An Attempt to Rationalize Epistemological Nihilism I wrote the following piece while a greenhorn in field of nihilism. At that time, I had not yet seen the distinction between epistemological nihilism and other types. I kept hearing proclaimations that to reject one facet of nihilism was to reject nihilism in its entirety. "You're not a real nihilist unless you belief so-and-so," and so on. It was then that I realized the absurdity taken on by nihilism when one rejects rationality in general. There's no point in philosophizing a non-rational nihilism because philosphy implies rationality. With this mindset, you get claims like "I real nihilist wouldn't bother to create a website or do anything really." Basically, anything a nihilist says or does is hypocritical. Obviously, niihilism, like any ideology, needs to be founded in rationality. In actuality, that's how nihilism started in the first place: an excess of rationality. Rationality tought that meaning couldn't be found in church and tradition and a host of other things. I have no idea where the idea that nihilists couldn't believe in ideas originated, but it is entirely ludicrous and useless. My nihilism is one that is deduced from the rationale. Accordingly, epistemological nihilism is untenable. This short piece reveals the absurdity of trying to rationally place epistemological nihilism into any system of nihilism. A belief is an idea held to be true. Knowledge is the observations and facts that support your belief. What is the relationship between knowledge and belief? The first impulse is to hypothesize that there is a positive relationship. An increase in knowledge is coupled with an increase in the strength of your belief. This view is quite optimistic because it states that truth will be given to all who so desire. But, one must also know where to look. On the contrary, experience with humans leads to the idea that people often hold ill-founded beliefs in great disproportion to their related knowledge. This occurs because people base their self-perception on their self-righteousness. They hold so steadfast to their ridiculous beliefs that they fail to realize that losing a debate means something new has been learned. Belief is more important that truth with this species. Thus, we have arrived at the opposite side of our initial starting point. There is a negative relationship between knowledge and belief because those with the least knowledge often entertain the most adamant beliefs. This is were the so-called "trailer-park philosophers" shine. The consequence of this perspective however, would imply that those with the most knowledge have the weakest-held beliefs. Ofcourse this cannont be true, can it? We all know people who have attained an abundance of knowledge about trivial issues in order to make themselves feel morally superior. So we revise our hypothesis again. Instead of the relationship being linear and thus either purely negative or positive, the relationship is curved like a "U." Those with the most and those with the least knowledge maintain the most stringent beliefs, while those in the middle linger in a state of perpetual indifference. Just look at the apathy surrounding elections here in America. However, can we really sustain the belief that those who know much about the mundane are to be consider our most knowedgable? Upon closer inspection, it must be concluded that the most intelligent are of a very small number who know of a great number of subjects. They see that much can be learned by comparing each of their fields of knowledge, and that every answer they receive entails limitless other questions. Thus we arrive at our final hypothesis, or maybe it is a theory by this time. The relationship between knowledge and strength of belief is exponential. Exponentially decreased beliefs with increased knowledge, and exponentially increased beliefs with decreased knowledge. Although more pessimistic than our initial suggestion, it is also more realistic. Choose the relationship you find most comforting, and you will postion yourself on the curve. Clearly, this type of epistemological nihilism is so broad that it could include nearly everyone and becomes uninformative. It's really not epistemological nihilism at all.