Ask Lemmy

Optimistic Nihilism.

Consciousness is an accident, the universe is an emergent property of physical laws, and there is no purpose to any of it; no gods, no guiding intention, no natural morality, no afterlife. Just entropy.

This is a good, positive thing to understand.

If there is no intrinsic morality, then we are free to define morality for ourselves. This is a burden, but it something that we can recognise and think critically about, rather than just taking whatever tradition we were raised in, and picking and choosing as is convenient.

If there is no afterlife, then every act of alturism, every kind thing we do we can do because we want to. Not because we are afraid of damnation, but because we decided that it was the right thing to do.

If we leave nothing behind but dust, then we must be aware of the impact we have now, because our time is limited and brief.

If we are a random collection of atoms, a brief coherent pattern among the chaos, then we can recognise that every single other person is the fundamentally the same.

This too shall pass. Enjoy what you can, but don't get attached to it. You can even become deeply involved in something or with someone, but always be emotionally and mentally prepared for the day when it or they are no more. Expect it.

I think calling anything I think or hold to possibly be true a "belief" is not quite accurate. I don't really have faith or anything like that. I believe things that can be proven to be real, and I have ideas that may count as philosophy but without a belief that it is correct or not. Like, I think it's entirely possible for an afterlife of some such to exist. If matter and energy can not be destroyed, only transformed, and our consciousness is a form of energy, then maybe we still retain consciousness after death on a different level of existence which could be attributed to Heaven or Hell or any other religious idea of an afterlife. On the other side of the same possibility, I don't think a God is possible. God is either simply a convenient name for the randomness of the universe, or was an alien race not much different than us, but way, way more advanced technologically.

Is that really philosophical, though?

Optimistic nihilism has always been a favorite. While there may be a purpose to existence, there is no concrete evidence of it. But if indeed life has no objective meaning, that's not a big deal, because humans are creative and can make our own. Might as well make the most of consciousness while we have it.

Hard determinism. Everything is a number and has already happened. Also, one electron universe.

I think as renewable energy gets cheaper and we move away from scarcity in society, we will stop looking at ourselves as brands. Instead, personal conduct, or the appearance of such will play a much larger part in our public lives and place in society. This will provide a lot of privacy issues.

The philosophical position I hold is that solipsism isn't true. Because to ask yourself if others exist requires language, which we all learn from other people. We can doubt our senses without language, but this is psychosis, not philosophy.

And I think most Western people haven't really solved the question of solipsism and still live in the Cartesian theater. And that this is a major reason why we're mindlessly killing the planet (and ourselves).