I think I might be getting stalked

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:04 am

Sometimes what's good for you isn't good for the world.

-Crissa

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:40 am

I thought it was pease porridge...?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 7:39 pm

Sure, if you write it in middle english. It's the same word.

-Crissa

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:53 am

clikml wrote:
RandomCasualty2 wrote:when I'm dead, I'm dead. Reality might as well end when that happens.
Yet still people find things worth dying for. So that philosophy certainly doesn't apply all over the place.

The fact that you choose to die for something may well give you some joy or sense of satisfaction before you die. Also it lets you avoid the possible bad feelings of not dying, which may lead to guilt which could make you miserable for the rest of your life.

Basically once you accept that your life has no concrete purpose, then living a life that brings you no joy becomes a pointless action, and you might as well just end your life. Because really, making yourself happy is the only thing that matters.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:56 am

RC wrote:Basically once you accept that your life has no concrete purpose, then living a life that brings you no joy becomes a pointless action, and you might as well just end your life. Because really, making yourself happy is the only thing that matters.

This sentence no verb.

If your life has no concrete purpose, then making yourself happy doesn't matter either.

-Username17

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:10 am

FrankTrollman wrote: If your life has no concrete purpose, then making yourself happy doesn't matter either.

Not in the sense of finding some permanent purpose, no. Nothing really matters, but being happy is good because it makes you feel good. Therefore you might as well choose that over other options that don't make you feel good, because you have no real reason not to try to feel good.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:35 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote: If your life has no concrete purpose, then making yourself happy doesn't matter either.
Not in the sense of finding some permanent purpose, no. Nothing really matters, but being happy is good because it makes you feel good. Therefore you might as well choose that over other options that don't make you feel good, because you have no real reason not to try to feel good.

That's a complete logical disjunction. You just accepted the hedonistic value of good and the nihilistic rejection of good. You can't have both.

Either "only feeling good matters" (hedonism) or "nothing matters" (nihilism). Not both.

If everything is meaningless, your personal pleasure is likewise meaningless.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 11:09 am

"Nothing matters in the big picture, so I may as well just worry about the very small picture of feeling good, because that matters to ME and everyone else can do what matters to them, in the very small picture. Maybe these small pictures, put together, will make one big picture that looks like a cat if you look at it from far away."

There. Happy now? And it makes enough sense to me: I can't affect the universe in any meaningful or long-term sense, indeed, even if I COULD make decisions for everyone else and, say, mind-control everyone into all improving the lives of everyone*, it still wouldn't matter because we'd all eventually cease to exist anyway. So not only can I only make decisions for me, and thus my actions should primarily concern me (other people can make decisions for themselves, and I can know with reasonable certainty what I want, without a fucking clue what anyone else wants), but also, I can only impact upon the short-term (my lifespan, give or take), so should only worry about that.

*I can't, obviously. If I COULD control people's minds, we wouldn't be having this argument and there would be monuments built in my honour all around the globe. And all wars would instead be determined by coin flip, which would then default to "It makes no difference, Koumei rules us all anyway."

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 12:31 pm

Koumei wrote:"Nothing matters in the big picture, so I may as well just worry about the very small picture of feeling good, because that matters to ME and everyone else can do what matters to them, in the very small picture. Maybe these small pictures, put together, will make one big picture that looks like a cat if you look at it from far away."

Sure. That's a defensible stance. But it's very different to what RC was saying, because he was discounting the fact that other people may care about things more than personally feeling good.

When electrodes are implanted into one's limbic system allowing for direct stimulation of pleasure, some people will in fact do things other than press the on button until they die of thirst. Some people won't, but there you go. Nihilism supports hedonism no more than it supports anything else. The whole point of rejecting everything is that you reject everything. Simply rejecting everything except your own world view just makes you an ass hole.

-Frnk

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:23 pm

I thought there was a limited amount of happy creatures could experience before they ran out of happy juice or it actually became painful.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:59 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I thought there was a limited amount of happy creatures could experience before they ran out of happy juice or it actually became painful.

There's a limit to the amount of neurotransmitters that can signal neurons to designate themselves happy. With direct electrical stimulation you can trigger the neurons themselves as often as you want.

Of course, there are limits to the number of neurotransmitters they can release on the distal end, but you can directly electrically stimulate the downstream neurons as well. And so on. If you just surrender to the matrix, "you" can experience pure white unadulterated joy for however long it takes for you to die of that.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 5:15 am

I'm going to be honest here: I never quite understood the point of nihilism. I could understand it just fine if the idea was "Life has no intrinsic meaning, make of it what you will." or "There is no exact right or wrong way to live life. Do it your way (and sing the song at the end), but that's just your way."

But apparently the "If you're a nihilist, then why haven't you killed yourself yet?" jokes aren't jokes and are basically a valid argument to make to them.

That being said, I always thought hedonism was "Let's throw a huge orgy" until I looked it up after scoring high on hedonism on one of those VERY RELIABLE INTERNET QUIZzes.

I blame media, the conservative Christian culture, and 40K for painting that picture of it.

violence in the media · Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:47 pm

Koumei wrote:I'm going to be honest here: I never quite understood the point of nihilism. I could understand it just fine if the idea was "Life has no intrinsic meaning, make of it what you will." or "There is no exact right or wrong way to live life. Do it your way (and sing the song at the end), but that's just your way."

But apparently the "If you're a nihilist, then why haven't you killed yourself yet?" jokes aren't jokes and are basically a valid argument to make to them.

I've always figured that it's sort of a reporting fallacy. 1) Nobody is really 100% Nihilist in the same way that most people aren't totally committed to anything. 2) Anyone who was totally committed to Nihilisim to the point where they did kill themselves would be perceived as just a suicide, barring an exceptionally lucid and persuasive manifesto. Which, if nothing matters and you're going to kill yourself, what's the point in expending effort to try and convince others to do that same?

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:55 pm

I know that as a male, biologically I don't really matter. I look at it as something that frees me from responsibility and live my life for me. I'm going to be honest, other people really only matter as much as whatever they provide me personally. I only obey laws because the police could kick my ass if they chose to, and really I tend to break laws that won't be noticed anyway.