What Are the Five Theories of Nihilism?
Curated by TheCollector
2] Cosmic Nihilism
Cosmic Nihilism is one of the more extreme theories of Nihilism.
And it is best explored theoretically because sans sim worlds/dream worlds and the like, there appears to be no getting around the fact that there is a world around us. And one way or another we have to make sense of it. And then all the parts in the world that are clearly either this or that. Not only can we attach meaning to them, but the meaning itself is applicable to all of us.
[Proponents of cosmic nihilism] look out into the wider universe, arguing that the cosmos is so vast and unintelligible that it acts as evidence of our minute insignificance.
Okay, but does that make our day to day interactions here on planet Earth any less substantive and substantial? Yes, it seems to be the case that if we mere mortals are not able to attach our life [and the meaning we give it] to one or another God or to one or another "spiritual path", what does anything at all
ultimately mean given the truly staggering vastness of "all there is"? And even here that includes the assumption that we have the capacity to freely opt for the meaning we do ascribe to our lives "out in the world" with others.
Cosmic Nihilists noted how the universe is completely indifferent to our daily lives, thus reinforcing the argument that nothing we do matters at all, so why bother believing in anything or anyone?
Same thing, of course. The universe may be completely indifferent to us, but our families and our neighbors and our communities and our employers and our governments, etc., certainly are not. Yeah, "theoretically" or "philosophically" human existence may be essentially meaningless ontologically and purposeless teleologically...but our obligations don't just go away. And the bills still have be paid.
So, sure, technically, this...
Some even went a stage further, arguing that the things like love, family, freedom and happiness we hold on to so tightly are merely distractions to divert us away from the underlying truth that we are all just waiting to die.
...may all be true [and I believe that it is] but "so what?" For whatever personal reasons in a free will world, we choose to continue to do what we can from day to day to day to get the most pleasure and the least pain out of our "human existence".
We just happen to be the only species around able to explore the meaning of that in places like this.