r/Existentialism • u/vini-within • 1d ago
New to Existentialism... Bottomless Abyss? đ¤
Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Sartre seem to circle around this idea of a âbottomless abyssâ in different ways. What exactly is this bottomless abyss about, and where does this imagery come from in existential philosophy? And what does it mean in our Life?
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u/jliat 21h ago
Nietzsche's nihilism is based on his idea of the eternal return...
WtP 55
Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without meaning or aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness: âthe eternal recurrence". This is the most extreme form of nihilism: the nothing (the "meaninglessâ), eternally!
Sartre's that without an experience of ... we are essentially nothingness... from 'Being and Nothingness.'
âJust as my nihilating freedom is apprehended in anguish, so the for-itself is conscious of its facticity. It has the feeling of its complete gratuity; it apprehends itself as being there for nothing, as being de trop.[un needed]â
p. 84
"human reality is before all else its own nothingness. The for-itself [human reality] in its being is failure because it is the foundation only of itself as nothingness."
p. 88
Kierkegaard faced with such takes a leap of faith in Jesus Christ.
Cams Addresses this problem in his Myth of Sisyphus...
âI don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.â
âThe absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.â
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. âArt and nothing but art,â said Nietzsche; âwe have art in order not to die of the truth.â
"To work and create âfor nothing,â to sculpture in clay, to know that oneâs creation has no future, to see oneâs work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuriesâthis is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
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u/vini-within 13h ago
This is really helpful. Thanks man⌠I think what I was trying to get at ..is a liâl different though.
Is the abyss really the absence of meaning, or is it what we experience when the meanings weâve been living by start falling apart? What do you think? When our identity, beliefs, ambitions, and all the things we thought gave life some solid ground are questioned, it can genuinely feel like thereâs nothing underneath.
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u/jliat 12h ago
You ask a difficult question, and I must own up that I shouldn't reply as I've been drinking wine, and I have a policy not do engage in these situations.
I'm not going to tell you you what to do, my website is jliat.com, and the moment I'm writing pulp fiction - occult ' Sci-Phi fiction which no one is interested in, but I'm like those cargo cult people but know it's all fake. But I find my fake annoyingly interesting. On jameswhitehead.org.
I think you me/ we make Gods, or follow others that have made gods.
Best J.
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u/FlorpyJohnson 11h ago
This person sort of mislead you about Nietzsche, as I mentioned in my comment to them. I canât speak for the other philosophers.
The abyss, to Nietzsche, is what makes you uncomfortable and in pain. Itâs the moment you realize how bad your life situation is, how complacent you may have become, the ways you could be behaving, acting, or thinking better. It makes you uncomfortable, but itâs still vital to some extent.
The famous quote from Nietzsche outlines it well once you understand the context:
âWhoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.â
The open way he wrote this leads me to believe that the âmonstersâ can be people OR any sort of obstacle preventing you from becoming stronger, like even a drug addiction or a strong conviction thatâs hurting people around you.
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u/FlorpyJohnson 11h ago
Nietzsche was absolutely not a nihilist. Your understand of his philosophy is very off. You even took a quote out of Will to Power, which wasnât even really HIS book! He didnât publish it! His anti-semitic nazi sister twisted a bunch of his discarded notes to fit her own beliefs and proceeded to spread that bullshit.
Some of the stuff in Will to Power aligns with what he actually believed, but I still just donât trust much from that book because he never intended to publish it. Itâs literally reading someoneâs personal notes that have also been twisted to fit someone elseâs nazi ideals.
And about Nietzsche being a ânihilistâ, you can figure out with one google search about the whole âGod is deadâ thing, or by reading the famous quote from The Gay Science, that he actually saw nihilism as something to FIGHT. His whole philosophy (which evolved drastically over the years) revolves around PURPOSE!
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 16h ago
There's nothing solid inside us, no true self, no unshakable beliefs or values, no soul or spirit or center - we are a bottomless abyss to our conscious minds if we choose to look inside honestly/seriously
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u/vini-within 13h ago
Then what do you think is the reason for all suffering? Whyâs there a friction, if itâs all empty!
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 13h ago
Because our minds in this society/age create a story and a character - it's called "narrative consciousness"
It's a fiction though, as both the existentialists and the Buddhists have found
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u/vini-within 13h ago
Yes, and it gets interesting if you try to understand this from a ânon-dualityâ lens. If the story and the character are constructed, what happens when we look closely at the one who is supposedly living that story? :)
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 12h ago edited 12h ago
Right, the Taoists are right here too (tho fewer westerners are familiar w that tradition and particular concept at similar depth)
Tho of course, non-duality doesn't lend itself to much rational/western style analysis or "understanding" lol
ETA: Non-duality is what's actually happening, and all story is after the beginning of duality, however from inside duality (rationalism, post-linguistics, etc) there is always the idea of "the one who's living it" which is also false
"You are what you are looking for" being the ultimate closest we can get to describing it from within the concept of "being" itself - from within non-duality, the idea of the "one being aware" is nonsense and easily discarded as another uncessary thing to carry, so we can drop it too and "travel lightly" as the Taoists like to say
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u/Speaking_Music 2h ago
The abyss, or void, is how the objective mind perceives âno thingâ or pure subjectivity.
The objective mind holds the narrative of âMe and My Worldâ (âvini-withinâ).
âMe and My Worldâ is a fiction. Thatâs what makes enlightenment/Self-realization so difficult and often terrifying. No âthingâ is living the story.
As the disciple/seeker approaches enlightenment the abyss becomes apparent. It feels like impending annihilation. It is the imminent death of âMeâ, indeed the process feels as though one is dying.
The question is this.
Is the hunger for truth so great that one would accept oblivion to realize it, or is the fear so great that one will turn away?
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u/IntelligentDemand825 23h ago
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u/ItzOnlyJames 21h ago
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u/VelocitySkyrusher 21h ago
I think its so long as we live we'll always have needs, wants, desires, goals...
Like I finally go to college, get a degree, get a professional job, get an apartment, and start filling my apartment with the things I like...
Then I turn to making my ultimate gaming space/office, rearranging, trying to find the one thing that'll make me finally satisfied with it. But then... I get it. And it's still... not enough, not unique, not complete somehow. DIY projects, buying things or planning to buy something even though I don't need it.
Then I ask... why am i doing it? Why is making this ultimate space so meaningful to me?
Because its mine... usually comes up.
And that's just an office space. Imagine career goals, life goals, health goals...
The random goal of me wanting to figure out how to make a Dutch Stamppot...
Its always a new thing to go for... and I'm trying to explain its beyond consumerism, its the constant pursuit of the next new thing or the one thing that provides satisfaction.
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u/Low-Bake8401 8h ago
When God died, a void was left in society. There was a fear of the unknown, that often led to radical ideology.Â
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u/PissInMyShityAsshole 8h ago
They just materialise a pessimistic reality for themselves and anyone who buys into it and ends up truly believing in it. The polar opposite of their beliefs are actually very nice and hopeful and bring out joy.
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u/armyofone37 1h ago
The bottomless abyss to me refers to the characteristics of consciousness being nothingness.. absent light and absent shape
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u/Far-Tune-9464 1d ago
It is the stark realisation of the groundlessness of our values, what we find meaningful and our pursuits.
The idea that without a supernatural arbiter to assign meaning, all we are left with is what we subjectively deem to be important with nothing beyond that to justify it.