Wednesday 19 January 2011

Morning Scepticism: Nihilism

One powerful intuition about the world is that in death is nihilism. Since we don't exist any more, why should we care about the future? And since no matter what we do we'll end up dead, why care about the present? On the face of it, being good and acting in a meaningful way seems a futile endeavour. Yet is chasing love a futile endeavour because love fades? Is the pleasure of food, music, or sex worthless because of the fleeting nature of the experience? Friends come and go, achievements get superseded or forgotten, does that detract from the need for friends or the satisfaction of achievement?

The nihilistic gambit is the gamble that because death is an inevitability that we are already dead. Anyone who actually thinks like that might as well be...

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