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discuss Nihilism. comes from the Latin word Nihil...ill post my opinion later BUT now i have to go start on my stupid AP Bio fish project (check thread Omfg! :lol

if u dont know what nihilism is then heres some info

"Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism."

good luck with that fish dude

I'd post an opinion but I'm too school-ified at the moment to come up with a good explanation...

thanks


Bye

I consider Nihilism to be a self-fulfilling philosophy. If someone addopts Nihilism, he will act in a negative way, and, because he acts negatively, people are likely to react in kind, justifying his Nihilism, at least in his own mind.

My personal reaction to Nihilism (and I realize that it's a sort of heartless way to think) is that if the world is so bleak and meaningless, nobody is keeling you here.

I don't see the point of this religion. Why would you live if you believed that nothing had a purpose?

I'd be a nihilist, but I can't see the point of it....

I'd be apathetic, but I can't be bothered...

Thats just grand!

you are correct^

Ubermensch! Thanks

You are right. But There are many waves of nihilism with influences of many other philosophies of live during the last century. And you can still have your own norms and values. Just seeing the bad things of present society doesn't implies a destructive way of life. I like to think in all as a permanent mutation of ourselves tending to choose the wrong option. And your role is to try to invert the necessary pessimism that real live - maybe not your, but generalising - create in us.

So a nihilist can create his/her own norms and values?

(Never doubted nihilism comes in various forms and shapes - it's philosophy, it's meant to be a complicated bugger )

i thought Omega would respond to this.

You know what I think??? I think that Nihilists are crazy and they have mental cases!!!!!!!!!! If I saw one I will destroy him with a bazooka because he doesnt care because he doesnt think I have a purpose....

That should prove him wrong ...

given with world circumstances i would imagine that we are digging our selves in a whole. Socially, economically and, you know, morally. So, with this, nihilism is usally just a buzz word for people to think more of themselves than really is there. It is more about the unravelling of a life style and revealing the true "cogs" of what makes it "tick".

God, i hate using this crappy sentence structure. it is so unbelievably pretentious. So, i am sorry for that.

but anywho, nihilism has itself detangled into just anxt. a hissy fit syndrome. There are reasons for it, but people are just too damn lazy to understand it.

Nihilism is so pas-ay.

Family Guy

"there was a meeting about it last night"

plus, there a great movie about nihilism Naked and Fight Club to name the least. those were great.

Nihilisim is the one condition reality finds itself in. That's why art is the true purpose of life, as Nietzsche said. Our purpose is to create an unreal condition of meaning in our lives in order to avoid suicide.

Friedrich sister, for one who talks about Nietzsche a lot I`m surprised you didnt know about her and her forgery of his work

I know about his sister and the forgery, BUT the works she published was subsequently corrected and cleansed of its bias which she incorporated.

The "forgery" of Nietzsches writings - NOT true:



The above suggest that the alleged biased editing of Nietzsche's works by his sister is completely false, while the below suggest that even if there was such editing, it has been corrected subsequently.



Sources: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12504
http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/music/wagner/books-faq.html

Then if a nihilist BELIEVES in practising Nihilism, then wouldn't having a BELIEF in something no longer make him a nihilist?

KharmaDog, I don't think Nihilism can be practised as you are saying, rather it is a condition one finds himself in. In other words, one cannot BELIEVE in Nihilism, but one can BE a Nihilist in the sense that one is in a Nihilistic condition.

I have always been under the impression that Nihilism was a belief and not a condition. To call yourself a Nihilist and to act on a Nihilist doctrine is to be aware of what you are and to believe in it.

On may suffer from a Nihilistic condition, but until they acknowledge and accept that they indeed believe in the philosophy of Nihilsm, they are not a true Nihilist.

But still, I would not see Nihilism, or any other 'belief' or conviction as an act of acceptance of it being one's view or belief, rather, I see it as a condition which 'infects' the agent - we don't choose it, it chooses us.

Are you saying we do not choose what we believe in?

Yes.

how so

The mind is genetically programmed to harbor the specific ideas and predispositions which it entertains. A human being is born with its mind having a certain makeup which determines its personality and world views.

I don't believe in fate. And I think how you grow up and personal experiences far outway any genetic predisposition towards choice and beliefs.

When we are born we are given survival instincts, that is all, the rest is learned.

I determine my world views, it wasnt "pre programmed" its my experiense that determine how I look at the world.

WHat I said is already proven by genetic scientists.

still I have a totally diferent view on the world than my ancestors, my father who was a naval officer had a very different view on stuff much European situation due to the cold war, you couldnt have draged him to Russia even at gunpoint, me I would love ot go to Russia, I was a border patrol along the Norwegian/Finnish/Russian(USSR when I was inn) border I encountered Soviet forces and we were at gunpoint with each other time and again, even so I hold no grudge against the Ruskies, my father detested them.
So genetecly I have not inheritted my afthers view on the world, my view comes from my experience. On places/cultures I havent been/encountered I really dont have a view on.

this is just a little example on me, I dont know how genetic scientist really states this as a fact cause that has to be a very controversial desicion. I know many takes the view of their parents cause it sounds" good but this aint the fact for tons of people, so what I wonder is how do these genetic scientists explain that people are miles appart from their parents viewpoints

How can one not have loyalties?? It is merely impossible, as you said "have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy" I believe that sentence means none other than that one is loyal to destruction?? that it won't give in to any other matter, but to destroy?? ISN"T THAT LOYALTY??? How would you define it???

One does not inherit everything from ones parents, but the brain is still "programmed" to think in a particular way. Evidence (biochemical constitution of the brain) has been found which points to the fact that religious people and atheists have a different chemical composition and molecular structure in their brains. Atheists share a common molecular structure in the part of the brain which determines intellectual disposition, and the same with theists.

ahhhhhh science. the way people leap to grasp a theory to prove, or disprove, a point makes me laugh. science, whilst being able to assist with certain things, should in no way be looked upon as being ultra-reliable. science is flawed and is still very, very primitive in the grand scheme of things. whilst the technology may have had advanced, our moral ethics and knowledge of, have stayed pretty much as they where 75 years ago. i refuse to listen to what genetic scientists say as they are talking about something they can barely understand. bio-chemics are not the reason for the way mankind works. because scientists don't always have an answer, but they always need to, they pin their own cliche on the subject.
of course a person can choose nihilism, just as one can choose anarchism, fascism, communism etc.
to wholly put your faith in genetic science - a science that is still at its core, very primitive, is like having faith in letting an infant rewire your house.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

science has also proved that all black people are more intelligent than caucasians, that people who have Jewish features are stupid, that being fat has absolutely nothing to do with eating or exercise, that children are only naughty if they have a chemical deficiency, that arsenic is not poisonous, that bumblebees cannot fly, that evolution exists, that evolution does not exist, that Hitler's diaries are genuine and fake, and that Atlantis was actually landbound..... oh, and that humans and chimps should be able to produce a viable hybrid while a labrador and an alsatian can't.....

Science also has proven that chiness people are smarter then both black and white.I have no idea why?JMsmartass

big gay kirk, please get your sources for this ridiculous post in order - you are talking absolute crap and you know it.

Philo. Kirk is just making the point that science, like stats, can prove just about anything if they so desire. It may not be irrefutable, but it'll be enough for some to believe.

exactly.

"do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law..."

Ok, but if science can proof anything it wants, that rule goes for everyone - everyone can proof anything then, which comes down to the meaninglessness of 'proof'. At least, anyone can prove anything to someone who will believe it.

But science invented many great technologies that we use today....the computers and internet capabilities we take part in for instance - so we can't just shoot down the whole of science while we use the product of its endeavors.

I think you just made his point. Though I do not want to speak for him, I believe his point is that science is a double edged sword.

Well, a double edged sword is quite powerfull, isn't it?

not, apparently, as mighty as the pen....

as mighty as the pen - what bullshit! A sword can cut a pen in half and a person holding a sword to the throught of a person with a pen in his hand can tell that person to write whatever he dictates!

Physically, a guy with a sword will kick the ass of the guy holding a ballpoint.

Ideologically, weapons are an means to an end, but it is words that shape history, it is with words that revolutions are started.

Personally, I believe that the will of a passionate man is more powerful than either.

Revolutions can be started by words, but not carried out by them - for that you'll need a weapon to physically destroy the status quo. Just look at history: all great revolutions have come from violent behaviour, nothing passive ore merely passionate, but passion with the vehicle of agression. Nature sustains itself by killing and devouring - only the strong and aggressive will survive and create change.

Tell that to Martin Luther King and Ghandi, no violence, lots of change.

Violence is one way; endeavored to the succession of peace.

Those two made feeble changes of which the goodness or value of the changes they affected can be questioned.

Ah, and the arrogance surfaces again.

Feeble changes? Those men changed the world and peoples belief structures. If someone said that your lord and saviour Nietzche made feeble changes you would have a hissy fit.

Remember that your opinion is your own and not absolute.

Nietzsche is not my lord and saviour, I have my own philosophy, but I do admire his ideas a lot.

Ghandi and Martin Luther King did not change the world, but metrely some people's 'worlds'. If they really did change the world litterally the whole world would've been thinking the way they did - and that's not the case. I was not changed by them, only the minds(?) of the masses were changed by them, for only fools could've been fooled by them.

Philo, you hide your narrow little mind behind the grande curtain of philosphy.

Ghandi and Martin Luther King did in fact change the world by changing many's perceptions and beliefs. And the actions of those they affected dictated further change.

"If they really did change the world litterally the whole world would've been thinking the way they did - and that's not the case." That is a very small minded and niave approach to global politics and cultural belief systems.

"I was not changed by them, only the minds(?) of the masses were changed by them, for only fools could've been fooled by them."

As you often say foolish things, I have to disagree with you, in fact, it was the foolish who discounted their teachings and sought to take refuge in their closesd minds.

Peter Griffin: You know Chris, your great great uncle was a philosopher. The great Osiahs Griffin.

*Flashback sees Osiahs sitting thoughtfully*

Osiah's Wife: When are you going to go get a job?

*Osiahs extends arm in a monumental way*

Osiahs: Whyyy?

-AC

that's the best joke every alpha!!!

you completely miss my point.

a man with a pen on the other side of the world could destroy the sword weilding kensai just by writing. he wouldn't even have to see him....

think about it. think deep and expand your mind. it will make perfect sense.

Exactly how will his writing have an effect of destroying the wielder?

i begrudge giving you a clue but i will.

what could he be writing?