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[FreedomFred]

We have to allow the natural self-organizing dynamics of human interaction to take hold.  The "truth" will attend to itself. Humans can be amazing creatures if we just let them. 

[Irkou]

you are all too focused on the words and not on the meaning that the author was trying to convey.. i believe that the author was trying to say that nothing that anybody seas about who you should be or how you should act is true..meaning that the "rules" of society are meaningless and that whatever you would like to do in this world you can...the problem is that most people do not believe the first statement therefore the second one cannot be followed as well..example: you cannot do what your heart desires if you believe that success in life is achieved through money and power (rules of society) therefore some things are not permitted by your mind..

keep in mind that this statement was spoken a thousand years ago in another language..the words may have been translated correctly but what the assassin was trying to say may have been lost in time..

in my opinion

[Fkz_Assassin]

Think about it.

This is math no one can do.

Nothing is true <.. Which means that's not true <... which means everything is true, making the quote true again, which makes it untrue, which makes it true AGAIN .. it can go on infinite times.. So that's the answer, it means what you want it to mean because everything is permitted, meaning whatever makes your own life better
THEN DO IT !

It's like a fight between is god real or not ? that's not the point. point is it helps those who do, and helps those who don't.
it benefits one and all so this saying may have no meaning to it at all

Millions of people stutter a word on their death bed before they die, maybe he was in that bed because he thought something to be true that wasn't true..
so from his personal experience he didn't want others to fall for what he had fallen for ?
This can be argued back and forth.. An answer won't come out from it, it's purely about what you believe and want to believe.

personally, Nothing is true.. means to me.. don't believe anyone other than yourself.
and everything is permitted can mean, do as you please in life.. i do not bide by the law. because no one controls my life other than me & that does not mean i want to kill or do morally wrong things just because i am free, those who are truly free in my opinion do not feel the need to do things like that unless provoked just like the animals we are.

[swamp_yankee]

I once had a two year running fight with a MC affiliated with the Hell's Angels. I wonder how all these libertines and anarchists think they are going to pursuade everyone else to indulge in their fantasies about human nature. That somehow, without ordered liberty, the masses are going to voluntarily subscribe to labor theory, pacifism and all these other fantasies about life in a state of nature being something other than nasty and brutish.

[V]

the phase is shorthand for a larger one. Using the few words we have and accounting the motives of the speaker and his background, one can deduce that it is a teaching formulae.

"when men are held back by knowledge and lies remember, nothing is true. where men are at the mercy of authority and law remember, everything is permitted."

[Nelbium]

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

Each person on Earth sees the universe only through their own eyes.  This view on the universe gives them their truth, their reality.  But every person has their own view that no one else shares.  With only one view of the universe how can you say what truth is.  One man's truth could be another mans lie.  There is no way to view the universe from another person's eyes so we will only have our own personal truth.

Everything that is physically possible at the moment is permitted.  At any moment in life you can rip off your clothes and run down the street, but only if you permit yourself to do that action.  Anything that you wish to do has been permitted by yourself and since you gave yourself permission to do it, it is not considered wrong in your eyes.

Basically I think that this is saying that through only one man's eyes you cannot determine truth and through one man's eyes everything that person allows themselves to do is permitted.

[Gnome]

Creation - Cosmos - Allah - Dao - all are Unknowable concepts = "nothing is True"

"Everything is permitted" = its up to YOU to decide and ACT

V

[rxcosta]

I enjoy this phrase because it quickly (albeit rather simply) explains my personal views on relativism, and can also encompass my philosophical beliefs which have been altered by studying quantum physics.

I think you can believe that nothing is true, that all truths are beliefs and all those beliefs are relative. Part of believing that nothing is true is allowing someone to believe that everything is true. You can't successfully argue against someone that believes that nothing is true because nothing is true to them, not even their belief! I don't consider my beliefs to be absolutely true, I believe what I do because right now i think my beliefs make the most sense.

About any argument stating that this saying "nothing is true, everything is permitted" allows or perhaps inspires anarchy and anomie: denying absolute truths still leaves people free to be utterly and passionately opposed to torture (wikipedia entry on relativism, http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ssde/Death%20and%20furniture.pdf).

[dan0970]

Consider an apocalyptic statement: "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." - - Hassan i Sabbah. Not to be interpreted as an invitation to all manner of restrained and destructive behavior; that would be a minor episode, which would run its course. Everything is permitted because nothing is true. It is all make-believe, illusion, dream...ART. When art leaves the frame and the written word leaves the page - - not merely the physical frame and page, but the frames and pages of assigned categories - - a basic disruption of reality itself occurs: the literal realization of art.

http://www.haring.com/cgi-bin/art_search_lrg.cgi?id=00065&search=Burroughs

[VoluntaryMan]

Sorry for reviving an other thread but I wanted to mention a very interesting use of this phrase in The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
If I remember correctly, the idea was that since most people are so brainwashed with the status-quo the best way to break them out of the cycle was to give them this phrase to cause them to question everything.
While I don't agree with the semantics of the phrase I can't help but appreciate anything that causes people to look at the world critically and not rely merely on what the man tells them is right or wrong.

just a thought.

[TJames]

Hey you know what? Ayn Rand was an atheist and she believed truth existed even if we didn't know what it was, that we are morally required to seek it no matter what dogma was spoofed to us. Buddha has been dead for 3,000 years and his philosophy is that of a sheltered Hindu who had an emotional breakdown. The idea that we are a pan-god that can make truth simply by will power made sense back then, but it didn't work for Rand. If nothing is truth, than everything is truth, so both are false, and so I'm not a Buddhist.

I'm not endorsing atheism or any other religion. Just truth, whatever it may be. If you give-up seeking it than you are an intellectual slug and I don't want to know you.

I anthologize if I sound a little angry. Truth and freedom are the two things worth blood.

[TJames]

I enjoy this phrase because it quickly (albeit rather simply) explains my personal views on relativism, and can also encompass my philosophical beliefs which have been altered by studying quantum physics.

I think you can believe that nothing is true, that all truths are beliefs and all those beliefs are relative. Part of believing that nothing is true is allowing someone to believe that everything is true. You can't successfully argue against someone that believes that nothing is true because nothing is true to them, not even their belief! I don't consider my beliefs to be absolutely true, I believe what I do because right now i think my beliefs make the most sense.

About any argument stating that this saying "nothing is true, everything is permitted" allows or perhaps inspires anarchy and anomie: denying absolute truths still leaves people free to be utterly and passionately opposed to torture (wikipedia entry on relativism, http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ssde/Death%20and%20furniture.pdf).

Can something be a truth if no one believes it?

[VoluntaryMan]

Can something be a truth if no one believes it?

I think you'll find that people believe some pretty bizarre things, although obviously not all bizarre things are truth.
Truth has so far been proven to be objective, although many people still lie and many people still fall for others' lies.