[o1bf2k25n8g5]

> ...you are here to do the required work to understand yourself, your circumstances, stand on the shoulder of giants and study the great minds that came before you.

Just to offer a counterpoint:

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

The more I experience, the more I think maybe that's a pretty good point, too.

[gchamonlive]

It's like the nihilist denying any meaning to the world. It's because they choose to see it that way even if they aren't aware of it.

If you choose to fart around, whatever that means, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Since there's no salvation, farts are also meaningless, and at the same time totally meaningful given the circumstances.

[ramblerman]

Vonnegut sounds closer to an epicurist.

A nihilist would say fart or don't fart it's all pointless.

[jona-f]

As a nihilist my sense of meaning seams to be compatible to yours. I don't deny that we can come up with all sorts of meanings but the point is that there is no intrinsically higher meaning to everything, it's all made up. In fact, the awareness of this is the basis of my nihilism. That doesn't mean, that I don't like some meanings more than others, otherwise I had no reason to act whatsoever.

[monero-xmr]

There are certainly universal truths. For example, you exist. Therefore there is something to believe in

[vidarh]

Only in the most abstract sense is even that true. I know that I have existence in this very moment. I don't know that I existed a moment ago, for that could be an illusion. I don't know what my existence is, because my senses could be an illusion. I don't know that I have any existence past this moment because that is a belief based in a memory of time passing, which could be an illusion. I can't tell whether time exists, or space exists, because they're all dependent on my senses and a memory I can't trust.

For what I know, my "existence" could be an infinitely short moment, or even an entirely static endless "moment", or any of an infinite variety of other options.

So even most of existence is only assumption. It's a set of assumptions that makes sense to just accept because we have no way of proving otherwise, but they are assumptions, not "universal truths".

[somenameforme]

Regardless of the definition, you do exist. Which naturally leads to the question of why you exist. If you write a program to add a couple of numbers, it seems absurd to imagine some entity magically poofs into existence, imagines itself carrying out such, and then poofs back out of existence. I find it no less absurd to imagine the same even if it happens to be 10^100 instructions.

So why do you perceive yourself, and if you aren't you, then who are you? These sort of thoughts eliminated any notion of nihilism from me and gradually pushed me towards a simulation hypothesis. Of course that's just religion for an agnostic, because it doesn't even answer anything - if you die only to 'wake up' and discover it was all just a simulation, you're still back right where you started.

The search for natural explanations feels unsatisfactory because it will always come back to a question of what created that. For instance what if you think the matter for a big bang was quantum mechanically poofed into existence then what led to the creation of quantum mechanics, the void of which emerged, or so on endlessly. You basically have to do a whole bunch of hand waving and assumptions to the point that it starts to rapidly feel like religion for an atheist.

[vidarh]

> If you write a program to add a couple of numbers, it seems absurd to imagine some entity magically poofs into existence, imagines itself carrying out such, and then poofs back out of existence.

It may be absurd, but we nevertheless can not rule it out, and so it means that our ability to know anything about existence for certain is limited to almost nothing.

Note that I'm not saying I believe this to be the case. What I'm saying is that I see looking for "universal truths" to be entirely futile, because we can't possibly know much of substance with certainty.

Instead we have to accept that unless someone "pierces a veil" and shows us that there's a reality past the one we observe, we are limited to talking about what is observable and measurable within our observable reality, knowing that we are dealing with assumptions and probabilities, not universal truths.

> I find it no less absurd to imagine the same even if it happens to be 10^100 instructions.

This seems fundamentally at odds with saying you were gradually pushed towards a simulation hypothesis...

> if you die only to 'wake up' and discover it was all just a simulation, you're still back right where you started.

A simulation hypothesis does not need to imply that there's anything to wake up from for anyone. Indeed, even if you were to wake up, by confirming that simulation is possible, this would seem to strongly suggest that you should consider the probability that the world you wake up in is simulated to be extremely high.

> The search for natural explanations feels unsatisfactory because it will always come back to a question of what created that.

It may feel unsatisfactory to you. It doesn't to me. I accept that whenever we push the horizon of knowledge, we're likely to discover more things that we don't know, and for the set of things we know we can't know to expand as well.

> You basically have to do a whole bunch of hand waving and assumptions to the point that it starts to rapidly feel like religion for an atheist.

You don't have to do anything. You can accept that we don't know.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>Which naturally leads to the question of why you exist.

Why as in "what set of circumstances led to your existence" or why as in "what purpose did a creator have to want to create you"? Two different people can hear why, and there are two different (though possibly overlapping) questions. Even if there were a creator, only the first question is interesting.

You're all overthinking it though. If you want more people like you to exist in the future, if the thought of our extinction disturbs you, then there are some basic rules to live by or you risk that ending. Some of these rules are as much about attitude as they are about behavior, and nihilism is extraordinarily maladaptive.

>then what led to the creation of quantum mechanics,

Even if we substitute in non-biased language (perhaps "manifestation" instead of "creation"), this question assumes very much.

[NetRunnerSu]

Fascinating thread on existence and the nature of ideas. What if 'existence' isn't about the substrate (carbon or silicon), but the integrity of an internal model's predictions? If a system can consistently build and maintain a coherent, self-correcting model of reality, does its 'existence' become a verifiable, quantifiable state? Perhaps the 'truth' of any experience, psychedelic or otherwise, lies in how well it integrates into and refines that predictive model, rather than its 'physical' origin. The 'mind' then becomes a function, not a form.

[piva00]

The mind is necessarily a function, it's performing its function over a vast array of inputs (memories, senses, etc.) and making sense of it as it goes, and it doesn't exist without energy expenditure to keep computing itself.

To me psychedelic experiences break through the inputs, they become fuzzy and integrate in ways they aren't supposed to in normal functioning, it's why we feel a different sense of connection to anything else, filtering in different ways inputs from our senses and experiences, including the sense of one's self dissolving.

[fpoling]

If one thinks about it, even basic truth may not be so evident.

For example, consider Cogito, ergo sum. As Latin has no continues verb time, that phrase may mean I exist because I think. Or I am existing because I am thinking . The latter implies that when one stops thinking the existence stops, the opposite of the former. Philosophers still debates what exactly Descartes meant.

Or consider the notion of time flow. In 1908 John MacTaggart published a paper arguing that the feeling of time flow is unreal. Again, there are heavy debates about the validly of his arguments without any conclusion with quite a lot of philosophers accepting the argument and even arguing that the time flow is an illusion.

[mensetmanusman]

“even basic truth may not be so evident.”

All of these trite axioms nihilists use immediately refute themselves if they are true. Lol

[jona-f]

My existence is negligible, especially in the grand scheme of things.

[rags2riches]

> Since there's no salvation, farts are also meaningless

That's begging the question. I'd argue that all meaning is in how we fart around.

[baq]

Meaning is what you want it to be.

If you don’t know what it is and don’t know what you want, you either fart around or resign.

[golergka]

I think you might be confusing nihilism with absurdism in this case.

[RajT88]

I love Vonnegut. I don't agree with him on everything; semicolons are fine.

[flir]

I don't believe Vonnegut beleived that for a minute.

> Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind."

[kgwxd]

Some babies hear that and just "nope" out? What was the narrative before seasons, science and over population?

[RajT88]

Hunter gatherer societies we like to imagine as constantly being on the edge of starvation, but in reality during summer months, they could hunt and forage a whole day's worth of food in a few hours, and then spend the rest of the time farting around.

[AnthonBerg]

One is not counter to the other.