Crux comments on Yet more "stupid" questions - Less Wrong
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My stupid questions are these: Why are you not a nihilist? What is the refutation of nihilism, in a universe made of atoms and the void? If there is none, why have the philosophers not all been fired and philosophy abolished?
A good quote on this:
In other words, even though it's true that every war, every destroyed relationship, every wonderful interaction, and everything else that's ever occurred in history happened on the pale blue dot, most likely quite ephemeral in its existence by contrast to the rest of the universe, this doesn't change about the fact that we as humans are programmed to care about certain things--things that do exist at this time, however transient they would be from a universe perspective--and this is the source of all enjoyment and suffering. The goal is to be on the 'enjoyment' side of it, of course.
Nihilism is just a confusion, a failure to take seriously the maxim 'it all comes back to normalcy'.
Your argument is that we shouldn't be nihilists because we're "programmed" not to be? Programmed by what? Doesn't the fact that we're having this conversation suggest that we also have meta-programming? What if I reject your programming and want off this wheel of enjoyment and suffering? What is "normalcy"? I find your comment to be full of baffling assertions!
I was trying to address an idea or attitude some people call "nihilism". If my response was baffling to you, then perhaps this suggests we're using different definitions of this word. What do you personally mean by "nihilism"? What beliefs do you have on this topic, and/or what actions do you take as a result of these beliefs?