Existential nihilism

just started reading about this.
i just started reading the wiki article and i have to say, i am in agreement.

what are your thoughts, if any?

en.wikipedia.org...

Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism posits that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing "why", yet compelled to invent meaning.[1] The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create his or her own subjective "meaning" or "purpose".

a reply to: Mugly

i just started reading the wiki article and i have to say, i am in agreement.

what are your thoughts, if any?

Why are you in agreement? What are your thoughts?

a reply to: Mugly

Why would anyone want life to have no purpose? What is the purpose of that?

a reply to: RealTruthSeeker

It's not a life without purpose, it's a life where you create your own purpose.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

But if life has no actual meaning or purpose, then in reality you are basically creating a lie for yourself, a subjective meaning that only has any value to you. And no one has any real obligation to respect your subjective truth, meaning or reality. This will lead to chaos.

Why would anyone want to teach such a philosophy?

I would argue that it is very much what we are seeing in our society and I'm not sure I like the results.

According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing "why", yet compelled to invent meaning.

Compelled how? By what?

How can there be no meaning if one is being compelled? Wouldn't motivation suggest purpose?

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: Mugly

i just started reading the wiki article and i have to say, i am in agreement.

what are your thoughts, if any?

Why are you in agreement? What are your thoughts?

im in agreement that life really has no meaning. not in the big picture.
we do things that give our lives and the lives around us some sort of purpose or meaning, but in the big universe picture, we dont matter. nothing we do matters.
ive always felt this way. just never new there was a philosophy behind it.
we as a species do try to invent a meaning for it.
humans have created religion and gods to try to cope with life and to give some measure of meaning to it.

in the end though, we dont matter. not on the big scale.
the things we do or dont do might make little differences in the near future for other humans but a billion years from now none of it is going to matter. none of us will be remembered.

ive always called out life the cosmic joke.
the universe has been here for like 14 billion years. earth for like 7 billion.
modern man has only been here about 200 years.
individual humans get what, 80-90 years of life if we are lucky.
what kind of # is that? all that universe out there and its been around for so long and that is all we get?
its a big cosmic rip off
lets call it 80 years.
most people dont remember anything from before they were about 5 years old. maybe little glimpses but no real memories.
unless you are in killer health your last 5 years are probably going to suck big time. if you dont have some terminal # you can probably plan on taking a cocktail of meds. to prevent this or that. keep the BP in check. keep the cholesterol in check. good chance you might have to be in some diapers. getting up 10 times a night to piss.
so the first 5 and the last 5...lets just get rid of those. so now we are down to 70 years of actual living.

have to sleep though. lets call it 6 hours a night. 152,880 hours of sleep in 70 years on average. my math may be of but thats about 17 years spent sleeping. now we are down to 57 years of living.
we have to work though. lets average that at the usual 40 hours a week. we can call it 16 years spent sleeping.
now we are down to 41 years of living left to do.
we are going to spend extra time working. we are going to spend time running errands. time spent sick. i dont even want to put a number on that so lets just call it 41 years.

in the big picture thats not #.

so what is the meaning? we spend the majority of the time we are alive sleeping and working?
thats our big meaning?

seems like some downer # but i think its true.

we are not here for a reason and nothing we do matters or will matter in the big picture

*my math could be off but you get the idea

originally posted by: NthOther

According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing "why", yet compelled to invent meaning.

Compelled how? By what?

How can there be no meaning if one is being compelled? Wouldn't motivation suggest purpose?

i took that to mean we as a species are constantly looking for answers that we will never find?
where did we come from? what created all this?
of course there are general accepted scientific theories but will we ever actually 'know' the answers.

i do think we invent meaning do help us cope with our situation.
we are here to raise our kids and have a family
some people feel they are here to serve god

i think those are all just ways of helping us get by.

of course i feel my life has a meaning/purpose in the now. i am here to raise my daughter. to be a good husband. that kind of thing. that matters to me right now.

what i do with my life now has no bearing on what will be going on in a million years.
i could do as much or as little....be as good or bad as i want and in the end it does not matter.
how could it?
we are all dying from the moment we are born.
we grow and we progress. then we hit that point in our life where we regress.
we start out not being able to chew food. we start out in diapers. we start out weak.
in the final years of our life most of us regress into at least some of that.

its a big joke.

a reply to: Mugly

im in agreement that life really has no meaning.

my math could be off but you get the idea

Yea, I get the idea.

Okay, so life, as we know it, may have no meaning, in the big picture. What about consciousness? What is it? Is all life conscious, to some degree? Does consciousness have a purpose?

Does consciousness require life? Is Planet Earth, a bearer of life, conscious? Does consciousness arise naturally from a natural universe? If so, does our own consciousness have an effect of the universal big picture and a conscious universe?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: WakeUpBeer

But if life has no actual meaning or purpose, then in reality you are basically creating a lie for yourself, a subjective meaning that only has any value to you. And no one has any real obligation to respect your subjective truth, meaning or reality. This will lead to chaos.

Well if the purpose of life was dictated by some God that would be more like living a lie rather than choosing your own destiny. Also, large groups of people will often come to the same conclusion about what is meaningful. For example many human beings think that harming others without reason is wrong. But that wouldn't stop a huge asteroid from destroying Earth tomorrow. One need not be religious to be a nice person, all it takes is a bit of empathy. I don't think life its self has a purpose, we are just here and have to deal with it. The only reason I value my own life is because I enjoy living, and I afford others that same chance by not killing them. The golden rule is really the only rule I take seriously.

a reply to: windword

now thats too deep for me.
im just talking about life man

If life has no meaning and you must invent one, why bother having it? I would not like to be in a room of people that did not value life.

a reply to: ketsuko

It may be more beautiful that way, in a sense. Human beings finding their own purpose for living. In reality, it's what humans have always been doing, because as of yet, no real purpose can be shown to exist. Everyone already has their own ideas on whether or not there is an official purpose and what that purpose may be.

And among any official purpose a person may believe exists, they also find for themselves other purposes. Passions, if you will. For example, someone with a love of forests and trees. Maybe they make it their purpose in life to plant as many of them as possible. For themselves to enjoy, and future generations.

Whether or not an ultimate purpose to life exists or not, life is still what you make it. If you can't find a purpose to live, or feel that life without an official built in purpose is pointless, I am truly sorry.

As for respecting other's beliefs on the subject, there is no reason to think that would suddenly change if somehow it was realized life has no actual meaning in the grander scheme. Though, I will admit that there are some people who need to believe there is an inherent meaning, or they would break down (for some reason). Maybe they'd be the ones to stop respecting others.

originally posted by: notmyrealname
If life has no meaning and you must invent one, why bother having it? I would not like to be in a room of people that did not value life.

who said anything about value?
im talking about meaning in the big picture.

what do you think your life means in the whole of the universe?
do you think anything you do will mean anything in 500 million years?

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

good post.
on the scale of now i think my life means something. i think it has a purpose. what i do or dont do affects the people around me.
i just dont think any of it matters in the big scale of things.

there is too much universe out there with so much time left. out species is but a single grain of sand on the largest beach. how can a single grain of sand matter?

originally posted by: Mugly
how can a single grain of sand matter?

By finding other like minded grains of sand to become a beach.

a reply to: Mugly

we are here to raise our kids and have a family
some people feel they are here to serve god

i think those are all just ways of helping us get by.

Exactly. Some people, such as myself, don't want kids. Not everyone has to raise a family, in fact if everyone did that it would be completely unsustainable. There is nothing wrong with the fact that everyone likes to live their life a different way. Just imagine a world where everyone placed meaning into the same things and believed the same things, it would be totally boring. But that doesn't mean I think there are no limits, as soon as their actions infringe upon anyone else's ability to live their life, then their actions are a problem, and that's the essence of the golden rule.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer

originally posted by: Mugly
how can a single grain of sand matter?

By finding other like minded grains of sand to become a beach.

in 500 million years that beach will not be there. it will not matter that it was there at one point.

a reply to: Mugly

Depends what that united purpose was, I suppose.

In my head I was thinking about the survival of our race. Continuing to advance, and reaching out into space to begin colonization of other worlds. Who knows how long we can keep our species in existence?

But yeah, I still see your point and agree.

Perhaps for the universe we have no meaning, but it IS ok we make a meaning for ourselves.

Anyway the star dust we are made of and energy goes back to the universe one day so we don't cease to have meaning. We are just part of it all, not separate like the human ego tries to tell us we are.