Rationality Quotes July 2012

RobertLumley

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I don't understand the quote. Under what definition of "nihilistic" does it make sense?

Wikipedia says:

nihilism: a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded

Often true and valid. Agrees with the quote in that life has no purpose beyond itself - e.g. no supernatural gods.

and that existence is senseless and useless.

Doesn't follow, and is false in any case. Unless one argues that all existing or even possible things are senseless and useless. Which would render these two words quite senseless and useless, in my view.

What is meant by 'nihilism' anyway?

Nihilist means moral anti-realist here I assume. This was how i always used the term originally.

2mwengler14y

In that same wikipedia article, follow the link to Moral Nihilism to learn [...] If morality is not objective, than moral propositions do not have true-or-falseness about them, and all the discussions about morality are vapid. What Chang means is he gets to make it up as he goes along because 1) it is not wrong to make it up as he goes along because in nihilism, nothing is "wrong," and 2) there isn't a "right" either. Its possible a slightly warm-and-fuzzier Chang would choose Moral Relativism which is Moral Nihilism's more conventional 2nd cousin. But Nihilism makes for a much better story, it is stark and even the word sounds ominous.

0amcknight14y

I wouldn't use wikipedia to get the gist of a philosophical view. At least to me, I find it to be way off a lot of the time, this time included. Sorry I don't have a clear definition for you right now though.

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