On nihilistic relativism

Let me answer that question with a falsehood, since it has the same value as the truth.

I suppose it depends on how you view subjectivity. Subjectivity is quite solipsistic and centered on the individual but it doesn't mean that the individual perspective is invalid.

It seems a truly objective perspective would entail that even an omnipresent God would have to inhabit every possible perspective.

I think that subjective knowledge is valid if we just add to gather every available or hypothetical perspective to get a multi-perspectival knowledge.

i think inherent meaning is possible but it might require teleology or a creator/designer.
Objective morality seems impossible because even if God created its own morality it would still be subjective.
It is hard to see where binding moral facts could come from and how they could be Bestowed without being subjective or arbitrary or coming from a subjective law maker.

Overall I think nihilism is important to explore and society is made inauthentic by not challenging the roots of it's assumptions. I think there is something nihilistic about living on false or inadequate beliefs. Like living with a convenient fancy and ignoring available truths or challenges to your beliefs.

In reading through this topic I stepped into a void of nothingness. This is what nihilistic thinking is, it has no value whether secular or spiritual inclined. How can value be placed upon assertion which project life has no distinct meaning or purpose when this topic is meaningful to its participant's expressions? What is the logic for nihilism? Does it matter what nihilism state or not when all thinkers who enter this 4square circle of human living are on a mission of nihilism? What philosophy, religion, socialistic moral, or religious consciousness will seed words and usher mankind beyond the reciprocal dialog here, when these elements of the human race has not changed relativism to Oneness of Consciousness which constitute the activity of eternal meaning for all who live?

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

Agreed, in the sense that, the relative cannot contain the absolute. However, I also think that in any well-defined condition (with strict parameters), there is a maximum or most comprehensive amount of value/knowledge/morality which can be expressed.

Reply to khaled Change your relative scope. It is an absolutely meaningless scope that has no real foundation, no actual purpose and it does not really exist. You pulled it from your subjective well, so just change it. You have that power.

In a world void of all meaning we are free to shape it however we want. Purpose is a prison and nothingness is the best possible position to be in, as it gives you the most amount of freedom.

Reply to unenlightened I believe that truth and falsehood are only determined relative to certain unprovable premises or conditions. For example, "I see a green apple" requires the premise "Visual perception is reliable" for it to be considered true. So no they do not hold the same value in my view BUT the statement "Truth ought to be valued over falsehood" IS completely arbitrary (has no syllogistic proof) and I only take it as true arbitrarily. So, essentially, I don't think truth and falsehood hold the same value but I think that way for no reason.

Reply to BrianW Agreed. Refer to comment above for elaboration

Quoting Andrew4Handel

Subjectivity is quite solipsistic

Not in my view it ain't. :wink: Solipsism is one of the many viewpoints that could glory (?) in the label "subjective", but it doesn't work the other way around, I don't think.

Quoting khaled

The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

Inaccessible and non-existent are two quite different things. :chin:

Reply to Jeremiah See, I see a sort of enigma with nihilism in that according to it, believing in objective morality, God, superstition, etc is just as good as believing in nihilism. It is the most humble and liberating school of thought out there. If I were to draw a pokemon analogy it would be like ditto

Reply to Pattern-chaser Yes the belief is that it is non-existent or if it existent that it is inaccessible. There has been no proof that an objective value/knowledge/morality exists and so claiming that they do not should be rational in the same way that I can say "The flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist". Obviously, it COULD exist but since there is no proof people would just say it doesn't

Quoting khaled

For example, "I see a green apple" requires the premise "Visual perception is reliable" for it to be considered true.

Yet, it is you who decided what is "reliable". If you are going to say nothing has meaning let's be consistent here.

Reply to Jeremiah yeah it IS me that said that. I didn't claim it is universal.
Quoting khaled

So, essentially, I don't think truth and falsehood hold the same value but I think that way for no reason.

See the "I" in "I don't think". Most of my posts are written using personal pronouns for that reason

You are conflating 'no reason' and 'no proof'. There is no proof that my bed is still in my bedroom where I left it, at least until I go upstairs and it proves to be there. But I have good reason to think that it is. And I have good reason to think we can communicate, and thus that the truth has value, though I cannot prove it. If values have equal uncertainty with the material world, that is enough for me, and for most people - one does not hear folks complaining that objects are not objective.

Quoting khaled

I don't think truth and falsehood hold the same value

So it turns out that nihilistic relativism doesn't exist. :cool:

Reply to unenlightened Quoting unenlightened

So it turns out that nihilistic relativism doesn't exist. :cool:

No because I don't think my opinion of "I don't think truth and falsehood hold the same value" has to be universal as I've said towards the end:

Quoting khaled

So, essentially, I don't think truth and falsehood hold the same value but I think that way for no reason.

Quoting unenlightened

There is no proof that my bed is still in my bedroom where I left it, at least until I go upstairs and it proves to be there. But I have good reason to think that it is. And I have good reason to think we can communicate, and thus that the truth has value, though I cannot prove it. If values have equal uncertainty with the material world, that is enough for me, and for most people - one does not hear folks complaining that objects are not objective.

You have just implied that knowledge begins with unprovable premises when you said "There is no proof.... But I have good reason to think..." Which is the whole point of relativistic nihilism. Since knowledge begins with unprovable premises picked out of a potentially infinite set of unprovable premises, it is impossible for there to be an objective value/knowledge/morality.

Note: I don't mean objective as "agreed upon" I mean it as "impossible to disagree with"/"self evident"

Quoting khaled

Since knowledge begins with unprovable premises picked out of a potentially infinite set of unprovable premises, it is impossible for there to be an objective value/knowledge/morality.

Just so, your nihilism is universal, and does not pick out morality in any way. Knowledge is impossible - for no reason. End of conversation, I think.

Reply to unenlightened no knowledge is impossible if you assume logic works. There is no reason to assume logic works but I don't recommend you get rid of logic. To elaborate: nihilism is present in the very structure of a syllogism as you can start an argument from any premise. If you want to discard nihilism you'd have to discard logic to be consistent (or worse yet discard the need to be consistent then you're just screwed). Once again I think you are using "agreed upon" instead of "objective" (I'd love to continue this but it's 12 am where I live and I have school in 6 hours)

Reply to khaled
I never claimed you claimed it was universal. I am pointing out the fact that nothing has meaning because you decided it does not have meaning. You could just as easily decided it has meaning. Nothing is stopping you from doing so, and all your standards at which you derive things as meaningless and /or non-existence are meaningless and non-existence themselves.

Quoting khaled

I think you are using "agreed upon" instead of "objective"

Not at all - we don't agree! But logic is truth preserving, not truth creating, and it has value because truth has value. Start with life, not logic. My bed is upstairs, we are communicating, you have school. Beds, schools, communications - these are objects, they are there whether we reason or not.

Then, because we value truth in communication, and must do so, or give no value to communication, then we use logic to preserve the truth in what we say about beds and schools.

There can be no logic to nihilistic relativism, for nihilism cannot exist when everything is a continuation of The Oneness which constitute not only the eternality of thinking, but also the infinity of life and being. Surrounded by the continuum of The Living One (you), and life indwelling all within and without the surround of that living one, the thought of nihilism can't be anything but nothinglessness, and, therefore, nihilistic relativism can't be anything but a misnomer in the mind which entertain such a thought, or utter it from windpipe. But this is typical of a metaphoric thinking intellect. It is no different than fishing in a dead sea. What is the logic for fishing in a dead sea?

Quoting khaled

I have seen surprisingly few posts on this philosophy to which I adhere which is starting to make me think it might have some gaping logical hole somewhere that I'm not seeing. I am open to having my mind changed in any way (God, inherent meaning in objects, cosmic Consciousness, etc) so present your best arguments against this philosophy.

Quick definition: The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

The position is as incapable of being attacked as it is incapable of defending itself, and therefore is just as easily dismissed as it is proffered.
You have made a number of conflations, such as arbitrary and not objective meaning the same thing. All in a days work I suppose, living in a realm of zero accountability to the means by which humans can know things as you do.
I mean, what do you expect from the responses? You have framed your request precisely to prevent the response you claim to be looking for, essentially asking “prove it, but do not use any proof”.

Reply to Jeremiah I can decide whether it has meaning or not but in doing so I will have effectively decided that it does not have an objective meaning which is what the philosophy is about, non Existence of objective meaning. It doesn't say anything about subjective meaning. In other words I cannot decide it has objective meaning because the presence of the word "decide" in that sentence means that another decision was feasible thus making my decision subjective

Reply to unenlightened I agree but under that paradigm, these "objects" or "life" or whatever it is you decide to start from BEFORE reason is necessarily subjective and unverifiable correct? (Since it does not imploy reason, it's a pre-reasoned premise). That's the point of nihilism. That's the definition. SINCE the beginning of logic is unreliable, any conclusion can be said to be true if the right starting premises are chosen and thus all conclusions hold equal value in terms of being based on unproven premises and since there is potentially infinite unproven premises from which to start reasoning, there is potentially infinite conclusions all of which are equally valid and your choice of one over the other relies on an arbitrary distinction of their starting premises. For example:

Quoting unenlightened

these are objects, they are there whether we reason or not.

You needed to assume certain premises to come to that conclusion. Had I been an idealist I would have disagreed with that statement saying that if it is not constantly remembered in "the mind of God" it wouldn't exist. The split between idealists and materialists is unsolvable by either philosophy, because this "life" as you called it that both ideologies start from is different and that is a gap unbridgeable by logic thus leaving the choice between the two up to the individual (arbitrary). That's the point of nihilism

Reply to jufa I really don't get what you're saying would you mind being less poetic?

Reply to DingoJones Quoting DingoJones

You have made a number of conflations, such as arbitrary and not objective meaning the same thing.

How is that a conflation? That's a definition

Quoting DingoJones

what do you expect from the responses?

People suggesting alternatives to nihilism and us arguing about whether or not they work

Quoting DingoJones

All in a days work I suppose, living in a realm of zero accountability to the means by which humans can know things as you do.

You haven't given anything for me to argue or be accountable for.

Quoting DingoJones

prove it, but do not use any proof”.

Now THAT'S a conflation. It's more like "prove it in a way that no one can ever disagree thus making it objective and making relativistic nihilism as defined above, incorrect". If alternatives to relativism exist I should not be able to disagree with them

Quoting khaled

I can decide whether it has meaning or not but in doing so I will have effectively decided that it does not have an objective meaning which is what the philosophy is about, non Existence of objective meaning. It doesn't say anything about subjective meaning. In other words I cannot decide it has objective meaning because the presence of the word "decide" in that sentence means that another decision was feasible thus making my decision subjective

Subjective and objective are the same things, and they have always been the same thing, ever since people thought them up. Subjective and objective are just classifications based on perceived characteristics. You are the one giving meaning to these words, it is not the other way around.

Reply to Jeremiah Quoting Jeremiah

Subjective and objective are the same things

I highly doubt many people go by that definition. If they were the same thing why do we have 2 different words? According to me:
Subjective: seen true by one observer
Objective: seen self evidently true by all observers with an impossibility of any observer disagreeing honestly

Reply to khaled

I don't really care about colloquial usages. Everything that we considered objective, to be considered at all, must also be subjective, a subjective consideration that in truth is an objective process.

Reply to Jeremiah well I was using the words as defined above

Reply to khaled

If your world is so easily shaped by words, then you are not much of a nihilist.

At any rate, I am using the words properly. I am starting to think that you like the idea of nihilism, but that you don't really understand it.

Existential nihilism gives you the freedom to shape meaning how you like; it, however, does not remove it. It is the realization that in an existence devoid of intrinsic value we are free to define and shape our own paths. I have never understood why people see this a negative thing. It means we are free and that our future truly belongs to us.

Reply to Jeremiah no you are not. subjective =/= objective. They are polar opposites.
Quoting Jeremiah

I am starting to think that you like the idea of nihilism, but that you don't really understand it.

Would you enlighten me then? What am I getting wrong

Quoting Jeremiah

If your world is so easily shaped by words, then you are not much of a nihilist.

And what does that even mean. That just sounds like word salad

Reply to Jeremiah We don't shape meaning rather we are shaped by meaning. Meaning is not something anyone ever subjectively decides. This is delusional statement that completely misses what meaning is.

Reply to Jeremiah I understand that. However existential nihilism staunchly stands against OBJECTIVE meaning which is what my whole argument is about. Objective as in self evident to all and impossible to disagree with. I am starting to think you don't understand what I am saying

Reply to khaled

Nihilism never stands "staunchly" against anything. That would imply a purpose, a meaning and a direction.

You want that to be true and that is why you selected those modifiers. In a world without meaning, there is no reason at all for why you can't find "objective meaning" in just about anything you want. There is nothing stopping you, and you don't need to justify it as the universe doesn't care.

Reply to bloodninja

Not interested.

Reply to khaled There is no logic for existence, and so, there can be no logic for nihilistic relativism.

Reply to Jeremiah you don't value truth

Reply to jufa The fact that there is no logic for existence IS the main point of nihilistic relativism. Nihilistic relativism is a recognition of that fact and the relativism it entails

Reply to Jeremiah Nihilism stands staunchly against an objective meaning or purpose for living. That's not a value judgement that's a lack of one. Those are not the same thing. I am starting to think YOU don't understand nihilism

The world is meaning. Emphasis placed upon the is here. Without meaning there is no world.

Reply to khaled It can not only not be the main point of nihilism, there can be no point for nihilism to be objectified for an object needs a subject, and nihilism has none.

Reply to jufa Quoting jufa

for an object needs a subject, and nihilism has none.

please elaborate

Quoting khaled

For example, "I see a green apple" requires the premise "Visual perception is reliable" for it to be considered true.

Imagine if you were diagnosed with a dreadful illness, which you were told was going to result in your dying a very painful death whilst undergoing terrible disfigurement. I mean, really imagine it - not simply laugh it off, 'well that's not going to happen', because it actually does happen. Then, you are told, there is a cure that is recently developed which has proven very effective against this condition, and there's a very good chance it will cure it outright.

Would you say that it doesn't make any difference whether or not that statement about the cure is true?

Reply to bloodninja

Not the "truth" you are peddling.

Reply to khaled

Well good luck with your thinking, you are going to need it.

I Reply to Jeremiah Does nihilism have an objective meaning?

Reply to khaled It is self-explanatory, but since you don't want to acknowledge what I 'm saying, let's regress to a lower stage. A noun needs an adjective to have an active life. That is saying if the noun can never clarify its meaning, it is as the salt in the dead sea. The adjective is therefore noun's substance for it gives the noun size, shape, age, color, origin or material. What is the adjective for nihilism? Please elaborate!

Reply to Jeremiah
Quoting Jeremiah

Not interested.

Quoting Jeremiah

Not the "truth" you are peddling.

Quoting Jeremiah

Well good luck with your thinking, you are going to need it.

Do you end all of your discussions with uncooperative one liners

Reply to jufa I don't know what you mean by "adjective of nihilism". I can tell you the meaning of nihilism though: There is no objective morality/knowledge/value. It is the belief that an objective belief is impossible

Quoting khaled

I can tell you the meaning of nihilism though: There is no objective morality/knowledge/value. It is the belief that an objective belief is impossible

I think I would qualify as a nihilist. I don't think it's necessary to use words like objective/subjective though. I'm never quite sure what people mean by "objective" anyway. In my view, to believe that morality/knowledge/value are culturally determined or socially constructed is different to saying that they are subjective and not objective. I believe in the former not the latter.

Reply to khaled Come on khaled, stop playing the 'I don't know what you mean game', you know the deal. Thank you for the conversation, I take my leave at this point.

Hey can we take a vote on who actually understands this guy?Reply to jufa cuz I don't. If anyone can explain what he's saying I'd be glad to hear

Reply to Wayfarer oh sorry forgot to reply to you. It makes a difference only because I decided it would and my decision it would is arbitrary. Imagine if I was suicidal. Or a masochist for example. Had I been one of those then it wouldn't have mattered but I just happen to be a healthy human being. I think you're mistaking objective for subjective meaning. It is my subjective opinion that the truth of that statement should matter but it is not an infallable law for everyone. Nihilism only opposes objective meaning (self evident/impossible to disagree with) but says nothing about subjective meaning. I don't understand why people assume I personally don't adhere to a morality or a system of knowledge. The statement was OBJECTIVE knowledge is impossible. My adherence to this system or that has nothing to do with the truth value of that statement. It's the same as when most people assume that hard determinists are animalistic hedonists when that is never stated or implied.

Reply to khaled

Why do you care?

Reply to Jeremiah I don't. However it might signal to other users that you do not tend to finish conversations which is useful information. Why do I care about informing other users? No reason but why not?

Reply to khaled

I like how you try so hard to pretend like you don't care. Got to keep up that nihilistic image, right? Or how you think they should act, rather.

Reply to Jeremiah Ok sure you got me I care. How does that invalidate the claim that an objective morality/value/knowledge is impossible in any way. My subjective value has to impact on that statement whatsoever

Quoting khaled

bjective morality/value is impossible

I don't remember you actually establishing that. Perhaps you should actually try.

I assumed everyone is familiar with some of the justifications of nihilistic relativism but here is my own formulation of it
P1: The application of logic requires premises
P2: Any conclusion the application of logic leads to is true if the premises are true
P3: There is no way for a premise to be determined true or false except relative to another premise
(ex: in order to refute the premise "all humans are green" one must accept the premise "visual perception is more reliable than this idiot" and the premise "I don't see green humans")
P4: A premise cannot determine it's own truth value (follows from P3)
P5: There is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used in an argument
P6: Consequently there is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used to determine the truth value of a premise
C: Every premise is true if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value
C: Every conclusion is valid if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value

Or at least that's the knowledge part of objective knowledge/morality/value but that one suffices for the other two

Quoting khaled

It makes a difference only because I decided it would and my decision it would is arbitrary.

What nonsense. That is what you would say on an internet forum, it has nothing to do with what you would say if you were really in that situation. I only mentioned it to illustrate what the question would be like, if the answer actually means something. Whereas, I really don't think what you're saying means anything. There are self-described nihilists who turn up and post here, and most of them have got precisely nothing to say - which figures. How could they? If they have anything to say, then they've cut off the branch they're sitting on. Anyway, carry on, no doubt you will find plenty of willing rubes.

Reply to khaled

Ya that is a big pile of nonsense.

Truth and logic are not the same things. Logic is a tool to help us narrow in on the truth, it does not actually create truth.

Reply to Wayfarer I replied to your comment within 2 minutes of reading it (though I guess you wouldn't believe that). Can you elaborate on why exactly you think this is non sense. If you just call my reply non sense then proceed to make sweeping generalizations about an entire philosophy please cite the reasons you think so

Reply to Jeremiah Quoting Jeremiah

Ya that is a big pile of nonsense.

Or maybe you just can't understand it

logic is a tool that RETAINS truth to be specific. A conclusion is only true if it's premises are true. P3 is saying that if that's the case, you can never determine the truth value of the very first starting premise. You just have to take it as true. And if that is the case, since there are countless possible starting premises, there are countless possible conclusions

Quoting khaled

Can you elaborate on why exactly you think this is non sense. If you just call my reply non sense then proceed to make sweeping generalizations about an entire philosophy please cite the reasons you think so

I could, but unenlightened already did that in the very first response in this thread, and you just carried on. You're basically talking nonsense.

Reply to Jeremiah I actually have a very long history with religion and objective morality (born muslim) and my decision to move from that was based on reading and doing philosophy. I think you're over generalizing way too much. Hell what does it matter if I'm a kid OR even if I had happened to be a complete idiot. Ad hominem is not the way you argue dude.

Reply to Wayfarer that's not much of an elaboration. The thread literally starts with "I'm not sure if there is some gaping hole in nihilism so I ask commenters to show it to me". No one has shown me one yet or maybe I'm too stupid to see. Could you please show me why everyone thinks nihilism is such a bankrupt idea?

Reply to khaled

"P5: There is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used in an argument."

Prove that.

Reply to Jeremiah
P1: A statement is a premise
P2: Humans can conceive of an infinite number of statements
C: Humans can conceive of an infinite number of premises

Any statement can be used as a premise. If you disagree with P2 then replace P5 with "There is a number of premises as large as the number of possible sensical statements which can be used as an argument" and that should still suffice for disproving an objective knowledge (which demands only one possible starting premise)

Reply to khaled
Prove P1 & P2,


I don't think you have ever seen a formal proof.

P1 is a definition. I already said if you don't like P2 use "There is a number of premises as large as the number of possible sensical statements which can be used as an argument" which only requires P1. Heck, if you don't like that replace P5 with "There is more than one possible premise to start an argument from" and it would still suffice for the rest of the proof as objective knowledge demands only one starting point.

Quoting khaled

You needed to assume certain premises to come to that conclusion. Had I been an idealist I would have disagreed with that statement saying that if it is not constantly remembered in "the mind of God" it wouldn't exist.

I don't need to assume anything at at all, because it's not a conclusion. A bed is simply a bed, and whether it is an idea in the mind of God or a giant quark party doesn't make any difference to it being an object. And objective existence is existing the way objects exist.

It is a sometimes handy distinction to make, between objective and subjective, as pertaining to the object or pertaining to the subject, but it is only meaningful to the extent that it carves up the world conceptually, such that, say, my taste in wine pertains to me, but the alcoholic content pertains to the wine. If everything is subjective, the term loses meaning, and one simply has to start again to distinguish these aspects with another word. Philosophers are rather prone to universalise in this way, and think they have said something profound, when they have actually said nothing meaningful at all.

Reply to unenlightened
"Why should one believe his experience of sensing objects (as you defined them) is reliable" is a question unanswerable neither by the existence of objects nor by logic and so in order to see the existence of objects as reliable one must make an arbitrary decision to do so. No matter where you take the base on which you build an argument the question "Why should I not pick another base" has always been askable as far as I can see.

I never claimed I am saying anything profound. In fact, as I understand nihilism, it should not affect your future behavior, nor your sense of morality in the least (because there is no should in nihilism). Had you said "you're basically saying nothing" I would have said "I agree".

Quoting khaled

"Why should one believe his experience of sensing objects (as you defined them) is reliable" is a question unanswerable neither by the existence of objects nor by logic and so in order to see the existence of objects as reliable one must make an arbitrary decision to do so. No matter where you take the base on which you build an argument the question "Why should I not pick another base" has always been askable as far as I can see.

Other than experience? What other?

Reply to unenlightened You cannot deny the existence of experience (without being logically inconsistent at least) but you CAN deny certain aspects of it with your choosing. For example, schizophrenics deny the existence of their experiences regularly. Some monks learn to deny the experience of pain and hunger. Some even learn to deny the experience or perception of evil. Hell some of them even deny the validity of logic (although I dismiss them). Are they wrong for doing those things? You cannot answer that question using the existence of objects or logic. There are even people who attempt to deny their own experience (some determinists) but they are logically inconsistent and we both seem to agree to discard logically inconsistent ideas. I think the only undeniable statement logically is "I am conscious" but sadly that has no further implications on knowledge/value/morality

Quoting khaled

You cannot deny the existence of experience (without being logically inconsistent at least) but you CAN deny certain aspects of it with your choosing. For example, schizophrenics deny the existence of their experiences regularly.

No. You can deny anything you please, verbally. But to deny any experience whatsoever is to abuse the language, and thus meaningless. On the basis of (other) experience, I conclude that my experienced encounter with St Augustine last night was a dream or an hallucination - but it was a dream I experienced nonetheless. Conceivably, I might conclude that my experience of this discussion is an hallucination. Thus I can distinguish within my experience real and unreal, and I can be unsure whether an experience is real or not. But I cannot meaningfully deny the experience itself.

I have never experienced schizophrenia myself, but I have experienced living with a schizophrenic in full fugue, and it is exactly this ability to distinguish reality from unreality that they lose, and in losing it, they stop making sense to themselves and to others. What they don't do is deny their experience; they are unable to dismiss any experience as unreliable or unimportant, or unreal. This can become very frightening for them.

But for philosophers, to talk of experience is precisely to talk of what is prior to the distinction of real and unreal, to talk, thus of what cannot be doubted.

Reply to unenlightened I agree with everything you wrote except: Quoting unenlightened

No. You can deny anything you please, verbally. But to deny any experience whatsoever is to abuse the language, and thus meaningless. On the basis of (other) experience

You have to do a bit more than "verbally" deny something in the case of pain. I'm pretty sure the guy tiptoeing on the spike bed is doing a bit more than "verbally" denying pain. He is actually no longer experiencing it

I am not claiming you can meaningfully (rationally) deny experience as I have said Quoting khaled

You cannot deny the existence of experience (without being logically inconsistent at least)

but you CAN pick and choose aspects of it to deny. However, the statement "You cannot deny the existence of experience" requires the employment of logic to reach (hence the parenthesis containing "without being logically inconsistent"). Now, I don't want you to misunderstand this as me arguing for the abolishment of logic or for its unnecessity. I am a huge fan of logic and all it's given me. I am instead arguing that you cannot use logic to determine why logic ought to be universally used or objective. In other words, I chose to use logic for no particular logical reason and if someone does NOT choose to employ logic I see them as a maniac and not worth talking to. Anyone who denies experience then, is a maniac and not worth talking to but only because I arbitrarily chose to employ logic. There is no logical reason for why I or any other employer of logic does this.

Quoting khaled

You have to do a bit more than "verbally" deny something in the case of pain. I'm pretty sure the guy tiptoeing on the spike bed is doing a bit more than "verbally" denying pain. He is actually no longer experiencing it

I agree, he's no longer experiencing it. So he's not denying an experience. What he is doing is what the schizophrenic cannot do, and you are pretending cannot be done, clearly distinguishing subjective from objective. And then he controls his subjectivity.

Quoting khaled

Anyone who denies experience then, is a maniac and not worth talking to but only because I arbitrarily chose to employ logic. There is no logical reason for why I or any other employer of logic does this.

No. Anyone who denies experience is confused about what the word 'experience' means. And anyone who choses not to employ logic is confused about what logic is. Logic is simply the way we use language to talk sense. One can dispense with talking sense in this mundane way and have recourse to poetry, but poets know what logic is very well.

Reply to Jeremiah I am doing so and you are the only person here not helping. If all you do is attack people personally then I won't reply to you any more. I am so very sorry I tainted your highness's eyes with my lack of knowledge due to me being a beginner at this. Oh whatever will I do to atone for the sin of trying to learn by going to a free forum to talk openly.

Reply to unenlightened Quoting unenlightened

I agree, he's no longer experiencing it. So he's not denying an experience. What he is doing is what the schizophrenic cannot do, and you are pretending cannot be done, clearly distinguishing subjective from objective. And then he controls his subjectivity

I never said it cannot be done. I said there is more that one way to do it and thus any distinction you come up with between those ways cannot be labeled objective

Quoting unenlightened

Logic is simply the way we use language to talk sense.

There are multiple possible logics then because there are multiple ways to accomplish this task. Fuzzy logic, logic that only allows true/false, logic that allows true/false/null, etc... I was defining logic as "Use of sound syllogisms" but if you wanna go with that definition ok

Reply to Jeremiah it would be helpful if instead of effectively saying "You're a fucking idiot" that you say "No because X" or "Here is a link explaining why you're wrong". If you are not being helpful then what's the point of your comment.

Reply to khaled In a proof you must be able, when called on to PROVE EVERYTHING, and SHOW HOW ONE THING FOLLOWS ANOTHER. This does not mean just giving your subjective opinion as a proof, and it is certainly not an act of listing stuff you think is true, or you think is common knowledge and my advice, that you keep ignoring, was TO ACTUALLY LEARN SOME LOGIC.

Quoting khaled

any distinction you come up with between those ways cannot be labeled objective

Of course not. Distinctions are made, and the objective/subjective distinction is one such. It applies to some things and not others; distinctions are useful or not useful. But the problem is that you seem to deny that anything is objective, in if that is the case, then nothing is distinguished from anything else, and your claim that this or that 'cannot be labeled objective' ceases to distinguish it in any way from anything else. It is as if you want to say that 'objectively, nothing is objective', and that is a simple contradiction.

Quoting Pattern-chaser

Inaccessible and non-existent are two quite different things. :chin:

Quoting khaled

Yes the belief is that it is non-existent or if it existent that it is inaccessible. There has been no proof that an objective value/knowledge/morality exists and so claiming that they do not should be rational in the same way that I can say "The flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist". Obviously, it COULD exist but since there is no proof people would just say it doesn't

"People" might do this, but I would choose not to. That may be because I'm autistic, but it may also be because I don't like to knowingly tell lies, even this sort of lie. If it COULD exist, then - IMO, and bearing in mind that this is a philosophy discussion forum - we should not say that it DOESN'T. [Nor should we say that it DOES, of course! :smile: ] We should tell the truth, and express what we do know, which is that WE DON'T KNOW. This is honest and correct, so it is unlikely to mislead us in our future reasoning, eh? :up:

Reply to Jeremiah
P1: The application of logic requires premises
P2: Any conclusion the application of logic leads to is true if the premises are true
P3: There is no way for a premise to be determined true or false except relative to another premise
P4: A premise cannot determine it's own truth value or if it can then none have been found so far that do so and are useful in proving anything else
P5: There is more than one potential premise from which someone can start an argument.
P6: Consequently there is more than one potential premise that can be used to determine the truth value of a premise
C: More than one conclusion is valid if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value

Where do you find the problem with this

Reply to Pattern-chaser ok cool :up: . I'm fine with the possibility of an objective morality existing just haven't found proof yet

Reply to unenlightened Quoting unenlightened

But the problem is that you seem to deny that anything is objective, in if that is the case, then nothing is distinguished from anything else,

Please elaborate on this "if". What do you mean nothing is distinguished from anything else.

Quoting unenlightened

It is as if you want to say that 'objectively, nothing is objective', and that is a simple contradiction.

More like: The most objective thing we have found so far is that nothing is objective. There is no contradiction in that statement

Quoting khaled

I'm fine with the possibility of an objective morality existing just haven't found proof yet

As it happens, I'm not fine with objective morality existing, but the main point is the end of your sentence. When it comes to being objective about things, there is no proof that is accessible to humans, nor will there ever be. So we need a way to continue without proof. Personally, I don't think nihilism is the way. I think accepting uncertainty, and learning to deal with it honestly and openly, is the way. But that's just me. :smile:

Reply to Pattern-chaser nihilism is accepting the uncertainty. It has no bearing on how we deal with it as there is no should in nihilism. Nihilism doesn't say: it all doesn't matter so you shouldn't care. It just says: it doesn't seem so far that any of it matters

Reply to khaled Reply to Jeremiah Egotistical and smug are both easy. Anyone can do them. Even me. Let's try something more challenging, eh? :wink:

Quoting khaled

?Pattern-chaser
nihilism is accepting the uncertainty. It has no bearing on how we deal with it as there is no should in nihilism. Nihilism doesn't say: it all doesn't matter so you shouldn't care. It just says: it doesn't seem so far that any of it matters

My understanding of this nihilistic realism is of throwing our toys out of our pram. :smile: We discover that there is no (Objective) proof of anything, and we are injured and upset. So we say to ourselves that there is no proof, so none of it matters. We throw out the baby, the bathwater and the bath, to misuse the old proverb. :wink:

There are guidelines, rules of thumb, that we can use. They aren't perfect; they don't always work. But they are tried and tested, and they work more often than not. Mostly. :smile: There is no reason to abandon all hope, once we recognise that our world is uncertain. We just need to accept and deal with uncertainty.

Think of it this way: at least you aren't fantasising, as Objectivists do, that there really is certainty, and that we really do have access to it. We don't. We can throw a tantrum (Nihilism) or we can make-believe (Objectivism) or we can accept what we have, and work with it.

Just my two pennyworth. Do with it as you will. :up: :smile:

Reply to Pattern-chaser I'd put "accepting what we have" as nihilism and "throwing a tantrum" as suicide/passive nihilism. Nihilism as I define it is just that accepting what you have

Quoting khaled

Nihilism as I define it is just that accepting what you have

Good. :up: Then accept it and move on. Find things that work for you, even though you know you won't be able to prove them correct. :chin:

Reply to Jeremiah it's still not math because it's 1 am here and I'm in bed and I still don't know what I'm doing but hoping this makes slightly more sense for now

Assumption that's not a definition so I couldn't put it under definitions:
The application of logic preserves truth (conclusion is true if premises are true) and is the only way to do so

Definitions:
Premise: A sensical statement with a truth value of true or false that is verifiable logically
Self evident: A premise that suffices as evidence for itself or a premise that follows logically from a premise that suffices as evidence for itself
(ex: I am conscious. This statement cannot be false as to have an illusion of consciousness requires a conscious observer. Thus it can be said that the premise is sufficient evidence of itself in of itself)
Objective: Self evident to all observers
Pivot: A premise that is taken to be true despite it not being self evident and that is not derived from a self evident premise

P1: the use of logic requrires premises
P2: to prove a conclusion true, one needs to use true premises to reach it (restatement of above assumption)
P3: only self evident premises can be known to be true before any application of logic
P4: self evident premises and pivots exhaust all options for true starting premises for arguments (one is defined as true premise with proof the other true premise without proof so they exhaust the options by definition)
P5: there is no self evident premise known to man that can be used to prove practical conclusions (knowledge, morality, value) (because most self evident premises are true a priori for example "a bachelor is not married". They do not tell us anything about the world)
P6: man is only left with pivots to use as starting points for arguments.
P7: there is no way to logically choose one pivot over another (because the choice of which pivot to use is pre logical and logic is the only thing capable of retaining truth)
C: which pivot to use is up to man's choosing or in other words, there is no objective morality/value/knowledge

Quoting khaled

Please elaborate on this "if". What do you mean nothing is distinguished from anything else.

Always happy to pontificate.

[quote=Ambrose Bierce]Understanding, n.: a cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse. [/quote]

I believe in certain circles, a horse is distinguished from a pony according to size, but for children and philosophers, I will stipulate that here at least, when I say 'horse' I mean pony or horse, but not mule or other hybrid. (stipulate means 'because I say so'). I also mean not a house, a hose, or hospitality.

Likewise, when I say 'everything' I exclude incomplete collections - some things, or even most things. So in general, a term has meaning by means of distinguishing what it is from what it is not.

But I foresee an objection. We understand that a 'unicorn' is a horse-like beast with a single horn protruding from its forehead. And we want to be able to say, "nothing is a unicorn". Yet I am claiming that when you say "nothing is objective", it is meaningless.

And the difference is in the definition; 'unicorn' is defined as a compound of 'horselike' and 'horn', both of which are meaningful in my sense of carving the world into 'horns' and 'non-horns'. and 'horses' and 'non-horses'. Likewise, conveniently for mathematicians the notion of 'the largest prime number' is a compound of ideas, 'largest' and 'prime' that are well understood so we can use the term in a proof that there is no largest prime.

So if you can provide such a compound of independently meaningful terms that define 'objective' then, and only then, I will allow that you are saying something meaningful with the claim that 'nothing is objective.

@Jeremiah Stop trolling.
@khaled Please ignore him.

Reply to unenlightened
Premise: A sensical statement with a truth value of true or false that is verifiable logically
Self evident: A premise that suffices as evidence for itself or a premise that follows logically from a premise that suffices as evidence for itself
(ex: I am conscious. This statement cannot be false as to have an illusion of consciousness requires a conscious observer. Thus it can be said that the premise is sufficient evidence of itself in of itself)
Objective: Self evident to all observers

Quoting khaled

Premise: A sensical statement with a truth value of true or false that is verifiable logically

Logic only preserves truth. So if you want to verify a premise logically, you have to present an argument of which it is the conclusion, and that will require its own premises. So the only self-evident premises one can find are those whose negation is a contradiction. But this means they tell us nothing about the world except how we have decided to talk. You example is a case in point. To say, "I am unconscious" would be a contradiction, as it amounts to saying "I am conscious of being unconscious". However, one can certainly dream that one is awake, so the recitation does not actually tell me about my consciousness. But even if it did, it is not at all the sort of statement that is evident to all observers - a computer programmed to display "I am conscious" is not conscious, and you declaring that you are conscious does not prove to me that you are.

Quoting khaled

Objective: Self evident to all observers

But this is anyway not at all what is meant by 'objective'. Rather, it means 'what is the case regardless of what any number of observers say, think or believe', or whether it is known or not. Thus, for example, the Earth is round-(ish) no matter how many flat-earthers there are. It was the same shape even when no one was around to know it or dispute it.

The concept you are using is more akin to 'necessary', 'a priori', or 'analytic'. About which much ink has been spilt that I won't bore you with here.

Quoting khaled

P1: the use of logic requrires premises
P2: to prove a conclusion true, one needs to use true premises to reach it (restatement of above assumption)....

I revise my opinion. As you’ve gone to the trouble of spelling out your objection in such detail then I don’t think you’re writing nonsense but that you are actually endeavouring to deal with a difficult question, which I think @unenlightened has addressed with admirable clarity.

Reply to unenlightened Quoting unenlightened

Logic only preserves truth. So if you want to verify a premise logically, you have to present an argument of which it is the conclusion,

That is the initial assumption in my argument and is restated in P2. I use premise and conclusion interchangeably because they are ontologically the same thing, a statement that can be true or false whose truth value can only be verified when logic is applied. There is a critical point in my definition of premise and that is:

Premise: A sensical statement WITH A TRUTH VALUE OF TRUE OR FALSE that is verifiable logically

I already admit of the possibility of an objective state of affairs with the capitalized part. The rest of the proof is to prove why that objective state of affairs is inaccessible thus making an objective knowledge/value/morality impossible

Quoting unenlightened

But this is anyway not at all what is meant by 'objective'. Rather, it means 'what is the case regardless of what any number of observers say, think or believe

Ok then I'll restate my objection as: an objective morality/value/knowledge is inaccessible and I'll tweak my proof slightly to make it easier to understand.

Quoting khaled

whose truth value can only be verified when logic is applied.

This is how you get down your rabbit hole., I think. Most of the stuff people are interested in talking about can be verified otherwise. I verify that the coffee has run out, not by applying logic to self-evident truths, but by lifting the lid of the pot and taking a look. If I was blind, I would do it by touch.

Reply to unenlightened
Here I'll be assuming an objective reality exists and showing how that still doesn't matter to a nihilist

Assumptions that are not definitions so I couldn't put them under definitions:
The application of logic preserves truth (the conclusion is true if premises are true) and is the only way to do so
Every premise has an objective true/false value

Definitions:
Objective: What is the case regardless of what anyone thinks/believes
Premise: A sensical statement with an objective truth value of true or false that is verifiable logically
Self-evident: A premise that suffices as evidence for itself or a premise that follows logically from a premise that suffices as evidence for itself
(ex: I am conscious. This statement cannot be false as to have an illusion of consciousness requires a conscious observer. Thus it can be said that the premise is sufficient evidence of itself in of itself)
Pivot: A premise that is taken to be true despite it not being self-evident and that is not derived from a self-evident premise

P0: An objective reality exists
P1: the use of logic requires premises
P2: to prove a premise true, one needs to use true premises to reach it (make it a conclusion) (restatement of above assumption)
P3: only self-evident premises can be known to be true before any application of logic
P4: self-evident premises and pivots exhaust all options for true starting premises for arguments (one is defined as a true premise with proof the other true premise without proof so they exhaust the options by definition)
P5: there is no self-evident premise known to man that can be used to reach the objectively true conclusion (knowledge, morality, value) (because most self-evident premises are true a priori for example "a bachelor is not married". They do not tell us anything about the world)
P6: man is only left with pivots to use as starting points for arguments.
P7: there is no way to logically choose one pivot over another (because the choice of which pivot to use is pre-logical and logic is the only thing capable of retaining truth)
C: which pivot to use is up to man's choosing or in other words, man fundamentally has no access to an objective morality/value/knowledge because of the way logic is structured

NOTE: This argument is still coherent even if P0 had been: an objective reality does not exist. There is no reason to assume either of these. It's a "pivot" if you will. That's why I don't think the question of whether or not an objective reality exists matters because we'll never know when we got it in the first place.

Reply to unenlightened I am aware that that is the start of the rabbit hole but the problem is a non-logical way of verifying premises is fundamentally subjective. That does not give you an objective morality/value/knowledge. In other words, if you want to divorce truth from the logic you'd have a massive problem at your hands. All the cases you refer to (where people verify something by a nonlogical means) are what I define as pivots above. The central problem is P7, there is no way to logically choose one pivot over another because pivots are pre-logical. This admits of relativism

Pivots are unverifiable by definition. If you want to take a pivot A as true, I can't say no but you can't say no to me for picking pivot B instead. That's the problem. It's sort of like the split between materialism or idealism. Materialism and Idealism are both pivots and so one cannot show the other why it's wrong because they do not derive from anything. They are just taken to be true. This is where nihilism comes in. Nihilism is the recognition that all of human knowledge is built on pivots and not self-evident truths thus making it subjective fundamentally.

I don’t think the problem has anything to do with logic, but with affect. Hence, out of scope for philosophy as such.

Quoting Wayfarer

you are actually endeavouring to deal with a difficult question, which I think unenlightened has addressed with admirable clarity.

Well thanks, but I am just about at the end of my rope now.

Reply to khaled

What you seem to have shown, with a charitable interpretation, is that logic and language are inadequate to the world. Logic can structure our language, but cannot tell us what to say. And the way things are is largely independent of what we say or think. All of which I agree with.

Evidently, the coffee has run out, and seemingly I have little more to say. There is indeed no way to logically choose, because logic necessitates or does not, it never chooses. But I choose, and my choice is to go make some more coffee, and logic will have to deal with that or not.

Reply to unenlightened yes and if I happened to choose I want to make some tea I wouldn't be wrong either. And if I happened to choose to denounce all culturally defined moral virtues and go on a killing spree you can only tell me I'm wrong relative to the culturally defined morale virtues I denounced (which is why it's near impossible to truly reeducate criminals). I just happen to keep those moral virtues and logical structures and there is no objective reason for me to do so (an objective ought if you will). Nihilism is, ironically, the closest thing we have to an objective state of affairs as I stated before.

Reply to Wayfarer I'm not sure which affect you mean but if you mean "emotion or desire as influencing behaviour" then I'd say that IS in the domain of philosophy especially as it deals with ethics. if you don't include affect then I don't understand how the results of a philosophical or ethical discussion can ever apply on people with different affects. It's like how if you have a mathematical law that works for real numbers that doesn't necessarily make it work for imaginary numbers. If you take affects away I'd say you trivialize any result of a philosophical discussion

Quoting khaled

And if I happened to choose to denounce all culturally defined moral virtues and go on a killing spree you can only tell me I'm wrong relative to the culturally defined morale virtues I denounced (which is why it's near impossible to truly reeducate criminals).

No, I can tell you you are wrong absolutely and objectively. You may not believe me and I may not convince you, but I could try... You see in my world, I can choose to make more coffee or not, but I cannot choose that it has not run out when it has run out. The coffee pot tells me about that, and ignores what I want. So I call the coffee running out 'objective', because it refuses to do what I tell it, and I have no choice in it.

Quoting khaled

If you take affects away I'd say you trivialize any result of a philosophical discussion

All I'm saying is that your 'argument' is a result of an affective issue - a matter of feeling, not of logic at all. I tried to illustrate that with the 'thought experiment' about being faced with a terminal illness. Predictably, your response was:

Quoting khaled

It makes a difference only because I decided it would and my decision it would is arbitrary.

Which is bullshit, because if you really were in that situation, you wouldn't be able to shrug it off. So this conversation really comes down to the fact that you think nothing matters. And nothing anyone can say here will change that, so again, it's pointless to continue. Until something matters, then you are indeed suffering from the affliction of nihilism, and one can only hope that something comes along which will show you the actual pointlessness of that attitude. Good luck!

Quoting khaled

This argument is still coherent even if P0 had been: an objective reality does not exist. There is no reason to assume either of these.

Actually, many people (myself included) believe that we can justify the existence of Objective Reality via Descartes' cogito. Despite the difficulties with who "I" might be, "I think, therefore I am" seems to demonstrate that *something* has Objective existence; therefore Objective Reality exists, and this something is all or part of it. But you can relax: this is the One and Only Objective Truth that a human can knowingly possess. :up: :smile:

Reply to unenlightened But in your world why is there something wrong with murder? If you murder someone nothing will oppose you or tell you you shouldn't have. Also, just because something is immune to change regardless of what you think of it does not mean that what you think of it is actually the case. For example, Visual illusions consistently give you a false perception of reality. Now, if someone decides that the coffee pot is actually showing a visual illusion and that there is, in fact, more coffee in the pot that your perception will never register in any way because it is trying to be consistent with its visual perceptions you can't tell him he is wrong. You can only tell him that he is assuming way too much and based on no evidence but you cannot use your own pivot of "visual perception is reliable" (which you assume implicitly in order to say that there is no more coffee) to tell someone who doesn't assume it that they are incorrect. That is the problem

Reply to Pattern-chaser There ARE people that doubt the "therefore" in "therefore I am" and they make a pretty good case doing it.

Reply to Wayfarer

Quoting Wayfarer

Which is bullshit, because if you really were in that situation, you wouldn't be able to shrug it off

What do you mean "shrug it off". I haven't shrugged anything off.

I said: It makes a difference only because I decided it would and my decision it would is arbitrary.

I very clearly said: IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

I just don't need to tie that difference to some metaphysical "truth" about the world for it to be meaningful is that so hard to imagine. I'm fine with just the subjective meaning. I'm fine with a cold universe.

You don't know that that's not what I would say in a real situation. In a real situation, I'd say "Of course it matters now gimme dat" but if you ask me why I think it matters I'd say "because I wanna LIVE" and if you ask me why THAT matters I'll say "because I said so now stfu I'm dying".

At least that's what I say in similar situations when people would keep asking why. It'd always end with "because I said so" never "because God/Metaphysical truth/Morality dictates it". And even if you say that someone could just ask "why do you believe in God/Metaphysical truth/Morality" and the only true answer to that is "because I said so". Nothing escapes "why". If you keep asking why you will eventually reach silence.

Quoting Wayfarer

And nothing anyone can say here will change that

I would change my mind if someone shows that "something matters" is self-evident as described above because if it isn't then both of us are just using different pivots and I have already established why that is irreconcilable. But notice here, even the divide between "something matters" and "nothing matters" is a matter of pivots and so you can always come to the nihilistic conclusion. If I can hold a different pivot from you on even the question of "does something matter" then that is proof that "nothing matters" is a more stable pivot. If you want to convince me to switch to the "something matters" pivot you'll have to make it self-evident to ensure there is no possibility of disagreement as any possibility of disagreement is evidence that "nothing matters" works better as a pivot.

This is why I keep saying "nothing matters" is a better pivot in terms of conformity with patterns you see in the world. Your position of "something matters (objectively)" demands that eventually, no one will be able to disagree but mine doesn't. The mere fact that I disagree with you reinforces my hypothesis (pivot) that "nothing matters"

Quoting khaled

The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

Considering it is very difficult (dare I say impossible) for a human being to experience objective reality, I would find that such beliefs are generally based upon shaky foundations.

There are those who may have glimpsed objective reality, like Gautama Buddha, but I doubt he would describe his experiences as meaningless.

Quoting khaled

Also, just because something is immune to change regardless of what you think of it does not mean that what you think of it is actually the case.

Of course not. I thought there was more coffee, but I was wrong. Having looked, and maybe tried to pour a coffee and drink it if I doubted my eyes or the room was dark, I was forced to change my mind. Since you are not here, if you do not believe me, you have no other evidence. You cannot see or feel or taste the coffee anyway, so it makes no difference to you, except as an exemplary tale. What is exemplary though is that there is no argument between me and the coffee pot; the pot does not argue that it s empty or prove that it is empty, it just is, and I just find out through the same senses that make me aware of there being a coffee pot. The whole thing might be an hallucination or a dream or a story I've made up, but it is a dream or story of an empty coffee pot, not one with coffee in.

It may be that this life is but a dream, but the dream is the dreamer's reality until he wakes, and he makes what sense of it he can, of necessity taking it for real, until his awakening. In the dream, the coffee pot is reliably empty until I dream making more dream coffee; this is not logic, this is just the way the dream goes - in this dream, coffee pots don't fill themselves.

I'm not going to even try and convince you about morality until I have convinced you about coffee pots.

Quoting khaled

That is the initial assumption in my argument and is restated in P2. I use premise and conclusion interchangeably because they are ontologically the same thing, a statement that can be true or false whose truth value can only be verified when logic is applied. There is a critical point in my definition of premise and that is:

Premise: A sensical statement WITH A TRUTH VALUE OF TRUE OR FALSE that is verifiable logically

This is your problem right here Khaled. First, a conclusion is not ontologically the same as a premise, because the conclusion follows from, and is therefore necessarily temporally posterior to the premise. Second, we do not necessarily verify premises with logic. This would make all premises conclusions, but as the explanation above shows, we cannot make that reduction. Yes, some premises are conclusions, but not all. Therefore the truth or falsity (truth value) of premises relies on something other than logical verification.

Quoting khaled

P3: only self-evident premises can be known to be true before any application of logic

So, you introduce the "self-evident premise" as the "only" way that a premise can be known to be true, without logical verification (making it into a conclusion). Then you proceed to make your argument based on this premise. This appears to be the premise of yours, which the others object to. Self evidence is not the only way that a premise can be known to be true, without logical verification. For example, we verify premises with our senses.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover The reason I chose logical verification is very pragmatic. It is because it is shared by everyone. The rules of logic can be taught and used by everyone however as I replied to unenlightened before if you divorce verification from logic you do NOT get an objective knowledge/morality/value but you leave people with much more leeway. The statements you have described above as "considered true without the use of logic" are what I defined as pivots and they are a central part of my argument. No pivot is logically better than another pivot by definition and so each person has completely free reign over which pivots to use. This is the definition of relativism

Quoting khaled

The rules of logic can be taught and used by everyone however as I replied to unenlightened before if you divorce verification from logic you do NOT get an objective knowledge/morality/value but you leave people with much more leeway.

You are using an unrealistic definition of "objective". You define "objective" as what is impossible for anyone to disagree with. But there is no such thing, because there's always someone who can honestly disagree with anything. The example of schizophrenia was already brought up. Furthermore, to define "objective" in this way, is to make objectivity a property of subjects, what subjects agree to. Therefore it is not a true objectivity at all, but a form of subjectivity, better known as inter-subjectivity.

Can we have clear definitions, such that "subjective" refers to of the subject, and "objective" refers to of the object? To deny objectivity is therefore to deny the existence of objects.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover There is a bit of nuance here. I do not define objective as impossible for anyone to disagree with I defined it as "What exists regardless of what anyone thinks about it". I then proceeded to show that objectivity is impossible to achieve as one never knows when he has it as you said Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

there's always someone who can honestly disagree with anything.

When I say "an objective knowledge/morality/value doesn't exist" that is a fault of mine. I really should be saying is "an objective knowledge/morality/value is unachievable to man". That is all my argument is about. Whether or not it exists I don't care because we will never achieve it

Reply to unenlightened Quoting unenlightened

What is exemplary though is that there is no argument between me and the coffee pot; the pot does not argue that it s empty or prove that it is empty, it just is, and I just find out through the same senses that make me aware of there being a coffee pot.

This is the critical point. You say "I just find out through the same senses that make me aware of there being a coffee pot" but if someone (a schizophrenic for example) rejects those senses completely as hocus pocus. Now what? To YOU the coffee pot is empty because of 2 things

1-Senses are reliable
2-I sense a coffee pot

You use those two premises to come to the conclusion "there is a coffee pot". Now if someone WHO ACCEPTS P1 comes around and says that's a teapot THEN you can tell him that he is wrong and he will agree with you that he was since he also accepts P1. What I'm asking is what if someone DOESN'T accept P1. What if that someone is a severe schizophrenic. Is the schizophrenic "wrong" for seeing a teapot, Yes according to you but no according to him.

Quoting unenlightened

this is not logic, this is just the way the dream goes - in this dream, coffee pots don't fill themselves.

What I'm asking is if someone disagrees with you about "the way the dream goes". What if someone has a peculiar genetic disorder that makes him see coffee pots filling themselves and makes his entire perception consistent with that so if he sees a coffee pot tipping over, he will see and feel himself drowning in never-ending coffee (this is getting pretty funny but ok). Is that person objectively wrong for saying the coffee pot fills up? Ok now imagine instead of a genetic disease it was an airborne one that affected all of humanity. Is all of humanity objectively wrong then?

What you keep presenting is the most agreed upon reality to which I also happen to adhere BUT that is NOT an indicator of objectivity in the least. Even if we assume that coffee pots will continue to NOT fill themselves, for that person with the disease, he will never be convinced. Everything he sees and hears stands in opposition to it. This is what it means to have different pivots. They are irreconcilable by logic or by each other. The premise "coffee pots do not fill themselves" can logically prove that "coffee pots fill themselves" is false IF THAT PREMISE IS TRUE but with pivots you never know by definition

Quoting khaled

This argument is still coherent even if P0 had been: an objective reality does not exist. There is no reason to assume either of these.

Quoting Pattern-chaser

Actually, many people (myself included) believe that we can justify the existence of Objective Reality via Descartes' cogito. Despite the difficulties with who "I" might be, "I think, therefore I am" seems to demonstrate that *something* has Objective existence; therefore Objective Reality exists, and this something is all or part of it. But you can relax: this is the One and Only Objective Truth that a human can knowingly possess. :up: :smile:

Quoting khaled

There ARE people that doubt the "therefore" in "therefore I am" and they make a pretty good case doing it.

I didn't say it was universally agreed. But if thinking is going on, something is doing it, and that *something* has Objective Existence. Therefore, as something exists, there is such a thing as Objective Reality. I don't see a problem with "therefore". So there is reason to assume that Objective Reality exists, at least to those who are convinced. You said there wasn't such a reason.

Reply to Pattern-chaser this guy is your man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORH1dXLUx0.

Quoting Pattern-chaser

But if thinking is going on, something is doing it

That is a logical conclusion. Not wise to use those when the big bad devil is trying to twist all of you thinking. WOOOOOOO

Quoting khaled

Not wise to use those when the big bad devil is trying to twist all of you thinking. WOOOOOOO

Sorry, you lost me. :confused:

Reply to Tzeentch Define "glimpsed objective reality". How could the buddha possibly know that what he saw was the end all be all of reality?

Reply to Pattern-chaser Descartes proposed an "evil deceiver" that twists his reasoning so that 2+2 might actually be 5 but the evil deceiver keeps changing it to 4 in Descartes's mind every time. If you propose such a being you can't go on to then use logic as any time you try to logically reason anything the evil deceiver is going to make you think incorrectly. If you can't trust 2+2=4 I don't know why you'd trust "But if thinking is going on, something is doing it". Both of them should be true by definition but since the evil deceiver is there, you cannot use reason

TLDR; the evil deceiver made you think "if thinking is going on, something is doing it" but it's ACTUALLY "if thinking is going on, 4" (now that I think about it this TLDR is probably more confusing)

Also my last post was also supposed to be a Halloween thing but nvm

Quoting khaled

Descartes proposed an "evil deceiver" that twists his reasoning so that 2+2 might actually be 5 but the evil deceiver keeps changing it to 4 in Descartes's mind every time. If you propose such a being you can't go on to then use logic as any time you try to logically reason anything the evil deceiver is going to make you think incorrectly. If you can't trust 2+2=4 I don't know why you'd trust "But if thinking is going on, something is doing it". Both of them should be true by definition but since the evil deceiver is there, you cannot use reason

Then you are doomed! :smile: I'm pretty sure Descartes' demon is not as effective as you describe, but there seems little point in pursuing the matter. Oh, and 2 + 2 = 4 only because we create and define number symbols, number theory, and so forth.

Just apply Occam's Razor.

I don't know why these denialist completely disregard the very likely possibility that the material (for lack of a better term) world is real.

Just apply Occam's Razor; line up your theories and pick the best one. If you have any common sense at all, then it will be the very likely reality, that reality is reality.

Furthermore, reality is really nothing but the reality in which we find ourselves in, whether that is, could be a dream, illusion or whatever, it is entirely moot, as empirical evidence is still the best lead we have. There is nothing else around and it is the only trail of breadcrumbs you have. So the rational thing to do is to examine it and see where it leads. The only other choice here is killing yourself and anyone reading this is clearly not ready yet to test out that option. So it simply does not matter if there is some magical illusion spinning demon as examining those illusions is still our best option.

However, the idea that there is a demon spinning illusions is unverifiable, which means it is about as realistic as the notion that there are mini unicorns that crap gold and gems living in the swears of New York. So how is investing so much of your belief system in an unverifiable entity any different than theism? It is not, and in essence it is the same thing.

These denialist don't even believe their own nonsense, they still eat don't they? They still sleep, shit and type on their keyboards. They claim one thing, but yet they behave as if everything was real, as they realize on some level that is the more likely case and the safest bet. And when you say one thing, yet do another we call that hypocrisy

Reply to Jeremiah I am weary of replying to you but I'll try in case you don't troll anymore. Idk which comment you're talking about so I'll assume it's my discussion with unenlightened.

Person 1:
1-Senses are reliable
2-I sense a coffee pot

Person 2:
1-Senses are unreliable
2-I may be sensing a coffee pot in actuality idk

Occam's razor doesn't do anything, they make the same number of assumptions. One. And neither assumption is more speculative, just one is way more practical than the other

Quoting khaled

I am weary of replying to you

That is a lie, you sent me a bunch of PMs. It is clear to me, that you want me to response.

Quoting Jeremiah

I don't know why these denialists completely disregard...

Quoting Jeremiah

Just apply Occam's Razor

But Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb, a guideline, a way of guessing. Denialists are looking for something certain. Now I consider this an unreasonable expectation, and so do you, it seems, but you are offering seekers after certainty ... a way of guessing. That isn't what they're looking for.

Reply to Pattern-chaser

I don't care what they are looking for, this is the only rational course of action. There are only two choices, either you kill yourself, or you engage the reality you find yourself in. There are no other choices, so people can abuse the term "logic" all they want and they can fantasize about magical demons, but when you get right down to it the only true way to deny reality is to kill yourself, and if you do anything other than that, then you accept the truth of reality.

Reply to Jeremiah
I won't talk about PMs here because that's what the P in PM stands for

Quoting Jeremiah

If you have any common sense at all,

What do you do with people who do not have this common sense? You just admitted of a relativism. This "common sense" seems to be your pivot

Quoting Jeremiah

So it simply does not matter if there is some magical illusion spinning demon as examining those illusions is still our best option.

When did I advocate that

Reply to Jeremiah Quoting Jeremiah

this is the only rational course of action

You take rationality as a pivot. If someone does not your argument breaks down. That is the point. You continuously conflate my claim of an objective reality not being achievable with the claim that I, personally ought to (for some reason) choose a very rare and unusual set of pivots to be consistent. I do not know why you do that

Reply to Jeremiah I sent you 3 texts. The first one was begging you to stop trolling me IN THREAD and to instead do it in pm. The second was expressing how I saw the situation. I said you were trolling and trying to pleasure yourself off of my ignorance without helping. The last was a statement of fact about how after all your troll posts were removed, the thread lost a pagefull of "discussion"

Reply to Jeremiah Not if you don't make a case, to begin with. If you actually want to cooperate please do so. If you don't leave. This is an open forum, you are expected to actually participate and not ridicule. There is nothing paradoxical about me expecting moral conduct from myself and others (as I am currently doing) and me saying that an objective moral conduct is impossible. I am moral but do not need a God or a universal principle to tell me to be so. It is a choice. It is that simple. This will be my last comment to you as you clearly are not intent on changing your attitude

Reply to khaled
Please try to stay on topic, you are derailing the thread.

Reply to khaled Clearly, I cannot tell you what Buddha has experienced. Nor am I in a position to define objective reality myself. My point is that to experience objective reality, thus transcending the human experience, if it is at all possible, is not trivial and will probably take a lifetime of dedication. Those who may have gotten close, at the very least closer than I, did not return with the message that nothing has meaning. While this isn't conclusive evidence, it is enough for me to accept the possibility of inherent meaning.

Quoting khaled

There is a bit of nuance here. I do not define objective as impossible for anyone to disagree with I defined it as "What exists regardless of what anyone thinks about it". I then proceeded to show that objectivity is impossible to achieve as one never knows when he has it as you said

Well of course. If you have defined objectivity as independent from thinking then objectivity is clearly not what is achieved by thinking. That's self-evident.

Quoting khaled

When I say "an objective knowledge/morality/value doesn't exist" that is a fault of mine. I really should be saying is "an objective knowledge/morality/value is unachievable to man". That is all my argument is about. Whether or not it exists I don't care because we will never achieve it

Yes, when you define "objective" in that way, such that whatever is objective is necessarily independent from thinking, then clearly objectivity cannot be something achieved by human thinking.

Reply to Tzeentch My point is it is paradoxical to say someone has experienced objective reality because experience is always subjective. The Buddha could not have possibly known that he has reached "the end of the road". Or at least that's what I think about it

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover But this is the meaning of objectivity as it is usually used. Ask a scientist about why particles interact in this way or that and he will say that "It is an objective nature of reality". Ask a religious fundamentalist why he thinks God exists and he will say "It is an objective nature of reality". My definition is what most people use and as it is used it is impossible.

On the other hand, objectivity defined as "Agreed upon by multiple subjective observers due to the persuasiveness of evidence and practicality". Then yes many many objective things exist. I don't know why whenever people hear "skeptic" or "nihilist" they assume that individual is critiquing this second type of objective when they are critiquing the first most of the time.

Reply to khaled While I do not think it is paradoxical, as I do not see the impossibility of objective experience as a proven fact, I understand your point. However, Buddha was an example. If, as we have agreed, even a person like Buddha, who dedicated his entire life to transcendence of the human experience, cannot present us with indisputable evidence of the nature of reality, then who are we, as ignorant as we are of the true nature of reality, to claim the contrary?

Quoting khaled

But this is the meaning of objectivity as it is usually used. Ask a scientist about why particles interact in this way or that and he will say that "It is an objective nature of reality". Ask a religious fundamentalist why he thinks God exists and he will say "It is an objective nature of reality".

I don't really agree with you on this. "Objective", as employed in science, refers to method, standards, conventions, norms. So this sense of "objective" refers to agreement amongst subjects, and is really what is called by philosophers "inter-subjectivity". "Objective nature of reality" is a philosophical phrase, not a scientific one.

Quoting khaled

My definition is what most people use and as it is used it is impossible.

Since there are many different ways in which "objective" is used, there is no such thing as the way most people use it, there is no single convention for how it ought to be used. If you want to define "objective" in such a way that objectivity is impossible, that's OK, but what is the point? If you equivocate, and conflate two distinct definitions, such that objectivity is not possible, your argument doesn't really represent how anyone actually uses "objective".

Quoting khaled

On the other hand, objectivity defined as "Agreed upon by multiple subjective observers due to the persuasiveness of evidence and practicality". Then yes many many objective things exist. I don't know why whenever people hear "skeptic" or "nihilist" they assume that individual is critiquing this second type of objective when they are critiquing the first most of the time.

But this is the way that "objective" is used in science, the method is agreed upon by many subjective observers, such that the knowledge produced is "objective" in that sense. Now you cannot take a sense of "objective" employed in philosophy, which refers to something independent of thought, and claim that this is how "objective" is used when people say that science produces objective knowledge.

Quoting khaled

To YOU the coffee pot is empty because of 2 things

1-Senses are reliable
2-I sense a coffee pot

No, that is not how it goes.I don't make an argument. I don't make assumptions. I see that the coffee has run out, and I make more coffee. It's not that senses are reliable, it's that that's all there is. Logic can't even get me to the toilet when I want to piss. As to the schizophrenic or the genetic disorder or anyone else who finds themselves living in another world, I have nothing to say to them, because there is no commonality on which to base communication. Perhaps it is they who live in 'the real world', but I live in this one, and I talk about this one.

Reply to unenlightened yes and what I'm saying is, there is no way to disagree with someone who lives "in another world" (you just admitted this) ergo relativism. Most people that "share worlds" so to say think very much alike and are usually convinced by the same logic and reasoning. It's the people from other worlds that are the problem. There is no way to bridge these worlds is my basic argument here and that is the definition of relativism. You can only tell someone they're wrong in your world.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover I'm not using it to mean when people say objective in the science. I'm using it to mean when they use it in religion or ethics debates. In THOSE cases everyone uses the definition of objective as "what is there regardless of what anyone thinks about it" and pretends they have the answer. And even in the sciences it is very often that scientists themselves conflate "inter subjective" with that definition of objective and those are the people I'm targeting.

Reply to Tzeentch I started this thread asking people to change my mind by doing exactly that, show me this "experience of objective reality". Since no one has found this experience it is reasonable to assume it doesn't exist until proven otherwise

Reply to khaled There are some who claim to have experienced it, and such persons are revered in many places on Earth, but it is up to you whether you believe them or not. Other than that, I would argue the nihilistic point of view is all but reasonable. You're claiming something so central to the human experience does not exist, you're also denying the possibility of its existence beyond the human experience, which is an area you and I are completely ignorant of, and you are dismissing any claims of those who have made very thorough attempts at finding the truth. I wouldn't call that any more reasonable than a person who claims that there is nothing beyond our universe, despite not being a scientist and despite scientists' educated guesses that there might be more.

Reasonable would be to accept that we have no idea.

Furthermore, what would be the purpose of your assumption? Will you now act in accordance to your beliefs that nothing has value and morality that doesn't exist? I doubt it. Do you think it is a constructive model upon which our society should be built? For much the same reasons, I doubt it. The only purpose I can think of that such an assumption would serve is personal comfort. Perhaps some prefer to feign certainty than to accept doubt. Perhaps it is comforting to some individuals that they can project their own perceived meaninglessness on others. But I am open to hearing other grounds for your assumption.

Quoting khaled

I'm not using it to mean when people say objective in the science. I'm using it to mean when they use it in religion or ethics debates. In THOSE cases everyone uses the definition of objective as "what is there regardless of what anyone thinks about it" and pretends they have the answer. And even in the sciences it is very often that scientists themselves conflate "inter subjective" with that definition of objective and those are the people I'm targeting.

OK, so we're back to what I said earlier.

"Yes, when you define "objective" in that way, such that whatever is objective is necessarily independent from thinking, then clearly objectivity cannot be something achieved by human thinking."

Now my question is, when you define objectivity in this way, why would you expect to find objectivity in logic, which is a case of human thinking? You have given examples of how objectivity is impossible to obtain with logic, but you have defined "objective" such that it is self-evident that objectivity cannot be obtained by human thinking, and logic is a form of human thinking.

What is the point of this thread? Here's what you stated in the op:Quoting khaled

The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

All these things, value, knowledge, and morality, are known to be the products of human thought. Now you define "objective" as independent from human thought. So what are you questioning? Are you wondering whether value, knowledge, and morality could exist independently of human thought? How could that be possible?

Reply to Tzeentch Quoting Tzeentch

you're also denying the possibility of its existence beyond the human experience

Incorrect. I am claiming that going beyond the human experience is impossible and so anyone who claims to have experienced that "objective meaning" is lying. I will believe them if they show it to me but no one has

Quoting Tzeentch

Will you now act in accordance to your beliefs that nothing has value and morality that doesn't exist? I doubt it. Do you think it is a constructive model upon which our society should be built?

You are once again conflating my beliefs. I don't believe nothing has value. I believe nothing has objective value as defined above. I am a contractarian when it comes to morality. I believe it is nothing more than a contract that maximized survival. Yes I believe atheism and nihilism are great grounds for modeling society because then people will no longer hold on to dogmatic beliefs but instead will design morality to be whatever fits the situation the best (that's what they've always been doing anyways but now they'll admit it)

Other grounds for my assumption? How about the fact that morality, value and knowledge despite being so "objective" supposedly have seen drastic changes from the Jews in old times building their houses on the bodies of their first born children to today when even teachers are not allowed to harm children. The grounds of my belief are the fact that there has never been an objective knowledge/value/morality for more than a few hundred years. I find YOUR claims for their existence the ones in severe need for grounds. Explain your objective morality to ISIS and see if they agree.

Quoting Tzeentch

Perhaps some prefer to feign certainty than to accept doubt.

Nihilism is being certain that there will always be doubt. It is the definition of accepting doubt. I will always believe there is doubt until someone can derive a morality out of purely self evident premises

Quoting Tzeentch

Perhaps it is comforting to some individuals that they can project their own perceived meaninglessness on others

Now you're just being cynical. The goal of this post is to get people to change my mind not for me to impose anything on others. Also, are you seriously suggesting that nihilism is a COMFORTING belief???? COMFORTING out of all things? Trust me from someone who used to be religious I did NOT find nihilism comforting

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Now my question is, when you define objectivity in this way, why would you expect to find objectivity in logic, which is a case of human thinking? You have given examples of how objectivity is impossible to obtain with logic, but you have defined "objective" such that it is self-evident that objectivity cannot be obtained by human thinking, and logic is a form of human thinking.

Good job someone finally picked this up. I actually also believe that a truly self evident premise is impossible because it needs the assumption that logic preserves truth but the laws of logic are all pivots which is why there are multiple types of logic. So yeah objectivity as I defined it is not even obtainable by logic

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

All these things, value, knowledge, and morality, are known to be the products of human thought.

See, we seem to agree on this however you'd be surprised at how many people will disagree with that simple statement. My post is directred at those people, the religious ones, the confused scientific ones, etc. You appear to be pretty relativistic am I wrong?

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

What is the point of this thread?

To get he people that claim that a morality/value/knowledge that transcends human thought exists and is acquirable by humans to defend their beliefs and to attack mine. You're not one of those people

Quoting khaled

I actually also believe that a truly self evident premise is impossible because it needs the assumption that logic preserves truth but the laws of logic are all pivots which is why there are multiple types of logic. So yeah objectivity as I defined it is not even obtainable by logic

I don't really know what you mean by a "pivot", but wouldn't a self-evident premise itself be a pivot? The fundamental laws of logic, identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle, are not exactly self-evident, but are required for, and therefore prior to self-evident truths. These fundamental laws, like the fundamentals of arithmetic, say something about "objective" reality as you have defined "objective", but cannot be part of it. If we remove the necessity of "objective" (as defined) from "reality", which dictates independence from thought, we allow that these laws may be part of reality.

Quoting khaled

To get he people that claim that a morality/value/knowledge that transcends human thought exists and is acquirable by humans to defend their beliefs and to attack mine. You're not one of those people

If we remove the criteria of "objective", as defined, we can allow that morality, value, and knowledge actually do transcend human thought. It is your definition of "objective" which stipulates a separation between thought and objective reality, forcing the conclusion that elements of thought cannot be part of objective reality. Without this separation we can say that these things are part of reality which are apprehended by human thought, and that these things also transcend human thought. What thought apprehends is a part of these things, but since human thought does not apprehend the entirety of morality, value, and knowledge, these things transcend human thought. This is similar to the way that we sense objects. We see them, but there is a part of the objects, atoms, fundamental particles, etc., which transcends our capacity to sense. So we don't sense the entirety of the objects, just like the mind does not apprehend the entirety of things like morality, value, and knowledge, they transcend.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I don't really know what you mean by a "pivot",

Pivot: A premise taken to be true with no reliance on another premise for proof. Ex: God exists. Why? Just cuz

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

It is your definition of "objective" which stipulates a separation between thought and objective reality,

I think such a separation is necessary because Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

If we remove the necessity of "objective" (as defined) from

We get relativism because there will be multiple possible interpretations of reality all based on different choices of starting pivots

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

we allow that these laws may be part of reality.

We allow these laws to be part of A reality. If you don't have an objective premise (as defined) (which I believe is impossible to get but I am open to having my mind changed) you will always get some defree or relativism.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Without this separation we can say that these things are part of reality which are apprehended by human thought, and that these things also transcend human thought.

That is a contradiction no? One can never know from the "apprehended" reality whether or not an external reality even exists or what it looks like. We may all be brains in vats.

What if someone is for some reason adamently convinced that a magical bearded sky man created the world and will take him to heaven if he kills blasphemers. Assuming that premise to be true, it is obviously morally right for that person to become a terrorist. Additionally, that someone will not argue with anyone that does not start off with this specific pivot (that there is a magical bearded sky man) because that would be "obviously wrong" in the eyes of this individual. Similarly one can instead assume that there is no bearded sky man and instead choose to rely on the rules of logic. Similarly, that man will not even argue with anyone that does not accept the pivots of logic. My point is that there is so many of these irreconcilable pivots to pick from that to claim one is right is completely unsubstantiated in my opinion. This is because to claim one is right one needs to use a pivot to confirm it and THAT pivot is in turn arbitrary. I happen to pick the logic pivots but other people might not and that's where you get your relativism.

Reply to khaled First paragraph: My point was that you are making claims of something you (and I aswell) are completely ignorant and you are dismissing the claims of those who have dedicated their lives to the subject. This is unreasonable.

Second paragraph: When we accept that values are relative, good and evil become undefinable and thus morality becomes an empty concept. It seems you are suggesting good and evil should be pliable according to the situation. This is something I cannot agree with, but it is a different discussion and I do not wish to sidetrack.

Third paragraph: I could just as easily point towards all the morals and values the world's religions have in common, and have had in common for thousands of years. But for objective truth to exist it isn't necessarily required that man has already found it. Perhaps some have found a part. Perhaps we have found nothing. Haven't we already established that such things are extremely difficult to find, if not impossible? This an unsatisfying argument.

Secondly, I am unsure which claims of mine you are referring to. I am not claiming the existence of objective value. I am questioning your position on the matter. If you must know, I believe there are good arguments for either side and given our ignorance on the matter I choose the only position reasonable: I don't know.

Fourth paragraph: A theist who doubts the existence of deity is not a theist, but an agnostic. So is an atheist who doubts the non-existence of deity, regardless of what they might label themselves as. Nihilism makes a claim, and it doesn't say anything about doubt. The fact that you are in doubt makes your position a lot more reasonable, but I also wouldn't call you nihilistic. You seem to be willing to make assumptions for practical reasons (as I think you hinted at in your third paragraph), but someone who believes in deity for practical reasons can hardly be called a believer.

Last paragraph: There are those who find comfort in the meaninglessness of things. However, I was not implying this should be true for you, merely guessing at the reason(s) you might have for making an assumption about something you admit you do not know.

Reply to khaled

Objective reality has far more creditably and consequence than your nonsense. That's why you look both ways before you cross the road and don't just walk off high places, as for all your gobbledygook you still very much behave as if you exist in an objective reality. You don't even believe your own nonsense.

Quoting khaled

Pivot: A premise taken to be true with no reliance on another premise for proof. Ex: God exists. Why? Just cuz

This is where I entered this discussion. The answer to "Why?" here, is not "just cuz". There are many reasons why a premise which is not reliant on another premise might be taken as true. The principal reason is experience. I agree with you that sense experience is not one hundred percent reliable, but this does not negate the fact that the reason why many premises are taken to be true is sense experience.

Quoting khaled

We get relativism because there will be multiple possible interpretations of reality all based on different choices of starting pivots

OK, but we need not settle on relativism. This is where the other form of "objective" (the one I called inter-subjective) comes into play. When we can agree on pivots, and establish conventions and norms, we move beyond basic relativism into a form of objectivity.

Quoting khaled

We allow these laws to be part of A reality. If you don't have an objective premise (as defined) (which I believe is impossible to get but I am open to having my mind changed) you will always get some defree or relativism.

Sure, one society with it's world view, conventions and norms has its own view of "reality", and another has its "reality", but is the fact that there is a variance in metaphysics, evidence that there is not an absolute truth, as is required for relativism. For example, suppose that you and I both witnessed an event. We each have different descriptions of what happened. Does this indicate that there is not an absolute truth of what actually did happen? I think not. So I think that the fact that we have different metaphysics, different conventions, and different norms, does not lead to the conclusion that there is no absolute truth in these matters. Even if we get to the conclusion that we cannot possibly know the absolute truth, this still does not support relativism which claims that there is no absolute truth.

Quoting khaled

That is a contradiction no? One can never know from the "apprehended" reality whether or not an external reality even exists or what it looks like. We may all be brains in vats.

Whether or not there is an absolute "reality" is an assumption we make. It may not be provable. To prove that there is not, would require an absolute proof, and this would be self-refuting. That there is not would be an absolute. To prove that there is would seem to require that the absolute be apprehended, and proven to be the absolute. This I believe is beyond the capacity of the human being, due to the limitations imposed by our physical constitution.

However, it is useful to assume that there is the absolute, for many purposes, and not useful to assume that there is not, because this assumption would contradict itself if it were true. If it was true that there is no absolute, this would itself be an absolute, refuting itself. Therefore the assumption that there is such an absolute, assumes as a principle, what is a useful possibility, and that there is no absolute assumes as a principle what is impossible. We must therefore dismiss the latter, as impossible, but the former might better be expressed as the "possibility" that there is such an absolute. However, that there is no absolute has now been dismissed as impossible, therefore we can claim with absolute certainty that there is such an absolute.

Quoting khaled

What if someone is for some reason adamently convinced that a magical bearded sky man created the world and will take him to heaven if he kills blasphemers. Assuming that premise to be true, it is obviously morally right for that person to become a terrorist. Additionally, that someone will not argue with anyone that does not start off with this specific pivot (that there is a magical bearded sky man) because that would be "obviously wrong" in the eyes of this individual.

I don't see the relevance of this example. Assuming that there is an absolute is different from assuming that there is a magical bearded man in the sky. And assuming that there is a magical bearded man is different from assuming that the magical bearded man will take you to heaven if you kill blasphemers. So your example might just as well start with the premise that this man believes that it is a good idea to kill blasphemers, and argue this. That is the real pivot, the point which inclines the person to be a terrorist. Then you can address individually the ideas which support this pivot.

Quoting khaled

My point is that there is so many of these irreconcilable pivots to pick from that to claim one is right is completely unsubstantiated in my opinion. This is because to claim one is right one needs to use a pivot to confirm it and THAT pivot is in turn arbitrary. I happen to pick the logic pivots but other people might not and that's where you get your relativism.

As I explained above, each pivot is supported by reasons, and the reasons are not necessarily pivots, they are usually some sort of experience, or conglomeration of experiences. So, "I am right" refers to a pivot, but it may be supported by one's experiences, rather than other pivots. If one wants to argue against "I am right", this requires addressing the experiences which lead to this pivot, not addressing pivots.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

As I explained above, each pivot is supported by reasons, and the reasons are not necessarily pivots, they are usually some sort of experience, or conglomeration of experiences.

Does this not sound like relativism to you? You have tied truth to a person's experiences. Now instead of having irreconcilable pivots, you have irreconcilable experiences. That's not much better.
Now if someone claims to have "seen God" one man might believe him because he seems genuine and the other might not because he is more skeptical. They are both that way because of experience and now their opinions are irreconcilable. You're still using consensus as a basis for claiming that humans get closer to objective reality when that is not at all the case.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

However, it is useful to assume that there is the absolute, for many purposes, and not useful to assume that there is not, because this assumption would contradict itself if it were true. If it was true that there is no absolute, this would itself be an absolute, refuting itself. Therefore the assumption that there is such an absolute, assumes as a principle, what is a useful possibility, and that there is no absolute assumes as a principle what is impossible. We must therefore dismiss the latter, as impossible, but the former might better be expressed as the "possibility" that there is such an absolute. However, that there is no absolute has now been dismissed as impossible, therefore we can claim with absolute certainty that there is such an absolute.

I'm fine with this. I'm not arguing whether or not an absolute reality exists (I'm now convinced it does. I never thought about the question before because it's inconsequential to relativism) I'm arguing whether or not that is realisable by humans which you seem to disagree with yourself.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

To prove that there is would seem to require that the absolute be apprehended, and proven to be the absolute. This I believe is beyond the capacity of the human being,

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Even if we get to the conclusion that we cannot possibly know the absolute truth, this still does not support relativism which claims that there is no absolute truth.

That's not what relativism claims. It claims that the truth is unrealizable

I don't think we think relativism means the same thing. I define it as: an objective truth is unachievable and you define it as: an objective truth does not exist. See I'm reading everything you're saying and I'm like "yeah, exactly". There is no reason to assume consensus brings us any closer to this objective reality. It only brings us closer to reconciling the biggest set of experiences under one explanation. There is no reason to assume that gets us any closer to objective reality at all

Reply to khaled
Having read through the whole thread, what you are calling "nihilistic relativism" sounds much like 2/3rds of Kant's Canon of Pure Reason:

"All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the following questions

• What can I know?[list]
• What should I do?[list]
• What may I hope?

[/list]
[/list]
The first question is merely speculative. We have as I flatter myself, exhausted all the possible answers to it, and at last have found the answer which reason must perforce content itself, and with which , so long as it takes no account of the practical, it has also has good cause to be satisfied. But from the two great ends to which the whole endeavor of of pure reason was really directed, we have remained just as far removed as if through love of ease we had declined this labor of enquiry at the very outset. So far, then as knowledge is concerned, this much, at least, is certain and definitively established, that in respect of these two latter problems, knowledge is unattainable by us.
The second question is purely practical. As such it can indeed come with the scope of pure reason, but even so is not transcendental but moral, and cannot , therefore, in and by itself, form a proper subject for treatment in this Critique.Critique of Pure Reason, A805, Translated by Norman Kemp Smith"

In making these distinctions between "uses of reasons", Kant wasn't interested in Descartes' musing over whether the people moving outside were actually automatons but in finding a way to protect using logic from Hume who argued causality was an arbitrary association between events. Kant also was keen to have the products of mathematics accepted as valid without having to prove more than what they claimed for themselves. It is with this matter of uses in mind that I consider your reasoning:

"P1: The application of logic requires premises
P2: Any conclusion the application of logic leads to is true if the premises are true
P3: There is no way for a premise to be determined true or false except relative to another premise
P4: A premise cannot determine it's own truth value or if it can then none have been found so far that do so and are useful in proving anything else
P5: There is more than one potential premise from which someone can start an argument.
P6: Consequently there is more than one potential premise that can be used to determine the truth value of a premise
C: More than one conclusion is valid if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value."

The problem with P3 is that it voids the reason for making any proposition. In a math proof, for instance, how the premises are developed to demonstrate a separate claim than the premises is why the syllogism is more than a list of assumptions. I am repeating Metaphysical Undercover's observation that your reasoning is circular but adding the point that nobody uses reasoning the way you describe it.

Quoting khaled

Does this not sound like relativism to you? You have tied truth to a person's experiences.

No, I haven't tied truth to a person's experience, I've tied a person belief that something is true to one's experience. I think there may be a difference between taking something to be true, and it actually being true.

Quoting khaled

Now instead of having irreconcilable pivots, you have irreconcilable experiences.

And, I do not believe that these differences are irreconcilable. We have agreements, conventions, norms, these things are evidence that there is real reconciliation. The fact that we haven't yet reached reconciliation on all matters does not indicate that these matters are irreconcilable. I don't know how anyone could ever prove that an issue is irreconcilable.

Quoting khaled

You're still using consensus as a basis for claiming that humans get closer to objective reality when that is not at all the case.

You're wrong here. I am not claiming that humans are getting closer to objective reality. We've already agreed that it is impossible for human thought to reach objective reality, by that definition. So why should we even try to reach it? What I am claiming is that there is another form of "objective", which is actually reached through consensus. I also said that it is necessary to assume that there is such a thing as the absolute truth, because the converse assumption creates contradiction. The physical constitution of the human being makes it impossible for us to obtain the absolute truth, so we ought to settle on consensus. Agreement is good, for human beings, don't you think? Why should we ask for more than this?

Quoting khaled

That's not what relativism claims. It claims that the truth is unrealizable

I think you ought to read up a little more on relativism before making claims like this. Relativism claims that truth is relative. Therefore truth is actually obtainable, but there is no absolute truth, truth is relative. What is true for you might be different from what is true for me. So it defines "truth" in a way such that it is not absolute, it is realizable, but this is a different definition from those who hold that there is an absolute truth. It doesn't say that the absolute truth is unrealizable, it says there is no such thing.

Quoting khaled

I don't think we think relativism means the same thing. I define it as: an objective truth is unachievable and you define it as: an objective truth does not exist. See I'm reading everything you're saying and I'm like "yeah, exactly". There is no reason to assume consensus brings us any closer to this objective reality. It only brings us closer to reconciling the biggest set of experiences under one explanation. There is no reason to assume that gets us any closer to objective reality at all

We seem to agree on everything except what relativism is. We both think that there is an absolute truth which is unobtainable by human beings. You think that this is relativism, I think that relativism denies that there is an absolute truth.

According to Nietzsche, a nihilistic person is one who adheres to any ideology, religion, or system of values that promotes and encourages a denial, rather than, an affirmation of the Will-to-Live.

Quoting khaled

The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

That there's no objective value, knowledge or morality (or many other things) seems as obvious to me as anything can seem obvious.

Quoting unenlightened

Let me answer that question with a falsehood, since it has the same value as the truth.

And as expected, responses start with a complete lack of understanding. That there is no objective value doesn't imply that things are similarly valued. You have to look at the correct domain for value, which is the subjective domain. In the subjective domain, different things are not all identically valued at all.

Quoting khaled

See, I see a sort of enigma with nihilism in that according to it, believing in objective morality, God, superstition, etc is just as good as believing in nihilism

No, you're making the same category error here. There is no objective value. That doesn't mean that there is no subjective value. You simply have to locate the phenomenon in the right place. It's like noting that (barring unusual circumstances etc.) a beer isn't going to get cold by sitting in the microwave, but it will get cold in the refrigerator. You have to locate it in the right place. Value is something that brains do. It's not something that the world outside of brains does. So it's not at all the case that x is just as good as y unconditionally. Things are as good as, or better or worse than other things to someone.

Quoting Terrapin Station

No, you're making the same category error here. There is no objective value. That doesn't mean that there is no subjective value. You simply have to locate the phenomenon in the right place. It's like noting that (barring unusual circumstances etc.) a beer isn't going to get cold by sitting in the microwave, but it will get cold in the refrigerator. You have to locate it in the right place. Value is something that brains do. It's not something that the world outside of brains does. So it's not at all the case that x is just as good as y unconditionally. Things are as good as, or better or worse than other things to someone.

Just jumping in here since I find what you said interesting, Though i realise your comment was directed elsewhere.
How exactly do you mean value here? I wouldnt say that a hammer has no objective value as a nail hitting tool, I do not think that is something merely done by the brain. It seems like something that is objectively true, something happening in the world (or about the world and its objects is a better way of putting it) that the mind realises/recognises. Similarly, depending on what the goal is, certain things will be objectively better or worse for achieving that goal. (Objective as inntrue regardless of subjective thoughts on the effectiveness).
I think what some are getting at here is that subjective values all have the same level of justification, based on (from what I can tell) the premiss that all subjective values have the same basis (someone made them up, came to them through culture or preference of some kind).
Do you agree with any of that?

Reply to charles ferraro
That's right. Nietzsche saw values as getting closer or further from supporting the life of the one doing the "valuation."

Quoting khaled

I have seen surprisingly few posts on this philosophy to which I adhere which is starting to make me think it might have some gaping logical hole somewhere that I'm not seeing. I am open to having my mind changed in any way (God, inherent meaning in objects, cosmic Consciousness, etc) so present your best arguments against this philosophy.

Quick definition: The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

Here's what I think a good retort to that position. First, if you understand the 'objective' in sufficiently absolute terms, then, indeed, nothing is objective. Or nothing worth talking about. Let's say that your position decides to define 'black' the complete absence of light waves in the visible spectrum. How often will anyone see your 'true' black? Maybe never. So now your position can decide that all the ordinary talk of blackness is mistaken. It has a hole in it.

But this forgets how and why we started using 'black' in the first place. Similarly, a 'true' or 'perfect' objectivity that doesn't actually exists has little to do with how and why people tend to use 'objective,' except as an exaggeration for a particular purpose, which might in retrospect seem to be a silly purpose.

Then there's the performative contradiction of reasonably defending the impossibility or absence of 'true' or 'objective' reason or meaning. You might say that you are just imposing your will with sophistry that knows itself to be sophistry, but that sacrifices the persuasive force that you need in the first place. A more 'living' understanding of objectivity might be in terms of persuasive force applied to skeptics like yourself. For instance, science assumes a kind of metaphysical skepticism, and therefore leaves itself naked and vulnerable to falsification. It self-consciously offers fragile rules-for-action couched in terms of patterns of public and repeatable experience. While radical skeptics can ask for a further minimization of error-risk, they aren't likely to get it. And since life demands that we act, we do indeed act always in a smog of some uncertainty. We all 'know' this with the 'sight' of action, no matter what we merely say in a certain mood or within a certain game. Lots of useful, skeptical philosophy boils down to: Talk is cheap. Look to action.

While you may find a few 'metaphysical prigs' who also take the 'purely' objective seriously, your position can easily look like the accusation that others naively believe in a kind of ghost. A few do (when and while they wear their metaphysical or religious hats), but many don't, or at least not in that one. All along, that pure, exaggerated notion of objective knowledge/certainty/morality looks like the ghost from the perspective I am defending. IMV, the dominant ghost in philosophy (or on forums) is an unquestioned conception of language that leads many into selling 'profundities' with no real weight. Of course Wittgenstein is the face of this kind of critique.

In my view, your position makes the most sense as an exaggeration that understands itself as an exaggeration, as an ultimately reasonable skepticism spiced with click-bait.

Reply to macrosoft

Well said!

Reply to DingoJones
Thanks! I've identified with a kind of nihilistic relativism before, so that response was an opportunity to try to give the position its due while reeling in its tendency to paradoxically present itself.

Quoting DingoJones

How exactly do you mean value here?

Standard dictionary definitions work well enough:
"the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something."
"relative worth, utility, or importance"
"to consider or rate highly"
Etc.

Quoting DingoJones

I wouldnt say that a hammer has no objective value as a nail hitting tool,

Well, objectively, a hammer can be used to hit nails. So can a lot of other things. It's persons who have preferences about which thing to use, which features to prefer, and so on.

Quoting DingoJones

depending on what the goal is, certain things will be objectively better or worse for achieving that goal.

It's not objectively better or worse, but sure, we can define a goal re wanting something to have such and such properties, and then objectively, some things will have those properties, or be closer to having those properties, than other things. That's not objective value. It's just the fact that there are objective properties and we can search for certain properties if we like.

Quoting DingoJones

I think what some are getting at here is that subjective values all have the same level of justification, based on (from what I can tell) the premiss that all subjective values have the same basis (someone made them up, came to them through culture or preference of some kind).
Do you agree with any of that?

I don't understand what you're saying re "the same level of justification."

Quoting macrosoft

But this forgets how and why we started using 'black' in the first place. Similarly, a 'true' or 'perfect' objectivity that doesn't actually exists has little to do what how people tend to use 'objective,' except as an exaggeration for a particular purpose, which might in retrospect seem to be a silly purpose.

The problem is that things like "objective knowledge," so that the knowledge itself has as one of its properties that it is objective, are really category errors (knowledge, by definition, can't have the property of being objective), so you can't have a "kind-of objectivity" when it comes to something like knowledge.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Well, objectively, a hammer can be used to hit nails. So can a lot of other things. It's persons who have preferences about which thing to use, which features to prefer, and so on.

A hammer is objectivly better for hitting nails than say, a dead fish. A person may or may not have a preference to use a dead fish to hit nails, but a hammer objectively has more value for hitting nails. (According to your own definition which specifically mentions “utility”)

Quoting Terrapin Station

It's not objectively better or worse, but sure, we can define a goal re wanting something to have such and such properties, and then objectively, some things will have those properties, or be closer to having those properties, than other things. That's not objective value. It's just the fact that there are objective properties and we can search for certain properties if we like.

Of course it is objectively better or worse, the hammer over the dead fish for hitting nails for example.
It is true that we can search for certain properties we like as you describe, but it is also true that certain properties suit certain tasks better, that they have more value for doing the task. Hence, it depends on what the goal is and what properties best accomplish the goal.

Quoting DingoJones

A hammer is objectivly better for hitting nails than say, a dead fish. A person may or may not have a preference to use a dead fish to hit nails, but a hammer objectively has more value for hitting nails. (According to your own definition which specifically mentions “utility”)

Let's try it this way. The objective "better" in the above is a property of what? That is, where is the property ( "This is better than that") found?

Quoting Terrapin Station

I don't understand what you're saying re "the same level of justification."

That everything is equally justified if they are subjective human constructs, as they all have the same basis of simple subjective preference.
The argument is essentially saying its all opinion and no ones opinion is more or less wrong.
I think that is true sometimes, but some opinions actually are objectively wrong sometimes too.
I do not want to say that objective and subjective is a false dichotomy , but it seems obvious to me that there is some crossover of the two when we consider the value of certain things. The example I like to use is a ruler that measures inches. An inch is a subjective thing, a measure of distance made up by a human mind that doesnt exist objectively. However, once the subjective decision to create the system of measurement and arbitrarily decide what an”inch” is gets done, it is then true that the length in inches of a ruler or whatever object is the same regardless of the subjective preferences of the person measuring. They could say “this isnt 12 inches in length, its 1 foot in length” and they would be right and the matter of which system to use is subjective preference (or what you are taught) but it is also true that the object is 12”, and I think we can say that that is objectively true in the sense that regardless of someones subjective idea of something length. You can always pull out a ruler and confirm its actual, objective length in inches. To make a distinction between objectively being true in reality and objectively being true in the sense I describe above I use the term “objective standard”.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Let's try it this way. The objective "better" in the above is a property of what? That is, where is the property ( "This is better than that") found?

I would say in its utility, its value as a hitting nails device.

Quoting DingoJones

I would say in its utility, its value as a hitting nails device.

"In its utility"? What sort of location is that? I'm asking you where as in a spatial location.

Quoting DingoJones

That everything is equally justified if they are subjective human constructs, as they all have the same basis of simple subjective preference.

Justifications are something that we do as individual persons. Different people think that different things count as justifications. No one thinks that everything is equally justified. Not everyone has the same subjective preferences.

Quoting DingoJones

he argument is essentially saying its all opinion and no ones opinion is more or less wrong.

"(More or less) wrong" is a category error when it comes to opinions. So if we realize that, we're neither saying that "no one's opinion is more or less wrong" or "no one's opinion is NOT more or less wrong." "More or less wrong" has nothing to do, either way, with opinions.

Quoting DingoJones

but some opinions actually are objectively wrong sometimes too

Not opinions re preferences, etc. There is another sense of "opinion" where we just use it to refer to someone's view--"Professor Smith's opinion of the chemical composition of Jupiter's atmosphere." That's not the sense of "opinion" we were talking about.

Quoting DingoJones

An inch is a subjective thing, a measure of distance made up by a human mind that doesnt exist objectively

I actually don't agree with that, by the way. Extension is an objective relation. Calling it an "inch" isn't objective, of course. At any rate, extension is something that's mind-independent.

Quoting Terrapin Station

"In its utility"? What sort of location is that? I'm asking you where as in a spatial location.

In its shape and attributes. You want me to say “in the mind of user” or some-such?

Quoting DingoJones

In its shape and attributes. You want me to say “in the mind of user” or some-such?

I just wanted you to say where you thought it was located, wherever it happens to be. "In its attributes"--"x is better than y" IS an attribute, right? So it's located in the object's shape in your view? You're saying that the overall shape has a property of "x is better than y"? Would that be a property that we could detect via a machine somehow? Like say that an alien civilzation found a hammer, and could put it in a machine that reads all of the hammer's properties. So in addition to its chemical composition, its tensile strength, etc., the machine would report its "x is better than y" properties somehow?

Quoting Terrapin Station

"(More or less) wrong" is a category error when it comes to opinions. So if we realize that, we're neither saying that "no one's opinion is more or less wrong" or "no one's opinion is NOT more or less wrong." "More or less wrong" has nothing to do, either way, with opinions.

Ok, well it depends on what counts as opinion. If an opinion is ill informed, I would say its a degree more wring than an informed one.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Not opinions re preferences, etc. There is another sense of "opinion" where we just use it to refer to someone's view--"Professor Smith's opinion of the chemical composition of Jupiter's atmosphere." That's not the sense of "opinion" we were talking about.

Well, what you are talking about anyway but I understand.

Quoting Terrapin Station

The problem is that things like "objective knowledge," so that the knowledge itself has as one of its properties that it is objective, are really category errors (knowledge, by definition, can't have the property of being objective), so you can't have a "kind-of objectivity" when it comes to something like knowledge.

Perhaps you are right under a particular interpretation of the terms involved. I was admittedly using a rougher language. But I'm aiming at a more charitable holistic reading of the issue. I think we should understand the discussion more globally, with a sense of personalities involved.

I think what is often meant by 'objective' is certain and authoritative. The relativistic nihilist is trying (often awkwardly) to communicate a sense that perfectly certain and perfectly authoritative knowledge is impossible. Unfortunately they tend to imply that this perspective itself is a kind of perfectly certain and authoritative knowledge. The problem is the unperceived uselessness of this 'perfectly.' Another problem is the failure to subject their own position to its own kind of criticism. How did they end up with their essentially atheistic and pragmatic view? How do they intend to convince others that nothing is 'really' convincing? While attacking the weaknesses in their language is potentially useful, it's a little too local for my taste. Our more or less developed sense of the forest largely controls our perspective on the trees. I like examining approaches at their fundamental grasp of the situation.

Quoting DingoJones

Ok, well it depends on what counts as opinion. If an opinion is ill informed, I would say its a degree more wring than an informed one.

How could an opinion itself, in the relevant sense, be "ill-informed"? We're not talking about information that's not itself an opinion, we're talking about the opinion.

Quoting Terrapin Station

I just wanted you to say where you thought it was located, wherever it happens to be. "In its attributes"--"x is better than y" IS an attribute, right? So it's located in the object's shape in your view? You're saying that the overall shape has a property of "x is better than y"? Would that be a property that we could detect via a machine somehow? Like say that an alien civilzation found a hammer, and could put it in a machine that reads all of the hammer's properties. So in addition to its chemical composition, its tensile strength, etc., the machine would report its "x is better than y" properties somehow?

Yes, the machine would be telling you, via the properties of the hammer, what the hammer is good for. Thats besides mt point thiugh, as I started with it depends on the goal. The correct way to lay it out is to find properties that match your needs to a goal. It doesnt matter if you agree that a hammer is the best tool for nails, it just matters that the hammer is better than the dead fish. Once you admit that, then the rest of what im saying follows.

Quoting macrosoft

I think what is often meant by 'objective' is certain and authoritative.

The way I use the terms is simply that "subjective" is mind-dependent, or in other words, we're talking about mental phenomena when we talk about the subjective, and "objective" is mind-independent--we're talking about something that isn't mental phenomena.

"Certain and authoritative" I'd have to clarify. For example, there's psychological certainty (which anyone could have about any arbitrary thing potentially--someone might be psychologically certain that they're Santa Claus in octopus form or something like that), and there's a sense of certainty that's basically the same as whether something is a logical truth--a tautology, or where a negation is a logical contradiction, although of course that hinges on particular species of logic.

And then "authoritative"--there, we're probably just talking about a social phenomenon. People who are considered, due to social conventions, biases, and all sorts of things, to be experts more or less.

Quoting Terrapin Station

How could an opinion itself, in the relevant sense, be "ill-informed"? We're not talking about information that's not itself an opinion, we're talking about the opinion.

I addressed this, but things are getting confusing with our rapid responses. Ill try and do a single post response from now on to avoid this.

Quoting DingoJones

Yes, the machine would be telling you, via the properties of the hammer, what the hammer is good for. Thats besides mt point thiugh, as I started with it depends on the goal. The correct way to lay it out is to find properties that match your needs to a goal. It doesnt matter if you agree that a hammer is the best tool for nails, it just matters that the hammer is better than the dead fish. Once you admit that, then the rest of what im saying follows.

You're saying that the hammer is objectively better than the dead fish for nails. In order for it to be objectively better for that, the better determination has to be in the object itself, and not in any of your thinking about the object. So that's why I'm asking you where that determination is, in the object itself (or whatever it's in, some relation or whatever), what it's a property of mind-independently, etc.

See, I don't at all agree that a hammer, or anything, is objectively better, than anything else at anything. I think the very idea of that is incoherent. And to me it's pretty obvious that it's incoherent..

For example, with a hammer, you can put the nails in faster, the hammer won't fall apart as quickly, etc.

BUT, objectively, what amounts to it being better to put the nails in faster, what amounts to it being better to not have the object fall apart as you're using it, etc.

You'd say that something in the object itself (or relations or whatever) amounts to that. Well, what? What you've suggested so far is that it's in the shape somehow. So how would that be the case that it's in the shape that it's better to put nails in faster, for the object not to fall apart, etc.?

Quoting Terrapin Station

The way I use the terms is simply that "subjective" is mind-dependent, or in other words, we're talking about mental phenomena when we talk about the subjective, and "objective" is mind-independent--we're talking about something that isn't mental phenomena.

I generally agree, except that I find that mind-independence and intersubjectivity sort of blur together. Why? For the usual reasons. We can't compare our cognition of the object to the object itself, so we largely edit our understanding of the 'real' versus the 'merely imaginary' by the consequences of our actions (what happens to us physically and socially.) IMV, this is issue is difficult if not impossible to 'clean up,' given 'meaning holism.' We can't hold the meanings of the words we need to use sufficiently fixed. Even if we could, the results of our reasoning are therefore results about stipulated and limited interpretations of words/concepts. As soon as we present our 'results,' they are understood in terms of the usual blurrier use-meanings of the terms.

Quoting Terrapin Station

And then "authoritative"--there, we're probably just talking about a social phenomenon. People who are considered, due to social conventions, biases, and all sorts of things, to be experts more or less.

I agree, and I think our nihilistic relativist would agree. Truths are as mortal and untrustworthy as these experts. Some are less mortal and less dubious than others. IMO, this is actually a common view, so that a weak version of nihilistic relativism is the norm. The strong version strikes me as indulgent rhetoric for expressing the weak version. For me this is very common in philosophy: nothing that exciting or revolutionary is being said (or sincerely meant), and yet the expression is spiced up. In some ways this is defensible as good marketing. Exaggeration focuses the attention on what is at stake and urges conversation. But one can become desensitized and impatient for something truly revolutionary (which gets harder and harder to find as one is more and more exposed.)

Quoting macrosoft

I generally agree, except that I find that mind-independence and intersubjectivity sort of blur together. Why? For the usual reasons. We can't compare our cognition of the object to the object itself, so we largely edit our understanding of the 'real' versus the 'merely imaginary' by the consequences of our actions (what happens to us physically and socially.) IMV, this is issue is difficult if not impossible to 'clean up,' given 'meaning holism.' We can't hold the meanings of the words we need to use sufficiently fixed. Even if we could, the results of our reasoning are therefore results about stipulated and limited interpretations of words/concepts. As soon as we present our 'results,' they are understood in terms of the usual blurrier use-meanings of the terms.

Basically, what I'm referring to are the spatial locations of things. In terms of spatial locations, "intersubjective" is just gobbledygook.

Quoting Terrapin Station

You'd say that something in the object itself (or relations or whatever) amounts to that. Well, what? What you've suggested so far is that it's in the shape somehow. So how would that be the case that it's in the shape that it's better to put nails in faster, for the object not to fall apart, etc.?

The hard steel, the shape of the hammer head (flat on the hitting part), thin so you can see what your hitting, the wooden handle thats lighter thsn the hammer head to use leverage and increase striking power...”the shape somehow”? Why are you acting as though you do not understand why a hammer is good for hitting nails as opposed to a dead fish?
The properties of the hammer are better suited than the properties of a dead fish fir hitting nails into wood. Whats the problem? If a person thinks the dead fish is better, they are wrong. Thier subjectivity doesnt effect that, therefore the hammers better suited properties and the dead fishes lesser suited properties are mind independent. Objective.

Quoting DingoJones

Why are you acting as though you do not understand why a hammer is good for hitting nails as opposed to a dead fish?

I'm not "acting that way." It's not objectively good. It's not objectively better to see what you're hitting than to not see it, for example. That's rather a preference that people have

LIkewise, it's not objectively better to have more striking power, etc..

Having more striking power is only a preference that people have.

Quoting khaled

Quick definition: The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent

I don't claim that anything describable is objectively existent. In fact, I don't think that "objective existence" is even metaphysically-defined.

Is there, at all, that for which "objectively existent"means something and can be said? Is there what is objectively existent? You're sure that there isn't. That means you're sure about Reality as a whole.
can be known and described by humans.

How can you be sure of that?

And if Reality even might not be knowable and describable by humans, that means that it definitely can't be reliably known and described by humans.

So you can't know for certain what you say that you're sure of.

Michael Ossipoff

Quoting Terrapin Station

I'm not "acting that way." It's not objectively good. It's not objectively better to see what you're hitting than to not see it, for example. That's rather a preference that people have

LIkewise, it's not objectively better to have more striking power, etc..

Having more striking power is only a preference that people have.

It can be both a preference and objectively better, people trying to accomplish a goal (remember that was my initial posit) tends to create a preference for objectively better tools to do so.
It is certainly better to have better striking power if you need something with striking power. If you are not “acting that way” (I was assuming you were doing so to make a point) then...well I find it hard to accept you do not understand the mind independent utility of a hammer for hitting nails.
I mean, which is better for hammering in nails, the hammer or the dead fish? Obviously the hammer...so answer me this: why is the hammer better than the dead fish for hammering nails?

Quoting DingoJones

well I find it hard to accept you do not understand the mind independent utility of a hammer for hitting nails.

It's not that I don't understand it. It's that you're wrong. And I'll keep trying to explain to you why you're wrong until you understand it.

Quoting DingoJones

It is certainly better to have better striking power if you need something with striking power.

It's not objectively better to have what you desire. "It's better to have what you desire" is a subjective preference.

Quoting DingoJones

I mean, which is better for hammering in nails, the hammer or the dead fish?

The hammer and the dead fish themselves do not answer this. Again, objectively, it's not better to have one set of properties than another, for any properties. Objectively, it's not better to have what you desire rather than what you do not desire.

The reason one thing is better than another is because of your preferences, what you desire. The judgment is always subjective. The idea of it being objective is incoherent.

Quoting Terrapin Station

The hammer and the dead fish themselves do not answer this. Again, objectively, it's not better to have one set of properties than another, for any properties. Objectively, it's not better to have what you desire rather than what you do not desire.

The reason one thing is better than another is because of your preferences, what you desire. The judgment is always subjective. The idea of it being objective is incoherent.

You mean to tell me that you cannot determine which thing is better at hammering nails, a hammer or a dead fish? Not without conceding my points you can’t...so you are refusing.
Again you rephrased what I said to create a straw man. If you argued honestly you would find it less incoherent.

Quoting Terrapin Station

It's not objectively better to have what you desire. "It's better to have what you desire" is a subjective preference.

Thats not what I said. I believe thats called a straw man.

Quoting Terrapin Station

It's not that I don't understand it. It's that you're wrong. And I'll keep trying to explain to you why you're wrong until you understand it.

Thats very generous of you, but I will pass.

Reply to Terrapin Station

I goofed with the quotes, ended up in reverse. I trust you can figure out the order.

Quoting DingoJones

You mean to tell me that you cannot determine which thing is better at hammering nails, a hammer or a dead fish? Not without conceding my points you can’t...so you are refusing.

If it's objective, it's not something that I'm doing. It has to be something the object themselves are doing. It's a property of the objects themselves. So me determining something is talking about something subjective--me making a judgment about what I feel is better (because of various desires, preferences, etc., which are subjective.)

There's no property in the objects themselves that amounts to "better than," the same way that there are properties in the objects themselves that amount to things like chemical composition, tensile strength, extension, mass, etc.

Quoting DingoJones

Thats not what I said.

The quotation marks aren't a la "this is what you said" (just like those quotation marks were not)

Quoting DingoJones

Thats very generous of you, but I will pass.

Okay, but I think it's worth me continuing.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Okay, but I think it's worth me continuing.

I don’t think it is, Unfortunately ive reached my limit on how much more I can break it down. (Not meant to be snide)
I understand what you are saying, but I think my own points are not getting through. Wrong, incoherent...if I have failed so miserably at expressing my view here then Im happy to just move on. There is some semantics at play and clarity we could pursue but I feel like the effort to reward ratio is fairly low.

Quoting DingoJones

I don’t think it is, Unfortunately ive reached my limit on how much more I can break it down. (Not meant to be snide)
I understand what you are saying, but I think my own points are not getting through. Wrong, incoherent...if I have failed so miserably at expressing my view here then Im happy to just move on. There is some semantics at play and clarity we could pursue but I feel like the effort to reward ratio is fairly low.

Sure, it's a given that we disagree on whether it's worth continuing. I think it's worth teaching someone that there is no such thing as objective value judgments, objective "better" judgments, etc., no matter how long it takes to teach them that. But you don't have to keep paying attention obviously. ;-)

Reply to Terrapin Station

Lol, the lack of understanding is yours, entirely. I was just trying to politely withdraw because I despise wasting my time. If you can’t understand the simple point im making, only a tedious workload of explaining would suffice to enlighten you to what you would already know if you were actually listening, but you aren't. You are talking. Fair enough. Ill stop wasting my breath.
(Any snideness you detect this time is likely intentional )

Quoting DingoJones

Lol, the lack of understanding is yours, entirely. I was just trying to politely withdraw because I despise wasting my time. If you can’t understand the simple point im making, only a tedious workload of explaining would suffice to enlighten you to what you would already know if you were actually listening, but you aren't. You are talking. Fair enough. Ill stop wasting my breath.

That you think that is why you're having a difficult time learning something you need to learn. The lack of understanding is yours, not mine.

Reply to Terrapin Station
Quoting Terrapin Station

The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent
— khaled

That there's no objective value, knowledge or morality (or many other things) seems as obvious to me as anything can seem obvious.

Trust me. You'd be surprised at how many people disagree

Also: I got reinforcements, hurray!!!!!

Reply to macrosoft Quoting macrosoft

But this forgets how and why we started using 'black' in the first place. Similarly, a 'true' or 'perfect' objectivity that doesn't actually exists has little to do with how and why people tend to use 'objective,' except as an exaggeration for a particular purpose, which might in retrospect seem to be a silly purpose.

I've seen many many confused people use objective in the absolute sense which is why I made the post.

Quoting macrosoft

You might say that you are just imposing your will with sophistry that knows itself to be sophistry, but that sacrifices the persuasive force that you need in the first place

An argument does not need to be persuasive to be right

Quoting macrosoft

While you may find a few 'metaphysical prigs' who also take the 'purely' objective seriously

It's like half the people I met here. And all the religious ones

Quoting macrosoft

In my view, your position makes the most sense as an exaggeration that understands itself as an exaggeration, as an ultimately reasonable skepticism spiced with click-bait.

You said you had a retort but you seem to agree with me lol. I am aware it is clickbait but that was just to get people to start talking. It's the kind of clickbait where it's not REALLY a lie but kind of a half lie. I agree with everything you wrote except I think you are massively underestimating the number of people that are "Metaphysical prigs" as you put it. I'd even say most people ACT as metaphysical prigs at least.

Reply to Tzeentch Oh lol sorry, didn't see ya reply there.
Quoting Tzeentch

Second paragraph: When we accept that values are relative, good and evil become undefinable and thus morality becomes an empty concept

Incorrect. Objective morality, as in, transcending subjectivity, becomes an empty concept but society specific good and evil, as well as individual specific good and evil, is still valid and that's all we ever use or should care about. What's the point of defending a metaphysical morality

Quoting Tzeentch

Third paragraph: I could just as easily point towards all the morals and values the world's religions have in common, and have had in common for thousands of years

They had at least 10 times more disagreements. How is burying your first born child under the foundations of your house (old testament) consistent with any other religion? The agreements you are referring to are only between the Abrahamic religions and that after they've been extremely domesticated by secular ideas. The Roman Catholic church admits of evolution. That should tell you something about why they agree. It's because they all have to be secular to be taken seriously

Quoting Tzeentch

First paragraph: My point was that you are making claims of something you (and I aswell) are completely ignorant and you are dismissing the claims of those who have dedicated their lives to the subject. This is unreasonable.

I am making the least problematic assumption. It is much less problematic to assume that an objective reality is unachievable than to claim to have achieved it.

Quoting Tzeentch

Secondly, I am unsure which claims of mine you are referring to. I am not claiming the existence of objective value. I am questioning your position on the matter. If you must know, I believe there are good arguments for either side and given our ignorance on the matter I choose the only position reasonable: I don't know.

I don't actually hold the position "I know it doesn't exist", I hold the position "It probably doesn't but you can all try to convince me otherwise". If I knew it didn't exist I wouldn't have needed to make this post

Quoting Tzeentch

Fourth paragraph: A theist who doubts the existence of a deity is not a theist, but an agnostic. So is an atheist who doubts the non-existence of deity, regardless of what they might label themselves as. Nihilism makes a claim, and it doesn't say anything about doubt.

Nihilism tells one to doubt literally all values. That is the ONLY claim it makes. Nihilism is one of the few philosophies where doubting it is consistent with it. Just as Pyrenean skepticism. Ask a Pyrenean skeptic "Is knowledge possible" and he would say "I don't know". That doesn't make him "not a skeptic" it makes him a hardcore skeptic actually. But I'm fine with you calling me not a nihilist as long as you get what I'm saying. I don't hold "nihilist" as a badge I have to show off I don't really care. I just use it to get people to talk (clickbait).

Quoting khaled

You said you had a retort but you seem to agree with me lol. I am aware it is clickbait but that was just to get people to start talking. It's the kind of clickbait where it's not REALLY a lie but kind of a half lie. I agree with everything you wrote except I think you are massively underestimating the number of people that are "Metaphysical prigs" as you put it. I'd even say most people ACT as metaphysical prigs at least.

Yes, I think we largely overlap when it comes to some sense that things have to be understood from 'within' various perspectives.

As far as 'metaphysical prigs,' I got that term from Rorty, a pretty great 'relativist' (or so he is interpreted.)
On this forum, there are lots of fans of philosophers who are critical of metaphysics. It seems to me that 'anti'-philosophy largely became philosophy --or became a big part of mainstream philosophy. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, etc.

And in some sense most 'great' philosophers are anti-philosophers. They are always trying to clean up the mess of those who came before them (like Kant destroying the older version of metaphysics to make room for his own.) One age's destroyers are the builders of the next age, themselves sure to become targets or a mess to be cleaned up.

It seems to me that promoting / defending nihilistic relativism is (when its intentions are friendliest) something like promoting / defending open-mindedness. When I first got into pragmatism / instrumentalism (call it what you will), I experienced it as liberating and enjoyed trying to find better and better words for it. These days I'm working on finding the right words for the value I find in holism.

Quoting khaled

Nihilism tells one to doubt literally all values.

What about the value of doubting? Nihilism (as you use it there) implies that doubting is of value, does it not? Or why take doubt as a fundamental approach? Why ought we doubt?

And is there a limit to genuine doubt? I say yes, there is. And that's why a certain kind of exaggerated nihilism is no less metaphysical than what it opposes itself to. If basic intelligbility depends on things that can't be doubted, then nihilism sets an impossible goal just as metaphysicians do when they understand 'objective' in absolute terms. To even try to communicate or defend 'nihilism' already assumes the possibility and value of communication, so that it is nakedly absurd in its absolute form.

So what it really comes down to (seems to me) is the doubting of particular 'settled' opinions which aren't 'necessary opinions' which can't sincerely be doubted -- motivated by a sense that settled opinions are suspicious and that being free from settled opinions is (within reasonable limits) virtuous. What dominates is perhaps an image of a particular kind of detached wise man.

Quoting khaled

Ask a Pyrenean skeptic "Is knowledge possible" and he would say "I don't know". That doesn't make him "not a skeptic" it makes him a hardcore skeptic actually.

I like this, and I think it's an important point. That's why I'd say that nihilism 'has' to be expressed as self-conscious 'sophistry.' If it presents itself as a kind of truth about knowledge, then it trips over its own claims. What it can get away with (and this is something Rorty uses to avoid 'really' being a relativist) is understanding itself in terms of suggesting experiments. 'Let's try to doubt our fundamental assumptions. Let's try thinking of things this way.' The whole style of just presenting truths about truth as truths (its impossibility, for instance) is inappropriate if one is really trying to get loose from a dogmatic tendency.

Reply to macrosoft I don't get why everyone keeps saying I defend nihilism. I am literally trying to get people to CHANGE my mind. I do not hold the belief "I know morality/value/knowledge is impossible" because that's obviously contradictory it's more like "I don't think morality/value/knowledge is possible but you're welcome to change my mind". I am a nihilist to the point that I do not see value in defending or attacking nihilism and so that is not what I do. I am not trying to establish a metaphysical truth that metaphysical truths are impossible here, I am simply asking those who hold the metaphysical truth that metaphysical truths are possible to come and defend themselves purely for the fun of it

Quoting macrosoft

What about the value of doubting?

Doubting the value of doubting is nihilistic. It's the same as the Pyrenean skeptics and knowledge.

Quoting macrosoft

If it presents itself as a kind of truth about knowledge, then it trips over its own claims.

That's only the case if one assumes that the person making the knowledge (or truth) claim in that case is saying that a knowledge or truth claims they're making, insofar as they're making one, are objective.

What I'd say is that it's an objective fact that knowledge and truth are not objective, but that I'm obviously not suggesting an objective knowledge or truth claim to that effect.

Objective facts in no way hinge on our existence to obtain. But if we don't exist, no truth or knowledge exists. Truth and knowledge are things that we do. not things that the universe does apart from us.

What I usually explain, because it's not understood if someone doesn't have a background in analytic philosophy (and even then it's sometimes not understood) is that I'm using "truth" in a rather technical way that's characteristic (and non-controversial) in analytic philosophy, wherein truth is a "property of propositions." The controversial part is simply what I believe is the case ontologically with propositions and their properties.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Truth and knowledge are things that we do. not things that the universe does apart from us.

I personally agree that this is a good way to think of them. But I always try to feel my way into the use at hand as I converse with an individual.

Quoting Terrapin Station

t I'm using "truth" in a rather technical way

I understand this. But for me the problem with these technical uses is that they are very local. If you bring back your findings about this technical notion of truth, then your results are going to be misinterpreted by everyone who hasn't followed your entire process in terms of that technical definition. Of course this is fine if one is happy to stay within a particular sub-community (those trained in AP and loyal to its vision of philosophy), but for me this would be too constraining. I want to talk to the weirdos and the autodidacts too, because heretics and outsiders can often see around limitations of method, encrusted 'invisible' stifling presuppositions, etc.

And then as a matter of style I want to be as intelligible as possible to virtuous people who haven't studied AP philosophy (maybe because they are too busy studied engineering or literature or music.) And I don't want to feel the urge to interrupt them as they 'misuse' what for me is a term of art. Better I think to embrace having to learn lots of semi-private languages.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Objective facts in no way hinge on our existence to obtain.

I think this is a perfectly fine definition, but I don't think it exhausts the use of 'objective.' As I see it, there is a certain futility in trying to impose preferred meanings on words. For the most part, we have to live in the linguistic wild as we find and make sense of people who do not adopt our jargon. Since they do not adopt our jargon (and maybe have never even heard of it), we have to interpret them top-down and express ourselves top-down, from forest to tree --with the trees being our terms of art that only make sense within a wider context.

Quoting khaled

I am a nihilist to the point that I do not see value in defending or attacking nihilism and so that is not what I do. I am not trying to establish a metaphysical truth that metaphysical truths are impossible here, I am simply asking those who hold the metaphysical truth that metaphysical truths are possible to come and defend themselves purely for the fun of it

Oh, sorry. I just observed some of your conversation with others and got the sense that you were defending nihilism. Now that you've clarified, I'll try to do better.

For anyone to respond to, if they like:

Is it controversial that 'nature' is a kind of dead machine that doesn't care about us? Maybe a little, but mostly in terms of theism versus atheism. I think most atheists with an interest in science will agree that 'matter' or 'fields' or 'atoms and the void' or (whatever model is current) don't give a damn about us.

So from the perspective that 'atoms and the void' is the 'really' real, of course humans are just babbling opinions. Atoms and the void don't care if we commit incest or genocide. That's all just 'silly' human preference. And I agree that this seems to follow from a certain vision of nature. We think of the stuff out there that gets in our way and doesn't care about our moral intuitions. While some might find this vision so troubling that it truly freaks them out, many people just take it as educated common sense. For that reason IMO the details are not terribly interesting.

Why? Because we are embedded in communities that will kill us or celebrate us according to our behavior. We live largely in this 'second' nature. As a practical matter, we have to understand and move within the 'illusions' that humans 'project' on this indifferent atoms-and-void stuff. And given a little thought (instrumentalism), we can even say that this indifferent atoms-and-void stuff is one more useful language game or illusion. We might just as well take our immersion in the community as primary. Our most natural and primary experience of the world is that it is inexactly intelligible. I see things that I know how to manipulate. I know what they are for. I look around in terms of what I can use to do whatever it is I currently need to do. And I do little things in terms of larger projects. From this other perspective, our fundamental experience of the world is as something to manipulate and move within as well as the place where there are people to love and fear and converse with. We have lots of language games for lots of different human purposes. Within one of these games, all such games are 'illusions' or projections on the atoms-and-void stuff, even (awkwardly) the same game that proclaims all such games to be illusions/projections.

Reply to macrosoft
Well, this topic has consumed generations of thinkers.
If you are trying to escape from cultures of superstition, Nature is looking good.
If the nature arguments are asking for you to submit to something beyond your understanding, that is not good.
For what its worth, Socrates was struggling with the problem back in the day and he was careful not to step beyond what he could wrestle with.
I am sticking with his approach until something comes along to blow it away.

Quoting Valentinus

If you are trying to escape from cultures of superstition, Nature is looking good.

I agree generally, but there is the possibility of scientism. And then if we do think nature is a blind machine, then it doesn't help us much with deciding upon the human issues that mostly concern us --except by opening the space of possibility. I can appeal to a 'greater' and 'colder' authority than the wisdom of my tribe. I can gaze on all the legislators and pointing fingers from my imagination of the amoral atoms in the void. Democritus was the laughing philosopher.

people pretend that theyre nihilist cuz we like to be non-caring stone cold heart people, but if you didnt care, you wouldnt start this discussion

Reply to Rhasta1
nihilism =/= I don't care
Nihilism = no matter how much I care, all of my cares are subjective and not objectively correct.

Quoting khaled

Nihilism = no matter how much I care, all of my cares are subjective and not objectively correct.

Exactly.

Quoting khaled

nihilism =/= I don't care
Nihilism = no matter how much I care, all of my cares are subjective and not objectively correct.

I pretty much agree. I'd just say that this is existential aspect of the basic scientific worldview. Nature is a machine that doesn't care about us. I do think you use 'objectivity' in a narrow way that doesn't exhaust its sense.

[quote=Wikictionary]
objectivity (countable and uncountable, plural objectivities)

The state of being objective, just, unbiased and not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices
The world as it really is; reality
That which one understands, often, as intellectually, of all and everything, of what is sensed as felt, thereof
That which is perceived to be true to understanding
The object of understanding
[/quote]

It seems to me that to identity the 'really real' with the output of natural science (however defensible that position is) is not trivially 'unbiased' or 'not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices.'

To be clear, I share the vision of nature as a machine that doesn't care about us. So for me this isn't some way to sneak in God, etc. Instead, I'm trying to be 'objective' as I point out the presupposition that the 'really real' is stuffed into one human language game among others. One of many problems with such a view is that this same language game (science itself) becomes not really real and yet somehow is supposed to manifest the really real. While the temptation might be to interpret this criticism as 'anti-science,' I think that gets it wrong. What I oppose is whaet I perceive as a kind of ignoring this position has with respect to its own foundations.

If we say that science reveals the 'really real' (which I very much understand in the usual ambiguity), we ignore that our equations are embedded in a wider language. Do we think 'E=mc^2" is out there? Do we think our concept of an electron is really out there? But that means 'ideas' are really out there, which is exactly what this position denies.

Quoting macrosoft

'really real'

What is "really real"? Why use that phrase instead of just "real"?

Quoting Terrapin Station

What is "really real"? Why use that phrase instead of just "real"?

Mostly because we use 'real' in all kinds of ways. 'Now that was a real smile.' Or 'here is a real scoop.' Or 'let's get real.' Or 'is this money real?" And so on and so on. IMV, there are all kinds of senses of what it means to be, so that nailing down what is 'really' real is questionable when attempted outside of any and every human context. But I also think that's what a lots of philosophers are interested in, the true real, the official real, the realest real, the bottom-line real, the ground of our most important truths. I don't think such a ground can be stably clarified, though I do think there is a vague and yet massively important sense of true-for-us-and-not-just-me that people try to make explicit in this or that explicit rendition of the really real.

Not to oversimplify, isn't is basically "no truth, no meaning"? Seems like they work on that level. Relativistic nihilist, nihilistic relativist, either way is saying the same thing to me. Sorry if I'm coming off as a pedantic but I'm not an authority on this subject, not being omniscient.