Nihilism

[AnyOldIron]

SO then there's a change life COULD be innately "meaningful", and you just don't get it.

I can't demonstrate absolutely that the sun is made from spicy Mexican cheese. Should I be agnostic about the idea that the sun IS made from spicy Mexican cheese?

If you believe that there is an innate meaning to life, make the case for it, and we'll test the argument....

 

[Litmus]

SO then there's a change life COULD be innately "meaningful", and you just don't get it.

I can't demonstrate absolutely that the sun is made from spicy Mexican cheese. Should I be agnostic about the idea that the sun IS made from spicy Mexican cheese?

If you believe that there is an innate meaning to life, make the case for it, and we'll test the argument....

But you already said we create our own value systems. i choose to put a value on life, and will fight to the death for that value. How about you? Have you chosen not to value life?

 

[AnyOldIron]

But you already said we create our own value systems. i choose to put a value on life, and will fight to the death for that value. How about you? Have you chosen not to value life?

Do I value life? Who's life?

 

[Litmus]

But you already said we create our own value systems. i choose to put a value on life, and will fight to the death for that value. How about you? Have you chosen not to value life?

Do I value life? Who's life?

good one, fake intellectual.

Put together a matrix of identitities and the value you place on their lives, also include an additional column of how much value YOU THINK they're allowed to place on their lives.

 

[AnyOldIron]

good one, fake intellectual.

Again with the ad hominems... ha ha ha!

Put together a matrix of identitities and the value you place on their lives, also include an additional column of how much value YOU THINK they're allowed to place on their lives.

Your argument is unrelated and largely strawman.

I have never argued that I should dictate how much value people place on life. I am arguing that there is no innate value, and that the only value to be found is that invested by people.

How did you get to your retort from my argument?

 

[Litmus]

good one, fake intellectual.

Again with the ad hominems... ha ha ha!

Put together a matrix of identitities and the value you place on their lives, also include an additional column of how much value YOU THINK they're allowed to place on their lives.

Your argument is unrelated and largely strawman.

I have never argued that I should dictate how much value people place on life. I am arguing that there is no innate value, and that the only value to be found is that invested by people.

How did you get to your retort from my argument?

You asked "whose life?" I'm saying "everyone's" . It's a very direct answer. And i'd like it in spreadsheet form.

 

[OrnotBitwise]

You asked "whose life?" I'm saying "everyone's" . It's a very direct answer. And i'd like it in spreadsheet form.

if the intrinsic "value" of one life is zero (0) then the intrinsic value of all lives together is also zero.

No, you did not answer his question. Not at all.

 

[Litmus]

if the intrinsic "value" of one life is zero (0) then the intrinsic value of all lives together is also zero.

No, you did not answer his question. Not at all.

Yes I did. We agree we must choose our values in life, create our own value system. I said I choose to value life, does he? He said "who's life". I said "create a spreadsheet". You're saying he chooses not to value life and it will all be zeros.

The decision not to value life is just as arbitrary as a decision to value life, in the nihilist world view. Nihilists should respect all value systems, considering their belief that all are equally arbitrary. But they don't. they only respect pro-death attitudes. Guilting people out of valuing their own lives is cheaper than war.

 

[AnyOldIron]

Yes I did. We agree we must choose our values in life, create our own value system. I said I choose to value life, does he? He said "who's life". I said "create a spreadsheet". You're saying he chooses not to value life and it will all be zeros.

The decision not to value life is just as arbitrary as a decision to value life, in the nihilist world view. Nihilists should respect all value systems, considering their belief that all are equally arbitrary. But they don't. they only respect pro-death attitudes. Guilting people out of valuing their own lives is cheaper than war.

You are completely missing my point Asshat. It is not the nihilist worldview not to value life. The nihilist worldview states that life has no innate value, that value is subjective and can only be defined by the arbitrator.

The decision that life has no innate meaning isn't arbitrary, it is based on a posteriori analytics.

Now, with that in mind, stating that nihilists only respect pro-death attitudes is a little ridiculous. A nihilist can hold his life in great value, he can hold any life he arbitrates on in great value, whilst still recognising that there is no innate value. It has no relation to 'guilting people out of valuing their own lives'. It doesn't affect how much people value there lives.

The key to understanding nihilism, Asshat, is to not think of it as meaning that nothing has value or meaning, but to think of it as recognising that value and meaning are human creations and only found where humans invest them and are not innate in existence.

 

[AnyOldIron]

If the intrinsic "value" of one life is zero (0) then the intrinsic value of all lives together is also zero.

This is true. It is known as a priori analytic logic, logic that is not dependent on experience (a posteriori) and where the predicate can be derived from the subject.

However.... Value is subjective and only defined by the arbitrator. For example, you might place high value on a certain piece of art to which I wouldn't value highly. Nihilism recognises this subjective nature of value, stating that whilst there is no innate value, it still exists as a human creation. Whilst in existence the intrinsic value of life is zero, as you said above, in the sphere of human interactions its value depends on the person judging.

 

[Litmus]

Yes I did. We agree we must choose our values in life, create our own value system. I said I choose to value life, does he? He said "who's life". I said "create a spreadsheet". You're saying he chooses not to value life and it will all be zeros.

The decision not to value life is just as arbitrary as a decision to value life, in the nihilist world view. Nihilists should respect all value systems, considering their belief that all are equally arbitrary. But they don't. they only respect pro-death attitudes. Guilting people out of valuing their own lives is cheaper than war.

You are completely missing my point Asshat. It is not the nihilist worldview not to value life. The nihilist worldview states that life has no innate value, that value is subjective and can only be defined by the arbitrator.

The decision that life has no innate meaning isn't arbitrary, it is based on a posteriori analytics.

Now, with that in mind, stating that nihilists only respect pro-death attitudes is a little ridiculous. A nihilist can hold his life in great value, he can hold any life he arbitrates on in great value, whilst still recognising that there is no innate value. It has no relation to 'guilting people out of valuing their own lives'. It doesn't affect how much people value there lives.

The key to understanding nihilism, Asshat, is to not think of it as meaning that nothing has value or meaning, but to think of it as recognising that value and meaning are human creations and only found where humans invest them and are not innate in existence.

But the key to understanding how nihilism is USED in today's political atmosphere, is to realize that it's used to guilt people out of sticking up for themselves.

 

[Litmus]

The concepts of nihilism are only valid to the extent that individuals choose to value valuelessness.

 

[OrnotBitwise]

The concepts of nihilism are only valid to the extent that individuals choose to value valuelessness.

This sounds like something out of Monty Python. If you're trying to assert some sort of absolute moral standard then you're going to have to do a lot better than this.

Look, you and AnyOldIron are talking about two different things. He's been trying to get you to see that but you don't appear to be listening. He's talking about real Nihilism, in the formal, philosophical sense. You, on the other hand, are talking about nihilism in the vernacular sense. You're taking potshots at Hollywood while he's sitting in academia. That's why you keep missing the target.

I'll agree with you to this extent: "nihilism" is all too frequently misunderstood and abused. Some illiterate and morally maladjusted people attempt to justify their antisocial behavior and arrogance by calling themselves nihilists. As AOI has been pointing out, however, they do this because they don't grasp nihilism at all.

 

[Litmus]

This sounds like something out of Monty Python. If you're trying to assert some sort of absolute moral standard then you're going to have to do a lot better than this.

Look, you and AnyOldIron are talking about two different things. He's been trying to get you to see that but you don't appear to be listening. He's talking about real Nihilism, in the formal, philosophical sense. You, on the other hand, are talking about nihilism in the vernacular sense. You're taking potshots at Hollywood while he's sitting in academia. That's why you keep missing the target.

I'll agree with you to this extent: "nihilism" is all too frequently misunderstood and abused. Some illiterate and morally maladjusted people attempt to justify their antisocial behavior and arrogance by calling themselves nihilists. As AOI has been pointing out, however, they do this because they don't grasp nihilism at all.

But even in the formal philosophical sense, nihilism is whacked. "Nothing means anything" is the kind of absolutist thinking nihilism claims to reject. If it were really open minded, it would be open to the POSSIBLITY that the world is inherently richly meaningful.

 

[OrnotBitwise]

But even in the formal philosophical sense, nihilism is whacked. "Nothing means anything" is the kind of absolutist thinking nihilism claims to reject. If it were really open minded, it would be open to the POSSIBLITY that the world is inherently richly meaningful.

Certainly any individual nihilist should be, but the point is meaningless. Since absolute knowledge is impossible, you have no access to any alleged "meaning" life might have.

It's been a long time since my undergraduate philosophy courses and so I won't try to argue what nihilsm is or isn't. AnyoldIron is far better qualified for that role and I'm likely to just muddy the water. I can, however, help cut through some of the underbrush of fuzzy, emotive thinking that surrounds it.

The overly simple statement "life has no meaning" does not in any way preclude moral or ethical codes. I, for example, accept that statement axiomatically yet I'm really quite the prickly moralist -- as too many lefties are. Life has no objective meaning -- there's no plan or purpose behind it that we can access -- but each individual life has a great deal of meaning within society. Society exists to provide a meaningful context for individual people, in a sense.

That sort of meaning is almost the only thing worth talking about, in my opinion. For a human being, social constructs are very real indeed. More real than anything short of a nickel-iron meteorite crashing through your roof and obliterating your TV during American Idyll.

Too many people assume that only a didactic assertion of what is "Real" can form the basis for a moral code. That's why so many religious are horrified by nihilism and skepticism, in my opinion. They are quite wrong, however, because social consensus has more than enough "reality" to provide a solid foundation for such a code.

 

[AnyOldIron]

But the key to understanding how nihilism is USED in today's political atmosphere, is to realize that it's used to guilt people out of sticking up for themselves.

Demonstrate how nihilism (keeping in mind the definition above) is used in today's political atmosphere, is to realize that it's used to guilt people out of sticking up for themselves?

The concepts of nihilism are only valid to the extent that individuals choose to value valuelessness.

Do you not get the inherent contradiction in your above statement? To value valueness means innately that you cannot value valueness because you hold a value.
And besides that, the validity of the concept of nihilism isn't dependent on the extent to which people invest value, the concepts state that value, meaning etc are found where humans invest them, just that there is none innately. Whether people invest meaning oin certain things or not has no baring on the concept that no meaning is innate.

 

[AnyOldIron]

But even in the formal philosophical sense, nihilism is whacked. "Nothing means anything" is the kind of absolutist thinking nihilism claims to reject. If it were really open minded, it would be open to the POSSIBLITY that the world is inherently richly meaningful.

Asshat, you misunderstand what nihilism is. Nihilism isn't the idea that 'nothing means anything'. If it were, then it wouldn't have survived five minutes as a concept, even a brief glance around demonstrates that meaning exists. Nihilism states that meaning, value etc are human creations and only found where humans invest them. With this is mind, nihilism is certainly open to the possibility, and even accepts that the world is full of rich meaning, even if that meaning is a human creation.

 

[AnyOldIron]

Ornot, you misunderestimate yourself...lol

The explanation you gave is very good, especially the part about accepting nihilism as an axiom and then operating morality / meaning from there... Couldn't have put it better myself......

 

[Litmus]

Ornot, you misunderestimate yourself...lol

The explanation you gave is very good, especially the part about accepting nihilism as an axiom and then operating morality / meaning from there... Couldn't have put it better myself......

But the problems is, he wants to go back to square one when someone creates a meaning he disagrees with. It's the ideational reset button.

 

[OrnotBitwise]

But the problems is, he wants to go back to square one when someone creates a meaning he disagrees with. It's the ideational reset button.

Naturally. If you don't then you're just farting words at one another.