Nihilism and Atheism

[Mystic_Banana]

No, you’re not following. I’m not claiming that “consequence isn’t somethign that in reality is our concern.” Obviously we take consequences of actions into account. I’m saying that the consequences we take into account are the ones that pertain to the span of our lives, or – when we think “big picture” – the span of the human race.

The fact that the universe will one day be a cold and desolate place with no trace of life and absolutely no sign that we have ever been here has nothing to do with the fact that I, at the moment, prefer to live in a nice comfortable society and want to do everything I can to work for it.

But it still gives you no reason think it matters whether you get in the morning, does it? Personal feelings is are not logical impetus - at this level, they become little more than unthinking inclinations, don’t they?

Perhaps this example will help: my car has a value to me now, but will one day be scrap metal, and then one day there will be absolutely nothing left of it, not even a trace that it existed. But that has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t want it to get dented while I own it!

When I think about my car, I take into account consequences that pertain to the span of its existence as a car.

It would be utterly ridiculous to say, “Well, one day my car is going to be gone, so I won’t bother to prevent it from getting dents right now.” It is equally ridiculous to say that “Well, one day the universe as we know it will be gone, so I won’t bother to work for the pleasant society that I want right now.”

Is probably a better example than any of the illogic of temporary concerns! The dent in your car wil have no negative result on you unless you want to sell it before it fails to be saleable as a vehicle. It’s value for sale will effect you financially when you sell it. The amount of money you have will serve to buy you new things, save cash, perhaps towards your pension… your pension will allow you money to live when you are not working, up until death. And when you die, the chain of events, indeed all chains of events, will not have effected you at all, or anybody else when they die, making all these efforts essentially fruitless for anybody at a point you know will occur in the future. Even casting this causal flow across teh big picture of humanity, or the big party, leaves zilch result in the end without some form of perpetuity

So, ignoring that, you are recognizing the flow of causality and consequence, basing your values around that, but ignoring the logical conclusion of all of that, which, within your conception of existence, renders all of your values valueless

It is if you’re not a loony killer. Having zero inclination to do something is a pretty good reason not to do it.

Or do you regularly go around doing things that you’re not inclined to do? (Note that I’m using “inclined” broadly here. You might not love your job, but you’re “inclined” to earn a living in one way or another. You might not want to pay your taxes, but you’re “inclined” to contribute like a good citizen, for one reason or another. Everything you do is a product of your inclinations, including the fact that you don’t go around killing people like a loony killer. All of this is totally unrelated to the question of whether there’s life after death or whether there’s a “meaning” to life)

The inclination to earn money, and inclination to work are 2 different things, as is the urge to have money. Everything you do is a matter of value, according to the way you percieve them, but doing something which does not bear benefit results in you valuing things wrongly… you can value something, but it does not neccesarily mean it actually has value to you. All which rather pressingly relates to the issue of whether or not there is life after death or not, the nature of existence on general etc.

It doesn’t matter. The point is that we want to live “fulfilled” lives (whatever we consider that to be) and that we want to prevent people we care about from dying if we can prevent it. Whether it “matters” in some abstract, cosmic way has absolutely no effect on my desire to not kill people and live a fulfilled life. And if your only reason for not killing people and for trying to live a fulfilled life is that you have some cosmic notion of “purpose,” then I think you have a really lousy reason for wanting to do those things.

Seriously, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I prove to you that there is no objective meaning to the universe. What exactly would you do differently from that day on?

I submit that your life would be entirely the same, and if that’s not the case, then that’s very sad for you.

I’d say it would be rather radically different,.as would yours for you if you believed differently… or do you really think what we believe has no effect on how we act?

So the laws are working, then. Good.

As to the specific people that you know, my only response is that you should probably try to hang out with better people. No wonder you have such a low opinion of people – the people you know sound like dummies.

They’re the ones who didn’t try and get by what, for them, was simply an obstacle to getting what they want! The ones who didn’t are presumably (hopefully) locked away…

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Last bit (post too long)

Can you give me an example of what you mean and how you know that it isn’t “physical of nature”?

If you think that the “actual state of things” is that “this experience isn’t 'physical of nature,” then you would need to verify that that is the case in order to say that it’s true. If you can’t verify it, on what grounds do you claim it’s the “actual state of things”?

I claim to have the same degree of absolute knowledge as any reasonable person - i.e. very little, but I can see little sense in expecting a physical explanation from apparently nonphysical phenomena, unless evidence to the contrary strongly drives me to such conclusion

Without dogma!

 

[Syntax]

I’m saying that “the devil is divided and complicated” does not imply that these qualities are from the devil or that he somehow produces things possessing these qualities. The qualities are merely of the devil.

We’ve already been over this. NO ONE said something being divided and complicated logically implies that it comes from the devil. It’s the other way around. You must not be understanding how conditionals work.

Yes, and unless otherwise stated, it can be very difficult to tell which is being used at a given time. That’s one reason why I prefer to use first-order logic if I’m forced to formalize an argument (we can show each usage quite distinctively in first-order logic).

Sure. That’s all I was saying. However, you clearly said the problem was in the “logical symbolism” we use to formalize statements because you thought logic will sometimes evaporate linguistic meaning…and I said this is clearly false because you didn’t understand how symbolic logic worked.

Modal logic might also help my Klyne argument, because even though “Klyne is mad” does imply that “if a thing is not mad, then it is not Klyne,” we don’t mean to convey that mad-ness is a necessary quality (or an essential quality, as Aristotelians might call it) of Klyne-ness. That is, -]we know that /-]a thing may be Klyne whether or not it is mad. I think you’ll agree that Aristotelian syllogisms work best with static qualities, not qualities that can simply come and go [huh?? How so? Aristotle believed there existed contingent changeable qualities as well as essential qualities of objects too. So what are you trying to say here?]

The first part makes sense, but I am not sure what you’re driving at here with respect to Aristotle.

I admit that you have this point: I was wrong about saying that Aristotelian logic uses identity statements. That should have been an assertion about propositional logic in general.

Quite honestly I am not enough an Aristotle scholar to be able to say how he treated identity statements. But I am sure he finds nothing problematic with them. Aristotle’s innovation just consisted in pointing out the various features contained in Categorical Syllogistic kinds of arguments, but I’m quite sure he didn’t reject the notion of logical identity. In fact, his philosophy would have to presuppose logical identity to make it work in first place.

Okay, but o_mlly’s formulation of his/her initial “argument” into conditional statements failed to show this. “The devil is divided and complicated” does not imply that all that originates from the devil is also divided and complicated any more than “the water appears blue” implies that all things originating from that water will appear blue

.
This is a very inaccurate comparision. The statement about divided and *complicated *qualities flowing from the devil is very plausibly true because of the devil’s essence. The statement that “Water is blue, therefore everything flowing from water is blue” is just silly because Water itself isn’t even “blue.”

You don’t believe that logic suffers from the inherent ambiguity of language? Do you really want to commit yourself to that position?

Absolutely! But logic only applies to **assertive **linguistic statements, not to such things as linguistic imperatives as in “Get me a beer,” or in **speech acts **such as “I promise to marry you.” Of course logic cannot formalize these kinds of linguistic utterances. But that shouldn’t be problematic for logic because these linguistic utterances are not making any claims about the world that have a truth-value.

I’ve already said that the ambiguity surrounds the complications created by people’s sloppy use of natural language when they make assertive linguistic statements that are intended to have a truth-value. But logic is simple and helps clarify what people are trying to say. Time and again, someone will try to formulate a statement that ends up sounding convoluted, and when you clarify his intended statement with logic, he will too often say, “Yes, THAT’S what I meant!”

Suppose there were incompatibilities between logic and natural language (which there clearly isn’t). Tell me, Oreo, where are you going to locate the fault? In logic, or in natural language? And tell me, how would you go about deciding this, and for what reasons *would *you decide this?

 

[Syntax]

o_mlly;6352395:

Oreoracle;6352234:

It was intended to be taken as a universal, like the proposition “A triangle is a three-sided polygon.” As you know, all syllogisms are meant to begin with universal propositions. We can’t make an inference from two particulars. Have some more confidence in my ability, please.

Sorry, I took you, so to speak at your word.
indefinite article
n 1: a determiner (as a' or some’ in English) that indicates
nonspecific reference
I did, you must allow, continue my post with accepting your Premise 1 as a universal indicating that what follows is logical but, in deference to Klyne, indicated Premise 2 may be challenged. And if she succeeds to prove Premise 2 false, then necessarily its contrapositive is also false.Granted, Klyne did tell me that she was mad, so if (2) is false, then either her honesty or her ability to decipher her own mood is also in question. (The latter would cause us to have a very obscure opinion of how emotions work, I imagine.) Nothing’s wrong with your logic, I just think that making the premise into a conditional gives us the false impression that being Klyne entails being mad. I’m sure we would agree that Klyne is Klyne whether or not she is mad, so “if a thing is not mad, it is not Klyne” is misleading. It holds true temporarily, but once Klyne ceases to be angry, she is still Klyne, mad or not. That’s why these syllogisms work better with static or “essential” properties rather than personality traits or moods.

Why are you guys still arguing this trivial point about ambiguous examples? Can we just agree that o_mlly meant:

(1) If something X comes from the devil, then X is divided and complicated

and

(2) If X is not divided and complicated, then X does not comes from the devil.

This seems to be the most accurate formulation I can gather from what o_mlly is trying to say. Is that whay you’re trying to say, o_mlly?

If you guys made explict reference to the exact claim that is being disputed here rather than arguing over irrelevant ambiguous examples, you might resolve the situation much quicker. Just some advice…

 

[AntiTheist]

You are starting to try my patience now. We’re operating under different definitions of “value,” so unless you acknowledge that, our conversation is going to continue to go in circles:

you are recognizing the flow of causality and consequence, basing your values around that, but ignoring the logical conclusion of all of that, which, within your conception of existence, renders all of your values valueless

It renders those values valueless then. Right now, those values have whatever value we assign to them because that’s what value is – the importance that individuals place on things right now.

You and I appear to be using different definitions of “value” – I don’t require something to magically last forever and ever and ever for it to be important to me. If you do, like I said, I think that’s kind of sad.

I’d say it would be rather radically different

So tell me, specifically, what you would do differently if I managed to convince you that there is no objective meaning to the universe. Specifically.

I can see little sense in expecting a physical explanation from apparently nonphysical phenomena, unless evidence to the contrary strongly drives me to such conclusion

I asked you for an example of something “not physical of nature” and how you know that it’s not “physical of nature.” A specific example of what you’re talking about.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

You are starting to try my patience now. We’re operating under different definitions of “value,” so unless you acknowledge that, our conversation is going to continue to go in circles:

Worth, desirability or utility.

From some investment dictionary, apparently! Seems to fit the idea

It renders those values valueless then. Right now, those values have whatever value we assign to them because that’s what value is – the importance that individuals place on things right now.

You and I appear to be using different definitions of “value” – I don’t require something to magically last forever and ever and ever for it to be important to me. If you do, like I said, I think that’s kind of sad.

It would be more accurate to say renders those evaluations obsolete. I’d say, you do need something to ‘magically’ last forever for it to be important to you - it’s just that you can’t admit that to yourself, and have convinced yourself that that without value according to your interpretation of reality has value to you, because intuitively speaking you feel that it does, but you comprehensively fail to justify how that could be, logically speaking

So tell me, specifically, what you would do differently if I managed to convince you that there is no objective meaning to the universe. Specifically.

Anyway, I’m not sure we’re talking about ‘objective meaning of the universe’ - we’re talking reasonable state of being in which activity in life can have permanent meaningful effect. To which the answer is, well, it wouldn’t really matter, would it? Probably not care enough about it to argue on bulletin boards like this, for one!

I asked you for an example of something “not physical of nature” and how you know that it’s not “physical of nature.” A specific example of what you’re talking about.

Ooh, I don’t know - say, 1000 people see ghosts, divided across every continent, without necesarily any apparent fashion of knowing that a ghost is something that has been seen before - why doubt that ghosts exist?

 

[AntiTheist]

Worth, desirability or utility.

Ok. So, for whatever reason I had, it was valuable to me – i.e. desirable to me – for me to get out of bed this morning. Whether there’s life after death or not, it would still be desirable to me to get out of bed in the morning.

It would be more accurate to say renders those evaluations obsolete.

Ok, sure. So when I’m dead, the value that I placed on friendship, for example, will be obsolete at that time. But I’m not dead now. I’m alive, and my evaluation is not obsolete. It’s very relevant to my life.

Now, I asked you a question about how specifically you would act differently if you thought that there was no objective meaning to the universe. How would you act differently? I’m really curious.

I’d say, you do need something to ‘magically’ last forever for it to be important to you - it’s just that you can’t admit that to yourself, and have convinced yourself that that without value according to your interpretation of reality has value to you, because intuitively speaking you feel that it does, but you comprehensively fail to justify how that could be, logically speaking

Well, there’s the problem right there. You think I have to “logically justify” how something can have value. I don’t – when I say that something has “value” to me, I mean nothing more than that I subjectively place value upon it. It doesn’t need to be “justified” in any way.

Again, this comes right back to our different definitions of value.

Anyway, I’m not sure we’re talking about ‘objective meaning of the universe’ - we’re talking reasonable state of being in which activity in life can have permanent meaningful effect. To which the answer is, well, it wouldn’t really matter, would it? Probably not care enough about it to argue on bulletin boards like this, for one!

This is even harder to read than the last bit I quoted. English, please.

Ooh, I don’t know - say, 1000 people see ghosts, divided across every continent, without necesarily any apparent fashion of knowing that a ghost is something that has been seen before - why doubt that ghosts exist?

Are you seriously saying that ghosts are real because lots of people claim to see them? How about UFOs? Bigfoot? The Loch Ness Monster? Leprechauns? Where exactly do you draw the line?

If you honestly think that a bunch of anecdotal accounts can establish the existence of legendary creatures, then we’re wasting our time talking about more serious issues like “value.”

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Well, there’s the problem right there. You think I have to “logically justify” how something can have value. I don’t – when I say that something has “value” to me, I mean nothing more than that I subjectively place value upon it. It doesn’t need to be “justified” in any way.

Again, this comes right back to our different definitions of value.

We’d be better talking in terms of desire and worth. Your justification, as far as I can tell, is entirely based on desire, and mine on worth

This is even harder to read than the last bit I quoted. English, please.

If you’re can’t be bothered trying to understand it, don’t blame me! Essential bit for those with short attention spans: “I don’t think I’d bother arguing on internet forums, for one!”

Are you seriously saying that ghosts are real because lots of people claim to see them? How about UFOs? Bigfoot? The Loch Ness Monster? Leprechauns? Where exactly do you draw the line? If you honestly think that a bunch of anecdotal accounts can establish the existence of legendary creatures, then we’re wasting our time talking about more serious issues like “value.”

I’m saying there is sufficient evidence to believe ghosts probably do exist, given the number of times they’ve been seen. Why not? The others, since they’re all within the realms of apparent physicality, are outside the remit I clearly propose. Belittling such repetitious and widespread experience as ghosts to being ‘a bunch of anecdotes’ is simply disingenuous