[Note: In my recent post about Randian metaphysics, I address the axiom argument much deeper. You can find this post here]
Today, I went over some of my work with my friend Gabriel. We talked about the nihilist materialism or the materialism of the Nothing I had been establishing in my essays Absolute Nothingness and the Will to Power, Zero #1, Zero #2, Zero #3, and A Response to Liam and Nick’s Randian Blabbering, Azathoth the Atheologian, and a Response to Leo’s Critique of my Cosmology of the Nothing.
I joked to him that base materialism is materialism 1.0. What I meant by this is that it was the first time materialism ceased to be idealism. I then further joked that libidinal materialism is materialism 2.0. I then continued to joke that nihilist materialism is materialism 3.0. Bataille, Land, and I are the first materialists, all positively atheological, that is to say, atheistic.
Thinking about when Land said, in The Thirst for Annihilation (I’m paraphrasing), transcendence’s difference from immanence is real as it is immanent itself. I have collected my thoughts after my labors in Absolute Nothingness and the Will to Power: thinking about this in the sense of the will in the Schopenhauerian sense, what he meant is that it is the movement of objectification that is real, but the objectification, that is, the objects which are a result of the movement are not real. In this case, the will which is being objectified is immanence, and the objectified existence (the world as representation) that results is transcendence. Now, this means that in reality there is nothing. The will was objectified into NOTHING, for these objects die incessantly before they can even be.
Materialism 4.0? It seems we are having to turn to Deleuze and Guattari…
Materialism 5.0? Lyotard?
Materialism 6.0? Deleuze and Guattari once more?
Materialism 7.0? Ah… Land, another breath of fresh air…
MATERIALISM 8.0??? The older Land…
MATERIALISM 9.0?!?!??? Back to libidinal materialism with a twist!
m a t e r i a l i s m 0 . 0 ? I can’t wait to show (publish) what theories I have in store for you all…
What is before zero? This is what we must ask, I supplicate to the Nothing (it laughs at me) through my active nihilism, which only takes the form of praxis through God’s incessant negation, THROUGH HIS DEATH!
I talked to Nick earlier today. He argued that even pointing out that someone has a presupposition assumes Rand’s axiomatics to be true. I then asked, “But what if it is put in the form of a question: Do you not presuppose X? No? Why?” We end up in the same place as if we were to point out they had a presupposition they need to justify without asserting anything propositionally. But Nick responded (I’m paraphrasing), “But you assert something referentially.” To quote Nick, he said,
Even if you ask a question, your question is not 0, it refers to X. When you ask me if or not I presuppose X, that question alone contains X, because you refer to it and utilize it. You[’]r[e] referring to something. The question refers to X. And even if you asked: “what are your presuppositions”, that question still refers to something, not nothing. A presupposition is something (i.e., it’s a referent to your basis of thought).
To respond to this is easy. All we must point out is that reference doesn’t equal acceptance. I can refer to a thing, but not accept its existence. Conceptual utilization doesn’t mean existential affirmation. For example, I can utilize the concept of a unicorn (my common example), yet am I asserting that unicorns have existential status? No, of course not! What Nick is ultimately doing is following Rand in her mind numbing (to put it nicely, I am always so nice to these objectivists!). In For the New Intellectual, Rand defines an axiom as,
An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.
To assert that verbal human discourse determines things is hilarious. Truly, I mean that. It makes me laugh. When Rand said the alternative is to lay down, say nothing, expound no theories, and die, she was right. But silence = 0. No response is the only response, because zero is immense.
Again, discursive utilization doesn’t assert your affirmation of something. One may say, “Do you not affirm that you exist when you talk?” Certainly not! In no way do I accept my existence as Rand says, no way do I use my existence in the process of questioning, for I do not refer to myself. Now, do I assume Nick’s existence when I say, “do you not presuppose X?” Certainly not. On the level of fiction, that is, on the level of the pre-ontological (this is not to imply that anything will be ontology, for nothing will be), we can be fictions. But you may say, “We can be fictions.” This is nothing but an attempt for gotcha which makes one look like a wailing child. Fabrication does not equal interpellation. I come to be fictional, just as the unicorn does, but in no way does that mean the unicorn or I exist. Now that we have gotten past this issue of utilization, but in terms of Nick’s idea of reference, we still must go deeper.
If I refer to something, that does not mean said something exists. Again, the unicorn. Nick is right, a presupposition is something… and that is the issue… for him.
Let’s not forget that Nick asked me and my fellow atheologians (e.g., Sante) to, and I quote, “prove [warrant the existence of] zero.” I am not to say “zero is not” or “zero is not.” Nor am I saying anything… Zero!
