Any Nihilists here?

[The Grand Nudger]

If it helps, it's not personal. I'm sure you're as good or better than the next nihilist - but, even assuming nihilism is true, your humanity will betray you.

[FrustratedFool]

I don't see nihilism as something one is good or bad at, it's just the most likely most accurate description of the state of reality, and I assent to it as such. There's nothing to live up to or to betray.

[The Grand Nudger]

I guess that's a difference between us. I see nihilism as something that people are uniformly bad at.

[FrustratedFool]

Up to you. I don't see how anything like that follows from a set of descriptive statements about the world. There are no shoulds or oughts in those statements.

[The Grand Nudger]

The failure of nihilists to be nihilists doesn't follow from any descriptive statements about the world, and..in fact, is still in effect even if true descriptive statements about the world imply or even outright demonstrate nihilism.

That's why I know that people are uniformly bad at nihilism. Nihilism, as an ideology, is an aspirational goal at best....and you know what that means......as a nihilist....

[FrustratedFool]

But there is no 'being a nihilist' in behavioural terms, no more than there is 'being an evolutionist'.
There is no such thing, as far as I'm concerned or aware, of a nihilistic aspiration.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's a bit of a problem, if you think about it. Why is there no being a nihilist? Even for people who affirm the truth of nihilism, there is no being a nihilist. Self identifying nihilists still act like the rest of us. That seems odd.

When I say it's an aspirational goal it's, ofc..to poke fun...but also to point out that nihilism is a thing people say or hold intellectually, but not a thing they apprehend experientially or demonstrate behaviorally.

[FrustratedFool]

How is that a problem?

I am an evolutionist, a physicalist, a moral non-realist, an athiest, an agnostic, a determinist, a nihilist, etc. There is no 'being' any of those things in a prescriptive behavioural sense. They just describe someone who assents to a certain set of descriptive propositions.

Are you seeing nihilism as some sort of quasi-religion?

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh it's not a problem at all to me. People often say things they don't believe, or that they don't act like they believe. I'm cool with it. I do it too.

Even though the nihilists can't muster up the faith of a mustard seed...I think it's an important idea to consider. It cant be a religion. An ideology that says nothing is really meaningful cannot be the basis for a system of meaning and observance that ties a community into a moral whole. Under nihilism, there's no moral, there's no meaning, there's no whole.

[FrustratedFool]

What behaviour do you expect from, say, someone who doesn't believe in objective morality?

And if it is expected and unproblematic to behave contrary to one's beliefs, how then can it be said there's no nihilists here?