An important concept to understand when researching Nihilism is "the Will to Power." The Will to Power, as described by Nietzsche, is an individual's natural drive to achieve mastery. This is guided through value and eternal recurrence. Value is a becoming that remains constant and mutable throughout time, while eternal recurrence is fundamental through essence or a static presence throughout time.
There is a misunderstanding about Nihilism. It is not the study of "Nothing." Nihilism finds properties beyond essence are frequently untrue. Nihilist study the grander confusion created through communication and manipulation to find the essence or ultimate truth. A visual description is walking through a long hall of holographic rods. There are a few real rods, yet each one looks real. A person might study each holograph or run though the images until finding a real rod when touching it and then studies the rod in an attempt to differentiate illusion from real.
The value of anything is defined through essence, mutable facts and untruths. Value is something present in Nihilism and Existentialism. Nihilism deteriorates known beliefs until finding essence, while Existentialism encompasses mutable facts and untruths as being a member of an entity or "I." If reading about the Will to Power a person might not realize innate properties governing the concept and believe it is a pathology to become overbearing and act like demigod. Yet Nietzsche states there are multiple types of domination: domination in relation to people, mastery over one's self and mastery over objects through acquiring skills. Paraphrasing an adage, "Those who do not master themselves will have many masters."
The value of a person and skill is what it might become. An example of the Will to Power in technology is the seismograph. Previously, earthquakes were an "Act of God" appearing anywhere without warning. While this is still true we produce methods to survive earthquakes with technology: building codes and emergency protocol. Perhaps science will improve and earthquakes are no longer a threat, yet a person must have willed to seek control over the environment and circumstance.
There are problems with such an unstructured ideal which is tamed with an acknowledgment that overreaction is nullified when the relationship between outcomes is less substantial than perceived. Several outrageous scenarios came to mind while reading "the Question Concerning Technology." Are people manipulated into becoming victims of those with a stronger Will to Power and when is the Will to Power more damaging than the good it offers?
Eternal recurrence or return is an important factor when devising plans to express the Will to Power. Eventually everything threatening to itself or another will return to its essence. Essence is good or at least neutral. No matter how awful the effects of an experiment it will return to being boring eventually; however, on a much larger scale people, animals and plants could die. Similar to the nuclear bomb, the explanation seems harmless. The nucleus becomes radioactive by adhering hydrogen to atoms. This increases the number of electrons. Nature will take its course and stabilize the electrons by dispersing them amongst available elements until neutralizing radioactivity. Sometimes this destroys a city, while killing and injuring hundreds or thousands of people.
What do Nihilist do to prevent consequences? Referring to history is one method. Foresight identifies information with cause and effect. Everything has a cause and effect though the same cause produces different effects. Several tools made at the same time with the same materials will break at different times even when exposed to the same stress limits; ergo, have different levels of endurance and resilience.
People rely on religions and philosophy. I chose Taoism when experimenting with Atheist belief systems. Taoism exemplifies finding opposites and then balance between extremes. Though Nihilism is based in Christianity as an Atheist Philosophy a person is able to choose from any religion to find tolerance levels. As a young Atheist I remember playing with religious edicts like gossip. I had to try out gossip before realizing the outcome is real. After that I can imagine simulations without living through the experience.
Christ was known for questioning existing religious and cultural aspects during his time on Earth. One of his greatest achievements was acknowledging the creation of social order produces consequences. Many people wanted to worship at the Temple though the Bible states sacrifices can be performed anywhere. Demand was placed on the Temple and they began to sell livestock. Prices to sacrifice at the Temple became too high for the poor in amounts of travel and money. Finally, it would become illegal to worship anywhere else and therefore undo what Moses did in Exodus. Part of the Exodus is releasing God's People so they could worship God freely in the Chosen Land. Jesus replaced the Temple with a tent. A symbolic message, Jesus saw the extents of nothing to transform the religion into truth.
The entire life of Christ does not make sense. He was from a middle-class family that was in hiding. He became a carpenter and eventually a Rabbi who left worldly goods behind and encouraged his followers to do the same. One group favored him while others hated him. Somehow his life spread Judaism across the Globe.
The surface produces no real standard of adherence or truth though each instance has an essence. The story of Jesus is different from most stories of greatness, yet it happened. When perceiving these events it becomes easy to see absence of existence in relation to the essence of an event or object. Critique of Assumed Existence is a better description of Nihilism than the Study of Nothing.
Related Article
Factoring Competition
I verses Crowd
Quirky Books
The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger
