The Battle Between Infinitism and Nihilism

     

 In secular culture, especially within a lot of academic settings I have been in, nihilism is one of the most prominent philosophies and worldviews I have encountered. I have met a lot of nihilists over the years. Many common themes of their philosophy is the meaninglessness of life, the progression towards Chaos in the universe, and the idea that the universe came out of nothingness, an emptiness. 

     Nihilism is an easy belief system to operate within your mind. Many people are just predisposed to it. Viewing life as meaningless and that nothingness is the fate of all people and the universe is an easy belief system to subscribe to.

    It's not a very creative one, though. It requires little imagination and is actually, from my perspective, kind of lazy. Almost a cop-out belief system that doesn't challenge the thinking power and creativity of human beings nearly as much as some of the more imaginative and deeper belief systems and philosophies.  

      To me, Nihilism is a darkness of the mind, a sullen and inhibited world view that is often strongly devoid of imagination. It's just a darkness. I strongly disagree with a nihilistic approach to life.

     My belief system and worldview is exactly the opposite of nihilism.  I believe existence is infinite in scope depth, form, and complexity, with both finite systems and objects existing within and alongside infinite systems and objects. I believe that there are finite universes within a broader infinite existence, and I believe we dwell in one of them.   For me, life has an infinite, absolute meaning.  This meaning has roots in a broader infinity, an infinite foundation. In my belief system, everything exists. All ideas, stories and constructs in fiction exist in some way as well as the ideas and constructs that have legitimacy in our observable reality.

        I just don't believe everything exists all in one point in space and one point in time. The infinite existence is very spread out and infinitely complex. 

        There are just some ideas, forms, and constructs that are just not applicable to our reality. That doesn't mean they aren't applicable elsewhere in existence. It just means that they don't work here in our reality.  Many of them are mostly conceptual and only operate in the human mind.  That doesn't mean they don't exist.

        Meaning, purpose, ethics, and truth not only exist, but they are infinitely legitimate and have a level of reality to them that we often just don't understand or value too well as human beings.

        As a result of my view, I view nihilism as just an emptiness of the mind. The word nihilist itself comes from the Latin word that means "nothingness."

         In philosophy, the word infinitism applies certain epistemological arguments involving knowledge and justification. It deals with the idea that justification of knowledge comes from an infinite chain of "reasons."

       It's a little different than how I am applying the term here. Infinitism in this context can be most simply defined as the idea that existence is infinite, everything conceivable exists in some way, some time, and some place, and meaning is an absolute and indestructible thing.

  It is the exact conceptual opposite of Nihilism.  This conflict is can be reduced to a simple dichotomy. It is truly the battle between everything and nothing.  Infinitism being everything. Nihilism being nothing.