Nihilistic Murderer

[Faith No More]

I guess the perception and importance of time important to nihilism. Would it be fair to say that you are a long term nihilist but believe that in the short term things have value?

I think although I'm very good at living in the moment I just take a long term view of things. Often times when I make a mistake in my life that seems very important at the time my nihilism is extremely helpful to me. This is part of why I think it's an enabling and empowering philosophy rather than a depressing one. If I make a bad mistake, I recognize that eventually I'll be dead anyway, no matter how bad I screw up. At the same time I savor the good moments because I have the freedom to do as I wish. Where as some people say 'might as well go kill people' I say 'might as well behave well and enjoy my time here on earth.' Even though ultimately it don't really matter either.

I think that's fair. I look at it like this. If I am hungry and am trying to decide to eat a sandwich, that decision isn't going to make a measurable difference in my life in twenty years, but that doesn't mean that the decision I make at that point in time isn't going to make any difference to me at all. Numerous different outcomes could come from that decision that will affect me, and how that affects me matters to me at that time. Do I simply choose not to eat because it will not matter in twenty years or do I embrace the short term impact that sandwich will bring and enjoy it?

Ultimately, yes, everything I do will have no impact on the state of the universe, but that does not preclude me from valuing the effect my life and actions have on the present and near future.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The idea that death renders life meaningless is no more coherent than the idea that the period at the end of this sentence renders it meaningless. Indeed, it could be argued that in certain instances, it aids in understanding.

[CapnAwesome]

I could see wanting to kill someone. I've been in one fight for my life, where I'm certain that my opponent literally wanted to kill me, and though I didn't kill him -- the fight was broken up when the police arrived -- you better believe that had killing him been required of me to survive, I would want to have done it. I had already, in that fight, sensed the possibility, and accepted that as one possible outcome.

I hold that morals are both relative and subjective. As such, I don't believe that all killing is always wrong, forever.

As for demonstrating meaning in life, I do that every day I go to work: for I have set myself to the purpose of helping make the world a better place than I have found it, and I do that by helping to run a nature preserve.

Raising my son has been my purpose for a long time, but he's grown into a fine young man and most of the heavy lifting is done. But he, too, allows me to define the meaning of my own life, insofar as I live in order to help him be a better man.

My morality obviously comes from my own peculiar combination of nature and nurture.

As for Bundy, I don't think being amoral precludes one from being fearful.

I think this discussion might be coming to a peaceful and mutually satisfying conclusion (plus I have to go soon) but I have a few final points. I don't think what you said at the start is the same as wanting to kill someone. You wanted to preserve your own life. Way different than wanting to kill someone, especially different than wanting to kill a random stranger. Would you ever want to kill a random stranger? Is it a desire that you could conceive of having if your moral code shifted? I would guess probably not and I think that applies to most people regardless of what their beliefs are. I think applies to most nihilists, even those who say they have no morals.

I think what you are doing applying meaning to your life is fine. I don't think that everyone should be a nihilist, I just feel that it is the inescapable conclusion that comes from our future non-existence. I'd like to posit a final question, which regards the discussion I was having with FaithNoMore. Are you a nihilist when it comes to the long term? Do you think that in 1000 or a 100,000 or a 100,000,000 years (all of which are a blink of an eye) your life and the meaning that you've applied to it will have mattered?

Final and not really relevant point regarding Ted Bundy. I think he had morals, just fucked up ones. In the book I read on him, which was written by his ex-girlfriend (imagine how fucked up that is) he definitely thought that what was being done to him was wrong. Not just that he was afraid of death, but that the people who had imprisoned him and were going to execute him were doing something bad and wrong. Ted Bundy also definitely believed in God and the afterlife and believed that he was going to heaven so presumably he had a moral code from that.

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I guess the perception and importance of time important to nihilism. Would it be fair to say that you are a long term nihilist but believe that in the short term things have value?

I think although I'm very good at living in the moment I just take a long term view of things. Often times when I make a mistake in my life that seems very important at the time my nihilism is extremely helpful to me. This is part of why I think it's an enabling and empowering philosophy rather than a depressing one. If I make a bad mistake, I recognize that eventually I'll be dead anyway, no matter how bad I screw up. At the same time I savor the good moments because I have the freedom to do as I wish. Where as some people say 'might as well go kill people' I say 'might as well behave well and enjoy my time here on earth.' Even though ultimately it don't really matter either.

I think that's fair. I look at it like this. If I am hungry and am trying to decide to eat a sandwich, that decision isn't going to make a measurable difference in my life in twenty years, but that doesn't mean that the decision I make at that point in time isn't going to make any difference to me at all. Numerous different outcomes could come from that decision that will affect me, and how that affects me matters to me at that time. Do I simply choose not to eat because it will not matter in twenty years or do I embrace the short term impact that sandwich will bring and enjoy it?

Ultimately, yes, everything I do will have no impact on the state of the universe, but that does not preclude me from valuing the effect my life and actions have on the present and near future.

You and I are probably in 99% agreement. I also eat the sandwich, not because I think that it matters if I do or not, just because I'm hungry and want to eat a sandwich. I don't think that inaction is the logical outcome of being a nihilist. It makes just as much sense to eat the sandwich as it does to do anything else and I'm hungry so I eat it. I just don't say to myself that me eating it has or will be important to anything. So in the end this is why I don't think that nihilism really changes behavior as much as people who rebel against it think it would. I want to eat the sandwich so I do. I don't want to kill people, so I don't. Either way though it doesn't really matter.

[Mudhammam]

If a nihilist is someone who thinks life doesn't matter but they go on living anyway, aren't they like the soft and watered down version of a suicide?

No I don't think so, I think that's a broad misconception. I don't really find nihilism to be depressing. I just find it to be factual. Actually in many ways I also find it to be empowering.

But you do find it meaningful, just not independently of your moment. I take a nihilist to deny even the semblance of meaning, which to me doesn't work since without semblance meaning loses its meaning.

[CapnAwesome]

No I don't think so, I think that's a broad misconception. I don't really find nihilism to be depressing. I just find it to be factual. Actually in many ways I also find it to be empowering.

But you do find it meaningful, just not independently of your moment. I take a nihilist to deny even the semblance of meaning, which to me doesn't work since without semblance meaning loses its meaning.

No, I don't think that anything is meaningful. Not in the long term certainly. I don't find this to be depressing though. It actually makes some things sort of funnier than they would be otherwise. I was far more prone to depression before I became a nihilist. Although I could certainly see how it would be depressing to many people.

[Mudhammam]

But you do find it meaningful, just not independently of your moment. I take a nihilist to deny even the semblance of meaning, which to me doesn't work since without semblance meaning loses its meaning.

No, I don't think that anything is meaningful. Not in the long term certainly. I don't find this to be depressing though. It actually makes some things sort of funnier than they would be otherwise. I was far more prone to depression before I became a nihilist. Although I could certainly see how it would be depressing to many people.

I don't think meaning requires measuring the value of time, but if we choose to do so, the fact that nothing is meaningful in the long term makes it that much more meaningful in the short. This idea that the only thing that can have definite meaning is a thing that exists eternally and necessarily is a non-sequitur.

[CapnAwesome]

I don't think meaning requires measuring the value of time, but if we choose to do so, the fact that nothing is meaningful in the long term makes it that much more meaningful in the short. This idea that the only thing that can have definite meaning is a thing that exists eternally and necessarily is a non-sequitur.

It's not just a measure of time, it's the reality of our future non-existence as well. Maybe I need a better definition of what you mean when you say 'meaningful'.

[Mudhammam]

I don't think meaning requires measuring the value of time, but if we choose to do so, the fact that nothing is meaningful in the long term makes it that much more meaningful in the short. This idea that the only thing that can have definite meaning is a thing that exists eternally and necessarily is a non-sequitur.

It's not just a measure of time, it's the reality of our future non-existence as well. Maybe I need a better definition of what you mean when you say 'meaningful'.

Hmm... well let's start with this:
I use it in reference to any object that serves an end and is consistent with my conception of the good things in life: freedom, security, happiness, etc.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The value we place is an illusion in the sense that it isn't tangible or objective, but that doesn't mean the value we place itself is meaningless.

If value is not tangible and objective, then from the perspective of ontological naturalism, it is meaningless, in the same way that consciousness is according to ontological naturalism a causally inert epiphenomena.

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No, I don't think that anything is meaningful. Not in the long term certainly. I don't find this to be depressing though. It actually makes some things sort of funnier than they would be otherwise. I was far more prone to depression before I became a nihilist. Although I could certainly see how it would be depressing to many people.

That is exactly how I felt when I was an atheist! It is a calm an honest assessment of an absurd reality.

[Pizza]

Life is without blorg-fiz-ya-grodda, but I don't brood over that.