/lit/ - Literature

just reverse entropy lolololol

>>12302609
Prove him wrong.

>>12302609
What alternatives are there to hedonism if the only other out is religion? Why improve yourself if not for others?

>>12302609
>>12302609
spookie

>>12302609
did anyone else notice that this book didnt actually go anywhere? LIke by the end I have a new way to think about how several other philosophers have inconsistencies in their thought but he hasn't really come up with anything himself. It's been like a decade now and he hasn't followed it up with anything

>>12302912
To make life less miserable for yourself and the people you care about.

He just a well read professor who wrote a book on his pretty boring thoughts. Nothing new. Bet he’d be a litizen if he’d been born twenty years later. Now Reza... that’s a different story...

>>12302912
>What alternatives are there to hedonism if the only other out is religion?
The alternatives are infinite and all binding to information flows, paintbrush strokes from wonton projectionists. Anything that is possible as one in context to all is possible to everyone. We are only ever hedonistic in pretense to some higher ideal like true stupid romantic cartoons. Seeking not pragmatism/learnedjudgement/skepticism as a mantra of deceit is unwise. We are animals of infinite nothings and we give them as blessings. Why would it matter to seek to frame the world as you always have and not to seek a new perceptive? And is it even possible that perceptive is not nothing or narrative, be it wallow or laugh or silence.

>Why improve yourself if not for others?
You can just disappear into abstract others. That is dangerous. What am I contingent upon again? What is my harmony?

>>12302912
Improving yourself for its own sake.

>>12302984
post book. i review as propaganda, prose-tinglers, patternrecognition. I read gibbson as phrofit poet pyrsmadic and can't spell worth shite, mate.

>>12302984
How's Reza's new book?

>>12302984
go on

>>12302609
I actually got pretty freaked out about this as a Christnerd until I read stuff from the Vatican Astronomer who explained heat death and big freeze alongside what the bible tells.

Basically, we'll be alright.

>>12304140
Don't be a stranger, anon, please share. Who was it, and what did he say?

>>12304140
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
What about all of this shit and the sun growing in luminosity, eventually shifting the 'habitable zone' rendering Earth uninhabitable.

Most of this is so far ahead that we will no longer be human, through natural and artificial change, but these changes will likely be towards our degeneration. I think, anything that is not the environment afforded by living as hunter-gatherers makes us stupider and weaker, yet is far more stressful. We will probably become atrophied -- physically and mentally -- little babies taken care of by machines. Probably while praising ourselves for being oh so speshial and soulful as we degrade further and disconnect from reality even more. Ultimately what we were and ever could be would be washed away if we are unable to exist beyond Earth without assistance from it.

we weren't made for this world anyways lol, glorified bodies ain't need to worry about none of that shit like heat death

Even if there was no end, even if God existed, it wouldn't make a difference. Young and old, men and women, infants an elderly, the valorous and traitors, the innocent and sinners - all suffer unspeakable horrors only to perish and rot away. And for what purpose? Just imagine the mountains of corpses of your ancestors, all leading up to you in a darwinian race. It is mindless savagery; this universe is mindless.

The most noble thing you can do is to increase this misery in any way you can. As a slave to existence, it is the only righteous goal. Anything that can be killed, should be killed; anything that can be raped should be raped; any throat that can be cut should have the tongue pulled through the hole; anything that can be torn down should be turned to ashes. Blood for The Blood God, skulls for The Skull Throne! LET. THE GALAXY. BURN.

>>12304397

>>12302609
He's right. If the philosophers of the past, such as Plato, knew about the sun and the heat death of the universe, they would have never bothered with their dumb pseud shit. Modern science is a game changer, it has proven beyond doubt that nihilism is the only legitimate worldview.

>>12304448
lol no

>>12304450
I do not think you have the IQ necessary to make that judgment if you can't spot this obvious sarcasm.

>>12304421
this but unironically

>>12304448
true

>>12304456
poe's law nigger

>>12304448
Autotelos brainlet

>>12304468
That would only apply if you didn't know the average lit poster, and have never seen such posts before. So fuck off back to redit

>>12304450
>>12304482
Please state your case, or else fuck off. Your dumb snarky replies aren't an argument. Prove the universe isn't inherently meaningless or suck a fat one.

>>12304508
I don't see any arguments to refute anon, just assertions

>>12304516
>if I don't participate, I win

if you only ceased posting altogether

>>12304545
>make baseless assertions
>my position is axiomatic, now prove yours

leave and never come back

>>12304508
If the universe is meaningless, all that it contains, arises from it, and all that takes place within it will also be meaningless. (You would agree) If you have any sense of "meaning" it must be a delusion or illusion; meaning cannot arise from what is ultimately meaningless. (You would agree) Your life is meaningless. (You would agree) Everything you do is meaningless. (You would agree) Everything you say is ultimately meaningless. (You hesitate, but agree) If what you are saying is meaningless, it is unable to affirm the condition that would allow for your statement to be derived from any sort of fact. (You're spergtastic blood begins to rise, alarmed fingers hovering hysterically over the keys) So what you are saying is false, and you therefore lack the ability to discursively prove that the universe is Meaningless, since the confirmation of such a statement would mean the negation and collapse of the system by which such a possible truth would be derived as fact or even knowable. (You now must decide whether you will respond with a textwall of autism or the more chic one word dismissal, choosing from a grand arsenal among which are some of the favorites like "cringe", "yikes", "wrong", or "idiot")

>>12304553
lol based

>>12304553
> (You now must decide whether you will respond with a textwall of autism or the more chic one word dismissal, choosing from a grand arsenal among which are some of the favorites like "cringe", "yikes", "wrong", or "idiot")

How insecure can you get

>>12304553
Thanks for posting this desu

>>12303059
what if i dont care

>>12304397
>We will probably become atrophied -- physically and mentally -- little babies taken care of by machines. Probably while praising ourselves for being oh so speshial and soulful as we degrade further and disconnect from reality even more.
this is already reality. anyone like you or me with electricity and enough spare time to abstract and post on 4chan over scrounging or working for their next meal is already in this position

>>12304553
everything you say would be meaningless also cock dick

>>12302609

>>12302609
honestly if anyone needed the universe to end to make a conclusion about meaning they are turbo-brainlet
>>12304448
this goes the other way too. those who comprehend the inherent meaninglessness also comprehend that this very meaninglessness is the freedom upon which one can do anything. to dance, create, or think deeply knowing it is pointless is an ennobling condition rather than defeating. the possibility of objective meaning is tantamount to prison. imagine evangelical christianity was the objective meaning of the universe. then everything you do would have to be in slave-like service of or opposition to this meaning rather than of spontaneous will.

no idea why you have an exceptional view of science. the enterprise is still human-made tools and symbols for human brains, same as anything else

>The universe will eventually end
>Therefore, everything (the universe) is meaningless
>(Things that come to an end are meaningless?)
Is that his argument? I haven't read the book but that's all I can get from OP's oversimplification.

>>12302912
Stoicism

>>12306179
brassier is a stemcuck brainlet

>>12304397
>Most of this is so far ahead that we will no longer be human, through natural and artificial change, but these changes will likely be towards our degeneration. I think, anything that is not the environment afforded by living as hunter-gatherers makes us stupider and weaker, yet is far more stressful. We will probably become atrophied -- physically and mentally -- little babies taken care of by machines. Probably while praising ourselves for being oh so speshial and soulful as we degrade further and disconnect from reality even more. Ultimately what we were and ever could be would be washed away if we are unable to exist beyond Earth without assistance from it.
This is basically what happens in Texhnolyze.

>>12304553
Meaning can only exist in the brain.
>inb4 well if it exists in your brain then your life has meaning heh problem solved

>>12304873
This type of "freedom" is a noose not a blessing. The fact that it doesn't actually produce this sort of outcome should tell you you're wrong. It just degrades and destroys people and their communities.

>>12304854
This image is so pseud. Fight what?

>>12304809
Then you might as well kill yourself. If you don't want to do that then just do whatever you find worth doing.

>>12304140
I don't know why it would bother you as a Christian. Presumably you believe that the earth is a "veil of tears" doomed to perish and what is important is what comes after, right?

>>12304553
This anon is correct and this board is so full of pseuds its disgusting

>>12302609
Heat death will never occur, because the universe won't go on forever.
I won't bother explaining the argument to anyone who doesn't see how the former doesn't follow from the latter, instead here's an argument for why the latter is arguably true: Nothing in our universe is infinite, see: precision. Alternatively, reread your Parmenides.

Furthermore, suicide is not an escape hatch. It's as much of a "move" stuck within the confines of the "game" as anything else you could do, so don't bother killing yourself unless you actually want to.

>>12308826
>to anyone who doesn't see how the former doesn't follow from the latter
to anyone who doesn't see how the former follows from the latter

>>12308826
>because the universe won't go on forever.
[Citation needed]
Nothing in contemporary cosmology definitively says it will or won't

>>12306293
Too bad it's shit.

Isn't it undecided what will actually happen? I thought the value of some constant still needed determining whether to distinguish between a heat death or big crunch. In the big crunch model the universe is basically an oscillator that repeats between a singularity like the big bang and the point in the expansion where gravity sucks everything back in again after all the heat energy diminishes and stops providing resistance to it if I recall.

Another alternative is that black holes are sort of like entry and exit points for energy and matter, you get a big bang (a white hole) when it enters and a black hole when it exits. And the universe as we know it is much larger and expansive.

If I had to be this is where i'd place my money. The universe has a bunch of black holes running through it that sort of net it to other parts of the universe. Wormholes and such.

>>12308870
>If I had to be this is where
Had to bet

>>12304553
Holy fucking autismo. Do you even understand how people communicate or do you think it's all pleb logic parlor tricks to 'prove' you point?

>>12304553
How the fuck would metaphysical or fundamental meaning even work? Where would it come from? Even if there were such a thing it wouldn't mean anything in practical terms. It's an empty point because it doesn't exist to begin with, and if it did, it would change nothing. It's only 'meaningless' because you first run with the assumption that there is foundational meaning. There never was, so lack of it isn't meaninglessness.

Meaning is dependent on a coherent system, such as you, an organism. I don't mean just your brain or even nervous system as your entire body and the abundance of other organisms that also comprise it but aren't really it, form something analogous to brain in the whole organism. It all communicates and finds meaning in itself, but aside from that, you evidently function, in your subjective experience, on prescribing meaning. The very act of a mind existing is inventing meaning, it can't exist otherwise. Considering all of this, what exactly is your point, and why should anyone care that by some interpretation 'the universe is meaningless'? It's clearly not for anything that exists as a system, especially not for humans. Saying something that doesn't exist, doesn't exist, is not some grand revelation. Elaborate on why it is relevant aside from the historical notion of muh god-given purpose, which has no basis. You use an assumption, baseless meaning that isn't naturally felt without heavy social indoctrination, as your only evidence for meaninglessness.

>>12309698
>would
wouldn't*

>>12309698
>You use an assumption, baseless meaning that isn't naturally felt without heavy social indoctrination, as your only evidence for meaninglessness.

really is astounding you can't apply this lens back on yourself. meaninglessness is created, too.

>>12309384
hmm, on one hand anon's argument was phrased p autistically, on the other hand the entire belief system of athiesm, and specifically athiest nihilism is autistic in and of itself, so I can't say who is sperging at who anymore.

>>12302609
What the fuck is up the speculative realists??
That came out in 2007, around the same time as After Finitude, and then no follow ups by either him or Meillassoux. Harman has been publishing like a book a year and all the OOO people have been holding conferences and edited volumes. I don’t care about what meillassoux has to say about poetry or science fiction, I want to know about his Metaphysics.


Also like, what does it say that in Badiou’s forward on After Finitude he says Meillassoux opens up a whole new option for thought or whatever, but Badiou doesn’t to my knowledge cite him in his subsequent work. Maybe in B&E3 he will finally take it up but it’s not apparent that he does from the table of contents at least.

>>12309717
I'm not following. I used meaning/meaninglessness in two senses: on the level of an individual mind, and more broadly, an organism, and on a metaphysical level. The point is the latter doesn't exist and there is no real reason to think it does, it doesn't need to, and if it did it wouldn't affect anything because it's, well, metaphysical. Irrelevant to the meaning because meaning is a human thing, not metaphysical. The metaphysical is too simplistic and broad to have much relevancy on the matter. It's like speaking of human emotions in terms of the subjective experience (not biology) and claiming quantum mechanics is relevant, worse yet, the dictator on what they are and should be.

You know what is real? Kicking a ball, clearly that action is comprised of something. You know what else is real? The complex constituents in my brain that make me enjoy reading about history, gained through real actions and thoughts. That is meaning, not some fucking metaphysical categories completely unrelated to my mind and possible reality at large that somehow validate meaning yet don't actually so then you claim it doesn't exist based only on that. Meaning has to have substance, the metaphysical has none, it's too basic to produce meaning.

>>12304873
people see in others the reflections of themselves. When people are "free" to choose their own meaning others become invisible to them and nobody understands anybody.

>>12309784
>the metaphysical doesn't exist
stop acting like a child pretending that things you don't understand don't exist. If I said that mitochnodria don't exist because I'm not a biologist and I've never had a need for them in my mental frameworks, people would call me an idiot, so it is for you.

>>12309784
you have much to learn

bump

>>12308858
It is not.

>>12308053
It's *vale* of tears, you mouth-breathing mongoloid.

>>12302609
I thought it was "NHL Unbound" and was about hockey. Apparently not.

>>12309698
Human self-awareness creates a desire for a certain sort of meaning, which is what people express when they normally speak about meaning. You're just saying, "Well no, meaning isn't X, it's actually Y, which conveniently you just create yourself so problem solved, voila!" Except it doesn't solve anything because your semantic game doesn't fulfill the need created by our self-awareness. It's like if I needed to eat an apple in order to be fulfilled, and you gave me an apple-flavored candy. It's not the same thing. At best you're just deluding yourself.

atheism was a mistake

>>12309767
Continental philosophy is dead. Spec realism was the last ditch move to make it relevant again and Brassier failed, his mediocre book being followed by irrelevant obscurantist jargon in art magazines. Harman is a monist idealist retard.

>>12311605
correcting grammar is always a cool move, props

try Buddhism

>>12309784
This level of ignorance is astonishing. Pls don't ever say that in public, it's so fucking embarrasing.

>>12309828
>>12309806
>>12313038
Nice arguments.

>DUDE ATHIESM AND MATERIALISM TOTALLY DOESNT LEAD TO NIHILISM BRO
>*does exactly that*

Dude wtf?

>>12313047
this guy already did my job>>12311631

>>12313058
The weak should fear the strong.

If theism was too weak to prevent this then that is just definitive proof that it is an invalid and false system.

You may not like the truth, but the truth doesn't give a shit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
Heat death is for brainlets

>>12304140
What the fuck is up with Jesus' left eye?

>>12302609
We know how the universe will end as much as we know how black matter reacts to orange juice. Basing your whole life philosophy on current "knowledge" isn't wise.

>>12304873
>>12304553
>Everything you say is ultimately meaningless. (You hesitate, but agree) If what you are saying is meaningless, it is unable to affirm the condition that would allow for your statement to be derived from any sort of fact. (You're spergtastic blood begins to rise, alarmed fingers hovering hysterically over the keys)
wait wait hold up

>>12304553
>Everything you say is ultimately meaningless. (You hesitate, but agree) If what you are saying is meaningless, it is unable to affirm the condition that would allow for your statement to be derived from any sort of fact. (You're spergtastic blood begins to rise, alarmed fingers hovering hysterically over the keys)
wait wait hold up

>>12304854
Irrelevant to the discussion.

>>12306179
Meaning does not exist.

>>12313170
How can you people keep saying this without seeing that this is itself a statement of meaning?

>>12313058
>ATHEISM
>MATERIALISM
>NIHILISM
Go hand in hand, and that is why they are so based. I don't know who told you otherwise.

>>12313180
Before we continue: can you define meaning?

>>12313180
presuppositionalism is pretty passe m8

>>12313198
As you can see farther up in the thread, there are many different strata of "meaning". The Meaning in question when used in such statements as "Meaning does not exist" is speaking to the unconditional principle of Meaning, as opposed to any accidental modality of meaning found in subjectivity. Meaning in this sense is content oriented teleologically and necessitates a pre-rational truth.

The statement "Meaning does not exist" has a specific meaningful content that presupposes a necessary foundation of truth of some kind to allow its content in the first place. It speaks towards a true state of things. But it violates logical laws since if this statement were taken to be true, it would be dismissing the very mechanism and condition by which its validity as a statement is determined.

>>12313273
Every rational event is based on a pre-rational intuition of Givenness. Brassier himself even goes into this. The recognition that all things have their ultimate foundation in a pre-rational Given that cannot be proved through rational means (and is therefore irrational at base) is what Skepticism is.

This eventually leads you into the state of Epoche, and there cease to be truths (either positive or negative) and everything simply becomes Possibilities. Which is currently what I am inclined to.

Is this what you are saying?

>>12302609
Nice strawman OP. Good excuse to talk about Bassier and the others though. :3

>>12313099
it's a trick of the painter to make the figure like it(yeesus)'s looking at any direction (from a frescoe seen from some distance...)