The Art of Knowing Nothing

There exists a difference between the number zero, a state of absence and the concepts of nothing and nothingness. It behooves one to know the difference. The nihilist is a person who claims specific revelation knowledge as to that which is comprised by all conditions of Nothing. The ethical skeptic on the other hand is a student of Nothing before he or she can ever claim to bear expertise at anything.

A friend was challenged by his son the other day, with the contention that the number zero (0) was not really a number at all, rather that it represented the concept of nothing – and that therefore, all of our numeric systems needed to be revised in order to reflect this principle of reality. This approach of course presupposes that non-zero numbers, indeed are real in themselves – a predicate contention which the philosopher cannot grant free pass (and of course the mistake which the Romans made with I II III IV, etc.). The numeral ‘zero’ bears a specific function which is mathematics related. As such, and given that maths involves the manipulation of symbols/placeholders/numbers/numeral digits – concepts or symbols thereof which serve as placeholders for series concepts – therefore, zero is indeed a series number and is not akin to ‘nothing’. Without the number 0, the series -2, -1, 0, 1, 2… would have no coherency, and advanced sets of maths/computer science would fail due to the resulting lossy glitch in that logical/computational series.

The numeral ‘1’ for instance is merely the next series symbol for the condition of a single instance of a domain, set, entity or (quality or quantity) state – all concepts which are useful in defining the conditions of Nothing, below. The numeral ‘1’ too is merely symbolic – quad erat demonstrandum the number ‘zero’ bears all the same elements of validity as a number, as does the number ‘1’ or any other numeral.1

What my friend’s son was doing, was to conflate a ‘condition of Nothing’, with the numerics of zero. While the equivocal concepts of both do indeed overlap, this overlap is much less in magnitude than the layman might first assume. It behooves the ethical skeptic to fathom and adeptly ply the difference between zero and nothing.

There is zero, and there is Nothing – wherein the two are not necessarily the same thing at all.

Zero is an issue of series. Nothing is an issue of state. Intent is sticky and robust, more so than either zero or Nothing –
and may persist well beyond the boundary conditions introduced by each of those limited concepts.

The Conditions of Nothing

But fathoming the depths of this tenet of philosophy serves to give pause in the mind of the ethical skeptic: What other concepts of Nothing exist, and how are they defined under a Wittgenstein level of clarity as well? Further then, how does this help us define the term ‘nihilism’? Below I outlay my most recent foray into defining the depths of Nothing. The list begins with the most objective and ends with the most subjective concepts. The Wittgenstein anchor terms used herein are set, entity, (quantity or quality) state, domain, known, unknown, number, transaction, condition, member and series.

Make Sure That You Know Nothing (The Conditions of Nothing)

Series/Maths

  0/Zero/Aught – a number which place-holds for termination of a quantitative series

  Nil/Zilch/Love/Zot – a state of attainment represented by no quantity of a known entity

            aleph_0/Aleph Zero – the termination (cardinality) of the series set of natural numbers

Sets & Domains

  Nought/Naught – any set or entity which produces no associated quantity or quality

  None – a known set or entity which exhibits an absence of quantity or quality

  Blank – a set which is devoid of its associated entities

  Void – a defined domain which contains no set, entity nor quantity or quality

  Nada – a void of known entities or sets inside a known domain

  Non-Existent – the state of a known set or entity in which it is absent in all known domains

  Non-Entity – a putative member of a set which does not actually belong to that set

  ∅/Empty Set – a set of a known entity, quantity or quality which does not exist in a given domain

Nothing States

  Non-Extant – a set or entity, known or unknown, which is absent in all domains

  Oblivion – a condition in which the complete set of an entity is rendered non-extant

  Absent – a set, entity or state which is prohibited detection in a domain

  Emptiness – a domain in which all sets or entities are prohibited detection

  Nihil – a state of inability to exist, regardless of domain

  Nothingness – the domain of all sets or entities which are nihil

Meta-Nothing

  NaN – not a number. A value that is undefinable or unrepresentable

  Idempotent – a transaction which contributes no change in (quantity or quality) state

  Nix/Exterminate – to render a set or entity to one of the various conditions of Nothing

  Annihilate – to render a set or entity to the sate of nihil

  Nihilism – a faith, that all Conditions of Nothing fully describe that which appears absent

As the astute observer may notice herein, nihilism, because of its desperate claim to grasp all that is Nothing, without any evidence of such knowledge, is indeed a personal choice of faith. A hunch, a metaphysical selection, just as believing in God is a metaphysical selection. Which is fine. However, when one enforces that personal choice upon others (by mandating it as an outcome of logic, rationality or science), it also becomes a religion often called Atheism (distinct from agnosticism or ignostic atheism).

So now that you the ethical skeptic have plumbed the depths of Wittgenstein’s Nothing, and have perceived just how impossible it is to know Nothing; therefore stand firm against those who purport to possess short-cut revelation knowledge as to the entirety of Nothing.

That sure would be something.

The Ethical Skeptic, “The Art of Knowing Nothing”; The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 30 Sep 2019; Web, https://wp.me/p17q0e-apD

The Ten Endamnedments of Sol-Nihilism

It is not that which you believe, rather what you forbid belief, which defines you. – The Ethical Skeptic

How it Works: Nihilism Takes the Reigns from Abrahamism

Abused children are always hidden away and taught that they are worthless and stupid; that no one either exists and/or cares enough about them to desire their presence. Their captor loves them with a love which they could not possibly comprehend, but is Justly provoked by a past sin; and therefore now must by the integrity of this love, administer an awesome and righteous justice. (“It puts the lotion on its skin!”) They are held in a prison, bullied and brainwashed into believing that they are isolated, receiving the Just ramification they deserve for being or doing something wrong to offend their captor/abuser. Religions used this approach effectively in the past to control thought. Secular Nihilism is crafted around the same approach they observed being effectively employed by abusive religions, because Materialist Nihilism is also an abusive religion itself.

Sol-Nihilism – the religious belief that only the material is real, and that the conscious, spiritual, values or intent sets all reduce solely to the material. In nihilism, you bear the original sin of being worthless and powerless.

The Ten EnDamnedments

We can no longer control them by means of masquerading as gods, hell worship, threats, tribe/cult social pressure and guilt. Therefore a new Charter is mandated as follows (aka, ‘Same Shit – Different Disguise’):

Human,

1.  enslavement of nihilismYour sentience and human intelligence have been proved to be exclusively an artifact of biological variation – iteratively mutated, survival culled, conserved along with a long history of precursor versions; replicated and expressed, all inside 43 randomly targeted, fantastically fortuitous, hyper-accelerated and first-trial-success blocks of your genome – comprising a mere 1 megabyte of actual novel allele data. This renders you nothing more than an extreme, single occurrence, fluke of nature.

2.  You are isolated in an unoccupied far corner of all there is. Any faith holding a contrary idea will be mocked. Any discordant eyewitness observation or research you maintain, will be regarded as criminal pseudoscience. Your life as a solely deterministic flesh-bot is the result of single instance, accidental material chemistry and closed set energy. Therefore, you are alone.

3.  Your lawless nature, the so called ‘free will’ and ‘self’, are proved to stem only from an illusion of neuro-synapse function. Your pathology inside this illusion renders you a wholly ignorant and pestilential presence on Our planet; unworthy to determine any ‘endowed, inalienable or certain’, health, diet, education, spirituality, domain, property rights or other supposed matters in defense of ‘self.’

4.  Quantum Science predicts correctly that ‘you’ are happenstance through an infinity of possibilities; yet has also proved that upon this basis of ultimate plenitude, ‘you’ could not possibly have existed before, nor can you sustain in any form, nor can you ever naturally happen again.

5.  We have demonstrated that We can re-observe you or anyone through Artificial Intelligence. There is therefore no need of an Other or competing Observer frame of reference, of any kind, which could relate to your presence nor bring ‘you’ to coherence.  We are your only Observer and We can re-create you, or choose not to, at our whim.

6.  As a pestilential weed therefore, you bear nothing special about you which would warrant an accommodation of life, liberty nor any pursuit of happiness. Your disarming and emasculation of power, freedom and unauthorized property is therefore now, a higher cause of social justice.

7.  Only science is qualified to determine rights, beliefs, responsibilities, legislation and morals. A supreme rule through the fascism of science/governance is manifestly justified therefore, as your only ultimate option towards fealty. Any unauthorized ideas will be met with severe social, and eventually legal, punishment.

8.  We are the science. You are not. We administer all platforms of truth. It is our just right therefore, to seek retribution or silence you by any form of coercive means we choose, in order to ensure the greater and just good.

9.  You exist and function at Our behest. There are no extant Other realms or intelligences which could hold Our Neo-Fascism morally or ethically accountable. Nothing exists through which you could understand differently, develop self, tender appeal; nor through which any other individual rights or societal morals could be derived.

10.  Since all humanity now depends upon Our supreme rule for their justice-enabled existence, Our ruling entity must therefore be protected at all costs; including inevitably, the mutually assured destruction nuclear option. Therefore, you precious human, are collectively hostage in the game of ensuring that Our power (in all forms seen and unseen) is never toppled. We are more than willing to extinguish you, along with all this planet’s higher life forms, in order to defend and keep Our rule intact.

The Ethical Skeptic, “The Ten Endamnedments” The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 29 Dec 2017, Web; https://wp.me/p17q0e-6VS

Ethical Skepticism – Part 6 – Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say

Social Skeptics bear the habit of hiding what it is they are seeking to promote. They accomplish this misrepresentation through terminological equivocation and the employment of club signature intimidation words. It behooves the Ethical Skeptic to understand what a person means when they utter certain words, and ensure that the words are not being implied as club weapons to enforce specious religious doctrines. It behooves the Ethical Skeptic to understand their own employment of such words, and exercise the use of them in a context of ethical clarity; to disarm the social inference that such words mean more, than they really do. To err in either regard is the source of all fanaticism.

Say What You Mean

Social Skeptics erroneously influence their acolytes through misleading them as to the meaning behind the terms they employ, and the nature of the underlying philosophy entailed. They believe that their use of the terms evolution, atheism and science affords them immediate scientific gravitas and a perch of correctness. When a person slings around the terms evolution, atheism and science, for me this is not tantamount to an immediate free pass into the graces of trustworthiness. I regularly encourage the Social Skeptic vulnerable among us to understand what it is indeed that they mean, by the terms they employ. Clarity is one of the consequentialist goals of Ethical Skepticism. If you represent critical thinking, science and rationality, then one would be hypocritical to not employ complex terms in a frame of meaningful reference. Otherwise the terms are simply used as a weapon of pretense and intimidation. I use the words evolution, atheism and science – therefore anything I say is scientifically correct, and I have an entire cadre of bullies available to back me up if I so choose. This is not science, it is a hypo epistemological process of fraud.

As an Ethical Skeptic, if I am to continue inside a discourse of life and meaning with such a person, I need to know if they really understand what they are saying when they spout off the words so frequently uttered by their ‘mentors.’ I really need to know what they mean by

Evolution – do they mean speciated diversity of life through the generational culling of environmentally stimulated allele changes?

Or …do they mean that life sprang up on Earth through abiogenesis and random primordial ooze, therefore we are simply a one way genetic expression machine which has deterministically resulted in the fluke illusion of consciousness?  The former fact is science, the latter argument is a highly separate religion – often protected by and conflated inside the club weapon word ‘evolution.’

Atheism – do they mean a personal ethic of not commenting or concluding around this undefinable construct called ‘god?’

Or …do they mean that they hate (and habitually apologize around this) anything to do with a certain religion, its adherents and any idea that a magical bearded entity poofed the universe into existence in 6 days, 6000 years ago? Do they really mean that they choose to venerate Material Monism, and an existential lack of any innate purpose to this biosphere Earth, or any other similar events which occur in our Universe? Really, because I am not sure how one derives such a conclusion. I did not possess their enthalpy laden spaceship, that much psychic clairvoyance, nor that much time, in order to determine such an extraordinary claim myself. The former choice is an ethical action, the latter argument is a highly separate religion called Nihilism – often protected by and conflated inside the club weapon word ‘atheism.’

Science – do they mean both the body of accepted knowledge and the method by which we objectively qualify and build that knowledge?

Or …do they mean screaming about a selective set of physical measures which target confirmation and methodically avoid falsification of a specific religious understanding of the world around us? Do they mean an ontology protected through a non acknowledged Omega Hypothesis (the hypothesis which is developed to end all argument) masquerading as the ‘null hypothesis,’ through an inverse negation fallacious approach – and therefore socially enforced as truth? The former definition is science, the latter argument is a highly separate religious hypoepistemology – often protected by and conflated inside the club weapon word ‘science.’

Science is also about clarity, value, disciplined thinking and trustworthiness. When you hear me use the words above, I mean the former and not the latter in each case. If I attempted to imply the orange ontologies in the chart below, as scientific truth – I could not look at myself in the mirror in the morning – from such a display of dishonesty. Passing off one’s ontology as a science, constitutes not only pseudoscience, but is a Wittgenstein Error (Epistemological) as well. Be wary of those who can do such without conscience. Be very wary of those who can not only look at themselves in the mirror after promoting such fraud, but aspire to celebrity in the process as well. The incorrect use of these words abrogates your claim to represent scientific thinking. Say what you mean – and you will gain the respect of those who truly understand philosophy and science.

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say - Copy

Mean What You Say

The Lie of AllegianceIf you join a movement, organization or philosophical movement – do so because you really understand and really mean and believe those tenets which are promoted by that movement. Don’t do so because you desire to appear as smart and scientific, or need some kind of self affirmation and acceptance, pep rallies or the rush of shaming others whom you regard as beneath you intellectually or socially. Such dispositions render one vulnerable to being manipulated by celebrity and malevolent influences. Otherwise, you are living what is called a Lie of Allegiance. If you, quietly over a couple beers, will soften your stance and reflect on a whole series of doubts you carry – but must hold in abeyance – then you are living a Lie of Allegiance. People in churches do this to make their families happy. People in Social Skepticism do this, and worse, in order to gain acceptance to that club. This personal foible is anathema to the Ethical Skeptic.

Fanaticist’s Error

/philosophy : self understanding : cognitive dissonance : error/ : mistaking one’s fanaticism or being ‘hardcore’ as positively indicative of the level of understanding and commitment one possesses inside a philosophy or adopted belief set. The reality is that being fanatical or hardcore indicates more one’s dissonance over not fully believing, nor fully understanding the nature of the belief tenets to which they have lent fealty.

A fanaticist is different from a fanatic. A fanatic simply loves a particular subject or brand. A fanaticist on the other hand employs their outward extremism as a cover to hide an unacknowledged and suppressed inner cognitive dissonance.

A useful tool in Social Skepticism, the Lie of Allegiance, keeps the faithful unified and aligned in playing select activist roles.  A Lie of Allegiance is often promoted through one-liners, weapon words and circularly quoted propaganda, initially deployed by celebrity SSkeptics, and enforced by the faithful, looking for purpose power and reward. It relies upon the ignorance of its participants, leveraged through the application of pep rallies and the pummeling of effigies of evil opponents. This is why the acolytes and trolls of Social Skepticism often focus on politics and persons, and not science itself. They either do not fully understand, nor do they fully believe, the philosophy to which they have lent their fealty.

This inner dissonance, prompts what we observe as fanaticism.

The Lie of Allegiance

1. The origin of fanaticism. The core argument which binds together a group on one side in a false dilemma

2.  A core philosophy (such as Nihilism or Material Monism) which is masked by a differing but similar and more attractive cover philosophy (such as atheism) because of the cover philosophy’s generally more acceptable nature.

3.  A principle which is not fully regarded as truth by many or most of the members of a club of adherents, rather is adopted as a preemptive compromise in order to gain acceptance in that club. A principle employed only as the default, Omega Hypothesis, or battle cry agenda around which to combat those on the other side of the false dilemma argument.  The measure of adherence to the Lie of Allegiance principle is more a reflection of disdain towards those of antithetical positions, than it is an expression of rational conclusion on the part of the adherent.

Corollaries

i.  Many of the proponents in a Lie of Allegiance based organization, do not fully understand their Lie of Allegiance, nor perceive its contrast with the cover philosophy to which they in reality adhere.

Example:  Most self proclaimed atheists cannot coherently frame the difference between atheism, skepticism, agnosticism, naturalism, nihilism, ignosticism, monism, materialism, tolerance and apatheism.

ii.  Many members involved in a Lie of Allegiance do not in reality care about the specifics of the teaching under which they profess fealty.  Specific psychologies involving the Ten Pillars are at play inside the binding power of the Lie of Allegiance.

Example:  Many self proclaimed atheists wear the badge as a result of an emotional state, rather than a discriminating choice of conscience.  This renders them susceptible to Nihilist’s, who use rally cries and the pummeling of christian issues in effigy, as a way to enlist the emotional allegiance of those who have poorly rationalized their ontology.

Social Skeptics bear the habit of hiding what it is they are seeking to promote. They accomplish this misrepresentation through terminological equivocation and the employment of club signature weapon words. It behooves the Ethical Skeptic to understand what a person means when they utter certain words, and ensure that the words are not being implied as club weapons to enforce specious religious doctrines. It behooves the Ethical Skeptic to understand their own employment of such words, and exercise the use of them in a context of ethical clarity; to disarm the social inference that such words mean more, than they really do.

I look at myself in the mirror each morning, and I like and respect the guy I see there.