It's fun to think you know.

in #nihilism4 years ago (edited)

But it's much harder to know than to think you know.

The idea that one is part of a privileged group who see what others are blind to is enticing to say the least. The world where Bush worked with the Illuminati to perpetrate the 9/11 attacks is full of intrigue. The notion that one see's through the elaborate ruse that is the moon landing, or even spaceflight generally, evidences one's own intellect's superiority to that of their peers in addition to that of the learned. To be privy to the fact that reptilian extraterrestrials secretly walk among us or that an omnipotent being watches over and turns the knobs of the universe raises the stakes and adds exciting imperatives to life.

However each person is just as blind as the last.

The universe is under no obligation to be comprehensible to us, nor to even be interesting. Our insatiable urge to conjure and assign meaning can lead to a nagging psychic refrain.

"Surely it isn't that simple."

There's always got to be more to the story, another story between the lines, and another story between those lines.

Reality contains mostly nothing.

But we fabricate stories and explanations atop explanations and stories, to reconcile the empty (both of substance and of meaning) external reality with an internal reality overflowing with a plenum of thoughts, emotions and perceptions. Despite this drive, our minds are not equipped to discover truths, only to survive and reproduce. The mind is more than willing to lie to itself. Even were it not, the universe is callous to our need for significance. All the brain is for, insomuch as it is for anything, is to coordinate the motion of the limbs and action of the organs in service of survival and fecundity.

So I don't believe you have the truth about what happens behind closed doors, or what did or didn't happen on the moon. Not that it matters anyway.

Wholly considered we, and life generally, are just convolutions of how sunlight plays on the earth. No more, and no less. In my view it's nothing to get worked up about, and will all be over soon.

A world full of nothing where knowledge is impossible seems boring, terrifying, or demoralizing to some.

Fortunately for me, I enjoy those qualities and that's what we seem to have on our hands.

Thanks for reading!


Hope you stay safe out there.

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The universe is under no obligation to be comprehensible to us, nor to even be interesting.

"Surely it isn't that simple." :-) And even if it is, it doesn't prevent us trying to comprehend the universe anyway ;-)

Agreed.

Whether truths are accesible, it seems to me a healthy exercise of the mind to try and get at them nonetheless. Not only that, but the pursuit alone can be useful.

We see such in science. Though scientific inquiry only ever yeilds an approximate model of the universe, albeit a continuously sharpened one, it's endevours still lend insights which can help solve problems and produce potent technologies.

I say we keep up the sisyphean task of truth-seeking in full recognition of it's ultimate futility, in denial of wishful wanton delusion. Embracing the Absurd seems to me like a sort of intellectual honesty given the circumstance of our mysterious existence.

Thanks for stopping by.

I say we keep up the sisyphean task of truth-seeking in full recognition of it's ultimate futility, in denial of wishful wanton delusion. Embracing the Absurd seems to me like a sort of intellectual honesty given the circumstance of our mysterious existence.

Yes, this is beautifully put, and I agree. Our lives are full with sisyphian tasks like that, yet we have to keep rolling that rock uphill... ;-)

It's fun to think you know ;)

Indeed, a real barrel of monkeys.

Maybe you think you know too.

I like the way you think.