Nihilism What is nihilism? Nihil is Latin for "nothing," so literally, the belief in nothing. So what does that mean? This is a difficult question because there is no one overarching structure that regulates the practice of nihilism. Most nihilistic people would not even call themselves nihilists because that admittance would entail a belief. Yet there are different types of believing in nothing. Only a hardcore, extreme, skeptic of a nihilist would maintain that there is no knowledge or truth. Most merely proclaim that whatever knowledge humans have attained, it is miniscule, and more importantly, meaningless. Most people have never met a nihilist, which is ironic because every person that ever existed is a nihilist in some sense. How? Nihilism deals with the nothingness and meaninglessness of the world. Most people have at least a slight inclination towards this type of worldview at times in their lives. The difference between most people and the nihilist is that the nihilist remains in this state perpetually, while the average person finds some mechanism for escaping its grasp. The history of mankind is the history of inventing coping mechanisms used in the face of the nihilist void. Firstly, and existing even today, was the idea of spiritualism. Although the world was seemingly meaningless, there was an omnipotent and omniscient behind-the-scenes god that controlled everything. An argument popularized by Saint Augustine was the old "God works in mysterious ways" explanation. It was quite comforting to tell oneself that the nihilist void could be overcome so easily and with so little thought, but this answer has been declining markedly since industrialization. There are two main answers associated with the emergence of industrialization that sought to make up for the perceived shortcomings of the religious model. The first is the scientific method. Modern machinery and technological advances became the new idols to be worshipped in the more modern times. After all, man was seen to be conquering the environment more and more everyday, God was no longer needed to protect us from the scourges of nature. This paradigm is still a major crowd-pleaser today, because of the supposed infinite answers that science has answered. Ironically, people have acted in this sort of modern-centric, biased mood since the beginning of mankind. After all, dark ages were so named posthumously. Only recently the twentieth century has the dogmatism of the church of science been subject to criticism. The skeptical Hume was the first to point out that the entire knowledge base of science was founded on a logical fallacy, namely, induction. It is never warranted to claim that because such-and-such event has occurred so many times that it will always occur. It is never logically acceptable to proceed from a particular event to a universal. In attempting to get around this, scientists will attempt to observe the behavior under numerous of conditions. Although this method may give fairly accurate results and be pragmatic, it will never give us the truth we hope to derive meaning from. Of even more destructive force to the dogmatism of science that Hume, was Popper. He brilliantly demonstrated that because of the inductivist problem, science had been on the wrong trail since its inception in the times of ancient Greece. Socrates had been on the right trail ("And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know."), but Aristotle completely lead us astray. According to Popper, since we cannot ever know anything for sure, we can only as Socrates said, "know what we do not know." Thus falsificationism was founded. Science would progress by constantly falsifying theories, as opposed to merely attempting to support them. This Popperian method was a devastating blow to the scientific answer, and its general, philosophical, rationalist underpinnings. However, as the nihilist is aware, even this view cannot be accepted dogmatically, as was done often during the initial years. Soon a retired physicist turned philosopher named Kuhn pointed out that the Popperian view did not always match with the historical progression of science. There were times when a science was falsified (such as Copernicus' geocentrism) and then came back to become the hegemonic leader of the field. Had they followed Popper's description of science, we would still be living with the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic system of astronomy. Kuhn suggested that science progressed through coincidence and that scientists choose their theories based on sociological reasoning. How can people find meaning through truth when we cannot even explain scientific progression? Lakatos attempted to solve this problem by stating that science progresses by making increasing amounts of novel predictions and descriptions. However, problems arise when one attempts to define "novel." Also, how can a science like physics be seen to advance when it is based on mere observation? Any ad hoc theory could novelly describe any phenomenon. Given these and other problems, modern philosophy of science has largely gravitated to Feyerbend's description of science as anarchistic. Obviously, there is an inherent problem in using ideas such as "science" and "truth" to overcome the nihilists void. Another answer to the nihilist's question that arose with industrialism was utopianism. The general feeling was again that we had become masters over mother-nature, and could reconstruct society into a perfected heaven on earth. Communist and socialist societies have since sprung up over much of the globe. Although communism has largely died off, a majority of the world's democracies are at least somewhat socialistic. Yet the fact remains that that is just as much poverty and suffering the world as there has ever been, and even more killing. Probably most detrimental to humanities chances for utopia is our ever present greed, materialism, and consumption of shiny objects and gadgetry while half the world starves. Most would reply that the problem is not human nature but the society that molds humans into evil creatures. The proposed solution is that we must wait some more until science can help us in creating our perfect-world science! The view that either science or utopianism could conquer the void is fallacious because it assumes that meaning could be found by the lengthening of an already meaningless life. Most likely the consequences would be far worse than imagined. As the supposed panacea is discredited, mass hysteria would enrapture the pathetic, and now delirious, guinea pigs. Fantasizing about a perfectly just and efficient human society and science is as illusory as prayer (don't forget that "utopia" literally means "no place"). Currently, we are given two additional options in our quest for meaning. The first is the lowbrow, mass audience answer. By living vicariously through others the average person someone convinces themselves of their own intrinsic value. The amusing thing is that the movie star the subject wants to be like is living as meaninglessly as he himself is. Just look at the ridiculous things we worship our stars for: Jean Claude for killing, Pamela Anderson for having fake breasts, Shaq for putting a ball through a hoop, some random drunkards for saying "wassup," and continuing ad nauseam. How could any of these so-called stars actually find any meaning whatsoever in what they do, let alone the poor devotee who idolizes them? Existentialists attempt to answer our question in a more "highbrow" way. Existentialism is itself a reaction against the pessimism of nihilism. Some of the replies given to the nihilist void include: living courageously, living for absolute self-freedom, living for state-freedom, living for free will, living for self-consciousness, living egoistically, living for the Other, living for authenticity, and living for genuineness. All of these options seem to be of somewhat importance, but the question to, "why should any of these be considered meaningful?" is never adequately answered to the nihilist. What is the point of attaining more freedom to behave in more meaningless ways? I think the best and most often used way to get past the void, is to just not think about it. This choice would most correspond with the lowbrow modern view, which is quite depressing. The answer to the question is that there is no answer, so don't ask the question. The problem is that once one has contemplated the problem, it cannot be easily forgotten. How could you "just not think about it?" By thinking about it, one becomes entangled in the entrenching web of speculative melancholy. The only cure is to end the viscous thought cycles. I am not sure how to do this, I can only think of drugs, psychosurgery, shock therapy, and death. A sad conclusion indeed, but did you really think that we would suddenly find a cure after humanitie's lifetime illness? There's that age-centrism again.