Nothing Matters... OR Does It? - The Philosophy Thread

[Lily Adler]

I sometimes lean towards being Nihilist... SOMETIMES.

 

[Piper Maru]

I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn't even matter!

 

[DarkSovereignty]

If life is fair...why do roses have thorns?

 

[Schlosser85]

I struggle a lot with feeling like nothing really matters.

Things like money are such weird concepts if you really think about them. Life is just this rat race you spend all of stressed out about money, and then you die....?

Like, what is the point?

 

[DarkSovereignty]

You ever think that, we're, like, just a glob of ice cream at the bottom of a giant cone...inside a glob of ice cream inside an even more giant cone?

 

[Marvolo]

What if the universe is nothing but a cell in some living being.

 

[Piper Maru]

What if all of this is a dream?

 

[Doctor Evo]

I have a more important question: Who the hell actually cares?

 

[Sawyer]

 

[Lily Adler]

I always wondered why we were lucky enough to be the only planet in our solar system to sustain life.

 

[Doctor Evo]

You are a compulsive liar.

 

[Tempest]

Life is a cookie.

 

[Lily Adler]

It can be sweet or leave a bad taste in your mouth... like ex-boyfriends.

 

[DarkSovereignty]

Life is a lemon and I want my money back.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

It can be sweet or leave a bad taste in your mouth... like ex-boyfriends.

And sometimes you choke on them.

 

[routhman]

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more
faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever
renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

- Walt Whitman

For me, probably the most difficult thing in life is to resist nihilism, which can often seem to be the most direct, honest, and terrible interpretation of life. Not long ago, I wrote something on the topic: "Once you’ve forgotten about gods, once you’ve come to the unshakeable sense that there are only mortals, and that gods are neither here nor there, you soon become acutely aware of the sensibility of nihilism as a philosophy; at the core of things, if we are all that there is, and all that was before us is now gone, as we soon will be, then what’s the point of existence? I’m not sure there’s a point in a classical sense; I’m not sure there’s anything that appeals to our primitive selves, to the more basic parts of us that are still young and emotional and hopeful and credulous. But then, in the scheme of everything, in the sheer magnitude of our miraculous existence, should there be such a point? Why do we insist on more than the time we’ve been given?"

In essence, nihilism is a product of our own vanity, of our own demand that life has to have answers. But it doesn't have to. Like Whitman said, we are here. And if this is all we have, shouldn't we make the most of it?

 

[Lily Adler]

So the meaning life is that life has no meaning. It is simply is and will always be.

 

[routhman]

So the meaning life is that life has no meaning. It is simply is and will always be.

I think so. Is that so bad?

 

[Lily Adler]

So in essence we are all meaningless. There is no point in our own existence. We simply strive for our own answers for our own selfish worth.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

How old are you?

 

[Doctor Evo]

So in essence we are all meaningless. There is no point in our own existence. We simply strive for our own answers for our own selfish worth.

Yup.

 

[Lily Adler]

Late 20's. I just think about stuff and things like this every now and then...

 

[routhman]

It's not that we're meaningless, exactly. It's that the very fact of our existence, our very presence, is what's significant. In the 4.5 billion years the universe has gone on, we have a window of 80 years. We have a flash of time in which we can experience everything that there is; and that's a remarkable opportunity.

It also makes you realize that everyone's like you. Everyone gets lost. Everyone struggles with friendship, love, philosophy, finances. Everyone's finite. And that means, in a way, we're all in it together. Even if we don't continue after we're gone, it's not hard to derive some sense of meaning from that.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

Our existence is comparable to a sandbox video game.

You pursue goals of your own choosing within the confines of the game's code. There are subplots (some of them epic as all hell), with only a vague over-arching plot.

omg so sad all the meaningless *eye roll*

 

[Lily Adler]

But are we not just trying to define our meaning through romantic pursuits, hobbies, careers, and families to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of escaping emptiness.