Any Nihilists here?

[FrustratedFool]

I will concede that there is a correlation between atheism and nihilism but I will not concede that the meaninglessness that we see around us has no science to it.

I'm not sure what you mean, or how it relates.

[MarcusA]

I will concede that there is a correlation between atheism and nihilism but I will not concede that the meaninglessness that we see around us has no science to it.

I'm not sure what you mean, or how it relates.

The world has no meaning but what we give it.

[LadyForCamus]

I think it likely God doesn't exist, the universe is indifferent and absurd, there is no free will, and moral realism is false.

A fan of Camus I assume? 😉

[MarcusA]

I think it likely God doesn't exist, the universe is indifferent and absurd, there is no free will, and moral realism is false.

A fan of Camus I assume? 😉

Camus was an arsehole. Man is nothing without hope.

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK if we'd be nothing. Whether we create hope or hope exists out in the world, it looks good on us. I don't know if the idea that hope depends on us is really challenging for realist theories of meaning or morality, either. Some things would have meaning based on the effort that's gone into them. We do tend to think our time is worth something, lol.

[FrustratedFool]

I mean if you want outrageous hope of religious equivalence from a physicalist perspective, you could hope that one day humans (or post humans or ETsor AIs) will have the ability and inclination to compute the universe (if it's practically deterministic) and be able to clone everyone/everything and thus resurrect you to bliss that way. Pretty far fetched, but doesn't require supenaturalism.

But generally, there's no hope for many things: justice for the wronged, life after death, answers to prayer, circumstances being anything but luck, the survival of consciousness for all time, objective moral truth, etc.

[MarcusA]

You must have hope to live.

[The Grand Nudger]

Or to live well. People manage to keep drawing breath in moments of utter hopelessness...but the story of that experience tends not to be a positive one.

IDK, reading this thread, I'm not convinced there's a single nihilist in it. Pessimists, sure. Cynics, absolutely. Nihilists? Not so far as I can tell.

[MarcusA]

Or to live well.  People manage to keep drawing breath in moments of utter hopelessness...but the story of that experience tends not to be a positive one.

IDK, reading this thread, I'm not convinced there's a single nihilist in it.  Pessimists, sure.  Cynics, absolutely.  Nihilists?  Not so far as I can tell.

Suicide is a positive step to a negative situation, at least in my opinion.

[The Grand Nudger]

If we're referring to positivity as an explanation for suicide then we're describing a meaningful suicide, thus, not a nihilistic one. A nihilistic suicide has no meaning, is not positive or negative, is not a tragedy or a reprieve. It just is. Standing alone as a thing that happened for no meaningful reason, to no meaningful end, and with no definite summary.

Personally, I think that if you're already looking at situations as positive and negative, then the obvious solution is to tilt the balance in favor of the positive, rather than relinquish your ability to even try. I tend not to address legitimate despair, except to suggest that a person get some qualified help - and I aint it.