Do you exist?

Most people would use a stock argument such as "cogito ergo sum", (stock arguments are convenient and avoid the question). Subjective is anything which must go through the mind in order to be deduced, knowing that the mind could be in error. God is subjective, the world is subjective, a mirage is subjective, everything we sense is subjective.

Contrast this with objective: What really is there, what the universe is really like, without the possible errors of the mind.

Can we know the objective? Objectivists would say 'yes' - that we can learn everything given sufficient time and ingenuity in developing tools. They rely for this on two constructs which it is claimed are objective - math and logic. If you flip a coin 64 times, and each time it comes out heads, could you assume that that coin always came out heads? We might assume not, because we know that the coin has two sides, so in the end it might (though not for certain) come out tails. The same is true with any experiment. If you carry out an experiment with a truck (what I like to call the Ed experiment), and you send out innocent volunteers to stand on the highway - and every time you carry out the experiment they get run over by an 18-wheeler - can you objectively state that every time you carry out this experiment they will get mashed?

No. You don't know how many possible outcomes there are. You have seen only one, but that doesn't mean there aren't others. Indeed, you could have been extremely lucky, and seen a very rare outcome time and time again by sheer chance. You couldn't even say that what you had seen was a possible outcome, since it would be possible you were imagining the whole affair; thereby imagining the impossible coming to pass. So you cannot objectively state that something is always a certain way, only that it is sometimes a certain way (and even this not really), or that in your subjective opinion (faith) it is always like this.

Faith does not equal fact. Faith is subjective - it is a personal decision made with our minds - if our minds are at fault, and hence our evidence, then the statement is not objective. Only if something is objective is it objective.

Since everything must pass through our senses (ultimately our minds) for us to form ideas about them, humans can never know objective fact consciously. That means that I can form a theory that the grenade I hold in my hands is green, my evidence is that the refraction of light off the grenade that comes to my eyes makes the grenade appear green - therefore I give the shade of color I observe the arbitrary name "green" to describe this. Maybe the grenade isn't green. In that case I would be wrong, that is why I don't make an objective statement. Of course, it would be hard to find many people who would go around all the time saying the such-and-such might be so, and never being definite about anything. But - if I'm right, then it makes no difference - because I wouldn't know I was right, and hence wouldn't be able to make statements that claim to be objective. That is the crux of the nihilist argument.

In dealing with math and logic: Logic bases itself on axioms; no axiom = no logic. I challenge anyone to give me some logic that requires no axioms. Since all axioms are faithy guesses (the cat is sitting in front of me, all cats are black therefore the cat is black - cat sitting in front of me=faith, ALL cats are black=faith), and faith is subjective, all logic has the possibility of being flawed right from it's first axiom. Logic is not objective. Logic, as a system, is a tool of the mind; and since objectivity is what is really there - tools of the mind are not of themselves objective. Logic could be a flawed tool - and we would never know it. The wisest thing to do is to assume it, and always leave room for attacking the axioms.

Math relies on logic, also, math does not represent anything specific in the real world. It is abstract. It bases itself on axioms that are subjective - and therefore is subjective.

'I think therefore I am' is useless. First of all you need to define 'am'. Next you would need to understand the concept that you might very well not exist - but that it might be beyond your comprehension how that were possible. You may say that it would be illogical not to exist and yet to still think, but your axioms might be wrong about existing and thinking. You cannot know you exist. You cannot know the person next to you exists, and you can't know the universe exists. In fact, you can't know for sure that anything exists.

Nihilism is the belief that the objective can never be consciously known. Nothing more. Nothing less. In reference to other wu's posted here, nihilism is not connected in any way with morality only with philosophy. Being a nihilist does not make a person violent, destructive or suicidal.