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Is there an aspect of the person that is outside time or scale? Does anyone argue that to defeat nihilism, and does that come up in discussing value nihilism?

I just think that anyone who claims that nothing matters unless it has meaningful, valuable, effects in relation with others, is irreversibly committed to meaningless nihilism.

Unless there is an aspect of the person that is outside time. Or perhaps one to which the scale or magnitude of "meaning" doesn't matter.

I was just hoping that, for those who would not change the course of history, some aspect of the individual exists the same independent of whether it is everything or hardly anything at all. What is the word for that? What is it?

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    It may be the aspect of our being (i.e. our intellect) that can instinctively identify and merge with the mind of God without any sense of rebelliousness, rejection, or denial. In other words, without reservation or reticence. Intrinsic divine nature, perhaps. Sometimes called divinization or theosis.
    – Bread
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 3:06
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    interesting comment thanks @Bread but i'd prefer an atheist response...
    – user35983
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 3:07
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    Not atheists, but what you ask for sounds suspiciously like Kant's argument for a causa noumenon, i.e. an intellectual part of the self that exists outside the restrictions of the sensible world, especially outside time.
    – Philip Klöcking ♦
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 11:09
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    I don't think you're correct to see Bread's response as theistic, The view you're asking about is well-known as the Perennial philosophy. Time and size would be aspects of the mundane world of relativity. The Real would not be extended in time or space. The Real would our origin and probably the 'aspect' you're talking about. For further information there is more literature than anyone would have time to read, and endless personal testimony. . . .
    – user20253
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 14:06
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    I read the comments and the answer, they seem to talk about their favorite things on a loose association rather than about what you are asking. My own association was that one needs some atemporal personality for moral realism, with nihilism as a foil. But for substantive answers, if you are interested, a better strategy is to present one finished thought/concern at a time rather than a string of vague unfinished ones. People are moved more by a question when it is less of a recognizing contours in a cloud.
    – Conifold
    Commented Mar 8, 2019 at 5:47

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“Self and other (both creations of the mind) have no ultimate existence, but you can’t use those words, self and other, to describe the Buddha Nature. It is wondrously beyond the mind and therefore beyond the notion of time and space that the mind creates."

David Smith - A Record of Awakening- Practice and Insight on the Buddhist Path

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  • not a bad answer, but one would prefer an analysis of why we might believe that, on this stackexchange
    – user35983
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 18:24
  • @confused - Feel free to believe what you like. This just notes what meditators say about these things.
    – user20253
    Commented Mar 8, 2019 at 10:51
  • @user35983 - On reflection I see you're right. And I seem to have confused you with 'confused' for some reason lost in time.
    – user20253
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 11:57

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