Nihilism and Being Happy
Are they truly compatible? The thought alone of no life having meaning disturbs me quite deeply, and I have these thoughts often, and they are irrefutable. There is no reason to live. Granted, there is no reason to die in my case, but I WILL die... eventually. Therefore, why does it matter when? It doesn't. I'm at a point in which I'm only living for the sake of it, and it makes every action feel pointless and not worth engaging in. Eventually everything will cease, and will likely be recreated as it has likely happened an infinite number of times. The only point of any action is to reach a trivial point of maintained happiness in life until it ends, by which point it may aswell not have happened. Simultaneously to all of these horrific ideas, I am terrified at the concept of being no more. I think you can see my problem.
Comments (52)
It isn’t so much that life has no meaning, but that life’s meaning is not determined for us, nor beyond our capacity to determine for ourselves. It is as much to say that nothing matters as to say that everything matters - and from that, humanity is free to imagine, hypothesise and test value systems to construct a cultural reality - from everything - that would be most likely to thrive.
I guess it depends on what you mean by meaning, and whether you require your particular life to have meaning, or do you mean the existence of the human species, or do you mean that life itself should continue to exist?
at any of those levels it is possible to find a way for you to give yourself some purpose and I present some examples which I recommend you to consider as ways to approach the subject rather than as specific suggestions.
1. at the level of the whole planet, you could think about promoting green ideals such as reducing pollution, CO2 emissions, mineral extraction, and similar environmental ideas so that you are focusing on the very idea of life itself in its broadest possible sense rather than on one rather insignificant organism in a more complex whole.
2. at the level of the human species you could think about conflict resolution or fighting famine, or third world plumbing, or any one of a number of programs to improve the rights and freedoms of indigenous populations throughout the world who are oppressed and marginalised by almost everybody else. in other words, think about lives other than your own. you might not think your life has a purpose but their lives might.
3. at a rather basic level of the single organism life is simply about participating in the process of evolution. participating in the process does not mean you HAVE to reproduce, but merely playing the game is enough. if a guy walks up to a girl he does not know and asks her if she would like to go for dinner, and she says, "no thanks," that is evolution in action. being rejected, believe it or not, is part of the process of evolution. you owe it to the rest of us to at least try.
Kaarlo Tuomi
“Why not” is the correct answer.
This is a common pattern across philosophy. People get into a cynically over-skeptical mindset and demand a reason for everything, instead of just rejecting things when there is reason to do so and accepting whatever meanwhile. But if you do that, keep demanding reasons for everything, you fall down an infinite regress of constantly asking for reasons for those reasons ad infinitum, which leads directly into nihilism. The solution is to not do that. Accept anything by default and only reject it when there is reason too — and having no reason to accept it is not the same as having reason to rejecting it.
The metaphor I used to remind myself of this when I was suffering terrible existential angst last year was to imagine myself on the surface of an infinitely deep sea, and tell myself “don’t try to stand on the bottom”. Became there is no bottom so if you try to stand on it you’ll just drown. This doesn’t mean you stick your hands up in the air and hope that Superjesus whisks you off into the sky, either. You’ll drown if you do that too. The solution is to just float on the surface.
I know it’s easier said than done. I also sent you a PM yesterday with something I hope will be more helpful.
Your thoughts are just post hoc scripts that magnify and feed-back on the affects of your depression.
Practice observing the emotional affects without getting caught up in the narratives they help generate. Close the gate on memetic instigators.
Do activities which do not involve too much self-reference and which you also enjoy. Take your first person view outside of your body using your imagination. Try flying over a city you've never been to. Go to the moon. Climb the rigging of a sailing ship and sit in the crows nest. Toilet paper Pfhorrest's house.
Imagine reality is irreducible.
Find an animal to interact with in a therapeutic setting. Find some oxytocin release.
I think the only way you can get beyond this rut is to find some way to uplift how you feel. It's a simple and also difficult thing to say, but I doubt that there's any amount of logic alone or pondering what might not have an answer that can make you overcome this. Another way of seeing this: I notice though that you need permanence in order to see value in living or having goals. I can relate, but where I would say something different is considering that Buddhists see life as impermanent. They never say life has no value simply because of that, so their response to the idea of impermanence is finding value despite that.
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Quoting JacobPhilosophy
Because you want to. If you exist anyway and don’t want to die and don’t expect to live forever then may as well enjoy living while you can, and spiraling about meaninglessness isn’t helping anything, so may as well just try to stop doing that if you can.
Which is what you’re here in this thread for isn’t it?
No one knows what death is for the dyer.
You don’t have to. Doesn’t Nihilism do precisely this; reject all assumptions?
Exactly. If it is true that nothing matters, then it doesn't matter that nothing matters. If it doesn't matter that nothing matters then it's not a problem that nothing matters, so why worry about nothing mattering?
Reading back in the thread, it looks like you're starting college soon so you're probably on the younger side. If you're only 18 it's natural to feel this sort of confusion because you're in this transitional phase into adulthood. Just go enjoy college assuming it's still on: make some friends, drink some beer, and meet a partner. You'll be alright. Life won't seem as pointless when you start a family or fall in love or start caring for a bigger cause.
Is happiness a feeling you pursue? Then why does it require meaning or purpose. Happiness, it seems, is its own reward.
There are some connections/conclusions I see the OP is concerned with, but I don't see the logic.
"Without purpose, I can experience no happiness." If it is true that your happiness has no external purpose, just engage with happiness for its own sake. Don't tack it to someone else's need for purpose.
"I will someday cease to exist. Humanity will cease to exist. Therefore happiness should be discarded?" There is no reason to conclude happiness ought be discarded. If you observe that happiness is impermanent, then enjoy happiness as fleeting. If you want happiness, have it. There is no meaningfulness that says you shouldn't.
Quoting JacobPhilosophy
The nihilist has basically no real reasons for complying with morality in general since doesn't exist/have any real grounding. The nihilist might comply with conventional morality for social appearances or because it personally makes him feel good but outside of that there's no real backing to it.
It's still likely that a nihilist will have preferences that translate into what is considered moral behavior, partly due to the nature of human biology. The nihilist will also likely have been conditioned to certain behaviors that are morally repeatable in a societal sense, due to their upbringing within a society.
It's just unlikely that a nihilist will point to some external or objective purpose to justify his actions.
A nihilist may still contribute to a sense of happiness, both personal and shared with other people.
I agree with everything you wrote here. A nihilist could be a perfectly moral person. I just think that an intellectually honest nihilist should have very little if any resistance to engaging in depravity if social conditions were to make it advantageous or if the moral nihilist were just curious for any reason and he knew he could get away with it.
So social constructs keep the nihilist's behavior in check with regards to the continuing "success" of the society. How is that any different from the moral realist who ascribes to a theistic religion and also considers themselves a sinner?
For example, I don't see how the label of nihilist or Christian are particularly helpful in predicting a person's so called "moral" behavior at a personal level. What I do find, however, is that the Christian is more likely to pass judgement on others' behavior.
At the end of the day the theistic moral realist has a God to answer to and believes he will be judged by actual, objective standards. He has skin in the game. Bad actions have consequences in the next life.
A moral nihilist may be a good person. Plenty of people just have naturally good dispositions or are responsive to positive social pressures, but others don't.
But if we only observe human behavior in this life, the sentences you have written above don't necessarily translate to better predictions of what action any given individual will take.
A theist may engage in "good" behavior.
A theist may engage in "bad" behavior.
A nihilist may engage in "good" behavior.
A nihilist may engage in "bad" behavior.
That a person says "I believe in consequences in the next life" does not tell us to what standard the theist holds himself culpable. This is doubly complicated by a Christian belief that God may absolve the sinner of their guilt, detaching the consequences of the afterlife from the causal effects of actions taken in this life. A Christian may fully believe in an afterlife, perpetually behave like a bad nihilist, and still anticipate a fruitful afterlife as a result of the grace of a forgiving God. The only thing that distinguishes him from the bad nihilist, in this life, is "I believe in God."
But even stating, "I believe in God" is no indicator of the disposition. A nihilist would be perfectly consistent in stating "I believe in God" and anticipating no consequences for the lie. Such a lying nihilist may find himself conforming with all other social expectations, getting labeled a good theist, and being otherwise indistinguishable as a good person.
I don't see how the label of nihilist informs any discussion on good or evil, from an ethical or philosophical perspective.
I know. I've said twice now that a nihilist may very well be a good person. We may live in a universe where nihilists are even, on average, better behaving than Christians. I don't care. I'm solely concerned here with the rational conclusions of one's beliefs. In other words, if we take the nihilist's beliefs to its logical conclusions.... I'm not interested either in digging into every possible iteration of Christianity. I'm not even a Christian. I'm solely concerned here with the rational conclusions drawn from nihilism vs. a belief in a God regarding moral behavior.
Quoting Adam's Off Ox
If we're talking about rationality it should. The theist is always accountable for his behaviors according to a set, permanent standard while the nihilist does not acknowledge any standard and is basically free to pick whatever path he likes. Again, I'm not concerned with defending evil iterations of Christianity or how Christianity or Judaism or Islam may look "in practice." I'm concerned with ideas here.
No, if people were purely going by the inner logic then there would not be the same observable outcomes. People in real life often just aren't logical. The fundamental logic, not just of Christianity but of Judaism and I think Islam is that no matter where you are or in what kind of situation you're in... you're ultimately accountable for your actions. You will have to answer for them.
When it comes to nihilism there's not much of a fundamental logic because the nihilist rejects truth and value. However, he contradicts this because life demands that he invent his own. The intellectually honest nihilist is constantly in tension because he still values things and often has strong attachments while at the same time he rejects the idea of objective value.
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The outcome of this tension is a life of voluntary deception. It’s hopeless to try to universally logically justify our values, attachments, or actions with any consistency. Logic and emotion are apples and oranges.
I don't follow your conclusion. If it's hopeless to try to universally justify our values, doesn't the nihilist escape tension by rejecting universal values?
So the nihilist experiences preferences, which you may call values, without falling back on some rational or logical meaning for those values.
You seem to be supporting the nihilist's position.
I don’t think that the need or desire to justify our values, etc. diminishes simply by believing nihilism. Intellectually, the nihilist is aware of the fact of nihilism, but is utterly unable to make his desire for meaning go away. He will feel and experience meaning in his life regardless, and in contradiction, of his belief in nihilism. This is the cause of his tension. To alleviate it, he will largely ignore his nihilistic belief in practical, everyday life, and continue experiencing meaning and desiring to seek/find/create it.
Quoting Adam's Off Ox
Yes. I think the values would just be accepted as a sort of natural fact about himself.
Quoting Adam's Off Ox
Yes. I humorously consider myself a non-practicing nihilist. Which oddly enough is justifiable. The truth of nihilism refutes the notion of truth itself. Therefore, I have no reason to live according to my nihilistic belief. Basically I pretend that all the meaning I experience in life is factual, even though I know it’s fictional. Life is just an elaborate ARG that I choose to participate in.
What do you think morality is? A philosophical position? A psychopath is someone who just disagrees with normal philosophical stances people decided on?
We can talk about morality in different ways - one of which is as a philosophical concept. There's a ton of different ways to approach the topic.
No, psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by lack of empathy and remorse as well as strong egoism. I certainly don't call people who disagree with normal philosophical stances psychopaths.
Meaningless life to one person, the world to another. Yet should you live your life for others if not for yourself?
Morality can be philosophised about - like anything but do you believe morality is a philosophical position, is that what morality is? Is it a belief that can be undermined by nihilism?
There's a multitude of philosophical beliefs about morality. Morality is just the topic. The existence of objective morality is a philosophical position that would be in opposition to moral nihilism.
Yes, but is morality nurtured by cultures and philosophy from nothing or is morality a component of human nature?
I am not sure morality is something that is undermined by nihilism, only many philosophies surrounding morality are.
By "morality" do you mean just any code of morals or... a good code of morals? Regardless, we definitely have physiological drives that inform moral behavior whether it's through an innate disgust of something or a warm feeling inside.
On the one hand, I'm constructivist, and on the other, I'm nihilist.
If I was God, I would make sure that evil personalities never lived again(which is some people's, probably guilt-induced, ideology).
Where evil is concerned I'm nihilistic, but I think God is constructivist in both good and evil circumstances (i.e. you will live again but you will in discomfort if you are evil).
In a case where a good person doesn't want to live again, I think that's a fabricated outlook, as deep down there are impulses about living that they enjoy, such as: movement, sense, etc.