Sept. 3, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
16:02
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| Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyny from Free Domain Radio. | |
| We are going to have a little tour through the foggy land of nihilism because it's a topic that has come up quite a little bit on the Free Domain Radio boards and in the chatroom. | |
| So let's have a look at nihilism and see if we can't tease some substance out of these ghosts. | |
| So we start, of course, with a definition. | |
| Etymology, German, nihilismus, from the Latin nihil, nothing, and what do we have as a definition? | |
| A viewpoint, that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded, and that existence is senseless and useless. | |
| Or, and, a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth, and especially of moral truths. | |
| Yes, Nietzsche, that is a fine mustache. | |
| A doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake, independent of any constructive program or possibility. | |
| Nihilism, the program of a 19th century Russian party advocating revolutionary reform and using terrorism and assassination. | |
| This, written about by Turgenev quite a bit, and I actually wrote about it too in my book, Revolutions, a novel. | |
| Alternative definition from dictionary die die die dot net forward slash nihilism a revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake or the delusion that things or everything including the self does not or do not exist a sense that everything is unreal unreal unreal complete denial of all established authority and institutions Philosophical aspects. | |
| So, nihilism is that the truth does not exist. | |
| The truth is invalid. The truth has no value. | |
| Values, of course, are imaginary. | |
| They are fairy tales. Morality is an illusion. | |
| Or, as has been said to me a number of times, all philosophers are salesmen. | |
| It's just marketing. So, let's take a swing at these and see what happens when we put them through the logic gristmill. | |
| Does not exist. Well, like any other philosophical statement, the first thing that is required is a definition. | |
| Truth is generally accurate statements about reality, such as gases expand when heated. | |
| Existence being real, the state of being real, actual or current rather than imagined, invented or obsolete. | |
| So, to me, that's an accurate statement. | |
| The truth does not exist. | |
| Truth is a relationship between concepts and reality, between logical proposals and testable empiricism. | |
| So, as a parallel example, the scientific method does not exist in the real world the way that a rock does, or a light wave or particle, or whatever you want to call it. | |
| The scientific method is a relationship between theories and proof. | |
| It's a way of testing proposed statements about reality with what actually can be measured within reality. | |
| However, the fact that the truth does not exist does not mean that the truth is subjective. | |
| This is a very, very important point to understand. | |
| Numbers do not exist in the real world. | |
| There are four rocks, but the number four does not float around them or between them like a penumbra or a gravity well. | |
| Numbers do not exist, but that does not mean that mathematics is subjective. | |
| Or, if you believe that it is, I wasted a lot of time studying and trying to get right answers. | |
| You can just go to your math teacher the next time you get an app and say, no, no, no, mathematics is subjective. | |
| And, you know, I guess good luck with that. | |
| Another nihilistic proposition, values are imaginary. | |
| Now, values are preferences that are at least to some degree Objective. | |
| And this, of course, we would compare to something like tastes. | |
| Values, like truth, occur only as thoughts and or desires within the mind. | |
| Values don't exist in the real world. | |
| A whole bunch of trees exist. | |
| The concept forest is only within our head. | |
| Values don't exist in the real world. | |
| They're only as thoughts and desires within the mind. | |
| They do not exist in external reality. | |
| As concepts within the mind, sure, you can call them imaginary in the same way that numbers and the scientific method are imaginary, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're false or unrelated to objective reality. | |
| Morality is an illusion. | |
| An illusion is a concept that is believed to be true, i.e., it is believed to accurately describe external reality, but which does not. | |
| So, illusions, if I genuinely believe that two and two make five, that is an illusion. | |
| The world is banana-shaped, when in fact it's more like a kumquat. | |
| Gases contract, when heated, that would be an illusion. | |
| I am immortal, that would be an illusion. | |
| God exists, well, illusions, etc. | |
| Universally Preferable Behavior. | |
| For more information on my theory of ethics, please have a look or listen to my free book, Universally Preferable Behavior, which is available at freedomainradio.com forward slash free. | |
| Sorry about the typo. I use voice recognition. | |
| We cannot determine the validity of ethics unless we can determine the validity of truth and values. | |
| If the truth is completely an invalid concept and values can never be objective, then of course there can't be ethics. | |
| So for more in that, just have a look at universally preferable behavior. | |
| So, if we accept the nihilist position, Then no statement of truth is preferable to any other statement because objective values do not exist, are invalid, are illusions, are fantasies, are marketing, are sales jobs are worthless. | |
| So to take an analogy, let's say that we take the position that no food is biologically preferable to any other food. | |
| Anything you can put in your mouth, whether you eat vegetables, gravel, roadkill, clouds, your own fingers, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever because there's no such thing as objectively preferable food or things to eat. | |
| Now, of course, the corollary of there are no objectively preferable foods is that there can be no non-preferable foods. | |
| If you can't prefer anything, then you can't dis-prefer or reject anything. | |
| The moment that any objective preference is stated, the nihilistic position falls due to rank and fairly smelly self-contradiction. | |
| Mmm, mmm, tasty veggies! | |
| If no objective value statements can be made with regards to food, either for or against anything you can eat, then no correction of anyone's opinion about food or what they put in their mouth is possible. | |
| If no food is preferable to any other food, then you can never tell anyone what they should or should not eat, what is bad or good to eat. | |
| This would be like saying that a preference for ice cream is either objectively right or objectively wrong. | |
| It's just a taste. | |
| It's a personal taste. | |
| Now clearly, personal tastes, I like Baloo, cannot be right or wrong. | |
| If all quote values are mere personal tastes, then every possible statement that anyone could ever make All of those statements fall into the category of I like blue or I like ice cream. | |
| So, the nihilistic position, if everything is a personal preference, then the statement values exist is just another statement of a personal preference. | |
| It's indistinguishable from I like blue. | |
| A personal preference can include the belief that that personal preference is in fact A universal truth. | |
| This is the paradox of nihilism. | |
| If no truth is preferable to any other truth, if all perspectives are mere opinions, then a belief in universal truth cannot be opposed. | |
| Blue is best If everything is a mere personal preference, then the personal preference for universal values is just another preference, and so cannot be opposed. | |
| If all perspectives are unjudgeable opinions, then the opinion that they are not opinions also cannot be judged. | |
| If everything is bias and personal bigotry, then personal bigotry that is considered to be true is just another bigotry, cannot be opposed. | |
| So, if you judge any opinion as invalid, if you attempt to correct anyone about anything, then you are automatically accepting the validity and value of objective truth. | |
| You are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. | |
| If you say that someone is wrong, the question is, okay, wrong compared to what? | |
| Compared to what? If I believe in objective truth and you tell me that I am wrong and must abandon my position, to what standard are my views being compared? | |
| So if I say, gases contract when heated and you can prove to me that they expand, then obviously my statement about reality is incorrect relative to empirical testing, relative to testable objective reality. | |
| To what standard are views that you correct someone else on being compared to? | |
| To your opinions? Well, that can't be valid. | |
| You can't say everything is a personal opinion, nothing is real, nothing is preferable to anything else, but you should change your mind. | |
| According to what? Compared to what? | |
| Compared to your opinions? | |
| Well, since your opinions are not preferable to the other person's opinions, according to nihilism, you can't impose them on someone else. | |
| You can't. I mean, you can, but then you're not a nihilist anymore. | |
| When you correct someone, are you comparing their sense to the objective truth? | |
| Well, that can be valid, but it is a rejection of nihilism. | |
| It is a rejection that all is opinion and personal preference. | |
| The moment that you correct someone relative to an external standard, or even your own opinions, you're saying something is better than something else, therefore you can't be a nihilist. | |
| So, does rejection equal acceptance? | |
| It is, sadly, as simple as this. | |
| When you say nothing is true, you are stating a truth. | |
| The statement nothing is true is self-detonating, of course. | |
| Is it true that nothing is true? | |
| If it is true that nothing is true, then something is true. | |
| If it is not true that nothing is true, then something is false compared to a truth statement that is universal, so it doesn't work. | |
| So equally, when you say You, sir, should alter your beliefs according to a universal standard of truth and accept that there is no such thing as a universal standard of truth. | |
| That is also, sadly, completely self-detonating. | |
| You should alter your beliefs according to a universal standard of truth and accept that there is no such thing as a universal standard of truth. | |
| Makes no sense. It's like saying, no food is preferable to any other food, and now I'm going to be a nutritionist and tell people what to eat. | |
| Is nihilism possible as an intellectual position? | |
| Yeah! You sure as heck can be a nihilist without being Bruce Willis in the sixth sense. | |
| If you are a nihilist and wish to remain true to your position, no problemo. | |
| You can simply not correct anyone else about anything. | |
| You cannot correct anyone else about anything that they say. | |
| If someone says, I like blue, what can you say in response? | |
| That is incorrect! Well, of course not. | |
| It's a personal taste. | |
| It's a personal preference. You can say, uh, that's nice, or, hmm, how interesting. | |
| If someone says, universal truth is valid, the only rational response for you as a nihilist is to say, that is very interesting, or, how nice for you, or how nice. | |
| Nothing else to say. | |
| The moment that you attempt to correct his perspective, you automatically accept the validity and universality of objective truth, as well as the objective value of rejecting this person's opinions in favor of objective truth. | |
| The moment that you attempt to correct someone else's perspective you automatically accept the validity and universality of objective truth as well as the objective value of rejecting our opinions in favor of objective truth and lo and behold you are no longer a nihilist. | |
| The moment that you tell somebody else what they should eat you can no longer say that there's no such thing as preferable food. | |
| In conclusion, yes, I agree with the nihilists that the truth does not exist. | |
| No problem. I agree with the nihilists that values do not exist, i.e. | |
| objectively in the world external to the mind. | |
| I agree that these are all conceptual standards within our minds. | |
| No problem. I do not agree that the logical result of these premises is that truth and values are all subjective and mere opinions. | |
| Reality is objective and thus the degree to which our concepts match reality is the degree to which they inherit or mirror that objectivity. | |
| The purpose of science is to have human thought mirror what actually occurs in the real world. | |
| And this is true for mathematics in terms of logic because we derive logic from the objective behavior of matter in the real world at the sensual level. | |
| I'm not talking about the freaky subatomic quantum level but the level at which we actually perceive and have built logic on which is all perfectly consistent which is all perfectly accepted that at the sensual level matter behaves perfectly consistently that is all accepted by quantum physics. | |
| So thank you so much. I hope that this has been helpful, and I hope that it helps you understand that nihilism is not so much a problem to be solved, but a disease to be cured. | |
| I really appreciate it. For more on the philosophy of personal and political liberty, please visit freedomainradio.com. | |
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