Is that all there is?
Recently I found myself in New York at The Huffington Post office, talking to Arianna herself about the questions my generation is asking of a world that seems increasingly meaningless despite our outward progress and technological development. Inspired, Arianna invited me to start this online dialogue as a continuation of that conversation, providing a forum to articulate and share insight from various points of view. She even came up with the title: Is That All There Is?
Apart from echoing a sentiment of disillusion, the question reminds me of a scene in a movie about mistaken identity ("The Big Lebowski"). The protagonist responds to a particularly sexual advance by questioning whether the encounter would be appropriate under the circumstances.
He apprehensively asks, "Are you sure he won't mind?" -- referring to how the interested woman appears to be already taken by someone lounging in the pool right beside them. She retorts that the other man, passed-out with an empty bottle of whiskey, "doesn't care about anything -- he's a nihilist." The protagonist observes, "Oh, that must be exhausting."
Of all traditions I can care to apprehend and elect to carry on through life, nihilism strikes me as being terribly comical. The irony is delicious: the unconscious nihilist ventures to make a point out of purported meaninglessness. Just because I have been disillusioned and disappointed by particular value-systems, it does not follow that I need to deny the real existence of absolute or objective meaning, value and purpose to all experience and life. Acting as though I do not care does not prove that there is nothing to care about. On the contrary, I think every act is intentionally directed to progressively discover our fundamental understanding of the world as built upon the structure of care itself. Care is how the world makes a difference to us by enabling our free involvement and interest with things, including alleged concerns with meaninglessness.
If the question "Is that all there is?" does not necessarily evoke strict nihilism and misguided moral nihilism, then it can actually be quite liberating. Instead of ironically reading disappointment with some things not meeting expectations as evidence in support of nihilism, I choose to direct my attention to how important I feel it is to anticipate making a difference through correspondence with the world. I find it liberating to understand how everything is permissible not because the absence of God or Truth practically provides moral license for any and all action; instead, because everything expresses itself first as the potential for experience, there exists a "nothing" before actual things. Nothing is true and everything is permissible, therefore I am free before everything.
Nothing is the positive yet indeterminate impression on the horizon, just before becoming something definite. It is nothing and it is not-nothing. Together with the present, it is the future and it is the past. It is the pure potential and freedom to experience -- the initial "I can" of intentional consciousness that provides for my participation and correspondence with wonder.
I think the world is interesting because I actually care about the possibility of nothing.
Singing, "Is that all?" the chorus calls for us to recognize the continually conspicuous presence of an absence. Disappointment is not so much the problem now if we believe in nothing; because nothing, by definition, actually exceeds all possible expectation: "wherefore it is right that What Is be not unfulfilled; for it is not lacking: if it were, it would lack everything." (Parmenides, fr. 8.33) I think that sometimes we mistake things for their absence and for this, in the end I trust, there will always be more to say about nothing.
Hillary Clinton: Let Us Remember -- And Recommit
Nihilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nihilism | Define Nihilism at Dictionary.com
Nihilism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Nihilism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster ...
If there were causeless arising [if all things were arose from nothingness].. arising, which by its nature is spatiotemporally restricted, would be causeless. It would follow that if something could arise from any one thing, it would be able to arise from anything, and it would follow that all efforts would be pointless."
In brief, if things arose out of nothingness, then all things would be chaotic, meaningless, and unrelated to one another. You would not be able to have a coherent experience of anything. On the other hand, we can not posit inherent arising, nor inherent meaning, relationships, etc. This is the brilliance of the Buddha and, by extension, Lama Tsongkhapa.
As a nihilist who begins with the idea of freedom, there are a lot of presuppositions: a space in which to act, an ability to reason, etc. So by the time freedom is recognized, many unfree prerequisites must be created. Thus freedom has to be predicated on being. See Vasistha Yoga.
As to moral action, when moral systems fail, we must acknowledge both the failure and the internal dialogue that judged them to have failed. When expert advise is needed, and the expert you have has failed, it is good to go to another expert and then apply your own experience to that advice. One might even find, that the method of judging / choosing an expert's advice is revelatory to one's instinct for ethical behavior. To conclude that one is done having seen the true form of justice/ God is to forget that it is more than what we might have thought (and failed to think previously). See Gita.
If we assume my system is false therefore all systems are false is to be intellectually lazy.
hariaum
And could there be nothing without everything, and cetera.
Good thing we've got Love--but can we have Love without god (or God or gods or Gods)--or just thought--but then again, love isn't really thinking, is it?
Three ways I know of: Psychedelics, meditation, long term travel.
Regarding the “previously mentioned theist’s religious sentiments” apparently mentioned in Challlie 09/27/2011 06:36pm, I would be grateful for clarification regarding what those sentiments are. HuffPostThinker 09/27/2011 05:58pm appears to attempt to express the apparently intended content of those sentiments as interpreted from Challlie 09/26/2011 11:41pm. However, Challlie 09/27/2011 06:36pm appears to assert lack of interest in those sentiments as attempted to be conveyed in HuffPostThinker 09/27/2011 05:58pm.
I welcome your thoughts.
Think about it guys, it would undoubtedly be one of the most popular forums on the internet and a lot easier for those of us who want an ongoing exchange of ideas.
I would be grateful for your thoughts regarding the differences between the forum Maximum Bob 09/29/2011 12:29am appears to suggest and the HuffingtonPost.com environment in which this conversation is being held.
This world we face with our senses is impossibly massive and fantastic yet the more spiritual among us turn their noses up because it doesn't have "God" stamped on the label.
Turning your back on the before-death because you're more interested in the after-life seems a lot like nihilism to me.
the first sentence is more correct than false. ie souls cannot be destroyed; physical bodies can. the physical planet is but one dimension of many that soul reside on.
the second sentence fails to understand the term cosmic significance, the third sentence is materialism defined.
if life is pointless why so much concern for these aspects of life such as religion and politics and family and kids and wealth and compassion etc? I know the standard materialist response will be forth coming.
of course life is not pointless, it has divine meaning. neither the religious nor the materialist are able to see that meaning, ie yet. all evolve in consciousness no one is left behind unless of course you want to make a ton of money selling such books to the christians that think they and they alone are special and are getting that free pass to their heaven while they listen to hundreds of billions burn in fire.
the recent GOP debates gives us some insights into the level of consciousness of the evangels.
Regarding why God appears to be Biblically-suggested to be infinitely-existing and not other things, the apparent question appears to unclearly convey whether the inquiry refers to the infinite existence of other things in addition to or instead of God. Current recollection appears not to include Biblical suggestion of an infinitely-existent entity other than God. Current recollection does appear to include the apparent suggestion of science that matter changes form rather than ceases to exist. This apparently recalled assertion appears relevant to the inquiry.
I would be grateful for your thoughts on the aspects of science as we know it that appear suggested by Dan Jighter 09/26/2011 07:12pm to contradict the existence of an intelligent being that is infinitely-existing and creates universes.
The concept of infinity appears to be accepted by science. If matter is also scientifically considered to persist rather than cease to exist, an infinitely-existing entity appears not to be a far leap of faith.
If you truly believe in nothing, then you have nothing to contribute, therefore you're basically just a parasite feeding off the masses & the rest of the planet, and for what? Nothing.
Sorry, but I think the question is nonsensical.