Archive for July, 2008
Nihilism
Someone recently asked me what I was aiming for in life, or if there was a question I wanted to answer. I said something like ‘I would quite like to know why I can’t find any sort of meaning of life that I can be sure of and yet I’m still here’. It seems to me that we must, even if only subconsciously, have some sort of meaning in our lives if we are going to get out of bed in the morning. Even if it is as simple as ‘maybe tomorrow I’ll have something to aim for so I better stick around until then to find out’. For a good while I’ve kept up the claim (and I maintain it now) that all I’m trying to do is work out if there is an answer to the eternal question or not that I can be sure of, a infinite philosophical quest. But the whole problem here is that it is exactly that: infinite, because as a sceptic I can never take anything like this as being certain. So assuming my arguments for no certain knowledge are correct, I’m never going to succeed in this self-assigned quest. Which leaves me back in a position I can’t get out of, and that’s why I’m wondering why I’m still bothering.
This is akin to nihilism, defined by Wikipedia as:
Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical position which argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Nihilists generally assert some or all of the following:
- Objective morality does not exist.
- No action is logically preferable to any other in regard to the moral value of one action over another.
- In the absence of morality, existence has no intrinsic higher meaning or goal.
- There is no reasonable proof or argument for the existence of a higher ruler or creator.
- Even if a higher ruler or creator exists, mankind has no moral obligation to worship them.
But then does it matter that my arguments don’t get me anywhere? I am managing so far to contentedly move along by simply keeping up this hope, which I know is in vain, that I will out this problems one day (or someone else will do so and tell me). Or as a friend puts it, keeping my eye on where I am on the staircase and worrying only about the next step (a levels, university etc.). I’ve always been someone to live in the future, and occasionally the past, but rarely in the present. But the problem here is that actually, all I’m doing here is accepting the conclusion that the meaning of life is merely the creation of happiness or contentedness which I don’t have any arguments for. I’m just going along with biological conclusions of getting me in the best possible state (happy) for passing on genetic information. Now, there are of course many who take this conclusion of happiness as being the only possible conclusion. But I’m not willing to accept it blindly quite yet. Just because it is what humans often do doesn’t mean it is the actual answer – or that such a thing exists.
As you can see I’ve just gone in a nice big circle with this post. This is because I have no answer to the original question. Any suggestions as comments to this post appreciated.
What are a few of your favourite things?
Xanga Featured Question: What are a few of your favourite things?
When I come across something ‘nice’, or when someone in real life or in a book or something says something truly inspiring, I like to sit back and smile at it, as I’m sure everyone does. I suppose these are all favourite things.
My very favourite thing is a good adversarial debate. Even if I lose I’ll learn something new.
I love a really fresh morning, I like to go ringing on said fresh mornings.
I love powerful quotes that word things so much better than I ever could. When I read them or hear someone say them.
I like it when teamwork pays off.
I like writing or reading a well constructed essay that just fits together beautifully.
I love an elegant mathematical truth.
I love to learn something new.
I love a good book.
I love it when it doesn’t, for once, bother me that I’m inferior and as unoriginal as everyone else.
That’ll do for now.
Scepticism gone wrong
It is said that in every group of philosophers, one will be driven entirely mad by their revelations, by either taking them too seriously or being unable to get around fundamental difficulties that derail their entire outlook on life. In my A level philosophy class it is definitely going to be me. For months I have maintained a policy of utter and complete scepticism. I have an argument (which some day I will polish up and post to this blog or my main site) that in my view shows that at present (based on some flimsy concept of time that I can’t be certain about either), no argument available can show that there is no possibility of doubt in any claim at knowledge, and thus we don’t know anything if knowledge requires certainty. I’m not going to defend that argument right now as indeed that previous sentence is full of holes, but instead look at the consequences of holding such a view.
For practical purposes us sceptics like to say that we use a looser and less rigorous definition of knowledge that allows us to proceed through the world without collapsing into a well of utter despair. I quite like to use coherentism – the idea that knowledge is justified when it coheres with other beliefs held in a patchwork quilt of justification – to work through this world that my five senses (if I have them) like to tell me about. Most of us realise at some point in our lives that the physical world might well not be here, and I’m only being slightly more original (although of course it’s all be done before) by saying that I doubt even things such as “there is something that exists that I recognise as being myself, in some form or another”. But then we move on and try to continue living as things appear to us because that is all we really know how to do. I am concerned that this may not be possible for me for much longer.
Put simply, I increasingly find my scepticism translating into a refusal to do philosophy or to present theories and start discussion, and this is scepticism gone wrong. “We can’t know anyway and there may be some external factor we don’t know about that throws this all out of the water so we might as well stop bothering.” This is not especially constructive because of course I do not accept scepticism absolutely as to do such would be just as bad as any more naive approaches to how much knowledge we have. I need to be more willing to challenge things and argue because otherwise I’m going to end up like a famous sceptical philosopher who I forget the name of who had to have a band of followers around him at all times to stop him putting himself in danger because he simply didn’t care. Even if we can’t know we can pretend to and have an argument about it, and this is what I should be doing more before dangerous knowledge (or lack there of) does indeed send me mad.
Debating Matters National Final 2008 in London
On Thursday morning a group of eight Silverdale debaters and two teachers headed off for London, intellectually (and in some cases physically) armed to the teeth with arguments, counters and rhetoric for the Debating Matters National Final 2008. Although I wasn’t scheduled to debate, as there were betters pairs of people available for all three debates than me who really suited them, I went down as a squad member and to soak up the other activities besides debating that were being put on. We were set to promote open borders in the quarter final, oppose drugs in sport in the semi final, and promote presumed consent for organ donation on death in the final. I expected us to go all the way, but we were knocked out in the quarter final: as usual we won the debate but lost Debating Matters because in this competition the standards change with the judges; i.e. every individual debate. However, I gained a new respect for this competition this trip as it definately has its upsides. Andrew and I jointly won an award for the ‘most spirited, inspired argument’ as I was continually pressing extreme liberal agendas in my questioning of the various panels.
The Debating Matters format is not one I have ever really liked because the speeches are short and there are no points of information, which makes the whole thing far less competitive. Between the regional finals and the national final, I exchanged messages via Facebook with the competition’s press officer, but had to apologise somewhat after a few days of debating: the competition’s questioning from the judges and strong involvement of the floor (audience) has won me over somewhat, and she said that she hoped that might well happen to me. The questioning really is very effective: things come up that teams simply don’t think of on their own, and this really enhances the quality of the debate. Yes, there were arrogant and self-righteous judges who were a bit of a pain, but they were confined to the less important debates and the best judges were polite and reasonably picked holes in cases. However, the judges’ judgements do not deserve the same accolade. A quotation from one sums the situation up: ‘As for [differences between] judges, we’re just making it up as we go along.’ The argument from the organisers which is against tick box style judging makes sense as those who aim to follow a set formal debating formula probably shouldn’t be the ones to be involved in a competition that is interested in digging deep into issues. But the problem here is that this contradicts with the idea of having a competition at all. There must be standards for victory otherwise it simply isn’t a fair playing field. For example, the competition has no marks for style and yet the judges discuss it regularly and we may have lost our debate due to a nervous first speaker.
The Institute of Ideas, which runs the competition (and was formed from the remnants of the British Communist Party so is very fluffy and liberal), also put on a Question Time-style panel one evening and this was excellent. All of the speakers were very good, but there were no real right-wing speakers which meant that everyone agreed on occasions where things might have gone on. The first issue to be discussed was the 42 days row, including David Davis, and my question was called for first: I asked how the panel, if they agreed with the measures, could reconcile the long term seperation of powers with a short term increase in security. After some confused answers I clarified by explaining how I go with the idea that it takes hundreds of years to establish these rights and we shouldn’t sacrifice that as we are only a small group of humans acting in a small space in the expanse of time. The debate moved on Zimbabwe, education (A levels being too easy) and a few other smaller issues. Controversy was caused by a Blairite member of the Institute for Public Policy Research saying that it was a good thing that A levels are getting easier, and the sides of the audience seperated (applauding raucously different speakers) when one proclaimed elitism and another denounced it.
Chairing both this and the final debate was Claire Fox, Radio 4 panellist on the Moral Maze and director of the Institute of Ideas. Opinions on her were mixed among the squad. To me, she was an enthusiastic supporter of open debate with a good personal, arrogant style – and I don’t mean real arrogance but the kind any debater employs in making their point. I could agree with others that at times she was a little self-righteous, but I did not accept the view of some that she was overly so and apparently went on far too long in her speech closing the competition and explaining (quite rightly in my view) how the aim was to draw us upwards into the real political world rather than patronising with simplistic and unimportant motions set for the competition.
Also worth mentioning is that at the end of the panel I had a chat to the Executive Director (or some other title that means the top) of Encyclopedia Britannica who was on the panel. Him and I stayed in the audotorium when everyone else had gone and I attempted to persuade him that Wikipedia really does supercede the commercial product with the argument that you should never cite an encyclopedia in real academic work anyway. He ignored most of it and tried to get me with the usual ‘I like Wikipedia but it is trying to do a different job’. An interesting encounter.
Of course the other aspect to this is meeting all the people involved, and additionally it is amazing how much you learn about people when you stay with them for several days; I refer here to the Silverdale squad. Here is my theory. When people are normally with their friends they are often at their happiest and most open; indeed my sister has remarked that this is true with me. However, over several days people are undoubtedly going to have changing moods and one also recognises annoying parts of people’s behaviour. So it was interesting to see the rest of the squad – who luckily for me I am all friends with; this was not the case for everyone – over the trip. Only two instances of unpleasant behaviour occurred. Going with my relaxed philosophy teacher in charge meant that he was relaxed about what we did, but in all honesty with so much of the squad being eighteen there wasn’t a lot he could do anyway. Additionally I got to know some of the squad better than before as there was lots of walking to be done around London and there were lots of small debates to engage in.
I also learnt something about myself as it was pointed out to me that I excessively label and denounce all those about me. Genuinely however I do this because I want to encourage an argument and rarely truly mean it. And here a difference comes between my family and those I was with on the trip: the latter will generally engage with me head on, and the former will just roll their eyes. As Conor pointed out, I am absolutely in my element with that kind of group of people, constantly fighting a corner or making some sort of strange theory somehow plausible. And at the end of the day, my friends know I am like this and don’t resent it, and like me want to be challenged. I wonder however what things were learnt about me that are not so good, and how awkward I’m sure I am at times without realising it.
The competition hired out floors of restaurants for the two evening meals and this provided great opportunity for continued discussion. Alcohol obviously featured here, even for the seventeen year olds as they were merely having it with a meal. I really don’t mind this anymore, and actually people don’t change too much, maybe become nicer. I still however fail to understand fully why they then go away and drink themselves stupid and throw up everywhere, when in this situation they were quite happy with a more reasonably quantity. On the second evening a friend and I spoke a great deal to one of the judges, an executive in the competition’s sponsor, Pfizer. He was a very fair judge and had lots of interesting things to say, even if I disagreed with most of them. Most of us came away finding it difficult to maintain negative views of the drugs company after meeting their representatives. Additionally, I got locked in a rather one sided ‘debate’ with a Labour activist whose continual stream of speech was repeated to several of us. It was virtually impossible to escape it.
What was interesting here was how I was actually quite happy to spend hours over the meal, even though I was feeling a bit off and wasn’t eating very much. For years my parents have been sick of me attempting to rush off. This is because, I think, I was with people who would engage with me for once and argue properly, or they were already my friends and so things can always be discussed. Maybe I should be a better person and not make this requirement for having an extended conversation with people, but I appreciated the meaning of ‘good conversation’ in those two evenings in London, and on the walks back in the dark.
A fine three days in my element, with good friends, strangers and arguments.