Any Nihilists here?

[The Grand Nudger]

Am I still unblockable? That's a problem, it's the main reason I stepped down from being part of the board proper.

[FrustratedFool]

There is a difference between rude and not sugarcoating things.

It may help if you take the time to know people a little. Everyone here has their own personality, for the most part.

Nudger is known to be straight forward and he isn't looking at things through rose colored glasses. Read his signature, that may explain some.

I trust my judgement fairly well. I don't think he's straightforward, I do think he's rude. It doesn't matter, really. Such is the internet.

[FrustratedFool]

The problem?  I think there's multiple problems.  Dod I think you rude?  Yes.  Do I think your view unreasonable?  Yes.  Do I think you're wrong?  Maybe.

Anyway, I guess you've made your feelings clear.  I assume there's no block function on this forum, so I'll just have to ignore you best I can.  Shame.

If you really want to ignore someone you can go to your user CP and on the far left you will find the Buddy/Ignore list.  You can utilize it if you wish.  That's why it's there.

Thank you.
I can't see that function on my screen. It's no matter. I can just ignore things that I think are unprofitable.

[Angrboda]

[The Grand Nudger]

You got the second thing right, I'm sure. As a realist, I'd call it a personality defect. That's actually one of the most competent arguments against subjectivism. The fact that we can acknowledge that we're wrong or deficient. If "wrong" includes shit that I am or like or agree with, then it's pretty clear that right isn't just...well...whatever we happen to be or agree with at a given moment. We must mean something else by moral categories - something that can exclude us and our proclivities or habits.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Am I still unblockable?  That's a problem, it's the main reason I stepped down from being part of the board proper.

Staff are not unblockable. However, we DO have ability to unblock ourselves. Drives the cowards spare, that does.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

Am I still unblockable?  That's a problem, it's the main reason I stepped down from being part of the board proper.

Staff are not unblockable. However, we DO have ability to unblock ourselves. Drives the cowards spare, that does.

Boru

I didn't know that....but I know exactly who to fuck with now!!!   

[The Grand Nudger]

That's a good change. Used to be they were fucking stuck listening to my shit.

[Belacqua]

I would say self-constructed meaning clearly exists, in the sense people have them (and they could be reduced to brain states).  It clearly makes some people happy.  The sensation of meaningfulness is a pleasant one.

Do they have an objective value?  No.  I don't think so.

Same with morality.  Many people strongly feel murder is wrong.  Society reflects and embeds this feeling, as does our language.  Is it an objective truth?  No, I don't think so.

Same with God.  Some have a direct sensation of His existence and base their lives around that.  Fo I think God objectively exists? I think it highly unlikely, no.

I think there may be cases where constructed meanings become objective. Although I'd be willing to say inter-subjective, rather than objective. 

If meaning is assigned to something by people, then it has that meaning for people. Granted, if all the people die then the meaning goes away. But if a lot of people recognize the meaning, then an assigned meaning is more than merely subjective. 

Maybe the paradigm case is with language. The relation of words to their referents is contingent and traditional. There is no reason why "cat" refers to a cat, other than the fact that somehow people have decided that it does. But for English speakers, "cat" objectively refers to a particular kind of object. 

In daily life, we are likely to register in our perceptions the meaning even more than the sense-input of things we normally encounter. When you leave the house, you don't stop and say, "well, here is a flat hard surface of matte gray, extending in two directions from the door." You just automatically perceive it as the place to walk on (the sidewalk) and you accept its meaning and use. 

I do a thing with students sometimes, where I will have them look at the ceiling and then ask them what color is the chair they're sitting in. Quite a few times, they don't know. When they came into the room they perceived the chair to the extent that they knew what it was for, and they sat down properly, but they didn't notice much more beyond "this is what it's for." 

So I'd say the built human environment is full of objective meaning. Granted, if all the people die then all the meanings go away. (The intelligent cockroaches who evolve a zillion years from now won't care about the stuff we've made.) 

There is a large category of things that are human creations but which have jumped into the realm of objectively-existing concepts or meanings or objects. Traffic signals, for example. Or characters with no physical existence (like Sherlock Holmes) which nonetheless exist mutually among people. Or symphonies, which in the most bloodless non-human, scientific sense are merely aggregates of vibrating air, but for the people who listen have a mutually-understood value or significance. (Full disclosure: here I am talking about what Karl Popper called World 3 objects.) 

So I think only the most extreme nihilist would deny that these widely inter-subjective objects lack real meaning. Although the meaning is certainly created by people and would disappear if there were no more people.

[FrustratedFool]

I would agree with the term inter subjective, say they exist, deny they have existence outside the minds of collections of agents, deny they have objective value, agree that language has subjective meaning, not understand the concept of objective meaning.