FA+
Shop
The Positive Side of the Double-Edged Sword of Nihilism
6 years ago
General
This has been written down because I have gone over this a lot lately. Deprived of our tribal evolutionary habitat, we're stuck in the anomie, a quandary of existential isolation. This isn't necessarily drawback though. Freedom from a form of intrinsic value also severs the chains that bind us to contrived ideals used to survive in tribal groups for hundreds of thousands of years. This is Positive Nihilism, the complement and counterweight to the futility of staring off into sky with the possibility we're the only (temporarily) sentient organisms in the universe.
The old-school psychoanalysts like Jung said that internal conflict arises when we are not self-actualized, i.e. our ideals that we imagine ourselves to be are not aligned with reality (It's not a perfect idea, but bear with me). By achieving our needs (food, water, shelter, belonging etc.) we move up Maslow's Hierarchy until we become "self-actualized" and no longer have to worry about pure survival. In the modern world, we super-impose what our needs are and fixate on them until they become unhealthy obsessions (In Buddhism, the "Taṇhā"). Too often these are shaped by dysfunctional relationships with peers, family early on in life, which we then carry forward as a fixed, a priori behavior.
Nihilism tells us these worries don't matter. If we're worried about the results or potential negative outcomes, we can simply accept that they exist. Action or inaction based on those outcomes is optional. For example, one clinically-established means of addressing certain types of social anxiety is engaging in socially odd or awkward behavior, like walking up to an attractive stranger in a bar and complimenting them or asking them on a date. If we're rebuffed, that's okay because it doesn't matter, if one succeeds then one goes on a date with an attractive stranger. There's no reason to be concerned or anxious over either of the possible outcomes.
Those worries and fears can become quite corrosive to one's psyche. In Buddhism it's called the Three Poisons (the number of "poisons" varies based on tradition), these:
Fears and delusions (moha) ->
give rise to attachment to that delusion (rāga) ->
and lead to outward expressions of anger and frustration (dveṣa).
By releasing oneself of the inner fears, it prevents suffering (dukkha).
Positive nihilism, in-fact, opens the door to end the cycle of self-delusions, attachment, and anger.
These cravings and desires for social acceptance or can be extrapolated to reward too. For example, you might be worried about your career, finances, whether or not you leave a legacy or a mark on the world. Who cares? Do artificial social hierarchies matter that much outside the context of building a career? Almost no one alive today will be remembered a millennia from now, not everyone can be Alexander the Great who conquers the known world at age 23. As long as you have a shelter over your head and food on your plate, is your rate of acquiring wealth about spending it more to impress others or meet your own needs? If you lost your job tomorrow, or you were kicked out of school, or your bank account was empty, would you die or merely have fewer luxuries in life? That's a question you'd have to answer for yourself. More often than not, these are fake delusions we become attached to and cause problems down the line.
To build on another tradition, the teachings of Daoism introduce the idea of "wu wei", or action through inaction as part of a natural order to the world. Oftentimes, the push and pull of external forces make it evident we're just small units operating in an ecosystem of 7 billion other people. Whether or not we choose to act is just a part of that larger system. I don't think this is exclusively just backed by Eastern Philosophy either. In modern mathematics and philosophy, there is a parallel in the idea of "emergence" from theorists like Fredrich Hayek, where systems subject to applications of energy naturally order themselves. Think of shaking up sand in a jar and watching as the larger grains stratify toward the top as an easy analogy of emergence, we're just like those grains of sand, whether or not we choose to act is part of a much larger system organizing itself. Some of the best ways we have of modeling complex systems like populations within ecosystems, the human brain, or economics come in the form of differential equations. There isn't necessarily a "right" answer when solving a differential equation because variables are changing relative to one another. It's always fun to have a nice black-and-white, right-or-wrong answer to a dilemma, but that's not usually the case. Whether or not we choose action or inaction depends on so many other variables outside of our control, it doesn't matter.
These desires are biological too, and every person in the world has to confront them at some point. You've probably heard of the neurotransmitter dopamine before, it signals "reward" and also plays a few other roles (in regulating attention and fine motor movement for example). Some neuroscientists think of it as a "surprise regulator". For example, if I give Bill Gates and a random homeless guy $10,000, who will appreciate it more? The random homeless guy will probably get more "reward" and higher levels of dopamine signaling from the surprise of such a large gift rather than a billionaire who would be unfazed by such a small amount of money. This can be applied to money, food, sex, drug addicts seeking more of a psychoactive high etc., thus our biology drives us on the "hedonistic treadmill" where we continually pursue these rewarding features of our surroundings until they become mundane, after which we still continue seeking that level of reward or salient "surprise" at greater scale. So it's not where we are (the first derivative, the rate of accrual over time) that defines how much reward we experience, it's the change in the rate of that salient reward over time (the second derivative) through which we experience reward. Unfettered, this leads to disaster as we can't just experience exponentially more rewarding experiences and this simple biological limit leads to its own form of negative nihilism. Thus the only solution to solving this craving and delusion is forcing ourselves to go into withdrawal and severing our attachment to these rewards.
This seems fatalistic (as in, determined by unchangeable fate), and in the strictest sense maybe it is. It still isn't inevitable that events happen because systems outside of our control still remain extremely complicated. By the same token, I'm not laying on my couch staring at the ceiling because everything from this point forward is predetermined, but instead I'm sitting here writing this blog post. We have freewill with boundaries in our environment and within our biological limits (the idea comes from Dr. Daniel Dennett). There are still problems of suffering that need to be addressed, there are still sub-problems of suffering and attachment that motivate us to solve them. Disease, war, climate change, etc. one should still be motivated to address these, the degree to which you do is the self-correcting product of your environment. You can do nothing more than live in the moment and accept that you can only accomplish, but it doesn't matter.
Thus, there is no "correct" action one can take.
So we choose nihilism and the freedom that our actions will guide themselves regardless. It shouldn't be a source of consternation whether or not they are fulfilled to our liking and to our attachments we have to the world. The meaningless of our actions should be embraced as a means of overcoming ridiculous attachments unfulfilling objectives.
The old-school psychoanalysts like Jung said that internal conflict arises when we are not self-actualized, i.e. our ideals that we imagine ourselves to be are not aligned with reality (It's not a perfect idea, but bear with me). By achieving our needs (food, water, shelter, belonging etc.) we move up Maslow's Hierarchy until we become "self-actualized" and no longer have to worry about pure survival. In the modern world, we super-impose what our needs are and fixate on them until they become unhealthy obsessions (In Buddhism, the "Taṇhā"). Too often these are shaped by dysfunctional relationships with peers, family early on in life, which we then carry forward as a fixed, a priori behavior.
Nihilism tells us these worries don't matter. If we're worried about the results or potential negative outcomes, we can simply accept that they exist. Action or inaction based on those outcomes is optional. For example, one clinically-established means of addressing certain types of social anxiety is engaging in socially odd or awkward behavior, like walking up to an attractive stranger in a bar and complimenting them or asking them on a date. If we're rebuffed, that's okay because it doesn't matter, if one succeeds then one goes on a date with an attractive stranger. There's no reason to be concerned or anxious over either of the possible outcomes.
Those worries and fears can become quite corrosive to one's psyche. In Buddhism it's called the Three Poisons (the number of "poisons" varies based on tradition), these:
Fears and delusions (moha) ->
give rise to attachment to that delusion (rāga) ->
and lead to outward expressions of anger and frustration (dveṣa).
By releasing oneself of the inner fears, it prevents suffering (dukkha).
Positive nihilism, in-fact, opens the door to end the cycle of self-delusions, attachment, and anger.
These cravings and desires for social acceptance or can be extrapolated to reward too. For example, you might be worried about your career, finances, whether or not you leave a legacy or a mark on the world. Who cares? Do artificial social hierarchies matter that much outside the context of building a career? Almost no one alive today will be remembered a millennia from now, not everyone can be Alexander the Great who conquers the known world at age 23. As long as you have a shelter over your head and food on your plate, is your rate of acquiring wealth about spending it more to impress others or meet your own needs? If you lost your job tomorrow, or you were kicked out of school, or your bank account was empty, would you die or merely have fewer luxuries in life? That's a question you'd have to answer for yourself. More often than not, these are fake delusions we become attached to and cause problems down the line.
To build on another tradition, the teachings of Daoism introduce the idea of "wu wei", or action through inaction as part of a natural order to the world. Oftentimes, the push and pull of external forces make it evident we're just small units operating in an ecosystem of 7 billion other people. Whether or not we choose to act is just a part of that larger system. I don't think this is exclusively just backed by Eastern Philosophy either. In modern mathematics and philosophy, there is a parallel in the idea of "emergence" from theorists like Fredrich Hayek, where systems subject to applications of energy naturally order themselves. Think of shaking up sand in a jar and watching as the larger grains stratify toward the top as an easy analogy of emergence, we're just like those grains of sand, whether or not we choose to act is part of a much larger system organizing itself. Some of the best ways we have of modeling complex systems like populations within ecosystems, the human brain, or economics come in the form of differential equations. There isn't necessarily a "right" answer when solving a differential equation because variables are changing relative to one another. It's always fun to have a nice black-and-white, right-or-wrong answer to a dilemma, but that's not usually the case. Whether or not we choose action or inaction depends on so many other variables outside of our control, it doesn't matter.
These desires are biological too, and every person in the world has to confront them at some point. You've probably heard of the neurotransmitter dopamine before, it signals "reward" and also plays a few other roles (in regulating attention and fine motor movement for example). Some neuroscientists think of it as a "surprise regulator". For example, if I give Bill Gates and a random homeless guy $10,000, who will appreciate it more? The random homeless guy will probably get more "reward" and higher levels of dopamine signaling from the surprise of such a large gift rather than a billionaire who would be unfazed by such a small amount of money. This can be applied to money, food, sex, drug addicts seeking more of a psychoactive high etc., thus our biology drives us on the "hedonistic treadmill" where we continually pursue these rewarding features of our surroundings until they become mundane, after which we still continue seeking that level of reward or salient "surprise" at greater scale. So it's not where we are (the first derivative, the rate of accrual over time) that defines how much reward we experience, it's the change in the rate of that salient reward over time (the second derivative) through which we experience reward. Unfettered, this leads to disaster as we can't just experience exponentially more rewarding experiences and this simple biological limit leads to its own form of negative nihilism. Thus the only solution to solving this craving and delusion is forcing ourselves to go into withdrawal and severing our attachment to these rewards.
This seems fatalistic (as in, determined by unchangeable fate), and in the strictest sense maybe it is. It still isn't inevitable that events happen because systems outside of our control still remain extremely complicated. By the same token, I'm not laying on my couch staring at the ceiling because everything from this point forward is predetermined, but instead I'm sitting here writing this blog post. We have freewill with boundaries in our environment and within our biological limits (the idea comes from Dr. Daniel Dennett). There are still problems of suffering that need to be addressed, there are still sub-problems of suffering and attachment that motivate us to solve them. Disease, war, climate change, etc. one should still be motivated to address these, the degree to which you do is the self-correcting product of your environment. You can do nothing more than live in the moment and accept that you can only accomplish, but it doesn't matter.
Thus, there is no "correct" action one can take.
So we choose nihilism and the freedom that our actions will guide themselves regardless. It shouldn't be a source of consternation whether or not they are fulfilled to our liking and to our attachments we have to the world. The meaningless of our actions should be embraced as a means of overcoming ridiculous attachments unfulfilling objectives.
