Any Nihilists here?

[Foxaèr]

I've been known to lean more toward misanthropy than nihilism.

[FrustratedFool]

That's pretty comprehensive nihilism. You include everything but knowledge (or the possibility of knowledge). Why not knowledge as well?

I'm not sure what I think about knowledge. I think it is possible to know that thoughts exist (cogito), but everything else is degrees of confidence. True facts exist, but our ability to know them is limited. Imnot sure that fits a nihilistic view of knowledge so much as a sceptical one.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think it's tough to split knowledge off. Our apparent thoughts are full of apparent meaning. Maybe it's more obvious if we finish cogito - I think therefore I am, but what am I? What do you make of the possibility that our thoughts, which seem so apparent, are as illusory as the meaning that fills them? More a version of what's happened than a fact about what's happening. I guess that's one of the more interesting ticks of nihilistic thinking, imo. The objection is evergreen, but it's unclear how anything evades it - so it seems like an issue of picking and choosing when or what we believe nihilism to be a true appraisal of rather than letting it be true in toto. Taken all the way to it's terminus, nihilism seems to suggest that the statement "nihilism is true" cannot be true, or that we can't know if it is.

I'm not a nihilist myself, but I can see how once the nihilist trains gets to rolling it's not so easy to stop.

[FrustratedFool]

I think a reduced cogito, that thoughts/qualia exist, is utterly sure. Everything else is degrees of confidence.

But if we talk about normal levels of assurance, and lay aside radical scepticism, then I'm pretty sure London is the capital of the UK and that freewill is an illusion. Some I'm a nihilist with regards to God, meaning, morality, freewill, but not knowledge. In that sense, anyway.

[LinuxGal]

Nihilism comes in a variety of flavours.  Anyone here find nihilist a good descriptor for their worldview?

I describe myself as a nihilist.

"Flames to /dev/null please," directed LinuxGal nihilistically.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think a lot of people take a cautious approach. Accepting small f facts and small m meaning. Interestingly enough, London as capital isn’t exactly intrinsic.

[FrustratedFool]

To be somewhat controversial, I can't really see how one doesn't end up with a nihilistic set of beliefs if one thinks a physicalist universe is most likely.

If physicalism true, then God, freewill, objective morality, and objective meaning inevitably evaporate, and absurdity inevitably follows. At least, that's how it seems to me. Scepticism likewise seems to follow.

[Nay_Sayer]

Would it mean anything if there were?

[The Grand Nudger]

To be somewhat controversial, I can't really see how one doesn't end up with a nihilistic set of beliefs if one thinks a physicalist universe is most likely.  

If physicalism true, then God, freewill, objective morality, and objective meaning inevitably evaporate, and absurdity inevitably follows.  At least, that's how it seems to me.  Scepticism likewise seems to follow.

That would only be true...could only be true... if you believed that these things were premised on immaterial facts (or assertions to fact) rather than material facts (or assertions to fact).  I have no problem accepting that thing x is bad because of material facts about x - and this is all that an objective morality requires.  If you ask me what's wrong with skullfucking my neighbors infant you're going to hear alot of material assertions...and cutting to the chase, you'll probably be hard pressed to find some way that these material assertions are not facts. The same can be repeated with meaning. Gods and free wills (at least in the strongest sense of that term) are a little more difficult, sure - in the case of gods because theyre often explicitly premised on some immaterial assertion, and free will for it's strong historic relationship to the same. Compatibilists thread that needle to the detriment of the concept, but they still end up saying something unobjectionable. We're changeable, malleable, we can be influenced. The same levers that allow for external causation in our decisions at least appear to be amenable to internal exploitation as well.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

To be somewhat controversial, I can't really see how one doesn't end up with a nihilistic set of beliefs if one thinks a physicalist universe is most likely.  

If physicalism true, then God, freewill, objective morality, and objective meaning inevitably evaporate, and absurdity inevitably follows.  At least, that's how it seems to me.  Scepticism likewise seems to follow.

It’s a question of degree. Does my life have meaning to the universe? Of course not. Does it have meaning to me? Assuredly.

And the same with skepticism. There’s now wrong with being skeptical - it’s the basis of scientific inquiry. But taken to extremes, it quickly devolves into a pigheaded solipsism.

Boru