Don't resist clarifying your ideas. If you actually think these assertions are correct, then give a definition of your ideas and make this argument. I'm not interested in a reference to another philosopher or you treating ideas with a similar emotional valence as if they are the same. Stop attempting rhetoric-based appeals and use logic to make your case.

You personalize these arguments too much. You say here that our disagreement is derived from your inability to understand how someone can both believe that meaning derives from humans rather than a god and believe that intelligence that isn't used for a purpose is wasted. Huh? You are just describing your own confusion about how I can believe p and q, not identifying an actual claim about which we disagree. I don't share your confusion about this, nor am I arguing about whether or not you should be confused. I don't have such an overweening view of my own intelligence or intelligence in general as you do, but I'm also not that interested in arguing about it. Rather, I've been arguing that the kind of meaning we can derive from our own actions here on earth, regardless of what happens millions of years in the future or in other galaxies, is enough to give us satisfying and happy lives. Do you disagree? If so, why? If not, then why are you using this generic nihilism as the reason for your own unhappiness?

The point is to have fun and make sure anyone you're around has fun too. Anything else is garbage.

We haven't considered the Eastern perspective on meaning.

In much of Hinduism and Buddhism meaning is only to be understood or realised through action, not contemplation. I will provide two commonly used examples:

You cannot understand what 'balance' is purely from reading about it or applying your intelligence. Rather, you understand it by learning how to ride a bicycle, for example; through action, experimention and engagement with the world. This is the same as being unable to truly understand lust without having ever been engaged in sexual activity.

To get meaning out of the world, we don't contemplate first; we first jump in, experience as much as we can, experiment and then perhaps contemplate. The key point here is that intelligence hardly need come into the picture at all, to get meaning out of the world.

Regarding mrcnkwcz’s situation: As we progress along the path toward meaning, what we have to endure increases.

At the beginning, we have to take on ‘loss’. It’s the loss of the hopeful, optimistic worldview for a more truthful, darker one. Initially, the reflexive response when we get pulled into this nihilistic perspective is to escape, but for someone like mrcnkwcz, he has exercised more faith by holding on.

It’s an act of faith because why would we voluntarily burden ourselves with loss when there is no expectation of a payoff? It is actually impossible for us to act that out if we fully believe that life is meaningless and that truth is ultimately empty. It doesn’t matter how we characterize the act in our head or what we say about it. The act is judged favorably and we progress beyond this phase.

The next test is to take on ‘death’. It’s one thing to be willing to accept a flawed world. It’s another to assume the burden that on an individual level, I might be deeply flawed. This isn’t a superficial or situational judgment, but rather a judgment at the deepest level of our existence.

If this deep flaw is true, the weight of it would be unbearable, so our instinct is to suppress this entire project, reconnect with our rational intellect, disconnect from our conscience, and make the best of living in a nihilistic world. For me, the only way through this was to recognize my hypocrisy, which is an inevitability when we are disconnected from our conscience. For some reason, I could not stand my own repeated hypocrisy. This reconnected me with my conscience, and eventually I assumed the burden which allowed me to progress beyond this phase.

*I’m defining hypocrisy here as simply acting in ways that I detested from others.

Continuing..

Operating at the metaphysical level requires adherence to patterns and the fractal nature of reality. What applies to the universal also applies to the local or individual. Another way to understand it is that we can know ourselves through knowing the world and vice versa.

The path goes world -> self -> self -> world and also fall -> fall -> salvation -> salvation. So phase 1 is discovery/confrontation of the fallen world, phase 2 is discovery/confrontation of the fallen self, phase 3 is salvation of the self, and phase 4 is salvation of the world. More generally, it’s the pattern of death followed by resurrection.

We get stuck when we deviate. For instance, attempting to go from discovery of the fallen world to salvation of the world in order to save myself (1->4->3). Also, not applying the universal to the local - the rational materialist who claims the world is ultimately meaningless but there is meaning at the local level, which is a metaphysical error. This metaphysical error prevents the confrontation part of phase 1. The confrontation is where the ‘will’ comes into play.

Please do continue. Let me know when you start making sense. It is a hallmark of the 'reformed' or the 'saved' to be irrationally exuberant. I've read your last seven posts and have no idea what you're ****ing talking about. You made a lot more sense when you said you were a nihilist.

There is no way to ensure that you yourself have fun, let alone anyone else. I've been struggling with depression for 13.5 years. I know a lot more than people who could proclaim to have the 'point' according to your myopic definition--people who assuredly have fun and spread their all-too-infectious 'fun' among their comrades. This is not ideal, given that the people of whom we/you speak are absolute morons. I mean, I don't begrudge the masses their 'fun', but, you know, I'm better than that. Maybe no one else is. That they have their 'fun' is not indicative of the ultimate aim(s) of the universe; it's just indicative that people have evolved to help facilitate the procreation of their 'comrades' (as well as themselves).

There is more here..
This should be incorporated:
‘Discovery’ seems to be the bridge between ‘imprisonment’ and ‘enslavement’ and/or the enslavement stage itself. Imprisonment can be thought of as the the denial stage and enslavement as the anger stage.

‘Confrontation’ seems to be the bridge between ‘coexistence’ and ‘war’ and/or the war stage itself. For coexistence, think of people who regularly practice mindfulness, meditation, and acceptance for the purpose of tranquility.

So now there is a gap for bridging the ‘enslavement’ and ‘coexistence’ stages and/or covering the coexistence stage. ‘Neutrality’ seems to fit.

Finally, the bridge to the integration stage seems to be ‘surrender’. So this narrative:

Imprisonment -> enslavement -> coexistence -> war -> consumption/integration

Is navigated through with these actions:

Discovery/awareness (masculine) -> neutrality (feminine) -> confrontation (masculine)-> surrender (feminine)

Holding opposing mindsets (masculine/feminine) causes tension and can only be done through conscious intention. A stack of four alternating, opposing mindsets maximizes that tension. This ensures that as we progress, more effort (or more faith) will be required.

Putting it all together:

Conscious discovery of the fallen world, or the move into nihilism, is experienced with anger and frustration. Earlier in this thread, I was encouraging holding onto (or confronting) the nihilistic experience, but I was overlooking a key step. We need to first discharge (or neutralize) our impulsive anger/frustration/victimhood without turning away and losing awareness of our nihilism.

Once we can sustain that centered-ness, only then can we reach out, grab, and pull in (confront) more of the nihilism (fallen world). Eventually, there is no more nihilism to pull in. There is only a tremendous amount of tension, pressure, and effort. Surrendering is the transition from fallen world to fallen self and the pattern starts back over from the beginning.

Understand that all of this is describing an intuitive, psychological, hidden experience.

Did you misspeak here, or is this your actual practice?

Some more on the Eastern Hindu perspectives, for anyone that may be interested:

Every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected—and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. The death of the individual is not disconnection but simply withdrawal. The corpse is like a footprint or an echo—the dissolving trace of something which the Self has ceased to do.

What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained—though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.

One sees that all explicit opposites are implicit allies—correlative in the sense that they "gowith" each other and cannot exist apart. This, rather than any miasmic absorption of differences into acontinuum of ultimate goo, is the metaphysical unity underlying the world. For this unity is not mere one-ness as opposed to multiplicity, since these two terms are themselves polar. The unity, or inseparability, of one and many is therefore referred to in Vedanta philosophy as "nonduality" (advaita) to distinguish it from simple uniformity.

- Watts

I would say the best way to know something is through intuitive realization. The interpretation of these realizations often come in the form of patterns. Because intuition is often vague, if a pattern in question reliably works, then I will feel more secure in trusting that it is ‘true’. Although thinking back, this pattern recognition — specifically the patterns that were useful in guiding my actions toward meaning — predominantly occurred at the intuitive level also.

Having a practice implies (to me) a top down approach. A top down approach is only useful for the beginning of the growth process, since there is a ceiling or limit to it in the quest for meaning/truth/fulfillment. Eventually, we have to be willing to blind ourselves, becoming more reliant on conscience/intuition for guidance, if we want to continue to progress.

There is a lot in this referenced Watts so I'll only speak to the above. In the
Buddhist perspective "all is suffering" and one leaves the "wheel of life" or in consideration one attempts to not incarnate again, as in repetition. The Buddhist approach does not recognize the individual man as having an "ego" though what Watts is saying is that there is the individual man, of course ensconced with the warp and woof of cosmic grandeur.

The Buddhist sight sees an ever repetition in the cosmos, and in this the idea of "history" is not evident. The human being in evolution is not present, essentially, for an individual man does not have a "history".

Going westward we come to the Hebrew people who speak to individuals in a genesis of national evolution. Therefore there is Adam, Seth, Abraham, David, etc.... there is a "history" in this approach to the world to which is not evident in Eastern eschatology. Moses, in Genesis, again speaks to a "history' of creation.

I believe that in the Eastern approach what reincarnates is not the "ego" of a man, which is not the real but the works which has a name and escapes me.

With the "ego" a man attains a "personality" which is certainly not present in the Hindu or Buddhist approach though Buddhism is the evolutionary apotheosis of Hindu and eastern thought.

Buddhism speaks to the past which is "necessity" or an ever present plunging into Brahma .Look around you and "necessity" presents itself, the past and in our work we are involved in manifestation of the "past". and so in this eastern approach we have man steeped in the "past" and consequently there is no future for the individual who certainly does not have an "ego" .

Wrapping it up for now with respect to Buddhism, it is evident that the individual man is denied "personality" and of course "ego" and consequently an evolution of this individual being is denied. Therefore there is no future and all is vanity. Clearly in reincarnation the individual brings nothing with him to which he can call "self" or "personality".

Have to stop and return later to complete.

From the above the western approach,as intellectually apprehended, does see the individual man as having some type of personality even if it is not quite understood. This can be comprehended when searching through the annals of modern science; who does not know joules, mach, ohms, volts, decibels, farads, henrys, hertz, watts ....etc ?

Our times honor the individual by naming a scientific term for him . We look up to individuals and also , of course, look askance at the most corrupt of men. This is a salient difference between East and West , the individuality or non individuality of the human being; the personality of the individual man.

The evolution of human consciousness can offer some insight not only to mankind but the question as to the propriety of our modern individuality. Approximately 10,000 years ago we are taught of an "ice age" which in esoteric terminology corresponded with the beginnings of the post Atlantean cultural epoch. I fully realize than one may run for the hills at even mentioning this word which is mentioned in many ancient documents inclusive of the Bible , Plato, and others whom I've forgotten. If mollification is needed lets start at the "ice age".

In southern India what is known as the "Indian cultural epoch" arose as the beginnings of world cultures which led to our present times. The Indian man had a dreamy consciousness such that the external world did not have the clarity as we see it today. Colors, sounds, smells,all of the senses that we take for granted , were more like a cloudy vision.

At night this Indian man , while sleeping, entered into the spiritual world and was clearer as to the beings of that world for he knew that what his senses presented were "maya" or illusion for he was aware that the sense bound world was the outward extension of this spiritual reality. This was his reality. Consequently he cared little for external nature and and we will not find him working the earth nor caring to do so. This is an atavistic consciousness.

All men were aware of this but there were some who plumbed the grounds of this reality in in this we will see the source of the Vedas and Vedanta philosophy which is a weak echo of what the ancient Indian could subscribe. The time period of this great culture was about 2100 years; he could not add, not do logic but his world was more a matter of "direct perception".

He was not a "individual of personality"to which we subscribe, as the time had not yet come. Next the Persian epoch and Zarathustra .

1. So, you "know a lot more" than these other people? Could they not claim that they "know a lot more" than you?

2. So, the fun-seekers are "absolute morons?" How so? Is it because they are happy, and you are not?

3. So, how are you "better than that?" And you might be the only person who is "better than that?" Oh, my!

The next age, the Persian,speaks to Zarathustra in which the Persian entered into the outer life or nature .He, through his clairvoyance or atavistic consciousness knew of the beings behind nature but with enthusiasm worked this earth as apposed to the Indian.

He was aware of the spirituality of nature and thus Zarathustra spoke to the ancient Persian: Beware of the dangers of the great spirit Ahriman who sits behind the perceptive world for if you come into his clutches the vision of the heavenly is lost , as will you be. Ahriman will have you believe that there is only the earthly and is the "great deceiver ".

Zarathustra brought forth the comprehension of Ormuzd the "spirit of light" to which the balance could be obtained . Ahriman-Ormuzd worked within the ancient Persian and somewhere we, in our times , have abstracted this as the polarity of light and darkness not exactly realizing that this polarity is alive, living and a manifestation of the "real", the same real to which the ancient Indian subscribed( not a good word here for he did not sign up but inwardly experienced and knew of this existence).

Persia worked the earth with this cultural times of about 2100 years ; of course the Indian cultural epoch continued on during these times, being on different geographical locations.

Knowing oneself and deeply experiencing one's life -- i.e. the opposite of self-alienation -- is the antidote to nihilism. This is analogous to when drinking plenty of fluids, thirst just doesn't come up. Likewise with nihilism for the non-alienated person. Nihilism is a function of self-alienation.

In the third age (Egyptian,Babylonian,Chaldean) man moved closer to the earth as the Chaldean astronomer perceives the movements of the planets and stars and sees this as a script of the will of divine spiritual beings; not as maya. Out of this arose the wonderful Chaldean star-lore of the ancients known as astrology to which we have little or no concept in our times.

With the Egyptian we see the script of the earth and geometry whereas the Persian plowed the earth the Egyptian divided the earth in terms of lines and space. The Egyptians saw the heavens of sun, stars and planets as a stellar script which was not for naught but were able to structure their society according to the influences of this stellar script.

To be clear, the peoples of this age were still in possession of that primitive atavistic clairvoyance but diminished with respect (qualitatively) to the ancient Indian, time moves on. This strength of stellar appreciation saw the beginnings of what is known in the next cultural epoch as , per example, the Sibylline Books of Roman beginnings which were a prophetic planning as to the Roman Empire.

To be clear the question of the vanity of "the future" and the Buddhist conception, according to Watts, is not lost here as I hoped to present an evolution of the human consciousness in order to specify the passage of time which is not evident in the Eastern approach his being immersed in cosmic rhythms as I believe that sometime in the past there was a Watts reference as to the "illusion of time" . Time exists as in this the education (better word ?) of the human soul-spirit being manifests into the future.

Next is the Greco-Roman cultural epoch.

Didn't read the thread so sorry if someone already said this but I read once that Absurdism is intended to be a counter to Nihilism.

IN the Greco-Roman cultural epoch we can relate, much more than the previous times, to the Greek ideal, the beginnings of philosophy and in fact the transformative effect of the "intellect" .This period of time is between 748 BCE to the 15th century . The ancient Greek still had some some amount of clairvoyance and saw thinking manifested as intellect as a gift of the gods .

Appreciation of the Greek statue or his temples , artistically, is a great wonder as in the Greek his creations display the bringing of the spiritual to the earth. The Greek sculptor didn't use models but was able to bring from within the inner expression of the spirit and chisel earthly matter as such. The ancient temple was literally the home of his god as the lines and spaces created of the heavenly were, in a sense, a perfect creation of the heavens to the earth.

Stand in presence of the Parthenon and this perfection reveals the presence of his god, not a superstition but a reality of the spirit underlying matter. Contrary wise the Gothic cathedral, in structure, was not the home of the God but this work became the home of the God with the congregation in prayer. The Parthenon stands on its own but in the evolution of man the Gothic cathedral is complete only with the congregation in prayer.

The intellect is coming into reality during this time for with the intellect mankind becomes individual, a personality. He stands on his own due to his intellectual powers. Aphoristically, the intellect is a destructive process as when one thinks the physical is destroyed in order to make room for the spirit to which and in which man thinks.

This intellectual ability didn't come all at once for even great thinkers like Aquinas, Aristotle Heraclitus,Plato had a type of clairvoyance to which they could source in their writings. To the Greek he thought through the aegis of his "genius" or supersensible being through whom his thoughts were manifested. In our time the "genius" became earthly and is related entirely to the individual without outer source.

At the end of the Greco-Latin age this clairvoyance disappeared and we have the beginnings of our age in which the individual man, having gained the intellect speaks for himself. Of course different people progress differently but the 15th century brings forth the beginnings of a powerful intellect, in evolution, and its cojoinder the materialist ethos.

It is believed that the modern scientist , in some manner, thinks differently than the public person but the fact is that the modern scientist is using the common public presence of the intellect as its methodology of thought. Due to this intellectually of thought we are individual men, no longer within the nation, or race, clan, or family but of course we are in progress of working our way out of historic or past ways of being, the Christ Being has arrived.

In the first third of the Greco- Roman epoch the Christ Being, as prophesied, came to the earth and entered into the future work of Man. this event is the pivotal point of earthly evolution for mankind was progressing or regressing such that if he continued in his distancing himself from comprehension of the spirit Manwould have been lost, forever into an evolution of decadence in matter.

Man was released in his "ego" or "I" or the "I AM" and his moral compass was to come from the self or within a self conscious "ego". The future of man is such that not only will he have gained this "intellect' but along with this he will regain the ancient clairvoyance to which he was first born. His moral tone will not come from earthly mater but from the spiritual to which thinking is the perfect manifestation. This is the evolution of Man into the future.

No longer will "commandments" or coercion from without come to effect but the progression of Man into the future who will also sanctify the earth in its progression to a higher or supersensible state. Man is not an earthly being but a cosmic being who will and does reach to the future within recurrent lives as in reincarnation and karma.

Another way of saying this is that we lived during these ancient times, gained powers here on the earth, and these powers became the fruits of the earth for our evolution of the spirit. Referring to the eastern or that of watts that particular appreciation of man is about the "past" while the self conscious knowledge had not yet arrived. We live in the present moment (space) and progress into "time" on into a future state. finis

1. Certain people must necessarily be more intelligent than others, if intelligence can be said to exist.

2. Some one person must necessarily be more intelligent than the rest of those certain people, if we assume ultimate variability in the intelligence(s) of any two given people.

3. I am that person.

However you define the rules of your dick measuring contest, where does the virtue of courage stand in relation to intelligence?

I've met quite a few courageous people who I wouldn't describe as highly intelligent and vice versa - highly intelligent people who I see living as cowards.

Why does your dick measuring game focus on intelligence so much?

Evidence, please? Thanking you in advance.

Atheism essentially means that values imposed by religious ethos is thrown out the window and now we have to figure out ourselves which values we should base our lives on.

Nihilism is one answer to atheism - an ethos based on the lack of an ethos, essentially.

Nihilism say that because there is no value in anything nothing holds any value and value cannot be created by humans. The lack of value is universal, and as such there is no good or bad, right or wrong. If you think it's inherently wrong to slaughter children you're not a nihilist in the true sense of the word, because human life holds no value and as such slaughtering children is just an action that holds no value, similar to drinking a cup of coffee.


Absurdism is a different type of view which iirc is mostly the idea that life has meaning simply through existing as it is essentially flipping the universe and existence off because life is absurd and we decide to live on despite being aware of this fact.