That's the way. I recommend life affirming Zoroastrianism on weekends. — Tom Storm

:fire: :up:

I accept the reality as it is — Corvus

Never accept reality as it is. There is no way that things ‘really really are’ in themselves , outside of all construction of them. The universe is amenable to an infinity of alternative constructions, some more useful than others. Even if youre relatively satisfied with the way you’re construing your world, you should never allow yourself to become complacent and assume that it is THE one reality. Be audacious.

Never accept reality as it is. — Joshs

Some things must be accepted as a priori, whether you like or not. You cannot change or reject transcendentally certain things such as time and space, living, doubting, ageing and death, feeling nihilistic at times. Many things in life are a priori reals that one has to accept as precondition of existence. Sure you can change your dwellings, your friends, your jobs and plans ... but how can one reject time or death when it passes by and comes to him for instance?

I accept the way of old thinking, that the Sun revolves around the Earth and anyone who thinks otherwise is really just a heretical loon and needs to be put away somewhere cold and dark where they can corrupt the children nevermore.

Some things must be accepted as a priori, whether you like or not. You cannot change or reject transcendentally certain things such as time and space, living, doubting, ageing and death, feeling nihilistic at t — Corvus

By changing the way you understand these things, you change the things themselves. Time and space, in the way they are commonly understood , are constructs going back to the Greeks. But there are alternative easy of interpreting these notions. And that is certainly true of concepts like death, nihilism, doubt. Just look at the diversity of views on this forum.

nihilist — niki wonoto

Broadly, nihilism is the negation or denial of objective truths; I suppose all other specific types of nihilism (moral nihilism, logical nihilism, etc.) branch out from this.

philosophical pessimism — niki wonoto

The worldview that centers around the dark side of nature and humans and thus, recommends lowering one's expectations to match the world's modus operandi - indifference bordering on malice.

Prima facie, philosophical pessimism appears to follow directly from nihilism at least when it comes to matters human; after all if nihilism is true, moral nihilism follows and that should, in the rational person, elicit extreme pessimism.

Dig a little deeper though and this causal connection vanishes because nihilism rejects those very ideas that underpin pessimism - ideas like good & evil, happiness & suffering, to name a few.

By changing the way you understand these things, you change the things themselves. Time and space, in the way they are commonly understood , are constructs going back to the Greeks. But there are alternative easy of interpreting these notions. And that is certainly true of concepts like death, nihilism, doubt. Just look at the diversity of views on this forum. — Joshs

Good point !! :up: :fire:

Excellent. Hats off to this good argument :100: — javi2541997

Thank you!

I feel so related to this. Not only with the fact of not being born I secure not suffer at all but not hurting others. If I never were born, then I would not be able to hurt, punch, rape, steal, disappoint, kill or betray you.
Not existing can produce benefits for both parts: the "persons" who never been born and all the people he never will met. — javi2541997

Exactly.. Didn't Julio Cabrera bring this idea up? By being born, we not only suffer, but we are bound to be unethical and cause others suffering in our very existing. Thus structurally it's messed up to just to exist, and exist in relation to others by almost necessity.

So, since we're beasts rather than angels, "structurally it's messed up to just to exist" because most of us can't act like, or will not pretend to be, angels enough to voluntarily refrain from breeding like beasts?

I guess there seems to be a difference between what nihilists say that nihilism is and what it more often than not turns out to be. It usually turns out to be a philosophy of despair and somehow ultimate within philosophical pessimism, generally connoting something like that existence is suffering. Perhaps, it's just because of that so many philosophical pessimists also happen to be existential nihilists that I feel confused. — thewonder

Perhaps, I think it is just a lot of confusion that people have around the term "nihilism".. It is more of a negation form than it is about content. It is denying the existence of "something" (ethics, meaning, knowledge, etc.). There is no judgement of content attached to a nihilist thought usually, as there is with philosophical pessimism. So a nihilist might think there is no ground to ethics or meaning in the world, but a true "nihilist" just leaves it at that. A Philosophical Pessimist sees a lot of implications in the world having suffering and judges it so through usually something akin to intuition or a moral sense (I'm being very broad here). Thus there is a sort of general aesthetic view from the pessimist philosophy. There are ethical implications for philosophical pessimists too (compassion and alleviation for fellow-sufferers, extirpation of one's own source of suffering, not putting more people into the world to suffer, etc.).

So, since we're beasts rather than angels, "structurally it's messed up to just to exist" because most of us can't act like, or will not pretend to be, angels enough to voluntarily refrain from breeding like beasts? — 180 Proof

Well, I don't know if it's just the breeding part. By existing at all as humans, we are bound to disappoint, transgress ethically other people, etc. It's the inevitability of humans capacity to transgress and perhaps a necessity in order to live with other people. I think Cabrera's point might be that just because it is a feature, doesn't mean it's a good feature. Clearly we get by through it, but "my oh my how we get by" sort of thing.

Truism. The already born live despite "existing at all" so the point is moot. How to live with each other with as little gratuitous harm or misery is the infinite task and daily grind of the vast majority of the already born. Amor fati, brothers & sisters! :death::flower:

How to live with each other with as little gratuitous harm or misery is the infinite task and daily grind of the vast majority of the already born. Amor fati, brothers & sisters! :death::flower: — 180 Proof

But with the idea of "thrownness", we have all but lost already. Work work work, grind grind grind away.. Die die die away.

Just as a reference or some talking points, here is a Wiki article on Cabrera:

Cabrera develops an ethical theory, negative ethics, that is informed by this phenomenological analysis. He argues that there has been an unwarranted prejudice in ethics against non-being, a view he calls "affirmativity". Because affirmative views take being as good, they always view things that threaten this hegemony as bad; particularly things like abstention from procreation or suicide. Cabrera criticizes affirmative ethics for asking how people should live without asking the radical question of whether people should live tout court. He argues that, because of the structural negativity of being, there is a fundamental "moral disqualification" of human beings due to the impossibility of nonharming and nonmanipulating others. Nonharming and nonmanipulating others is called by him the "Minimal Ethical Articulation" ("MEA"; previously translated into English as "Fundamental Ethical Articulation" and "FEA"). The MEA is violated by our structural "moral impediment", by the worldly discomforts – notably pain and discouragement – imposed on us that prevent us from acting ethically. Cabrera argues that an affirmative morality is a self-contradiction because it accepts the MEA and conceives a human existence that precludes the possibility of not-harming or not-manipulating others. Thus he believes that affirmative societies, through their politics, require the common suspension of the MEA to even function.

Cabrera's negative ethics is supposed to be a response to the negative structure of being, acutely aware of the morally disqualifying nature of being. Cabrera believes children are usually considered as mere aesthetic objects, are not created for their own sake but for the sake of their parents, and are thrown into a structurally negative life by the act of procreation. Procreation is, Cabrera argues, a harm and a supreme act of manipulation. He believes that the consistent application of normal moral concepts – like duty, virtue or respect – present in most affirmative moralities entails antinatalism. Cabrera also argues that a human being adopting negative ethics should not only abstain from procreation, but also should have a complete willingness for an ethical death, by immediate suspension of all personal projects in benefit of a political fight[5] or an altruistic suicide, when it becomes the least immoral course of action.

Cabrera's Critique is one of his most systematic defenses of negative ethics, but he has also explored the same ideas in other works, such as Projeto de Ética Negativa,[6] Ética Negativa: problemas e discussões,[7] Porque te amo, não nascerás! Nascituri te salutant,[8] Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation,[9] and A moral do começo: sobre a ética do nascimento.[10]

I've made the señor's acquaintance (via wiki) on another thread to which I replied ...

By "radical" in this context, all Cabrera can mean is "formal" (or ideal), that is, like Kant's 'categorical imperative', inapplicable to actual, messy, living situations. His complaint is, to my mind, silly. Academic skeptics in the Hellenistic era had claimed knowledge was impossible because "knowledge is never conpletely certain" – same nonsense as Cabrera's "ethical behavior ... is normally not radical enough". So what? — 180 Proof

I understand the distinctions in an abstract philosophical sense. I guess it just seems that what most nihilists tend to accept is a philosophical pessimist position, despite only ever referring to themselves as "nihilists".

Generally speaking, a distinction between existentialism and nihilism is within the response to the inexistence of God or some kind of divine order in the universe. Most existentialists think something along the lines of that it is then up to humanity to create meaning within the world and cultivate its own values, whereas most nihilists will reject the notion of meaning altogether and negate any ethical value judgements. Nihilists will often claim that the liberation from an instilled guilt, usually involving a rather nuanced and viciously eloquent critique of the Catholic Church, is liberating, but, I would argue that, when confronted by something the scope and scale of human atrocities to have occurred within the Twentieth Century, they, in order to withhold judgement, can only come to a set of postulates concerning human nature that, contrary to their claim, I would argue, are somewhat pathological and ultimately pessimistic. Another distinction is between the response to the philosophical pessimist postulate that the human experience is ultimately negative, characterized by Albert Camus as "the Absurd", which existentialists either suggest should be somehow overcome, as if it were somehow alterable, or revolted against, kind of for its own sake, which, in a political context, the dread nihilists whom I personally have qualms with take as an effective sanction for adventurist terrorism, but, as, up until around three years ago, there were probably a grand total of seven of them in the world, I think, we can dismiss their recent popularity within the Anarchist fringe as a passing trend, and which, outside of the cult pathology of political nihilism, a few nihilists also agree with, but, without being able to invoke their iconoclast, meaning, more often than not ultimates within a defeatist pessimism. What the more common response among nihilists is is to suggest that you should just simply accept the human condition for what it is, namely that the human experience is ultimately negative, and to vaguely offer some form of non-Western spirituality so as to cope with this, which doesn't differ too much from the philosophy of the seminal philosophical pessimist, Arthur Schopenhauer.

What I am saying is that what nihilists say that nihilism is is distinct from philosophical pessimism, but that, when it comes to what it actually turns out to be, the distinction becomes blurred.

addendum

Moment to moment 'who I am' transcends the oblivion of 'what we are' by creating, or choosing for, oneself. (existentialism)

To live defiantly without consolation (absurdity) of either "hopes" for meaning (nostalgia) or "fears" of meaninglessness (futility) in an ineluctably contingent world which cannot be comprehended – totalized – by any individual mind and can only be laughed at affirmatively. (absurdism)

I think philosophical pessimism is just the recognition of the mind's need for trouble.

What I am saying is that what nihilists say that nihilism is is distinct from philosophical pessimism, but that, when it comes to what it actually turns out to be, the distinction becomes blurred. — thewonder

Can it then be that your "nihilist" friends are confused as to what "nihilism" is? People mislabel themselves all the time. I don't think it's a matter of the definition being blurred, but how people label themselves. There is also the case one can be a "nihilist" and a "pessimist" but one does not entail the other and hence why good conceptual analysis can work out which falls under what and what is being unknowingly blurred.

It can and very well might be that, but I think that you would then have to include that most nihilists have done so, which would be somewhat absurd.

I'm not sure that we can purely go off of the given definition of any particular philosophy or worldview. For instance, in this Wikipedia talk page, Pavane7 argues that the Order of Nine Angels are anarchistic and nihilistic, citing a text that they wrote that is no longer online, expressing a desire to go beyond anarchism and nihilism. If you take the Order of Nine Angels at their explicit word, then there only seems to be some justification for that they are a terroristic Neo-Fascist esoteric cult, which, though there are grains of truth to more or less any given perspective, is more or less just simply the case.

That's kind of an all too particular example, but the point I'm trying to make is that there is a difference between a definitional denotation of a particular philosophy and what said philosophy effectively turns out to be.

I'm not sure that there exists this pure abstract nihilism, devoid of the various weltanschauungs of the people who call themselves "nihilists".

It can and very well might be that, but I think that you would then have to include that most nihilists have done so, which would be somewhat absurd. — thewonder

I don't know, I don't know "many" nihilists. I know more of real life "anarchists" perhaps or "punks" but except in The Big Lebowski have never seen an actual "nihilist" :D.

That's kind of an all too particular example, but the point I'm trying to make is that there is a difference between a definitional denotation of a particular philosophy and what said philosophy effectively turns out to be. — thewonder

That phrase "turns out to be" is where you are sidetracking. Unless you want to make a pragmatist case that the definition of a philosophy is only how a majority of people are using it, then it still holds, people are simply wrong about their label.

I'm not sure that there exists this pure abstract nihilism, devoid of the various weltanschauungs of the people who call themselves "nihilists". — thewonder

Possibly. I would simply say that "nihilism" in its most basic form is a denial of something, not a "positive" belief other than the positive belief that something "does not" exist.

If you want to cite Nietzsche as a classic "nihilist" you must realize that after proposing nihilism, he proposed to go "beyond" it by having a post-nihilist ethics (Beyond Good and Evil). That part though, I don't see as being nihilist, but a post-nihilist answer to nihilism.