Peatarian Response To Nihilism And The Meaning Of Life?

[Sapien]

Life in nature, as well as evolution (so far) exhibit readily verifiable (even though not always continuous) progress from lower forms to higher and more complex ones. Nature itself does the same, even in the hopelessly wrong cosmological views involving creation events like Big Bang. Direction implies purpose, or at least a goal, and maybe even final destination. Complexification and higher intelligence imply progress, and progress also suggests purpose/teleology. Purpose/teleology are incompatible with nihilism. It is this insistence on ignoring basic facts of nature that makes nihilism very suspect as philosophy. In reality, the truth is much less complicated. Nihilism is simply poorly disguised fear of mortality and learned helplessness. It is a defense reaction akin to excessive self-deprecating humor seen in depressed people - i.e. if I convince myself that life is meaningless then death does not really mean much either as an end to a meaningless state. Most nihilists have been shown to ultimately boil their argument down to the claim " if life is meaningful, why does it end?" or "how can life be meaningful if the Universe itself will end" (the second statement meaning the Heat Death as per Second Law of Thermodynamics). The first statement assumes that organismic death means loss of the accumulated meaning and the second one is wrong as the Universe has been shown to be open/infinite and increasing entropy does not apply to open/infinite systems. Back to the first statement, we don't even know what happens upon "death". If consciousness is indeed a property of all matter, and if the "soul" is an objective phenomenon like Peat's response suggests then all bets are off on what death really is. One thing is certain though - it does not mean an ultimate end/demise, thus inviting feelings of meaninglessness.
First Hint Of 'life After Death' In Biggest Ever

I have seen quite a few nihilists improve dramatically with anti-serotonin therapy or by falling madly in love

Facinating post Georgi! Regardless of teleology or not, I reject Nihilism (I am a fan of Ayn Rands philosophy of Objectism). However, while she rejects Nihilism, like Nihimism, she also rejects Teleology, stating:

"The universe is indifferent to our values. It does not hold our happiness as its goal... it has no morality; no values, no consciousness, no awareness."

now I am no scientist nor a philosopher, and theoretically am open to her being wrong on this topic, but I dont see how the nature of life/inanimate nature to move toward complexity etc (sorry, strawmanning/not doing your main points justice with this statement as i don't fully comprehend them obviously) a verification of Teleology?

(Rand’s philosophy could accommodate a view of natural processes that are goal-directed in a mechanistic or biological sense, as long as these goals are understood as emergent properties of natural laws rather than intrinsic cosmic purposes. For instance, the goal-directed behaviors of genes or biological systems could be studied and understood within this framework without attributing to them any moral or cosmic sisignificance)

Also one question: to posit a teleological aim of the universe is essentially a form of determinism/negation of free will, is it not?

 

[Sapien]

For a lack of batter word - radical open-mindedness. In other words, the acceptance that all accumulated knowledge is tentative and will likely change in the future. So, to adopt a fixed absolutist world view, especially one related to life and death is unwarranted and even a bit...arrogant (on behalf of the nihilists or the Big Bang gang).
Ray Peat quotes - 180 Degree Health
"...“Once we accept that knowledge is tentative, and that we are probably going to improve our knowledge in important ways when we learn more about the world, we are less likely to reject new information that conflicts with our present ideas. The attitude of expectancy will allow us to apply insights gained at one level of generality to other levels. No particular kind of knowledge will have such authority that it will automatically exclude certain possibilities in another field of knowledge.”"

This quote from him really surprised me, as I thought he was an Aristotillian.

Now I dont mean to put an independent mind such as Ray Peat in a box, however:

The philosophy that most aligns with the statement that all accumulated knowledge is tentative and likely to change in the future is **fallibilism**. Fallibilism is the epistemological view that no belief, hypothesis, or claimed knowledge is immune from being false; thus, all claims to knowledge could be proven wrong as further evidence becomes available or better arguments are presented.

**Key aspects of fallibilism include**:

1. **Tentative Knowledge**: Fallibilism posits that our knowledge is always provisional and subject to revision based on new evidence or better reasoning. This view is often associated with scientific inquiry, where theories and models are constantly tested and updated in response to new data.

2. **Openness to Correctio n**: Fallibilism encourages a stance of intellectual humility, acknowledging that human understanding is limited and always capable of improvement. This philosophy supports an ongoing quest for knowledge, understanding that what is accepted as true today might be debunked or refined tomorrow.

3. **Critical Inquiry**: It promotes an ongoing critical approach to beliefs and knowledge claims, emphasizing the importance of skepticism and rigorous testing.

This philosophical stance is prevalent in the modern scientific method, which is inherently provisional—scientific theories are not viewed as eternal truths but as the best explanations available that are subject to revision or rejection based on new experiments and observations.

Karl Popper - A prominent philosopher of science, Popper is best known for his rejection of the traditional empirical method of verifying hypotheses. Instead, he proposed falsifiability as the criterion for demarcating science from non-science. Popper’s philosophy asserts that scientific theories can never be proven true; they can only be provisionally accepted until they are falsified. His views strongly support fallibilism by emphasizing the tentative nature of scientific knowledge.

In addition to science, fallibilism is a principle that can be applied in various fields of knowledge, advocating for a continuous questioning and re-evaluation of what we consider to be true.

Karl Popper and Aristotle represent two very different philosophical approaches, particularly in their views on science and knowledge. Here’s a breakdown of how their perspectives contrast:

Aristotle

1. **Empirical and Deductive Reasoning**: Aristotle emphasized both empirical observations and deductive reasoning. He believed that by observing the world and using deductive reasoning from fundamental principles, one could arrive at truths about the natural world. His approach was to start with observable phenomena and then to apply reasoning to explain them.

2. **Essentialism**: Aristotle held that every entity has an essence, a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function. His approach to science was rooted in the idea of discovering these essences, which are fixed and define the true nature of things.



### Karl Popper

1. **Falsifiability and Hypothetico-Deductive Model**: Popper argued that scientific theories cannot be verified through observation but can only be rigorously tested and potentially falsified. His hypothetico-deductive model posits that scientists should formulate hypotheses and then seek to refute them, rather than to prove them.

2. **Anti-Essentialism**: Popper was critical of essentialism. He believed that focusing on the essences of things detracts from empirical and scientific inquiry, which should instead focus on observable phenomena and their relationships. For Popper, theories are provisional and do not necessarily capture the 'essence' of anything.

.

### Contrast in Their Approaches

- **Approach to Scientific Inquiry**: Aristotle’s method can be seen as more deductive and essentialist, seeking to understand the inherent purposes and essences of things. Popper, conversely, advocated a more empirical and skeptical approach that prioritizes falsification over the search for underlying essences or purposes.

- **Nature of Scientific Theories**: For Aristotle, theories are grounded in the intrinsic qualities and purposes of objects, which are more or less static and discoverable through reasoning. Popper viewed theories as inherently tentative and always subject to revision, with no theory ever being ultimately ever proven.




Aristotle (and Ayn Rand) reject this conception that truth is tentative and cannot be PROVED in a POSITIVE sense.

Ayn Rand has a wonderful quote on this exact phrase of an "open mind" and by extension, the philosophy of Fallabilism

"There is a] dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an “open mind.” This is a very ambiguous term—as demonstrated by a man who once accused a famous politician of having “a wide open mind.” That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skepticism, for holding no firm convictions and granting plausibility to anything. A “closed mind” is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices—and emotions. But this is not a “closed” mind, it is a passive one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything.

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind,” but an active mind—a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants—a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear"