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Originally Posted by dead_battery

science is not founded on doubt, its founded on empirically verifiable knowledge. but it works because it does not deal with what we want to be true, and therefore unlocks a bounty of knowledge and technique precisely because it deals a right hook to our biases ability to interfere with our knowledge.

well, that too, but the basic scientific attitude is one of asking questions-- see? if you don't doubt anything you don't need to test anything. there is no science without an open mind. there is no science without question. and science DIES when it becomes dogma. science is always testing itself

you have to look at the origins of science to see the power of those doubts in their time. is the earth really flat? does the sun really revolve around the earth? is fire really phlogiston escaping matter? do some objects fall faster than others in a vacuum? is there such thing as a "life force"? is the atom really like a raisin pudding? is gravity really an attractive force? etc. etc.

Originally Posted by dead_battery

belief - i think you are still playing ideological games here. noone has any need for belief whatsoever. you don't need belief to get out of bed and go get a sandwich. you need belief to socially report your glorious grasping to whatever folk psychological mythos of the self and its noble meaningful purpose you want to spout to look good to the other apes who will reward you with grains from the field and chants of your name.

i'm not playing games (i resent that accusation), but if belief didn't present an evolutionary advantage to the nervous system it would have gone the way of our amphibian tails (see fetal development).

just because belief can be useful (to many) it doesn't follow that it's either indispensable nor necessary. for example, belief that god ordered you to be fruitful and multiply will make your genes spread more which will spread the believing gene more.

this is perfectly compatible with the nihilism you espouse, as an absurd universe is neither in favor nor against belief. only our own drive to truth is against belief. or maybe it's a mutation. but that's our personal problem and it ends when we do.

Originally Posted by dead_battery

nihilism - yes the universe is indifferent to us and we have no good reason for existing at all and not killing ourselves.

but you don't need a "reason" to not kill yourself just like you don't need a reason to eat a sandwich. i mean you just live on and you just eat a sandwich like a good machine. actually, i think "a reason" is more of a prerequisite for suicide. except for lemmings which do it instinctively.

Originally Posted by dead_battery

also perpetuating existence is a dubious prospect at best because all we are doing is pushing the date of our eventual extinction forward into time, which is also pointless.

but just because something is pointless it doesn't mean that it has no value for me. in other words, something can have value for you even if it has no meaning for the great fucking universe. i mean the universe and i are two different people. if the universe wants to be absurd that's fine, i don't give a shit; if there is no god, it doesn't alter me; i'm fine being an orphan and i can still find value in things because this good machine that is me gives its value to me.

Originally Posted by dead_battery

i think that our culture has these subtle but all pervasive ideological manoeuvres. its like - commodity cool nihilism. its like the idea that by consuming and "participating" you are asserting your freedom FROM nihilism by denying it thus taking its potential threat away. but the trick is you are supposed to think that nihilism is a threat to your beliefs, but your beliefs can overcome it because everything is relative and therefore perspective trumps reality.

you mean purchasing as a way to get meaning? like "this is my brand!"-- that kind of shit?

Originally Posted by dead_battery

but the truth is that all human history - its all been nihilism. that's the fundamental field on which all human endeavour has been working in.

if you mean that all human endeavo(u)r means nothing in the end then sure!

but i am not concerned with those questions because i do not require the universe to approve of my actions. i am not in the end. and yes i know my actions are absurd in an absurd universe. i still derive value from them though.