Comments on “Preview: eternalism and nihilism”

Your post on the different stances mostly focused on ideation, regarding what goes on individually in relation to meaningness. I imagine that, for most of us, this cognitive process is habitual and out of awareness. That led me to think about the stances’ effect on behaviour, how that propels our flip-flopping from one to another - and how it might be a key to recognising our own underlying stances. This could be confusing: behaviours derived from a stance often appear to mean, and are received as their opposite. Someone with an eternalist agenda unintentionally fuels a nihilist response, or dualist action leaves a trail of monism behind it.

If I am looking for Cosmic Meaning in my experience, I begin to believe that every encounter I have must be meaningful in some way. My ability to discern between degrees or types of significance is eroded. The more the trivial becomes meaningful for me, the more someone encountering me is forced to perceive my behaviour as meaningless. Because I need to find meaning in everything, my discriminating perception is eroded and my action appears increasingly random. The more I behave according to an eternalist stance, the more likely I encounter nihilism. So I create around me the model behaviour for my next stance.

On the contrary, someone whose action really is random – because they perceive their encounters as ultimately meaningless – forces meaning despite him or herself. Mersault, the protagonist of Camus’ L’Etranger, is a classic example. His apparently random decision to kill taken in the heat of the moment renders everything he says, from then to his death, as significant - for the press, the public, the jurors, the priest, even the reader.

Although the specifics are unpredictable, it seems the mechanics of flip-flopping could be as much due to behavioural patterns of the stances, as cognitive recognition that a position is unworkable. That might have implications for how we figure out our relationship with meaningness.

Monism gives one the excuse to behave badly: if I have a true, transcendent self, by definition that self exists continuously. That makes it ok to lie, for example, without feeling too bad about it (because the me doing the lying is unrepresentative of the Real Me). Every time I lie, my transcendent self still exists, ‘holding’ the non-liar me. So my dishonesty in the moment doesn’t matter – it’s a transitory blip caused by circumstances annoyingly non-confirmatory of my transcendent reality – it’s not the Real Me. It’s impossible to live up to my True Self all the time… attempting to be Monist increases the division between my self-image and my behaviour.

I haven’t quite figured out how Dualist behaviour might force oneness in response. But contrary to Monism, the Dualist perspective seems to give rise to self-consciously virtuous behaviour. Maybe coercing others into receiving one’s goodwill is a form of bullying that denies the recipient’s expression of difference?

Rin’dzin

First, you fail to support your claim “Meaning is obvious everywhere” and seem to use “obvious” as the tool to avoid clarification. If you use “meaning” to imply definition for the purpose of communication, you dodge the nihilist point. If you use it to refer to “purpose” to existence, you don’t actually argue your point.

You argue “[d]enying meaning blinds one to beauty, making all reality dull gray” without explaining how beauty implies meaning. Beauty derives from an aesthetically patterned perception aligning with our neurological wiring for pattern-recognition to create pleasure. The process requires no extra meaning. Nor does meaninglessness remove colour perception, emotional response or pattern-recognition.

Virtue and kindness vary by culture, so they don’t have a constant meaning. The ability to recognize congruence between a cultural value and a given behaviour don’t require anything more than memory and perception.

A life lived moving towards pleasure and away from pain, as our organism has evolved, produces choice and action without requiring meaning. And I include my point about aesthetics as a form of pleasure. An aesthetic pattern can not only occur in nature, but in music, mathematics, social interactions and anywhere patterns can form. For me, paralysis produces unpleasantness (mild pain), so it drives action by causing me to move away from the pain.

So, without getting too complex, I can say a meaningless life can evolve out of moving away from pain and toward pleasure.

The experience of “flow” states, generosity, and kindness can all produce pleasure too, by the way.

And to draw on the popular teaching of Yoda, as well as the more obscure work of Moshe Feldenkrais, “trying” to do anything tires and frustrates, while “doing” unfolds without excess strain or parasitic effort.

I don’t necessarily think you don’t have a point; I only think you haven’t proven it.

“People disagree about what things mean. Perhaps meanings are just a matter of opinion? Meaning is important enough that this uncertainty is emotionally unacceptable.”

“The wrong idea underlying all confused stances is that things must be either definitely meaningful or else effectively meaningless. Or, if meaning is not objective, it must be subjective. But these are not the only possibilities. Completion: meaningness”

“(On the stance of the author’s term “meaningness”) It is neither given by an external force nor a human invention.”

• Ok, but couldn’t the more articulate description be an eternal force WITHIN you? That way it is neither external, nor a human invention - more like, a seed that sprouts, yes? Consider perhaps that “God” can be understood as “Eternal Life Force” that is eternally sprouting life. And for example, the natural disasters, diseases, etc, that are tragedies are a result of a falling out of ideal healthy ecology with the environment and ourselves with what is actually proper for human life, since humans act on the natural world with creative powers. The less conscious we are as a species at interacting with the environment and choosing what we will put in our bodies - due to loss of connection with ourselves and what is truly and emphatically and compellingly needed or wanted - warrants this empirical erosion of healthy body/planet ecology. There is a measure of privilege and responsibility contained within one’s own ecology, as an individual and how one moves through a larger collective whole, that really seems to bear most significantly on outcomes. (Sometimes the implications are wonderful!)

This article was worth at least a moment of my consideration, especially how nihilistic I can become learning more about the world.

Hi, found it!
This is an awesome navigation out of fractured post-modernity and all the fucked-upedness that brings, its clarity helped so much, thank you!

Please respond if I’ve missed the purpose of this discussion however, but monism (as I understand it) is not actually about meaning at all. Surely what eternalism is trying to get at is the clarification of that ‘one thing’ of monism. Although religion attempts to imbue that with meaning, and nihilism strips it of meaning, meaning is besides the point if that ‘one thing’ can be proved to be everything.

While scientific materialism is dismissed by the New Agers, and beliefs are dismissed by science, that one thing still goes unexplored.

I think you are closer to it with meaningness and meaninglessness, because that’s the debate of projection - if my meaning is different to your meaning, how can meaning be falsified? More than that, what other beliefs may I be projecting? What can I determine as infallible truth?

So to come round to solipsism, if ‘I am’ is the only thing we can 100% say for certain, it’s a short jump from there to monism - true monism:

Truth exists.
Untruth cannot exist, any more than non-being can be etc.
Truth must be absolute.

So,

if truth is all, and consciousness exists, then consciousness is all.

It’s a big jump, but the logic is sound, a no-belief required, airtight syllogism. All you have to do is disprove either statement.

I’d be eager to hear your response.

I am reading this homepage with interest, and I have two comments:

1) Very different situations are described with the same notions. E.g., if the statement “the cup is full” corresponds to the fact referred to, then we call it true. This situation is common part of our daily experience. In contrast, the statement “god exists” is on a completely different level, and there is no generally acknowledged way how we could verify or falsify.

Therefore, I have doubts that the notion of e.g. truth can be applied uniformly to all kinds of statements on all kinds of levels.

2) As far as I understand you, Eternalism is the position, that there is an absolute reference, e.g. God, and that the corresponding statement “God exists” is true. Nihilism is the position that there is no absolute reference at all, and that all interpretations of the world are relative.

These two positions are both extremes, and both of them have shortcomings, as both of them are based on faith, just in opposite directions. In particular, Nihilism would be the faith that there is no absolute reference.

Referring to bullet point 1) above, I doubt that Nihilism or Eternalism are relevant for our daily experience.

Personally, I find the position of the critical rationalism of Popper intriguing, which assumes that there is an absolute reference as hypothesis, but which also states, that we never can be sure that our statements really represent the truth - instead we have to examine all subjectively formulated statements and evaluate them so as to come as close to the truth as possible.

I would be happy to hear your thoughts!

Thank you,
Stephan

Trailed across my FaceBook feed today:

what happens in vagueness, stays in vagueness.

I find it weird that you compare yourself to Nietzsche elsewhere(http://meaningness.com/no-middle-way) and yet speak of nihilism only as a passive nihilism of meaninglessness. Ignoring Nietzsche’s active nihilism that accepts the absence of objective meaning, but uses this opportunity to develop a subjective meaningful life.

Also you seem to be stating that Objective/Subjective is a false dichotomy. I would very much like to see some kind of reasoning behind this. How can something simultaneously depend and not depend on a subject?

I seems you were forced to deny this dichotomy because you associate subjectivity with meaninglessness. Which makes no sense; some event could be subjectively meaningless for someone while being the most subjectively meaningful event of my life.

But all in all I don’t think I actually disagree with what you’re trying to say, only with your terminology.

Hello David,

I apologize for for my extremely slow response to your response.

I am no longer quite sure where I was coming from, either. I do know it was from curiousity and a desire for clarification. You did provide that.

"I'm not sure whether you actively advocate nihilism, or if you see it as the only alternative to eternalism, or if you are just pointing out that this page does not refute nihilism."

The latter drove my response.

"This page is the introduction to the introduction to the introduction to what will eventually be a huge book. So it doesn't attempt to prove or argue anything; it's just giving some taste for what the central issues are."

That answers my core question.

'"Denying meaning blinds one to beauty, making all reality dull gray" is not a first-principles deduction; it's an empirical observation. It comes from my own experience of nihilistic depression, my observation of other people in that state, and the clinical literature.'

I can certainly attest to that. I have a neurological condition which causes biologically-based cycles of severe depression. The depression comes before the sense of meaninglessness for me. And that, for me, leads not to to reality becoming dull grey, but the colours become (subjectively) meaningless. That functionally equates, so I can support your point from the subjective side of a biological base. If that ever proves useful.

I find your work helpful and interesting, and I thank you for sharing it.

It seems your main argument against the subjectivity of ‘meaning’ is “If meaningness was merely subjective, it would not be possible to be wrong about it.”

Well this is where you confuse two definitions of the term ‘meaning’:

1- This is meaningful, as in this has a meaning, an implication.
This means/implies that X is true (i.e. The fact that I am winning this last rounds means/implies that I am loved by the universe, and will thus continue to enjoy good fortune).

This is an objective statement that can be empirically tested. And obviously the result is that the statement is false.

2- This is meaningful, as in this is important, it has significance, it is essential, crucial.

This is subjective and not empirically verifiable.
At most you could empirically verify this objective statement:
“That person finds X meaningful.”

But of course the truth value of this statement has no bearing on the objective meaningfulness of X.

Of course this does not mean that we fall into what you call lite nihilism. Because “nothing means anything” is not the same as “nothing objectively means anything”. The second allows for meaning to exist in all its splendor, but in the subjective realm.

“All meaning is subjective” Does not make meaningful things become any less meaningful. Not unless when you come to this realization you start giving them less meaning, but you don’t have to. You can give them as much meaning as possible.

“In short, individuals cannot choose how significant thing are.”

Oh yes I agree, meaning comes from a mix of natural instinct/cultural education/personal experience/emotional state etc.

One would have to have full control of the mind to make oneself find whatever one wanted as meaningful.

But this is irrelevant to my point. That meanings (as in attributions of importance) can’t be right or wrong or empirically tested. This perceived quality is due to a confusion of the definition of ‘meaning’.

I don’t understand how existentialism or its failings have any significance to this.

Existentialism is barely even a thing, more of an ad-hoc title for various philosophers that varied greatly on opinion and focus of topics.

And has little similarity with what I said about subjectivity and joyful nihilist.

It was also pretty gloomy. Angst, dread and despair often took central stage. This again has no resemblance to what I was saying.

In fact existential nihilist Donald A. Crosby disagrees with me; “There is no justification for life, but also no reason not to live. Those who claim to find meaning in their lives are either dishonest or deluded. In either case, they fail to face up to the harsh reality of the human situations”.

So to the existential nihilist nothing is meaningful subjectively or otherwise.

I could only find ethnomethodology writings talking about meaning as ‘symbol’ not meaning as ‘importance’. Regardless if the point was about the intersubjective creation of meaning. That doesn’t make meaning any less subjective.

Maybe the problem is with the definition of subjectivity. One may think that if the meaning of something depends both on outside factors and on input from the subject then it is neither objective nor subjective. But this is a misunderstanding of the words.

If something needs no input from a subject (i.e. can exist without a subj.) then it is objective.

If something needs input, no matter how small or constrained from a subject or subjects then it is subjective.

There is no in-between or outside.

Actually I think that we agree on the facts; but due to having different personal definitions of the words; the same phrase has different meanings for us both.

It’s all just a matter of terminology/semantics as I said before.

I guess I was just being needlessly pedantic. If you have ever been in that position I’m sure you’ll accept my apologies.

Though I could strongly defend that I am using the mainstream definition. Actually I have never found any other.

The books you mentioned are not so much about the definition of objectivity but about how objectivity as been applied (or attempted to be reached) in the various fields of science. Along with some other books of various themes that simply happen to have the word in the title.

Regardless, I again apologize for the pedantism and will resume the (as of the moment 3) day marathon of reading your writings.

I have been reading texts on the sutrayana and vajrayana paths lately, and saw that they both say the purpose of the path is for you to become beneficial to all beings. I know that meaningness is inspired by your Buddhist practices, and I’m trying to understand why that purpose isn’t considered eternalistic. It sounds like an absolute purpose in life, a mission. It is not one given to us by a god necessarily, but by a lineage of people who believe it is clearly The Best Thing. Can you help me understand how that is not eternalistic? Thanks!

Thanks for the reply, it’s helpful to hear your take. I felt myself getting resistant/cautious when I read the texts proclaiming that purpose, thinking “hm, am I being suckered into another mission?” It’s not such a bad mission to be suckered into, it’s just the suckering I’m wary of.
It does seem to me that I am generally better behaving towards others when my mind is more calm and spacious, but I’m at the stage where I want that result for my own sake more than for the people around me. I don’t like how I feel when I’m overly reactive, and I’m done with it. Bit selfish, perhaps.

A related observation: when I am in altered states, whether from biofeedback/improv/unmentionables, I am not particularly social. I am so enjoying of my own self that I don’t feel the need to play with others. I will play with them if they play with me, but I’m happy on my own. Eventually I get anxious when I realize this and think to myself, “oh gosh, humans are supposed to fundamentally want other humans, maybe I shouldn’t try to peel off the layers of my self that encourage me to play with other humans.”

That leads me to another possible eternalism that I spotted in your Dzogchen comments: “compassion is an inherent, pervasive, unchanging aspect of the basic nature of mind.” How do we know that? What if it isn’t? Is that another thing where you might say “it is helpful to pretend that compassion is inherent in humans, because holding that belief leads to benevolent actions. Benevolence is good, by and large - but it’s not the ultimate purpose of existence, because there can’t be any such thing.” I’m on board with that. I’m just so damn agnostic about everything that I have a hard time proclaiming 100% that “humans are inherently compassionate.” Or even 50%.

Okay, I am on board with all of that. I can get behind both the philosophical and scientifically-grounded belief that compassion is a feature of the human brain, as long as it’s also agreed that less morally agreeable aspects like aggression are also features. And I believe that aggression is often misused and overused these days.

The whole introverted thing is a whole other discussion, as I tend to think I’m either an extrovert with social anxiety or an introvert who loves being the center of attention. It may be that even in my altered states, there’s a layer of social anxiety that has yet to be peeled off. I’ll report back in a year.

Why an anarchist symbol under the nihilism heading?

Hello

Although i am sure you mean well and this way of thinking is another defensive mechanism for helping people with the nature of Existence, this theory is not actually working. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is either black or white. Everything looks grey until we have deciphered it enough (i don’t pretend to have deciphered it enough myself). There is an objective truth nomatter if it is positive or negative for our minds. If there is meaning to the smallest thing or event in this universe then there is cosmic meaning behind everything. Otherwise meaninglessness is the truth. It does not matter what i believe (it is simply another axiomatic faith and everyone has his own), but the fact is that either meaning exists or futility is the truth. We cannot escape that realization although it is a scary one.
Hope you are well and all the best for you in this fight of existence we found ourselves trapped in.

Yes, what Niko said. Your unstated major premise is that life has some inherent value, that it’s “good.” I refer you to Hume’s is/ought problem.

Sorry to butt in. David will probably give a better response.

I don’t think he’s ever once suggested here, tacitly or otherwise, that life has some inherent value (that would be eternalistic). His discussion also attempts to sidestep the question of whether “life is good”.

All he’s arguing for is a pragmatic acceptance that meaning, as experienced by agents in their interactions with the world, actually exists. (The very idea that we can ask such a question such as “is life good or bad?” would appear to suggest that the asker acknowledges this to be the case.)

There was a really good discussion in one of his metablog posts called ‘Reasons to be Cheerless’ a while back which dealt with these slippery boundaries between nihilism, absurdism and pessimism. It’s worth finding.

“Committed nihilists?” I sincerely expected more nuance. I’m genuinely disappointed.

I haven’t read too much of your work here in that I just came to it from Medieval Thinking, but I would suggest that the essence of existence is play and any meaning or lack thereof should be analyzed from this perspective. Of course, I practice the Vajrayana myself, and have for numerous lifetimes, so I am a bit confused by your “athiest” stance in that, in the Vajrayana, we recognize the existence of the Tathagatagarbha/Dharmakaya!?! At any rate, imagine if you will, that you are a vast, indestructible intelligence - the Dharmakaya say, what would you do with your intelligence? I believe most would play, and there you have it, meaning emerges in the process of play. I mean, this is nothing novel to the Vajrayana - existence is the play of the Buddha-bodies and the only way to understand meaning, as you refer to it, is to cultivate the Buddha-bodies within your own mindstream - to join in the play! And a key aspect of this cultivation, this path to attainment, is the middle way between substantialism and nihilism. This middle way is expressed most efficiently by the Theory of Two Truths.

“By rereading Plato in light of Nietzsche’s interpretation, Heidegger thus came to clarify his own understanding of truth and Being in contrast to both the beginning and the end of the metaphysical tradition. In opposition to Nietzsche’s insistence that “truth” was an error, Heidegger argued that there was, in fact, truth, and that philosophers had articulated it. In his essay “On the Essence of Truth,” he pointed out that beings disclosed themselves as such only to those who inquired about their being. The e-mergence of truth was an essentially interactive process; human beings did not and could not simply project their own desires, perspectives, or orders onto the world. They dis-covered a truth that was there (da). This truth varied from time to time and place to place, but the reason it varied was not simply or solely the spatio-temporal limits of the human being who articulated it. Truth was not a property of human perception or thought; it emerged in the self-disclosure of the beings. But in the self-disclosure (a-letheia) of beings as beings, there was always something that remained hidden, forgotten, or concealed. What was hidden was what made it possible for the beings to disclose themselves as such, the Being of the beings. Because Being manifested itself only in and through the beings, Being itself could never be directly cognized. In contrast to the beings, it itself was never present or un-concealed. Because the ground of human knowledge was itself never present or cognizable, all truths, all disclosures of being were necessarily partial. As such, they were also false. There was and could be no unconcealment, truth, or dis-covery unaccompanied by concealment, error, and oblivion.”

From Caterine Zuckert’s, Postmodern Platos, Chapter 2, pages 55 and 56.

But I suppose I should probably read more . . .

Perhaps: Meaning is an emergent property of a relatable self.

Where: A relatable self = a connected self = an effective self = a valued self = meaning.

Others might suggest a different order for those ‘selves’, but I’m coming at it from the perspective of emergence, hence this ordering.

I haven’t thought through all the ramifications of the above. The ‘valued’ self could be both believing oneself to be valued, and the fact of being valued by others (which is probably still the former, anyway).

So it doesn’t have to be seen as requiring external validation, nor requiring one to be extroverted in order to be of value (deep soul-searching could make one a more relatable self, for example).

Maybe I’m also upgrading ‘true self’ / ‘essence’ with ‘relatable self’. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but possibly a good thing as I’m not specifying how to arrive at ‘relatable self’, or that this even needs to be one’s ‘true self’ or ‘essence’, or even that those things exist.

But it seems safe enough to say that we need to relate to each other in order to live effective, fulfilling, non-miserable lives.

So maybe such a simple framework might allow us to drop some of the religious / spiritual jargon, being ‘good’, being ‘moral’, etc. etc., and leave us to explore for ourselves how to arrive at the ‘relatable self’; of which there may be a variety of different factors and approaches.

An entirely customisable, changeable, very personal, and non-dogmatic journey to discovering meaning in one’s life, through the lifelong nurturing / uncovering of the ‘relatable self’.

I often wonder if Nihilism is just an inverted set of defense mechanisms for Ideals that have been challenged by The World. As we age, it is ‘normal’ to become more Nihilistic, for the world challenges us on all levels until we head out. So, in a sense, Eternalists and Nihilists have a lot in common; one group or individuals of that group see themselves as ‘part of the Cosmos, or a greater whole,’ and Nihilists aren’t sure that is true just by looking at all the conflict in the world. Just some thoughts: both groups have equally high ideals…it’s how they think about those virtues that makes them different in terms of ‘the meaning of life.’ If one deeply feels that life should be meaningful, and at many points, it feels meaningless or worse, destructive ~ then Nihilism is a handy set of tools to get one through one’s days. That doesn’t mean the original ideals don’t matter; in fact, those ideals that create that sense of meaninglessness as a point of contrast with ‘what is happening’ might be an impetus to change things, or not, to just accept them. But this is all a dynamic reflective process, and one worth pondering. The antidote to both polarities is Action, but then of course, one then gets into Cause and Effect, the dilemma of Arjuna in his discussion with Krishna. In some esoteric religious texts, God is described as one Being, where each of us is a ‘shard of light’ (or darkness) comprised of the same material, each manifesting different ‘faces’ of the Cosmic Mind. This to me might be a ‘middle way’ between these two polarities: everything is meaningful, or nothing is. Thanks for the thoughtful blog.

“Meaning is obvious everywhere, and it takes elaborate intellectualization to explain it away. Attempting to live without significance, purpose, or value leads to rage, anguish, alienation, depression, and exhaustion.”

I see no evidence to support this. Genuinely. Provide genuine, objective evidence, please. No really, if you CAN, this would change my life, so I would really appreciate it if you could try. Also, frankly, I found your explanation to not hold any actual meaning. I could just be misunderstanding your point, but it seems as if your point is that you dont think nihilism and eternalism are correct, so you’re throwing your hands up in the air and coining a new synonym for giving up: meaningness.

Am I understanding this correctly?

I have found a perfect argument in favour of Nihilsm and have been living as a nihilist for the last few years and I have never felt rage, depression or any of the negative effects you have mentioned. I have been perfectly happy in fact, not that it means anything. The reason for this is I find my own emotions meaningless too.

And I truly find everything meaningless, including the entire universe, or my life. I actually attempted suicide sometime ago due to this and failed. Now I have decided even suicide is meaningless, so I will make no more attempts.

I have got interested in this book and will read it further to see if your arguments can break my perfect Nihilsm.

Hi. I’m stumbling in the same place a couple of other folks are: “Meaning is obvious everywhere.” It’s such a huge roadblock, I have trouble reading past it. I understand that this is a work in progress, so I’m not criticizing. I just want to add a voice to others who are urging you to clarify what you mean by it being obvious. (Unless it’s unexplainable, in which case you might want to say, “This is a book for folks like me, for whom meaning is obvious.”)

This may be difficult or impossible to explain something that’s obvious to you. (I would have a hard time explaining consciousness to someone who said it wasn’t obvious to him that he was conscious.) Or it may be easy, but you haven’t bothered defining “meaning,” because you assumed we all already know the definition. I’m holding up my hand to say, “I don’t.” (In fact, I’m always confuses as to what people are talking about when they refer to the meaning of life. This isn’t intuitive to me, the way it seemingly is to them.)

If it really is obvious to you–in an immediate, visceral way–that meaning is everywhere, you may be unable to understand the minds of folks who ask, “How is it obvious?”

“My immediate reaction,” upon reading “meaning is obvious everywhere” is “Why isn’t it obvious to me?” You state that it’s obvious with such conviction, I feel like there’s something wrong with me, like someone has said “It’s obvious that whales are bigger than mice,” and I’m unable to see what they’re talking about.

I don’t get the sense that you’re making an intellectual claim. It sounds like you’re saying something like “Consciousness is obvious.” It’s obvious via lived experience. I get that. But I can’t say the same thing for “meaning.”

The reason why I’m curious about your definition is, upon reading it, I might think, “Oh that! THAT’S what he means by ‘meaning!’ Yes. Now that I know what he’s talking about, I agree. It is obvious.” So my confusion isn’t so much a sense of “no it’s not obvious,” but, rather, “I don’t know what this … thing … is that he’s claiming is obvious. Maybe if I knew, I’d agree with him.”

It’s close to true that when you write “Meaning is obvious,” I’m reading “Zzzlebrixst is obvious.” Maybe. What is zzzlebrixst?

So I start substituting in other words for “meaning,” with no real belief that these get at what you’re trying to say. A plan? No, it’s not obvious to me that there’s any sort of plan, not even in my own mind–as in a plan for myself.

Beauty? Well, yes, I find some things beautiful. I don’t get why one would call this “meaning.”

Is it “meaning” in the sense of “When I said ‘fruit,’ I didn’t mean tomatoes; I meant, like, peaches and apples…” Meaning as in stating the intention behind a piece of communication? I don’t get a sense of obviousness that this sort of meaning is coherent outside the context of communication, and it’s not obvious to me there’s any sort of “cosmic” communication going on.

Is it the feeling that things are connected, e.g. via the laws of physics, causation, history, etc? Yes, I do have a strong–undeniable–feeling of that (though I’m not sure how much credence to give it), but if that’s what you mean, I find “meaning” a very confusing word for it. I would just say “a sense that everything is connected” or “a sense that everything affects each other.”

Is it the idea that everything–all the way down past the lowest turtle–has an explanation? That’s not obvious to me at all.

Or, by “meaning,” do you mean something entirely different?

Regards

Hi David,

As someone who is barely starting to understand various philosophies and schools of thought, I am a bit uncertain as to how various terms or ideas overlap. As I understand, your explanations are more rooted in Buddhist teachings, while I happen to be more familiar with terminology originating in Advait Vedanta. More specifically, I have been listening to neo-Vedantists like Rupert Spira, and I am trying to understand how phrases like meaningness, participation etc. map to that other system.

For reference, Rupert talks about two ‘phases’ so to speak (c.f. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR-6lnpL6jQ ). From whatever I understood so far I can summarize it as follows. In the first phase, one realizes one’s true nature is different from that of one’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions. This is what he calls infinite consciousness, which might be like monism you refer to. The second phase, is more tantric, in which one ‘goes back’ to the world of experiences with that previous knowledge, and realizes that one is not in-fact separate from experience. This is the essence of non-duality, which I don’t think is the same as monism. I think it might be the same as participation you mention (if I remember the term correctly), but having just started out, I can’t say anything for sure.

Could you please clarify if there is any mapping firstly between what you are talking about and what Advait Vedant deals with (is it the same ‘truth’)? If not, where do you believe the schools diverge and why one is better than the other?

Citation needed. You’ve done nothing to prove nihilism false or unworkable; plenty of evidence exists to the contrary. My life, my very existence, denies your unproven point.

You can’t simply assert a point; you need to back it up.

You keep dodging the important questions raised about meaning. You deflect and refuse to answer, like a politician. You change the definition of “meaning” when you get asked about this. You say that, for example,
“The purpose of making an omelet is to have something nice to eat.” This is not meaning in the philosophical sense. It is a means to an end but does not imbue meaning.

I can still be a nihilist and think life is meaningless, but as a “happy nihilist” (which you seem to unfairly disparage and I’m unconvinced by your reasoning), I can still make and eat omelets because it allows me to continue to enjoy this strange (meaningless) trip through my life. You are playing sophomoric word games when you claim “making an omelet to have something nice to eat” imbues existence with any meaning. Consuming calories leads to my continued existence in this meaningless universe. That is causality not meaning.

I’m still trying to see what the real argument against “happy nihilism” is and all I get is that you try changing the name to something vague and obtuse that you can slap a trade mark on and claim to have invented.

Being nihilistic may lead many to get depressed, but that is a casual empirical observation you make. There may be others, like myself, who do not get depressed and apathetic just because we understand that life is meaningless. We decide to enjoy our meaningless existence for as long as we can. That becomes a purpose, not a meaning. Life just is, you can say “f— it, I’m going to burn everyhing, I’m going to sit on a rock and cry, or I’m going to enjoy it.” That does not create any meaning, it is a response to meaninglessness that you choose. You have no choice but to choose. Choosing to do nothing is a choice. I might as well choose to have my neurons stimulated in ways that make me feel happy - enjoy beauty (in my eye), the flow experience, socializing with and helping other meaningless humans, etc. None of these things are ultimately meaningful, they just exist. Maybe that idea makes you depressed. It doesn’t make me depressed, so please stop claiming it “leads to depression and misery”.

Its perhaps interesting how this applies to itself. Is Meaningness itself meaningness? Alternatively when we are watching our stances and deciding whether they are Eternalist, Nihilist or Meaningness which of these are we being? I definitely spend too long in Nihilism so an excellent read. But perhaps, just thinking at this moment, perhaps there is a 4th way that is the way we are when we are deciding which stance we are in?