Yes, yes, those are things. But why do they matter to you at all?

And see, you're making meaning- humans are stupid. There's your meaning for you. Do you think a cat would agree, or a rock?

Persoanlly from several of my psychedelic experiences I came to the conclusion that existence has no intrinsic meaning or purpose. And - while in the West you are correct: you would be the odd one out if you believed as much before the advent of social media - in the East, Hinduism and Buddhism, perhaps Maya, especially the idea of Sūnyata, would indicate meaninglessness.

I hold now more to the notion, less of Intrinsic meaning, but of Intricate meaning: that meanings and purposes are suspended, and substantiated by their relationship to one another. This at least gives me the clarity to investigate the subfocal valences affecting my behaviours.

I think the difference between Modern Nihilism and Spiritual Nihilism can be grounded in the above: the former is a lack of participation with life and relationships to others, which would have interwoven into one another, leading the person to literally feel empty or lacking; the latter is a realisation of relational interwoveness which allows the person to disentangle and detach themselves egoistically from fictional construals - such as ambitions, expectations, reactions, hate - which often lead to suffering.

While I agree that social media has ostensively sucked meaning from people’s lives; I also think it is due to what I coin as vacuity: the distance and separation between things, increasing time to arrive, such as a relationship or even a gym, leading to alienation and eventually emptiness.

I am new here, and I do not know any philosophy or logic taught in college or above, so please forgive me if I come across as a moron. For the last 20 years I have just been juggling around some observations and testing out some principles I have identified. One of the principles is that there is always an exception to any statement. So if you call the statement true, I can find at least one exception for you. And if you find the same statement false, I can find an exception as well.

My whole “philosophy” (I never called it that.. it’s just an intuition building tool and method for me), revolves around selecting a person to be the observer, and also changing the environment in plausible ways. So let’s say that scientists found a way to make sure all grass is green for 2023. And you say “all grass is green.” One exception is not all grass is green. In 2022, some grass, called blue grass, was blue. You can say “let me specify: as of now”. And I can say, ok, that’s a new statement, so let me try to find another exception. Beep-boop-bot: I have selected observers Bob, Nancy, and Jacob. Bob is colorblind and cannot see green, grass is not green for him. Nancy, is completely blind and the same applies. Jacob is sleeping and cannot see green not confirm his interpretation of the grass color. So you are going to refine your statement over and over again and I am just going to find an exception over and over again. There is always one exception to the rule though, and that is the rule itself (as far as I know).

Here is how I use my philosophy as a tool. I basically have a problem: I got rocky road ice cream for my wife and she wanted strawberry but the store is closed now. Then I say: in a world where we accept “truths,” my wife is not going to be happy. And then I ask what variables can be changed, added, or removed, to make the situation better? I’m afraid of being yelled at or given a stern look… so my solution is eat the ice cream and tell her the store was closed by the time I got there. Never accept anything as truth and you will always find a new solution. A rock is a solution most the time if you throw it hard enough.

Lastly, most people will say I lied to my wife about the store being closed. But the store that held the strawberry ice cream for sale was closed and not available. That store was replaced by a store that does not have strawberry ice cream. By replaced I mean things changed. Change seems to be happening at all times, replacing reality every second. Atoms replacing atoms in space. Ice cream tubs replacing empty spaces.

Feel free to test me on finding something true and false in any statement.

> This is why we have antinatalism vs pro natalism and absurdism vs pro mortalism. > >

Do we though? Antinatalism and pro mortalism are barely a thing we "have" and barely any philosopher takes these positions. There is barely any "vs" there.

What would be a negative good and a positive bad?

>it's a creation of humans.

​

The myth of "purpose", yes. The myth of "importance", yes. The myth of "value", yes.

​

Meaning? No. Because none of those things are what meaning is. Meaning is intrinsic in the world. You cannot make the distance between the Earth and the Sun "meaningless" even if you invent a time machine and some means to make organic life existing on Earth impossible and go back in time with the former and use the latter on an Earth still forming because guess what? The distance between the Earth and the Sun plays a role in the Earth now never giving birth to life via your time traveler existence. This is what meaning is. Meaning exists as an intrinsic part of existence, even in a universe that yields no stars or planets this would reman unalterable fact.

​

Meaning is among the most real things there are. It is the basis of a dinosaur sensing danger. It is the basis of trees changing with the seasons. It is the basis of your eyes reacting to some parts of the electromagnetic spectrum rather than all of it. It is the basis of you even having a mind to even doubt its existence.

​

>Then what are people doing when they consider there to be a point to things- the things they do and the things all people do?

​

Being egomaniacs trying to make the universe revolve around them, that's what they're doing. Makes me wish mankind had gone sterile a very long time ago and rid the universe of such stupidity.

Then what are people doing when they consider there to be a point to things- the things they do and the things all people do?

It's not something intrinsic in the world, it's a creation of humans.

Because the word itself has nothing to do with what you think it does:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly

>When did YOU learn this? Was it not from the day you were born until now, making observations in your lifespan?

Of course but I fail to see what you're implying.

>Are you saying that's real at all?

In what sense? That I exist and draw conclusions? Of course I exist, that's one of the half-dozen things I know I even can 100% know to be real.

>Infact I think it's more accurate to say that you left no association between whatever is observable and the objective.

I don't know what you mean by this. Are we talking in a "The Earth orbits the Sun and we live on the Earth." sense or a "How do I know I'm not an entity living in an illusion fed false data?" sense?

>You are saying everything is a lie so essentially that statement in of itself is a lie, no?

How am I saying everything is a lie? Because I say "value" and "should" are myths? Because the latter is just me not being an egomaniac trying to make the universe revolve around us.

I would say that is incorrect and that "perfection" and "imperfection" are two sides of the same myth.

I didn't say consequences emerge from patterns, I'm more saying that we know consequences exist since we know patterns exist. Kind of like saying you know life exists if you know humans exist but it's not that humans brought forth life, humans could be just a recent addition to many lifeforms you are unaware of.

Consequences exist (just to give one aspect of it) because you, as the self ("the doubter"), can look at patterns and not just follow them as they are (trace them with your finger), you can apply your mind and see the consequences (e.g. this pattern exists in this thing consequentially a similar pattern may exist in this similar thing I only glimpsed at but have yet to examine as closesly as this thing). The fact that you can do this proves that consequences exist like a "layer" of "potential" over patterns (that are not potential in nature but actual).

In this sense consequences are the basis of the mind we usually mean by "our imagination". Because potential is not a pattern.

I don't follow. I didn't mention anything material. And you say consciousness is "fundamental over pattern", how would that work? To me that's like saying... I don't know... "Molecules are fundamental over atoms" or "Heat is fundamental over energy" or something.

What other attributes does the self have? That's rhetorical since any answer you give would just prove you haven't pondered the nature of "patterns".

What is the one thing your eyes do? They react when certain patterns 'hit' them (the visual part of the spectrum) and they don't when other patterns 'hit' them (the rest of the spectrum).

The mind gets these reactions and, since these reactions have patterns, the mind runs them in its own pattern and this results in a pattern that it can run in another part of itself in its own pattern. This is Sherlock Holmes walking into a room, opening his eyes, his brain gets impulses and forms a "picture" which his conscious and subconscious can play with and be the basis of where he will move his eyes around the room.

That Sherlock Holmes may in fact be a naked man in Jello in a a robot-womb fed an illusion by Agent Smith so there is no room is just outside circumstance.

But there is no "the point" of anything.

Are you thinking of the myth of "purpose"? Cats and ants aren't egomaniacs like humans are so yeah, they don't reflect on that myth.

Okay, so why are others important to you, such that you'd want to do so?

Basically, why is this something you would choose to do, rather than do something else instead?

Or, what does the act of loving mean? Why does it matter?

Meaning is what you create right after thinking, "What's the point of this?"

Cats and rocks and ants don't reflect on that. Inanimate matter doesn't.

So you don't think you'd get bored spending more and more tome fixing smaller and smaller problems?

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lol, there will always be something to fix, godhood is impossible.

Also consequences emerging from patterns, is a big leap and seems to be predicated on rather shallow observation based analysis. I might be wrong but that's how I understand this

Now I actually hold the point that consciousness is fundamental at least over material and pattern, and at least until proven or assumed otherwise.

On what basis are we saying that the self consists of patterns? How do we know anything, let alone that the mind and senses consist of patterns?

Hey, so a few things.

>my main contention is the one that can be found amongst post-modernists and traditionalists alike, that Capitalism (Capital, TechnoCapital, etc.) is a corrosive force that destroys barriers, particularity, specificity.

I think this is completely incorrect on many levels. First, barriers, limits, particularity, specificity will always exist. The question is not whether or not they exist, but rather: in what form?

Do you really think that borders and particularity are being wiped out? Do we not live in an age of rampant perspectivism, identity politics, reviving nationalism ("my country first!"), etc.? Are national borders not being strengthen? Is there not growing intolerance of immigrants and refugees? Are more and more countries not building walls? I believe the paradox of globalization is: the freer the movement of capital, the more restrictions on the movement of labor (or, at least labor from the global South countries).

>post-modernists
>
>It deterritorializes and detemporalizes the human experience. I do not think these are good things, and should be combatted when possible.

I find it funny that capitalism (in the form of neoliberalism) has actually strengthened and flourished in the post-modern era. I think that the post-modern emphasize on particularity actually strengthens, not harms, capitalism. Each asserting their particularity against everyone else creates division, isolation, impotence, etc. We end up divided rather than united. Capitalism thrives on this. We are fundamentally forgetting Marx: "workers of the world unite!"

When we see the world through particularity, we become alienated from workers in other countries, men become alienated from women, straight individuals from the LGBTQ community, etc. Each pursues their own self-interest in opposition to the others. We become divided and alienated and cannot engage in collective action. Capitalism thrives on such conditions.

>I am told to relinquish my particularities for the universal

I never said this. I said to "de-emphasize" particularity. I do not believe it is possible nor healthy to relinquish all particularity. We are always particular; however, we can have different relationships to the moment of difference. For example, I can be a Canadian while still existing in unity and recognizing identity with those from other countries. Or, I can be a Canadian who is threatened by and opposed to those from other countries. In the former, I would recognize particularity and universality, while in the latter, I would be so entrenched in my particularity that I neglect the dimension of universality. Consequently, the particularity of the other becomes a threat to my own particularity.

>I don't think there is a Universal that has been stripped of metaphysics, so these Universals will carry with it always the unexamined premises (or bias, or baggage, which ever word you prefer).

I disagree with this. There are many different conceptualizations of universality. Many theorists now theorize universality as "lack". That is, universality expresses itself through absence, exclusion, or lack. For example, all the various nations exist against the background of the universal system of nation states. However, there are also refugees. Refugees are an expression of those who are excluded from the universal.

I think the theory goes something like this: universality only exists through the particulars and particulars only exist against the background of universality. Particularity and universality exist in a dialectical relation, so to say. Therefore, to recognize the universal involves recognizing which particulars are excluded from participation within the universal.

In this conceptualization, universality is nothing that can be imposed, enforced upon people, nor expanded through imperialism. Rather, Nazism and neoliberal capitalism are forms of particularity that are forcefully imposed upon others and falsely presented as 'universals'

I recommend reading chapter two of this book:

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/universality-and-identity-politics/9780231197700

McGowan, a Marxist and Hegelian, explains it way better than myself. However, while I do find the theorization of 'universality' as merely an absence, I am not sure if I fully agree. I have not developed my thoughts on the subject enough to take a strong position in the debate / conversation.

>the more meaning and weight it carries with each person of that way of life. And since I believe this, it behooves me to search out and to create more particularity, more specificity in our world. It creates meaning, it creates a multiplicity of meanings.

I disagree here as well. I believe meaning can be cultivated in both particularity and universality. It is not restricted to one or the other. Rather than "either / or", I believe it is "both / and".

Many definitions of 'universality' involve the well-being of the whole. Therefore, those who find meaning in fighting for the well-being of the whole / collective are finding meaning in universality. In contrast, many definitions of 'particularity' define it, at least in certain aspects, as the pursuit of individual well-being. Thus, some characterize particularity as an egoism in opposition to the collective well-being. Furthermore, these theorists believe that such self-interestedness is vain and unfulfilling. Personally, I think we need to find a healthy balance between the two.

>the fight against Capitalism.

Personally, I think the best way to combat capitalism is to embrace collectivity. The more united we are, the more we can undertake collective action. If we want to alter our economic system, we need to act collectively. Revolutions are the perfect example of this. Unions are another example. In both, there is large scale collective action.

In contrast, each pursuing their own self-interest results in the most extreme form of capitalism. Margaret Thatcher literally stated that "there is no such thing as community, only individuals". Thatcher, like the post-modernists, was an extreme particularist who hated universality. Consequently, capitalism flourished, unions died, and collective action has become largely impossible.

Lastly, capitalism is upheld by individuals not caring about each other. When we care for each other, diminish our egotistical pursuits, and focus on the well-being of the collective, capitalism fails. It is our egoism that upholds capitalism. Capitalism would collapse if everyone in society was a minimalist hippie.

As Sartre points to, there's the self (the doubter), that's one.

Concepts exist since that is what the self 'communicates' to itself and patterns exist since in the end that is all the mind and the senses consist of.

The truth exists since even if the self is held in illusion, there would still be the reality that the self exists experiencing the illusion so the truth itself (reality vs fiction) cannot be doubted.

Consequences exist since patterns exist.

Meaning exists since consequences exist.

Been wracking my brain but for the life of me I can't recall what the seventh one is, it's been so long.

His views of time and the cyclic universe are well documented and he himself has described them numerous times in interviews found on the web.

I have never heard him describe himself as a platonist and even he was it doesn’t mean he accepts as a religion which demands strict obedience to some written dogma. He obviously believes in abstract mathematics and obviously believes mathematics can accurately reflect and describe reality. Some people may call that Platonism. Having said that I get the feeling platonists want to claim he is because it will afford their theory some prestige to be accepted by a famous scientist.

Penrose is first and foremost a scientist. He has a bedrock belief in empiricism and the importance of strict observation conducted using the scientific method.