I don't think it's a contradiction to draw a line between knowing what is and knowing what will be.
I'm familiar with Campbell. I know that I am the hero. I also know that all my hallucinations all think they are the hero too. That allows me to constrain the space of predictions but not perfect precision.
That's nihilism. Those aren't your hallucinations. They're their own hallucinations. Maybe they're "you," but on this side of veil, it doesn't matter.
Nihilism is concluding meaninglessness. I concluded that it does matter, it is the only and most important thing in the world.
There is nothing in my experience that allows me to actually confirm you are a separate entity. Schizophrenics know this is true.
In the event that something in the nomena corresponds to you, then I am also a hallucination inside your experience. Since I can only observe the nomena through a glass darkly I treat it like an unknowable.
Mostly it shades to you being entirely a hallucination because I can't know you exist in the nomena AND any knowledge I have of that being in the nomena is filtered through my hallucinations.
You can't observe noumena at all, and that's the point of the distinction between noumema and phenomena. That's why I'm a legit hallucination for both you and me, as are you. How could anything in noumema correspond to anything, if all noumena are filtered through phenomena? Correspondences do occur, but they're only observable effect of the real thing which is unobservable ; two sides of that dark glass/mirror..
Solipsism is nihilistic because it makes the jump from "I can know" to "therefore I'm all there is," which is an unjustifiable jump, and if you're all there is, and bad things happen despite you wishing they didn't, then you must be powerless - but it doesn't make sense that you can be powerless and God at the same time. If you zoom out and say we're all part of one fabric, then that might be true, and even seems to be, but its entirely pointless. You're back to the original position of being an individual. And I suspect that's what you're driving at - that teacher you shared was very against the concept of individuality.
He is, but I never said I agreed with EVERYTHING he said. I only told you he was interesting and made me think of you. I do agree with a lot of what he says. Luckily he doesn't test and doesn't expect students to agree with him to pass.
Fabric is one way of looking at it. Subtle difference from may way but same end result. I wouldn't harm you because harming a hallucination inside my head I would be self harm. Better to drive at growth and positive sum interactions with the part of myself that is you.
I don't don't think I'm powerless, there is a wide gap between there and all powerful. I'm somewhere in between. In addition to that I exist in the nomena which I have imperfect knowledge of, though I have perfect knowledge of phenomena. My imperfect knowledge of nomena means that I cannot always affect the nomena in the way that I want even if I were all powerful.
Note that you also have perfect knowledge of phenomena, even though we have different and conflicting knowledge. We each have a unique and separate phenomena. This is not moral relativism. True morals are something in nomena that we both have only imperfect access to.
Yeah I liked that he doesn't test. It seems right for a class like that.
This has been fun. I should disclose, I picked that position on a whim because I thought it would be fun to defend and I knew you'd be up for talking about it.
Educational to play devils advocate for a bit but I don't have the time to keep going right now.
This conversation has brightened my days and stretched my mind and I appreciate it.
