The Universe is so vast. So much space, most of it with only the barest wisp of gas. Most of the solar systems we see in the night sky may not have life (we don't know yet). And yet here we are, a rare event in a vast Universe.
In the end it doesn't matter what you do. What you accomplish or did not accomplish. What awards were won or lost, life goals achieved or not.
Everything you can see (including the stars in the sky), everything you have ever heard about will be less than dust at some point in the far future. No statues will survive, no history books, no songs of glory. The stars will wink out, the galaxies red-shift past the point of visibility as they rush away from us. It will eventually be a vast, empty and quiet expanse, as the last of the black holes slowly evaporate.
But right here, right now, you are alive and able to experience the Universe. Yes, you may be in a shitty situation now, but you are still alive and you still have possibilities to experience something wonderful. It won't last, it never lasts, but that isn't the point. We all have to appreciate what we do have, when we have it.
Some people are in truly shitty situations, and legitimately have no way out, with no possible means to create even a little happiness for themselves. But for everyone else thinking of ending things prematurely, I urge you to consider how rare and precious you are. If you can give even a little kindness to someone else, it will have been worth it, because that's all that really matters, on our journey to infinity.
There will always be a place in the universe where she's alive and happy. A place that I'll probably never be able to visit but still is immensely comforting knowing it exists.
I guess that's my version of a secular afterlife. Not entirely comforting as all the moments of suffering still exist too, somewhere. But still, it means there's a permanence to even the most impermanent things.
I've become a big believer in this view. A valuable upshot of embracing eternalism is that it makes it much easier not to regret the past or worry about the future, though some believe it encourages risky behavior.
What is not clear to me however is whether a block universe view can still be correct even if non-determinism is true.
I'm not certain if there's a name for it. I figure it's a form of pantheism.
For me, certainly, it's the only thing which makes sense.
You might like the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, which I probably misspelled.
I tend to turn this type of thinking on its head. Nothing matters, so relax, it's a ride. Take a few gambles, risk whatever you're willing to lose and see what you can pull off! Life can be wild if you're not caught up in the stuffy pretense that we all have some grand purpose or destiny. Honestly, at this point I'm convinced that conventional thinking on this topic is more or less a trap to keep people from exploring and having adventures, so that they're better servants to the elites of our world.
I don't see how. Nihilism is descriptive whereas hedonism is prescriptive.
Nihilism is an answer to the question of what is or is not, to which is says, "not at all". That's why there are many flavors of nihilism, such as existential nihilism ("there is no meaning at all"), moral nihilism ("there is no morality at all"), or epistemic nihilism ("there is no knowledge at all").
Contrast hedonism, which is an answer to the question of what one ought to do with one's time, or to put another way, it's a min-max strategy where pain is minimized and pleasure is maximized.
I don't see how those two areas of philosophy contradict each other in any way.
> I want science to give us a sense of wonder. There is this great line from the film Contact that I think Jodie Foster delivers, along the lines of "the universe is so large and we are so small and therefore insignificant, but also incredibly precious." Most of the matter and energy content in the universe is dark matter and dark energy. And therefore what we can see — stars, us — we are what's abnormal about the universe, and we are therefore incredibly precious. So I think that there's something really majestic about being able to situate ourselves in context of this incredible thing that is the universe.
(apologies, this is probably only a free listen in Canada) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/mar-27-covid-pandemic-origin...
Without observers, the universe would be completely without meaning. We are the most significant thing out there. We make it interesting, by being interested.
But I don't think we should base our life on any 1 particular ideology because of the possibility of us being wrong. Imagine someone basing their entire life on 1 particular ideology , and it turns out that they were simply wrong. The sunk-cost fallacy would be unbelievable.
This is true in the biggest sense of the word. But it's also false. We all have things that matter to us and the various communities that we belong to. In some ways, to me anyway, it's very liberating: life as a blank canvas to imbue it with the meaning we want on.
That won't resonate with everyone or even most people, but it's motivating for me.
Life has no meaning, but it has meaning to us, and we can, in a way, choose what we want it to mean. I agree, I find this perspective very liberating and positive, but I can see how some people might find it bleak.
To many of us, that is horribly demoralizing.
First, from the perspective of "the universe", the very concept of meaning is meaningless (sorry, no pun intended). From THAT perspective, Stalin or Pol Pot or Hitler or Djenghis Khan killing millions of people is no more or less meaningful or morally good or bad than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
But you and I are not "the universe". Nor is any other human being. To us, it DOES matter, a lot, what choices Stalin, Djenghis Khan or Napoleon make. As well as the choices you and I make, every minute of every day.
From a cosmological perspective, life is quite likely nothing more than a chemical curiosity. From our perspective, it is pretty much everything. The sun doesn't care if you are happy or sad or angry or scared. It cannot care (at least as far as we know). I can. So can anyone else who is reading this.
Ethics, I am trying to say, does not exist outside ourselves the way gravity or time does. But to us, it is just as real, maybe even more real, than any force of nature. This is what makes us human.
I still don't see why Stalin, Pol Pot, and company don't get to decide that they value mass murder to achieve their personal goals, in absentia transcendence.
I find their choices appalling, but it seems they did not.
It's the meaning they chose to make in their life.
If that's their code of ethics, and those ethics exist solely inside our heads, then there's nothing to be said beyond "I hate that," as far as I can see.
I can make that basis arbitrary (because I don't like their names), or I can ground it in appeals to things that people value widely. One can get lost in the idea that things are meaningless on a purely narrative/mental basis, but you're embedded in a biological matrix that will very likely re-orient you on the idea that some things matter if you pay attention to it. If nothing else, everyone acts as if suffering matters and acts to reduce it personally and in their close circles, so that's a pretty solid baseline to engage. There are questions about what it means to reduce suffering and perhaps even people like Stalin thought they were reducing it, but once you've agreed that reducing suffering is meaningful then you have a standard and can talk in terms of observed results and dynamics around it.
It's "do what you want", at the end of the day.
> you have no legitimate way to argue to them that they should
> There's no shared basis I can legitimately use to argue with them
> you could not legitimately argue to them that their choices are wrong, philosophically speaking
But you're not answering these questions: Which values are included in that shared basis? Where do those values come from? How do we know that those values are correct?
The idea that values are arbitrary isn't saying you can't criticize other people's values. It's acknowledging that you don't have some authoritative source of ethics. How do you try to convince people that something is worthwhile or wrong? Do you appeal to this authority of ethics, or are you making some other argument?
They don't have to listen, though. Maybe their values even dictate that they shouldn't.
You're right that I'm not answering a lot of questions about my own perspective. I wasn't trying to explain my views.
I was trying to explain why many humans are not at all comforted by this "choose your own values" system.
In my case, it produces nihilistic horror, and this is one of the reasons.
I'm not saying a shared basis for ethics must exist.
I'm saying that if one doesn't, there's no basis for arguing that someone else's ethics are wrong.
All you can legitimately say is "I don't like that."
It comes down to "ethics" by mob rule and democracy.
> I was trying to explain why many humans are not at all comforted by this "choose your own values" system.
> there's nothing to be said beyond "I hate that," as far as I can see.
> I'm saying that if one doesn't, there's no basis for arguing that someone else's ethics are wrong.
This makes sense. You aren't saying that people won't condemn Stalin's and Kim's action. You're not saying that you or others couldn't be wrong about condemning those two. You're saying: how can anyone judge anyone else if there isn't some objective source of morality?
I dunno though, this seems very juvenile. Are you really saying that there's no way for people to condemn killing if there isn't some objective morality? How would you even be confident that killing is objectively wrong? I'd rather acknowledge that I can change my morals based on good arguments and reasoning. Saying that morals are objective or subjective doesn't really matter to individuals if we can't know for certain what the objective moral guidelines are. We should always consider whether our ethical guidelines are actually good or if they're doing harm.
> It comes down to "ethics" by mob rule and democracy
You don't have to agree with the majority with your own ethical beliefs. Sometimes being in the minority is a signal that your own reasoning is faulty and you should listen to others, and sometimes it's because other people aren't thinking ethically.
> Are you really saying that there's no way for people to condemn killing if there isn't some objective morality? How would you even be confident that killing is objectively wrong?
People can absolutely condemn killing for any reason they like.
When I'm reasoning from the framework of materialist humanism, I don't see any reason killing is objectively wrong. I see no basis for any objective moral statements at all from this perspective.
If there is no transcendence, nothing outside of our heads that actually defines what good is, then I see no basis for saying anything is "right" or "wrong".
Put another way, "right" and "wrong" become synonyms for "liked" and "disliked".
> Saying that morals are objective or subjective doesn't really matter to individuals if we can't know for certain what the objective moral guidelines are.
I think I disagree.
Certainty is something it's very hard for a human mind to have legitimately.
You can still sometimes piece things together enough to have confidence, though.
If we agree that there is such a thing as objectively right and wrong behavior, we can engage in discussion, research, thinking, and debate which may bring us closer to a shared understanding of what that good might be.
If morals are subjective, then you can still have that debate, but there's no basis for it nor a real reason to have it. It boils down to arguing about what the people involved like, as far as I can see, which doesn't really make sense to me.
This could just be my perspective preventing me from understanding what you're getting at.
1) What's the point of discussing ethical matters if they're not objective?
2) We can objectively discover what's morally "good".
3) We lose legitimacy making ethical judgments if moral values aren't objective.
(1) There is a lot of value and objectivity in ethical discussions even if there are no objective moral values.
Why would there be no reason to discuss ethics if moral values are subjective? You can discuss all of the factors influencing an ethical judgement with people who don't share your ethical values. You can also change your judgement of an action without changing your ethical values because your understanding of the situation can change.
You are asking whether killing is objectively wrong. This is an incomplete question. What does it even mean to "kill" someone? Stalin's political executions directly killed people, but can we also blame him for the deaths from malnourishment? What if the killing is accidental? When you say that killing is wrong, you have to first define what you even mean. Discussion will help you decide what the ethical value even is.
Secondly, would killing being objectively wrong mean that every action involving killing is wrong? Is it wrong for soldiers to fight in wars? Is it wrong to kill someone in self-defense? What if you only thought it was in self-defense? Every situation is technically unique and *relative* to the situation. Discussion will help you decide which ethical values are involved in each situation.
You can have an objectively wrong ethical judgement of actions even if values are subjective. You can be objectively wrong about the consequences of different actions. You can be objectively wrong in applying your values.
(2) Whether there are objective moral values depends on what you define as a moral value.
Everything I discussed in (1) concerns objective reasons we can base ethical judgements on. Note that everything I discussed were possible contributing factors in our ethical judgment. These are objective outcomes of our actions, and we can legitimately base our ethical judgment on any of these outcomes. These are all statements about what "is" true. When we are making a value judgment though, we are asking what "should" happen.
To make this clearer, let's assume that we can objectively decide which outcomes we "should" aim for. We can objectively say that it's bad when people die, and we can objectively say that it's bad to steal from others. What happens when these values come into conflict? What if someone is going to die if they don't steal food from a shop? You have to compare different ethical values against each other when you decide what "should" happen. Each ethical decision depends on how things are ethically values _relative_ to other ethical values. I can't think of any _absolute_ ethical values because there can always be a more important ethical value.
This is why I don't think we can objectively ethically value things. I don't know of an objective way to compare ethical values. I don't know of an objective way to say you "should" prefer one value over another. You can objectively say this action will result in these outcomes which seem good or bad, but those are also ethical value which also need to be compared to each other. This definition of a moral good, as something you "should" do, makes it incompatible with objectivity to me. We can objectively discover what "is" objectively true about the world because we can observe things which "are". I don't know how to observe what "should" happen, so I have to conclude that values come from us individuals and are thus subjective.
I should note that there are some actions which I think are very obviously bad. We can objectively list all of the bad parts which contribute to the entire action have it be obvious to most people that the action was morally wrong. I'm saying that "obviously bad" is different from "objectively bad", even though they are very close in practice.
(3) You're right that we lose the type of legitimacy which you're arguing for. However, I think that you're making the alternative to objective ethics worse than I think they are.
To start with, where are we using objective ethics? We use ethics to decide how we should behave and how others should behave. What you're saying is that you can tell other people how to behave because there is some objective source of morals backing you up. I can believe there are objectively outcomes of actions which seem bad. But, I don't know what outside of our heads can be telling us what we "should" and "shouldn't" do. Without some external source, it seems like our morals must be internal.
So why do we need to be objectively correct to ethically judge others? I feel okay saying that it seems bad to kill a lot of people unnecessarily and we should try to prevent people from killing others. I don't feel the need to say that killing people is objectively wrong, I feel okay saying it is obviously wrong and we should work together to prevent it. I think that it keeps us humble to realize that we are ultimately the ones deciding the morality of our actions.
I'm saying you could not legitimately argue to them that their choices are wrong, philosophically speaking.
You can say "tons of us hate this", but that doesn't get you much of a leg to stand on, really.
They still get to choose what they want their meaning to be, and if it's in violent conflict with yours, there's nothing further to be done but avoid each other and fight when the situation and your respective values make it unavoidable.
Of course they do! If your parents were killed by Stalin you probably have an opinion one way or the other. That is exactly what this thread is talking about.
There's no shared basis I can legitimately use to argue with them, though, if they don't happen to share my chosen values.
More and more, I have come to think that debates are better for convincing undecided bystanders than convincing the other person you're debating with. At least for arguments or debates held online or in a public space.
One-on-one you might be able to show someone a new value system if they're willing to sit down and talk about it, though.
It's a branch, kinda of absurdist. Nothing matters, nothing ever has, but that's liberating, just enjoy and make the most of what comes.
If you really want to drive this home, genealogy very quickly shows you how entire families ends up reduced to at most a few lines in archives. The proportion of people who ends up leaving anything of note beyond birth, marriage and death record is minuscule. Even an obituary in a paper is rare at scale.
Even most of those who left something behind are all mostly forgotten. E.g. most old novels are rarely if ever read (most new novels are rarely read). The proportion of even the people who are famous today who will be remembered 100 years from now is tiny - if you go back and read old newspapers, the number of people who were famous in their day you'd recognise the names of are a tiny little fraction.
One can choose to be depressed about that, are accept that measuring our lives based on whether we'll be remembered is pointless.
“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” — Banksy
That idea has been around a lot longer than Banksy, but I disagree. Just because you're not directly recorded in great detail, doesn't mean you didn't have some influence on the world around you. We all contribute in some small way, and our influence spreads out like ripples in a pond.
I like how John Donne said it:
"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
I think live a good life, treat others well, try to leave things a little better off than you found them, and enjoy the short time you have. We waste time on so many things that don't matter and don't bring us joy - as if we had infinite time, but we don't.
The student approaches their master lamenting the meaninglessness of everything.
The master, "Super Mario bros is pretty fun".
Enlightenment ensues.
Life after enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.
Basically, you can't say that the value of every moment depends entirely on the value of future moments, that just prevents the actualization of any value. The present has to count for something.
Either way, my point was that if your goal is to leave a permanent, meaningful mark on the universe, first, that's borderline delusional, second, the actualization of the goal is basically infinitely far in the future. Personally I'd rather pursue goals that can be achieved within my lifetime and aren't some crazy improper integral over the lifetime of the universe...
You would, for a time, and then you would get used to it. People in the past used to struggle to find food. Today almost everyone in the first world countries can eat as much as they'd like, but do we wake up happy and grateful because we have food? I do agree that not all of our happiness comes from moving towards goals in the future, but a lot of it does.
> Personally I'd rather pursue goals that can be achieved within my lifetime and aren't some crazy improper integral over the lifetime of the universe...
Me too, but I don't think that you have to choose. Even if you have some less realistic goals, it's still better to focus on the immediate problems.
I don't understand this reasoning. If the universe had a different end state, or if it collapsed in on itself only to erupt again, would that make any difference to the meaning of your life or that of our civilization? Probably not, because things still end.
It seems to me that you'd arrive at this conclusion of meaninglessness in any case. The thing is, while the universe may not care, there are many things we as humans do care about. They have meaning because we give them meaning. Isn't that liberating?
Liberating from what? There being some objective or higher meaning to it all? Would that be oppressive?
While I agree that we give things meaning, it's all rather arbitrary and empty to think about it that way.
To be ascribed one authoritative meaning and purpose from outside is probably the definition of totalitarian oppression, yes. You may argue that it's oppression in a delightful state of bliss, or that you much prefer a life on rails. That's hard to argue against, because it's a matter of personal preference. But if you would prefer there to be an external authority who imbues meaning, what in turn then gives meaning to that authority?
> While I agree that we give things meaning, it's all rather arbitrary and empty to think about it that way.
Again, only if you feel it's empty. Then: yes, it is. To me it doesn't feel that way, so to me it isn't. It feels vast and full of possibilities. And also sad that we're such primitive creatures with such short and hard lives. I'd rather I was born in a few hundred years to better take advantage of the opportunities of existence.
Whether life has meaning, whether it needs to have meaning, or even whether the meaning of life is predicated on influencing the universe is up to you to determine.
If you asked 10 philosophers and religious leaders about the meaning of life, you'd probably get 100 different answers ranging from "seeking knowledge", "enjoying life", "serving [god or supernatural force]", "making others happy", to "there is no meaning".
My thoughts are that the formulation assumes the perspective of an observer outside of the system, treating the system as a sort of black box, waiting for the system to produce some sort of signal. And because our current understanding of heat death means that the "signal" will always be something indistinguishably meaningless, the outside observer (who cannot inspect the inner workings of the system) is free assume that, from their perspective, nothing of meaning occurred inside the system.
But even if we assume the above to be true, this is still compatible with an alternative interpretation: from the perspective of an observer inside the system, we may distinguish differences in the system and may find meaning in those differences. Although that's "may find meaning", not "will find meaning"; determining the meaning of one's existence is intensely personal. However, given the above axiom, I don't believe it precludes finding meaning.
This is so weird to think that for most of its life the universe will be empty and cold. Like what's even the point of all this, of life, of us, if in the end nothing matters, everything decays into nothingness.