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Any Nihilists here?
#31
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 13, 2023 at 4:42 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: Agreed.  But my belief eitherway doesn't change the reality.  So even if I did believe in morality it still wouldn't exist.

Conversely your belief in its nonexistence is also predetermined and not related to whether it actually exist or not.
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#32
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 13, 2023 at 9:15 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I think your experience in not seeing the word factual very often might represent the work of the committees rather than the majority position of contemporary moral philosophy. Moral realism isn't novel or rare, it's the standard assumption.  I would be horrified if some provider did or didn't give me care based on non factual premises and statements.

The word fact / factual was used in the thread. 
I was simply commenting on the use of the (same) word. 

Moral realism is assumed, as you say. 
A diagnosis is almost never a "fact", it's an (hopefully) informed judgement, until proven (if ever).
A diagnosis is a "working hypothesis", (which is often changed from the initial impression) in complex inpatient cases anyway.
The History and Physical very often includes (in academic medicine anyway), the statement "differential (diagnoses) include : (then a list of possible diagnoses).

A possible "purpose" might be seen as "the survival of the species". Individuals are clearly not individually important in that process,
and the fact that 99 % of all species that ever existed are extinct, probably negates this view, unless the fact we are not extinct might counter that.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell  Popcorn

Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist 
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#33
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 11, 2023 at 2:46 pm)FrustratedFool Wrote: Nihilism comes in a variety of flavours.  Anyone here find nihilist a good descriptor for their worldview?

I describe myself as a nihilist.

In the strong sense, no. I don't think there's any premade ultimate purpose to existence, but in our introspections and observations as we interact with other people and things, we appear to be of use to others and that other people and things can be of use to us, meet whatever needs and wants we may have. In this sense, we've "discovered" functional purposes, you could say. But really, purpose is something we construct in a subconscious way.

But then again, isn't that something a nihilist would/could accept?

I'm of course overlooking all the variants and brands of nihilism, and thinking of nihilism in the sense that there is no purpose or meaning to life (never mind that some folks differentiate between purpose and meaning). And there's the struggle that often times we may be using the same word but using it differently from one another. I may not be a nihilist according to my definition, but a nihilist according to someone else's. This is why, as Bucky suggested, it's important to define relevant terms here.
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#34
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 12, 2023 at 9:01 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:
(August 12, 2023 at 4:53 pm)FrustratedFool Wrote: I see no way that freewill can exist.  I see no way moral statements can be factual, right or wrong.

But it's interesting some see it differently.

The fact that free will can not exist means you don’t have a choice in whether or not believe in free wheel or see moral statements as factual or not.

Since free will relies on the premise that counterfactuals are at least possible in principle, and we don't have epistemic access to counterfactuals, it will always remain an unscientific concept, unless we can build a time machine to find out what we will, in fact, do, and return to attempt to make the counterfactual real.
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#35
RE: Any Nihilists here?
It may be an untestable concept in principle, but there is no denying it has been a useful concept for the purpose of modeling and regulating human social behavior.
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#36
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 13, 2023 at 10:28 am)LinuxGal Wrote:
(August 12, 2023 at 9:01 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: The fact that free will can not exist means you don’t have a choice in whether or not believe in free wheel or see moral statements as factual or not.

Since free will relies on the premise that counterfactuals are at least possible in principle, and we don't have epistemic access to counterfactuals, it will always remain an unscientific concept, unless we can build a time machine to find out what we will, in fact, do, and return to attempt to make the counterfactual real.

You don't need to go through all that trouble to have "epistemic access" to counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are right there, in your mind. Unless, of course, you're talking about concrete possible worlds here, and not just abstact?

Also, there are different flavors of "free will".
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#37
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 13, 2023 at 10:42 am)GrandizerII Wrote:
(August 13, 2023 at 10:28 am)LinuxGal Wrote: Since free will relies on the premise that counterfactuals are at least possible in principle, and we don't have epistemic access to counterfactuals, it will always remain an unscientific concept, unless we can build a time machine to find out what we will, in fact, do, and return to attempt to make the counterfactual real.

You don't need to go through all that trouble to have "epistemic access" to counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are right there, in your mind. Unless, of course, you're talking about concrete possible worlds here, and not just abstact?

Also, there are different flavors of "free will".

Alice and Bob measure a stream a particle-pairs in a singlet state.  Alice sets her polarizer at 37.5 degrees off vertical, and Bob sets his to 77.4 degrees off vertical.  We believe Bob could have set his detector to any orientation but all we know is that he set it to that one.  So free will remains a matter of faith.
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#38
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 13, 2023 at 11:07 am)LinuxGal Wrote:
(August 13, 2023 at 10:42 am)GrandizerII Wrote: You don't need to go through all that trouble to have "epistemic access" to counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are right there, in your mind. Unless, of course, you're talking about concrete possible worlds here, and not just abstact?

Also, there are different flavors of "free will".

Alice and Bob measure a stream a particle-pairs in a singlet state.  Alice sets her polarizer at 37.5 degrees off vertical, and Bob sets his to 77.4 degrees off vertical.  We believe Bob could have set his detector to any orientation but all we know is that he set it to that one.

That's fair. I would agree that believing Bob could have set his detector to some other orientation is a different sort of doxastic attitude than knowing that he set it to one specific setting.

And it seems like you were referring to concrete counterfactuals anyway in your case against "free will".
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#39
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 13, 2023 at 11:07 am)LinuxGal Wrote:
(August 13, 2023 at 10:42 am)GrandizerII Wrote: You don't need to go through all that trouble to have "epistemic access" to counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are right there, in your mind. Unless, of course, you're talking about concrete possible worlds here, and not just abstact?

Also, there are different flavors of "free will".

Alice and Bob measure a stream a particle-pairs in a singlet state.  Alice sets her polarizer at 37.5 degrees off vertical, and Bob sets his to 77.4 degrees off vertical.  We believe Bob could have set his detector to any orientation but all we know is that he set it to that one.  So free will remains a matter of faith.

There is no doubt that whatever decision is made "in the moment", is 100 % dependent on what "is already" 
in the electrical circuitry (? "memory" ) of the human brain. If not, please play for me the Emperor Concerto, right now. Tongue
One of my favorite researchers : https://eagleman.com/
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell  Popcorn

Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist 
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#40
RE: Any Nihilists here?
(August 12, 2023 at 12:45 pm)Angrboda Wrote:
(August 12, 2023 at 12:01 pm)FrustratedFool Wrote: 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 easy. We grant provisional reality to abstracts like numbers and the principles of logic. Even in a physicalist universe we accept that some things that might be real aren't physical.

Kinda sounds like trying have your cake and eat it too.
<insert profound quote here>
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