person, esp. about their inner life.

People usually use you-language. It's a form of non-communication (while uttering words), a way of talking at the person or past the person, not to them.

Surely you can just accept that scientists think X, and you disagree - scientists in general don't imagine nobody disagrees with them.

Disagreeing with scientists potentially comes with a cost. Like the cost of disagreeing with a doctor, teacher, psychotherapist, boss, anyone who uses science in an argument against you in any way.

You're just proving my point. Non-communication for the win!

Possibly because you think like they do already. So you don't feel imposed upon. When scientists say "we", you feel included in that "we". Not everyone does, though.

The irony of you projecting your own behavior on scientists... — wonderer1

Copy-paste examples.

You have to ask yourself the following questions:
How free do you feel to express your opinion without facing direct or indirect sanctions?
Is there enough room for controversial discussions, or are the outcomes of discussions already determined?
Are certain values taken more important than others, such as those of one's own culture compared to other cultures?
The answers show the degree of tolerance of a truly democratic society. — Wolfgang

For practical purposes, an initially democratic society will eventually develop into a more homogeneous one.

It's simply not economically or socially viable to be different, unless one's kind of "different" can be monetized readily enough.

Values are often used as weapons in ideological warfare to disavow the adversary. They can be used in any way and prostitute themselves in this way. They are then empty shells and have nothing to do with the values that have developed in cultures over years or centuries.
/.../
They are ideals that lack real ground and are easy to say.
They can be used to silence people, they are traded like any other commodity.
If you look at the so-called Western values from this point of view, they seem meaningless.
Peace becomes a dirty word, and those who demand it are vilified.
The West thinks that its interpretation of values is the only correct one and tries to impose them on everyone else.

Of course.

True values arise from the culture of individual societies, they are relative and must be linked to each other in a globalized world by being translated like languages.

Rather, the solution seems to be for the world to become significantly less globalized, less connected.

You think whatever I say that you think.
You feel whatever I say that you feel.
You did whatever I say that you did.
Your intentions are whatever I say that your intentions are.

Listen to pretty much any scientist, and this is what they are telling you, directly, or at best less directly.

So you're just going to let them win, without a fight, 3:0?

It's trivially true that when a person talks, they talk, and not society, or community etc.

The question is how individual(istic) can a person be, given that they do not live in a vacuum.

what claims of certainty are you actually bothered with? — Kizzy

To begin with, everyday things.
Such as an acquaintance accusing you of having done something, and ignoring evidence to the contrary. For example, an acquaintance (with whom I used to be on friendly terms years ago) accused me once that I called her. I denied, while she insisted that I was lying. Given the facts of the situation, I surmised that what happened was that her phone pocket-dialed me (she said she was backpacking and had her phone in her backpack and that it unclocked itself; this was back in the day of old Nokias that did all kinds of crazy things on their own). I wasn't around for that first call, but I returned it, and this was what she saw. It would be easy to just check the call history. But she refused to do that and instead insisted that I lied. The ease with which she accused me of lying!! And yet, who in the world would not side with her?

Things like that happen all time. One would need to have a team of lawyers and a camera crew at one's side at all times.

Secondly, metaphysical/spiritual/religious things. Like when people claim with 100% certainty that they know which religion is the right one (and how everyone who isn't a member of that religion will burn in hell for all eternity or some such).

So you looked, right? I believe you...Its clear you accept/tolerate instead of refuse or ignore and become susceptible to problems when examples are poor and used wrongly to build a weak stance upon already incredibly unstable grounds, bounds, and/or mounds. This is the mound I am talking about,

So far, I have not found a viable way in philosophy for dealing with such utterly and completely sure people, much to my dismay and loss.
— baker
, what does this even mean?

Good luck with refusing or ignoring a claim made by someone who is in a position of power over you, like a police officer, an IRS agent, your boss, etc.

Science is based on someone's particular, ideologically driven idea of human experience (or how it should be).
It's yet another form of normativism.

I also think the "objective" attitude of stoics like Marcus Aurelius may be a form of dissociation, particularly concerning one's emotions.. seems unhealthy to me. I think it is better to address trauma rather than "objectifying" it. — NotAristotle

It seems a Stoic is unable to experience trauma in the first place, since a Stoic's outlook on life is such that it can accomodate whatever trauma-inducing hardship might come his way.

In contrast, an ordinary person whose outlook on life is sketchy at best, who doesn't have a developed philosophy of life, can readily become overwhelmed by life's challenges, thus experiencing "trauma".

It's like the difference between a well-trained person and a couch potato: if they have to run for five miles, the well-trained person will do so with ease, while the couch potato will probably collapse before he even runs a mile.

I.e. memento mori, memento vivere. — 180 Proof

Slaves live. But what does it mean to live?

Every time I see the title of this thread, I'm reminded of Oprah Winfrey and her "What I know for sure" column/book.
https://www.oprah.com/spirit/the-top-20-things-oprah-knows-for-sure

Apart from some philosophers, people in general seem to be completely sure of a whole lot of things.

We do not actually KNOW anything at 100%. — Chet Hawkins

You vs. Oprah.

The thing is that in everyday life, we mostly have to deal with Oprah-type people, people who are 100% sure of things. So far, I have not found a viable way in philosophy for dealing with such utterly and completely sure people, much to my dismay and loss.

I would normally distinguish between thinking of yourself as a person in their own right and being or becoming a person in its own right.
— kudos

This seems to me like a distinction that isn't a difference. Can you explain this further? — BC

thinking that you're x
vs.
being x

thinking that you can climb a tree
vs.
successfully climbing a tree

thinking that you're productive
vs.
being productive

thinking that you're a person in your own right
vs.
being a person in your own right


Being x requires some type of evidence, often objectively, interpersonally measurable.

No. Becoming a person in one's own right diminishes innocence. — BC

How Christian ...

What's wrong about living a simple life without worry or anxieties, supposing those questions bring with them those feelings? — kudos

What is "wrong" with such a life is that one cannot choose it; it's not the result of deliberate action, at least not always.

Anyway, where is this opposition between innocence and experience coming from? — kudos

Wishful thinking, possibly born out of incompetence.

So, I'm interested, what type of experience qualifies as anti-innocent and what does not?

It looks as if for many people, loss of innocence has to do with opposing one's elders or with the onset of sexuality of any kind.