Rishon Rishon

David, It makes me happy to be a logoist. We are engineered to need to belive in something, a selective advantage from the EEA, I think. I am grateful for your new word.

Regarding the wager: Hi Pascal!

I really don't think "logoist" has a "real word" for the meaning you want it to have. I suppose since it doesn't say much ("belief in meaning" doesn't tell you anything about what is believed, just that there is *something*; logoist only means "not nihilist"), it wasn't the sort of concept that needed to be invoked in the past.

As far as theism following logoism, here's a quote from Kant's second Critique (Chapter II part V): "Now it was seen to be a duty for us to promote the summum bonum [happiness in proportion to compliance with duty]; consequently it is not merely allowable, but it is a necessity connected with duty as a requisite, that we should presuppose the possibility of this summum bonum; and as this is possible only on condition of the existence of God [a holy rational creator], it inseparably connects the supposition of this with duty; that is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God." Kant had already demolished the rationalist's arguments for the existence of God in his first Critique, so "being a logoist because of being a theist" is nonsense; the existence of God cannot be proven (but neither can it be disproven, being a supersensible object), so such a notion would be held purely on grounds of faith. If this faith has no grounding except faith, then it becomes lunatical; if "I believe because I believe and for no other reason" is allowed as a firm basis for determining what to hold to, then this basis allows for *any* possible belief; the notion of giant men sitting atop Mt. Olympus or of despotic space-aliens may be held by ungrounded faith as easily as belief in God. "Mohammed's paradise, or the absorption into the Deity of the theosophists and mystics would press their monstrosities on the reason according to the taste of each, and one might as well have no reason as surrender it in such fashion to all sorts of dreams" to use Kant's words.

I find it bizarre that nihilists nonetheless want to make some sort of attempt at ethics (even if it is just "Do as you please so long as you don't hurt anyone" or "Maximize pleasure, minimize pain"). They want to say that humanity exists solely by natural laws (say, the conditioning of selective advantages over time, or the laws of chemical interaction which govern the nerves), but they still want to make use of the imperative case. How "Do X" is intelligible when addressing a being whose existence is entirely dependent on natural laws, I do not know. If humans are essentially just complicated rocks and plants, I can't see how we could have freedom that rocks and plants don't.

Thank you, Daniel.

I presume that you see why I wanted a word to mean not-nihilist. I specifically didn't want to say anything about the nature of that meaning.

As for me, I can derive theism from logoism specifically because I have a very minimalist notion of God, i.e. I know nothing about Him. Specifically, I don't assume (at this point of the argument) that He is "a holy rational creator". I only assume that He is the source of meaning. (The Tao, or the Force, might do equally well.)

However, as an additional, non-derivable point, I feel that I do know (some) things that He wants me to do, i.e. I feel confident that at least the broad outlines of my values are correct, and that if I endeavor to lead a meaningful life, that it will in fact be one. But first, I need logoism to make it possible at all.

Yeah, I see why you're wanting a word that means nothing beyond "not nihilist", but it's a narrow enough need that I doubt we're overlooking an already-existent word that would have the same meaning.

Well, I'm skeptical of your claim to assume *nothing* about him. "Source of meaning" carries baggage with it, after all; "a small rubber bird" would be unable to act as a "source of meaning" for instance, and so God must be assumed not to be a small rubber bird. I skipped over the parts where Kant justified belief in God's holiness, rationality, and status as creator. God's holiness (possession of a perfectly good will (or at least something analogous to the will in a person)) is rationalized by the point that an evil or amoral being would offer us no hope for happiness. If he is evil, then we are doomed, for then he would punish us for doing what we should do, and morality thus becomes the abandonment of any hope at happiness. If he is amoral, then there is no ground for hope based on what we do, since whatever we do will not matter to a being who never passes judgement on our actions. God's rationality is necessarily believed in because an irrational being leads into belief in an amoral being (since only a rational being can distinguish between opposites, such as "good" and "evil"). God's status as creator is the ground for belief that there is some order in creation that leads to happiness in proportion with obedience to the moral law; if God did not create the world, then there is no reason to think that he interacts with it at all, and so belief that somehow God will reward obedience becomes nonsense.

All of this depends upon Kant's summum bonum of "A perfectly good will, with happiness in proportion to that goodness"; this is more complex than simple "meaning", but I have trouble thinking of what could count as "meaning" apart from happiness upon condition of obedience to duty; something abstract like the Tao or the Force (as in Star Wars?) serves essentially the same purpose as God: It is a "something" which makes it reasonable to do what you should do without abandoning any hope of happiness. Taoism has a rather rigourous legal/moral code, as I recall (though I could be confusing it with Confuscism), and Yoda made it clear that the Dark Side of the Force was something to be avoided, thought both the Tao (as far as I know) and the Force are given as objects that one may base hope on.

If you assume you know some things He wants you to do, then you're already bound to hold him to be reasonable (since "What God Wants Me To Do" only makes sense if God isn't wanting you to perform contradictory actions at the same time), and if these desires of God for you are moral (i.e., God wants you to be a good person), then you're also bound for this rational God to be holy (or else any moral duties to God come into conflict with any other duties He might want you to do, with no way to judge whether God wants you to be moral or simply obey His arbitrary decrees, when the two conflict; this conflict is resolved if either God makes only moral demands, or if it is taken as a given that God places moral obligation before any other obligation). Then the "creator" bit is only called in as a way to make it conceivable that this holy rational God interacts with the world. So, if you know some of the things that God wants you to do, then you're pretty much committed to God as a holy rational creator. If you don't know what God wants you to do, then I'm not sure how He can be a source of meaning, since all of your actions would then be unrelated to God, and so unrelated to the source you hope to derive meaning from. Perhaps I'm overlooking some way there can be meaning to life without it having any effect on how a person should act, but I suspect there is not.

Daniel: You are perfectly right that if I assume that existence has meaning, and that God is the source of meaning, and that I know some things that God wants me to do, then I can derive the rest. But I specifically want to keep those three assumptions separate, because there are people who would agree with some but not others.

However, I want to understand not just what has to be logically true, but how human psychology really works. For me, at least, the reward and punishment model of happiness doesn't get me too far. I think that happiness comes from identifying yourself with something greater than yourself, in that I am happy because I find my life meaningful because I do things that are meaningful in this greater context. But then I get stuck on the question: Why is that meaningful? So I need to believe in an ultimate meaning. I don't need to know what it is - I too have trouble thinking what counts as meaning - but I don't feel the necessity to do so, only to know that it is there. This fits in perfectly with Judaism, since God is felt to be inconceivable by human beings.

As you can see, I don't need an extra step of reward and punishment either: Knowing that your actions are meaningful is its own reward.

I think that this is the way human psychology really works. Ironically, the only way to be happy is to believe that there is something more important than your happiness.

What's EEA? Goo-gle comes up with the European Environment Agency lol.

Ironically, the only way to be happy is to believe that there is something more important than your happiness.

Yes, :-)

Similarly, the best way to create plenty of washing machines is .... not a campaign for more washing machines, but rather just capitalism.

PS your blacklist doesn't like goo-gle

I don't agree with your wager. If Nihilism was true (I hold it's false), then I would want to know. then i would spend some time reconciling my worldview with nihilism, because it would have all sorts of stuff in it that contradicts nihilism and therefore, in the counterfactual, is wrong. during this process i would have to reconcile my ideas about nihilism, happiness, and morality.

once i fixed my worldview up a bit, i would be a different person: i would be a nihilist. and maybe i would like it, i don't know, I can't predict that.

Elliot: Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation. :)
See, I can be a logoist, and still belive in the god-in-the-genes.

I just discovered your blog and have been reading the last few entries. This discussion of logoism is interesting. My immediate objection is that your definition of "meaning" seems to be basically a circular justification for theism: meaning is that which God gives; God is that which gives meaning. Maybe I missed your definition, however; I've been skimming a bit.

By your definition, I must be a nihilist. But I don't find this depressing, and I don't see it as a justification for zero-sum amoral ethics.

jls: No, I am observing that lots of people seem to believe in meaning without believing in God. But to me that makes no sense because I simply define God as that which gives meaning.