In Defense of Nihilism · 3:50am Aug 28th, 2015
This metaphysical rant may prove tiresome or boring to many of you. You have my explicit permission to not read it.
Q) What was Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics?
A) "Nothing unreal exists."
Thus answered Spock in the 1986 Classic "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."
Nothing unreal exists. While on the surface this may seem to be a no-brainer it does bring up the question of what defines "real." Ideas are real, are they not? In this sense we cannot even imagine the unreal for in doing so we consign it to reality.
I am a tinker. I tink. (der poor I am (there I said it; it had to be said)) Ahem!.. I like taking things apart, seeing how they are constructed. Tinkers are natural reductive sorts, we take the idea, pare it down, see how it works. Tinkering with existence...One cannot travel too far down such a road before you end up with solipsism or at least nihilism. Do things exist outside my mind? It does not matter, I manage to be happy, so I will act as though they do. The results for me will be the same. But when you ask if the results have meaning... that is a blue pony rather than a pink one (horse of a different color). I think it is an important question to come to now and again.
I personally do not believe in any sort of objective morality or meaning. The concept is non sequitous for me given the nature of the reality which has been constructed for me (be it external or internal). Morality is a logical construct (and I think a most necessary one) arising from relationships and is therefore quite subjective. (Remember these are merely my opinions, my blog). With subjective morality comes subjective meaning. With no imperative to act morally then any sort of impetus or meaning has no teeth. It would be a meaningless meaning and therefore not a meaning at all.
And so the meaning of existence is precisely that which we assign to it. Which is wonderful, is it not? It is also a lot of responsibility, in a sense. If you do not assign your life the proper meaning at an early age you may not be able to act in a meaningful way (to you, of course) at a later age.
Where do we acquire this meaning? I submit it all arises from creativity. "All things are imagined, real or otherwise" a wise man once told me, and it is true. Our eyes for example are only capable of seeing clearly a very small part of what we observe. Pick a sentence you have not read and jump to a single word in the middle of that sentence and force yourself to stare only at it. While you are doing so, without moving your eyes try to make out the words next to it. And the next words out. Chances are you will be able to distinguish at best maybe 5 short words. That is the world you live in. You see a tiny fraction. Your mind and other senses fill in the rest. Most of the world we live in, we only imagine. The part we experience directly is very small. Our minds create most of the life we live, have lived, will live. Creation is existence.
That is not to belittle creation, no, far from it. For I am convinced that we are only made self-aware by being aware of the minds of others, this primarily by means of language, and of necessity spoken or written (or signed) language, its most information-dense form. We know our own minds in ways no one else can, and crave knowledge of the minds of others and for them to have knowledge of ours.
When we create things which have never been perceived by our senses, when we synthesize things of beauty, of horror, of strength, of terror, we are able in so doing to transfer a bit of our inner selves into the minds of others. We expand our theory of mind. We create internal experiences which can be shared.
The heart is a muscular organ which pumps blood through the body. And yet it is a useful metaphor for a center of feeling, a place within us which can be touched by the hearts of others. Still deeper lies the soul, a symbol for the deepest part of our being. Hearts can be joined, yes, but when souls are, this is the most complete of the sharing of minds.
What we are concerned with most, here in this Fimfiction environment, is the forging of worlds, ideas and emotions, with words. It is a VERY noble thing. Be proud of what you do. Breathe new worlds into existence, important worlds, worlds which expand our knowledge of the human experience. All stories are about humans after all.
The path of existential nihilism leads us to this wonderful threshold of meaning which we create for ourselves and others. Let us not waste it.
I will leave you with a scrap of poetry, from a piece I wrote years ago for a grieving wife:
There are as many worlds as there are minds,
And each one unique.
This is the beauty of life,
And its tragedy as well.
For we are spared the true loss of another's pain
and they are free from ours.
Our joys and our sorrows belong to our own unique worlds.
The windows of the soul are very small,
And it is with great patience and care
That souls are ever shared. -Illya
Yeah, this.
To me, it sounds like you have more Existential leanings than the Nihilistic sort. You say you don't believe in an objective morality or meaning which is a nihilistic trait, but you do go on about finding meaning to existence, which is an existential quality. An Existential-Nihilist if you will, or at least that's what I've been calling it.
I'm a fairly cut-and-dried nihilist in the worst sort of way, though you said almost precisely what I did I don't even know how many years ago, back when I found out about the terms Nihilist and Existentialist....You say "And so the meaning of existence is precisely that which we assign to it." and what I said is "The meaning of life is to give life meaning.". Yours is perhaps more eloquent, whereas my phrasing was intended deliberately to mirror, after a fashion. They both amount to much the same point though.
My issue is that, well, I rather lack much motivation about anything of consequence. I mean, in my viewpoint the entirety of the universe will either diffuse into an inconsequential soup of fading traces of energy before even that is gone, or it will crunch back to the source from whence it came, only to burst out again (and probably won't be a universe that can support life, at least not according to the laws of physics as we know them). Either way renders the entire existence of the universe as we know it moot.
So yeah, difficult to work up much motivation to do anything of consequence precisely because everything feels inconsequential, at least in any broad sense beyond my own little part of existence.
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Yes I was very much talking about Existential Nihilism, in that the Universe provides no meaning and that we must create one for ourselves. The tongue in cheek title I gave that blog post was simply to illustrate that life is a CELEBRATION of that fact, that we are not only free to create our own meaning but rejoice in it by creating new things, ideas and worlds.
I may have been misunderstood in that I was in no way speaking of FINDING meaning in existence, rather CREATING it. That was the essense of the post, the reductive view of tearing the world down to its molecules, wallowing in its chaos, becoming comfortable there and then building your own world from that molecular soup bit by bit until you create a glorious world of meaning which others can then weave into their own personal tapestry.
THAT is what I am seeing here. Look what we have wrought! What, 4-5 years ago, no Pony? Now look at us. Look at this website. Look all over the world at what is happening in word, song, music, art, video and new worlds. There is nothing intrinsic about it. It is the constant synthesis of human existence. We toss our vanities onto the cosmic bonfire and ride the flames upward to a richer existence, those of us who choose that view. I was merely inviting everyone along for the ride. You say you lack motivation about anything of consequence. I am inviting you to believe that anything which brings you joy is of consequence, even and ESPECIALLY pony things. THESE are the things we fight wars for, to have the freedom of simple joy.
We get 80 or so years if we are lucky. Be happy any way you can. I submit that along the way the greatest happiness will be that which brings joy to others. I have gotten much, much joy from the writers here on Fimfiction.
I was just being a cheerleader in short. I hope no one found it too mundane.
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I find enjoyment in the fandom. The art, the writing, the music, and the general atmosphere (when not tainted by foaming at the mouth types anyway). I've thrown more money at the fandom than I have at anything else, save video games and my BD collection (Still waiting on MLP getting a BD release ~_~).
Basically, I live in the moment, finding pleasure in things as they come. I think existence is ultimately pointless because so far as I know, we just cease to be when we die. No reason not to at least try to enjoy nice things that come your way at least.