by waterhoused » Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:46 am
Sorry to post so late, but I wanted to discuss this
comic if possible.
I googled around to see what discussion it created last January, but couldn't find much other than Zach's comment on a thread in
r/philosophy.
There were a couple of other discussions on reddit, but they all seemed to be missing the point. I don't think Zach was saying anything about mortality being thirstiness (which seems to be the redditors' consensus) or the immortality causing nihilism to be true or untrue again (or not).
I took it more as the older humans realized the truth of nihilism, realized that it's ok, and learned to value the freedom in it (all from existentialism), but then just worshipped the void of meaning itself (or the freedom itself) instead of accepting Camus invitation to create meaning or ethics or something else with that freedom. (Basically, they made the freedom of meaninglessness into meaning, instead of making something more "meaningful" into meaning, e.g., colonizing the universe or something.)
The posthumans look back at the older humans and pity/disapprove of them for worshiping the mere fact of the existence of the desert (their thirst in the metaphor), instead of you, know actually getting out of the desert to more fertile ground to actually do something meaningful with their now valuable lives (sating that thirst).
Am I way off? Was this just about mortality?
Sorry to post so late, but I wanted to discuss this [url=http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2871]comic[/url] if possible.
I googled around to see what discussion it created last January, but couldn't find much other than Zach's comment on a thread in [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/17hrwy/smbc_sisyphus/c85lxw9]r/philosophy[/url].
There were a couple of other discussions on reddit, but they all seemed to be missing the point. I don't think Zach was saying anything about mortality being thirstiness (which seems to be the redditors' consensus) or the immortality causing nihilism to be true or untrue again (or not).
I took it more as the older humans realized the truth of nihilism, realized that it's ok, and learned to value the freedom in it (all from existentialism), but then just worshipped the void of meaning itself (or the freedom itself) instead of accepting Camus invitation to create meaning or ethics or something else with that freedom. (Basically, they made the freedom of meaninglessness into meaning, instead of making something more "meaningful" into meaning, e.g., colonizing the universe or something.)
The posthumans look back at the older humans and pity/disapprove of them for worshiping the mere fact of the existence of the desert (their thirst in the metaphor), instead of you, know actually getting out of the desert to more fertile ground to actually do something meaningful with their now valuable lives (sating that thirst).
Am I way off? Was this just about mortality?