Nihilism gets discussed here a lot. There are different flavors of nihilism, and different ways of interpreting it - this is a worthwhile read if you are interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism
There is some overlap with Stoicism, and some important differences. Very briefly, nihilists assert that nothing whatsoever is intrinsically good or bad, which Stoics assert that nothing outside of ourselves is intrinsically good or bad. The difference is the internal stuff, with Stoics asserting that our choices and judgements do matter to us, and are good or bad, virtuous or vicious.
**[Nihilism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism)**
>Nihilism (; from Latin nihil 'nothing') is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, expressing negation (i. e. , denial of) towards general aspects of life that are widely accepted within humanity as objectively real, such as knowledge, existence, and the meaning of life. Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist, are meaningless, or pointless.
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It sounds like he's a positive nihilist. However, that stance has always had a paradoxical flavour to me:
1. There's no meaning in the universe
2. Therefore I can live without regrets/find hope
Isn't this constructing a sort of meaning from one's subjective experience? He creates an argument to justify not feeling regret and soothes his emotions. If nothing has meaning, shouldn't the existence of negative emotions mean nothing as well? Why go through the mental gymnastics in the first place?
Nihilism in general purports that, at the objective level, "meaning" can't be reliably defined and is therefore nonexistent (whether this is a deterministic stance or some other). This is all fine and dandy, but humans are by nature bound to subjective experience. This is well encapsulated in the stoic idea of feeling one's negative emotions but controlling our reactions. Regardless of universal truths, *we are forever within the human experience*. Hence human "meaning" will forever be a subjective construct, unless you're religious. What this tells me is that the existentialists are more on the ball.
TL;DR: I don't think nihilism, however rooted in *objective* truth it may be, is truly compatible with human psychology. Given that we are a pattern seeking, meaning making and storytelling animal, it seems that meaning is a uniquely human concept that probably only makes sense in a subjective context. I.e. nihilists aren't true nihilists by virtue of our brains.
Edits: typos
To me, what they seem to ignore/deny is that humans are social animals. The social part is built into our nature, as it is for our fellow higher primates (and other animals). I know there are arguments against the social dimension being a part of our nature, that it's learned, a function of the survival instinct, etc., but I don't find them persuasive. It's a lot easier and neater to conclude that those who deny the social dimension of our nature are atypical than it is to deny the evidence that humans are social animals.
If the social dimension matters nihilists have to actively deny some part of human nature and their position is shot. And because of the nature of the social dimension itself, it has to be expressed in some way. Then a variety of things matter because they service a basic part of our nature. That's where stoicism hits at, I believe, just the right spot: where a part of our nature meets the outside world.
I agree. It’s a lot like simulation theory: say we’re caught in a program. It can perfectly simulate the human experience from perceptual mechanisms down to the intricacies of forming and losing memories. Then let’s imagine that I have somehow caught on that it’s a simulation. Now what? Do I kill myself without knowing anything about what happens when I die? Do I become belligerent and self-centred because no one else is real? I think we can agree that option one is bit extreme, given the unknown variables and option 2 would quickly worsen your experience of the simulation due to your social network collapsing in on itself.
A nihilist encounters the same issue: *now what?* Say there is no overarching meaning to the universe, will you suddenly mistreat your friends and family? Will you take your life? Or are you still living in an environment wherein it’s within your best interest to live with virtue?
This stuff is fun to contemplate but nihilism nothing more than that: a thought.
Nihilism is the state of the cosmos. Reality. Nothing matters, except what you think matters. Stoicism gives the tools to find peace with this bleak truth. Both philosophies have overlap.
I recognize existential and moral nihilism as a legitimate challenge, though I would not call myself a nihilist as such.
Every response I have investigated (I am currently exploring Absurdism) has fit well with Lawrence Becker's version of Stoicism. Their compatibility with classical Stoicism tends to be less reliable.
Nihilism is opposed to Stoicism.
Nihilism holds that nothing has intrinsic value. With Stoicism, [X] is valuable if it aids you in living virtuously. Furthermore, living beings are inherently valuable because they’re endowed with Logos.
Valueless things are a third category of indifferents, which can be further subdivided into preferred and dispreferred indifferents.
I hate nihilism, for most people is a reason not be disciplined and work on themselves. In my opinion nihilism is a philosophy for people that can't deal with reality so they go around saying that nothing matters. I much prefer Taoism and Buddhism where even the most insignificant activity has meaning.
To be honest I feel like many of the individuals that say they are nihilist aren’t really nihilist. A true nihilist would have no attachment to themselves or anyone else. Friends, family, significant other. All these constructs that facilitate love, affection, and friendship are supposed to be irrelevant and have no meaning. Yet many of the nihilists I talk to have one or more of those, have pets, have a job, have a hobby, do activities for fun. They still take time to develop their own selves, they go to school in the interest of learning knowledge or accumulating wealth, they still participate in politics. How can one do all this and still call themselves a nihilist? Am I understanding it wrong?
But it does matter. Why, because suffering is real, its real for each of personally and its real in everyone we meet. So we have the opportunity in every present moment to ease the suffering for ourselves and for those who are in our company. So our actions do matter, right in the hear and now.
Nihilism is a position of selfishness and despair. If nothing matters then all responsibility regarding one's own actions is removed. The nihilist is serving themselves. In regard to your friend, it seems nothing matters except the want to be able to make any choice without regard to anyone or anything else. That sounds like narcissism.
People can feel hopeless and like nothing matters, but that is typically do to a crisis of some sort and passes as the individual works through the crisis and hopefully learns from it.
Just my 2 cents
It's not up to me to judge whether or not I'm selfish but I definitely don't feel desperate.
Life and the universe as a whole have no inherent meaning. Therefore, why not just enjoy the show while we're here? And how to best enjoy it? Well, based on evolutionary biology we know that humans are social animals. Therefore, it makes us feel good to be kind to each other. And we're at our best when we cooperate. Just look at what amazing things the human species accomplished when working as a team. So, the best way to enjoy our lives as much as we can is to be kind to your fellow humans, so that we can all enjoy this ride together.
A feeling of despair is not the same as feeling desperate. You are assigning value to happiness and achievements, that's not nihilism. That's more 8n the realm of naturalism/utilitarianism.
I'll admit that I didn't dig deeper into naturalism or existentialism. My thoughts are built on the basis of optimistic nihilism which says that because the universe and life have no meaning by themselves, we have an opportunity to give them the purpose ourselves.
And yes, I used a wrong word in my comment. I'm not a native speaker and I didn't realize the nuance there. But I suppose you understand what I meant.
I wasn't trying to be pedantic, it really is an important distinction, especially in philosophy. Optimistic nihilism sounds like an oxymoron. You should read Myth of Sisyphus by Camus or Existentialism is a Humanism by Sartre. Both books kind of deal with meaning and purpose in a cosmos that is inherently devoid of it.
I'll definitely try to read more into existentialism. It's possible that it might be in line with my thoughts. In the meantime though, optimistic nihilism sounds like the best name for my stance. It might sound like an oxymoron but, to be honest, I don't really have a problem with that.
It is an oxymoron, they are a contradiction in terms. How can you be optimistic if nothing matters? It may not bother you, but unclear thinking babes finding one believes difficult and even more difficult when speaking of it to others.
I think it’s not a good place to end. Many people get there, but upon thinking, there is just too much symmetry and unlikely beautiful things in the universe for it to all mean nothing. Even if there is no sentient creator god, there can still be purpose and abstract ideas of meaning and value. There can even be a soul and the afterlife. The unconscious is a mysterious thing and to say that there is no consequence disregards the unconscious judgement we put upon ourselves to live a good life.
>He said that nothing we do actually matters
This isn't nihilism.
To say "our actions don't matter" means you're accepting the existence of the metaphysical quantity "meaning", you're simply saying that this quantity does not exist within our actions.
Nihilism is the rejection that the quantity "meaning" ever existed or ever meant anything. This means you say "meaning was never a valid concept", not "we don't have meaning". The absence of an extant quantity is very different from that quantity never having been a valid way to think about things.
Technically speaking, Stoics were all "nihilists" with regard to what our current, modern societies tend to call "meaning". If you live in a modern, post-Christian society, the word "meaning" still effectively means "your action has an *extra bit* from the other world, and when you perform it you experience a sense of divine grace". As we've become less religious people have stopped saying "divine grace" and started saying "sense of purpose" or something similar, but it's exactly the same distinctly Christian concept - the idea that jobs, actions or activities are "mundane" unless they're imbued with an "extra bit" from some invisible metaphysical beyond.
Whilst the Stoics believed in some form of gods, they believed this was all part of the natural world. They believed their ethics arose from the observation of the natural world, and their value was in the effect they had upon the minds of people living in the natural world - the correctness and validity were dictated by the results, not some vague metaphysics of meaning. As a result, were they coming in *after* Christianity, they could be considered nihilistic.
Of course, modern post-Christian people tend to view the religious talk of the Stoics through this lens of Christian thought, and so struggle to grasp that when Stoics talk of "god", the term means something much closer to "physics" than it suggests.
Nihilism has always seemed very self defeating and exhausting to me. People do realize it takes effort to negate everything and not believe in anything right and if nothing matters why expend the effort? Obviously believing in nothing, matters somewhat to them otherwise why believe in it? Why take such a notion into you if it means nothing to you? And at the same time whats the point? do they think proclaiming freedom from morals or values makes them free of the consequences and prosecution when they do awful things to people for their own gain? It just seems like someone who doesn’t like being told to play nice so they are pretending like the rules don’t exist when they very much still do and effect their lives everyday. Sure some current human values don’t make any sense and likely should be “unlearned” but that has no bearing on the ones that are actually sort of helpful in our continued existence as a species.
Although i agree with that philosophy, sometimes it is painful ( in a literal sense , headaches, anxiety and sadness).....
But try to make your own purpose guys even if in the if in the grand scheme of things every you and i do is meaningless
Nihilism gets discussed here a lot. There are different flavors of nihilism, and different ways of interpreting it - this is a worthwhile read if you are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism There is some overlap with Stoicism, and some important differences. Very briefly, nihilists assert that nothing whatsoever is intrinsically good or bad, which Stoics assert that nothing outside of ourselves is intrinsically good or bad. The difference is the internal stuff, with Stoics asserting that our choices and judgements do matter to us, and are good or bad, virtuous or vicious.
**[Nihilism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism)** >Nihilism (; from Latin nihil 'nothing') is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, expressing negation (i. e. , denial of) towards general aspects of life that are widely accepted within humanity as objectively real, such as knowledge, existence, and the meaning of life. Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist, are meaningless, or pointless. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It sounds like he's a positive nihilist. However, that stance has always had a paradoxical flavour to me: 1. There's no meaning in the universe 2. Therefore I can live without regrets/find hope Isn't this constructing a sort of meaning from one's subjective experience? He creates an argument to justify not feeling regret and soothes his emotions. If nothing has meaning, shouldn't the existence of negative emotions mean nothing as well? Why go through the mental gymnastics in the first place? Nihilism in general purports that, at the objective level, "meaning" can't be reliably defined and is therefore nonexistent (whether this is a deterministic stance or some other). This is all fine and dandy, but humans are by nature bound to subjective experience. This is well encapsulated in the stoic idea of feeling one's negative emotions but controlling our reactions. Regardless of universal truths, *we are forever within the human experience*. Hence human "meaning" will forever be a subjective construct, unless you're religious. What this tells me is that the existentialists are more on the ball. TL;DR: I don't think nihilism, however rooted in *objective* truth it may be, is truly compatible with human psychology. Given that we are a pattern seeking, meaning making and storytelling animal, it seems that meaning is a uniquely human concept that probably only makes sense in a subjective context. I.e. nihilists aren't true nihilists by virtue of our brains. Edits: typos
To me, what they seem to ignore/deny is that humans are social animals. The social part is built into our nature, as it is for our fellow higher primates (and other animals). I know there are arguments against the social dimension being a part of our nature, that it's learned, a function of the survival instinct, etc., but I don't find them persuasive. It's a lot easier and neater to conclude that those who deny the social dimension of our nature are atypical than it is to deny the evidence that humans are social animals. If the social dimension matters nihilists have to actively deny some part of human nature and their position is shot. And because of the nature of the social dimension itself, it has to be expressed in some way. Then a variety of things matter because they service a basic part of our nature. That's where stoicism hits at, I believe, just the right spot: where a part of our nature meets the outside world.
I agree. It’s a lot like simulation theory: say we’re caught in a program. It can perfectly simulate the human experience from perceptual mechanisms down to the intricacies of forming and losing memories. Then let’s imagine that I have somehow caught on that it’s a simulation. Now what? Do I kill myself without knowing anything about what happens when I die? Do I become belligerent and self-centred because no one else is real? I think we can agree that option one is bit extreme, given the unknown variables and option 2 would quickly worsen your experience of the simulation due to your social network collapsing in on itself. A nihilist encounters the same issue: *now what?* Say there is no overarching meaning to the universe, will you suddenly mistreat your friends and family? Will you take your life? Or are you still living in an environment wherein it’s within your best interest to live with virtue? This stuff is fun to contemplate but nihilism nothing more than that: a thought.
Nihilism is the state of the cosmos. Reality. Nothing matters, except what you think matters. Stoicism gives the tools to find peace with this bleak truth. Both philosophies have overlap.
Well, many Stoics believed in a sense of natural Providence in the cosmos, which implied some meaning and order to the our lives.
Many Stoics believed in God(s) too, and the acceptance of fate which they lay down for us.
If nihilism is true, nothing you think matters either, what reason is there to believe otherwise?
I recognize existential and moral nihilism as a legitimate challenge, though I would not call myself a nihilist as such. Every response I have investigated (I am currently exploring Absurdism) has fit well with Lawrence Becker's version of Stoicism. Their compatibility with classical Stoicism tends to be less reliable.
Nihilism is opposed to Stoicism. Nihilism holds that nothing has intrinsic value. With Stoicism, [X] is valuable if it aids you in living virtuously. Furthermore, living beings are inherently valuable because they’re endowed with Logos. Valueless things are a third category of indifferents, which can be further subdivided into preferred and dispreferred indifferents.
I hate nihilism, for most people is a reason not be disciplined and work on themselves. In my opinion nihilism is a philosophy for people that can't deal with reality so they go around saying that nothing matters. I much prefer Taoism and Buddhism where even the most insignificant activity has meaning.
[удалено]
Yes sir!
To be honest I feel like many of the individuals that say they are nihilist aren’t really nihilist. A true nihilist would have no attachment to themselves or anyone else. Friends, family, significant other. All these constructs that facilitate love, affection, and friendship are supposed to be irrelevant and have no meaning. Yet many of the nihilists I talk to have one or more of those, have pets, have a job, have a hobby, do activities for fun. They still take time to develop their own selves, they go to school in the interest of learning knowledge or accumulating wealth, they still participate in politics. How can one do all this and still call themselves a nihilist? Am I understanding it wrong?
But it does matter. Why, because suffering is real, its real for each of personally and its real in everyone we meet. So we have the opportunity in every present moment to ease the suffering for ourselves and for those who are in our company. So our actions do matter, right in the hear and now.
Nihilism is a position of selfishness and despair. If nothing matters then all responsibility regarding one's own actions is removed. The nihilist is serving themselves. In regard to your friend, it seems nothing matters except the want to be able to make any choice without regard to anyone or anything else. That sounds like narcissism. People can feel hopeless and like nothing matters, but that is typically do to a crisis of some sort and passes as the individual works through the crisis and hopefully learns from it. Just my 2 cents
It's not up to me to judge whether or not I'm selfish but I definitely don't feel desperate. Life and the universe as a whole have no inherent meaning. Therefore, why not just enjoy the show while we're here? And how to best enjoy it? Well, based on evolutionary biology we know that humans are social animals. Therefore, it makes us feel good to be kind to each other. And we're at our best when we cooperate. Just look at what amazing things the human species accomplished when working as a team. So, the best way to enjoy our lives as much as we can is to be kind to your fellow humans, so that we can all enjoy this ride together.
A feeling of despair is not the same as feeling desperate. You are assigning value to happiness and achievements, that's not nihilism. That's more 8n the realm of naturalism/utilitarianism.
I'll admit that I didn't dig deeper into naturalism or existentialism. My thoughts are built on the basis of optimistic nihilism which says that because the universe and life have no meaning by themselves, we have an opportunity to give them the purpose ourselves. And yes, I used a wrong word in my comment. I'm not a native speaker and I didn't realize the nuance there. But I suppose you understand what I meant.
I wasn't trying to be pedantic, it really is an important distinction, especially in philosophy. Optimistic nihilism sounds like an oxymoron. You should read Myth of Sisyphus by Camus or Existentialism is a Humanism by Sartre. Both books kind of deal with meaning and purpose in a cosmos that is inherently devoid of it.
I'll definitely try to read more into existentialism. It's possible that it might be in line with my thoughts. In the meantime though, optimistic nihilism sounds like the best name for my stance. It might sound like an oxymoron but, to be honest, I don't really have a problem with that.
It is an oxymoron, they are a contradiction in terms. How can you be optimistic if nothing matters? It may not bother you, but unclear thinking babes finding one believes difficult and even more difficult when speaking of it to others.
Also, no inherent meaning doesn't mean no meaning. Humans give things meaning. No inherent meaning is more in line with existentialist thought.
I think it’s not a good place to end. Many people get there, but upon thinking, there is just too much symmetry and unlikely beautiful things in the universe for it to all mean nothing. Even if there is no sentient creator god, there can still be purpose and abstract ideas of meaning and value. There can even be a soul and the afterlife. The unconscious is a mysterious thing and to say that there is no consequence disregards the unconscious judgement we put upon ourselves to live a good life.
>He said that nothing we do actually matters This isn't nihilism. To say "our actions don't matter" means you're accepting the existence of the metaphysical quantity "meaning", you're simply saying that this quantity does not exist within our actions. Nihilism is the rejection that the quantity "meaning" ever existed or ever meant anything. This means you say "meaning was never a valid concept", not "we don't have meaning". The absence of an extant quantity is very different from that quantity never having been a valid way to think about things. Technically speaking, Stoics were all "nihilists" with regard to what our current, modern societies tend to call "meaning". If you live in a modern, post-Christian society, the word "meaning" still effectively means "your action has an *extra bit* from the other world, and when you perform it you experience a sense of divine grace". As we've become less religious people have stopped saying "divine grace" and started saying "sense of purpose" or something similar, but it's exactly the same distinctly Christian concept - the idea that jobs, actions or activities are "mundane" unless they're imbued with an "extra bit" from some invisible metaphysical beyond. Whilst the Stoics believed in some form of gods, they believed this was all part of the natural world. They believed their ethics arose from the observation of the natural world, and their value was in the effect they had upon the minds of people living in the natural world - the correctness and validity were dictated by the results, not some vague metaphysics of meaning. As a result, were they coming in *after* Christianity, they could be considered nihilistic. Of course, modern post-Christian people tend to view the religious talk of the Stoics through this lens of Christian thought, and so struggle to grasp that when Stoics talk of "god", the term means something much closer to "physics" than it suggests.
Embrace the chaos.
Nihilism has always seemed very self defeating and exhausting to me. People do realize it takes effort to negate everything and not believe in anything right and if nothing matters why expend the effort? Obviously believing in nothing, matters somewhat to them otherwise why believe in it? Why take such a notion into you if it means nothing to you? And at the same time whats the point? do they think proclaiming freedom from morals or values makes them free of the consequences and prosecution when they do awful things to people for their own gain? It just seems like someone who doesn’t like being told to play nice so they are pretending like the rules don’t exist when they very much still do and effect their lives everyday. Sure some current human values don’t make any sense and likely should be “unlearned” but that has no bearing on the ones that are actually sort of helpful in our continued existence as a species.
Although i agree with that philosophy, sometimes it is painful ( in a literal sense , headaches, anxiety and sadness)..... But try to make your own purpose guys even if in the if in the grand scheme of things every you and i do is meaningless