4 ms·

Way to brighten my day with awe and wonder, way to ruin my day with existential dread about our place in the universe.

sho_hn 4y ago
Existential dread pro-tip: The Wikipedia page on "Ultimate fate of the universe" is a fantastic way to compell the question of why anything ultimately matters. Coming up with personal answers to this is the ultimate character resolve exercise!
- yreg 4y ago
  I found Kurzgesagt's video on Optimistic Nihilism helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14
  - Agamus 4y ago
    Awesome link, thank you. Nietzsche's career was an exercise in creating and promoting the concept of 'creative nihilism' as an alternative to existential pessimism, which works for me!
    - arvinsim 4y ago
      Also shown in this XKCD[1] [1] https://xkcd.com/167/ https://xkcd.com/167/
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  Nothing matters. You live for a while and then you die, but it sure can be a cool trip getting there!
  - silvi9 4y ago
    You think nothing matters? How can you be so sure?
    - checkyoursudo 4y ago
      I'm not sure that matters, does it?
  - glitcher 4y ago
    Nothing and Everything matters simultaneously, reality is the ultimate paradox :)
    - ckosidows 4y ago
      "Life is all about you and not at all about you" -ZHU
  - prometheus76 4y ago
    Do you feel that way about your family members? Your spouse? Your children? They don't matter?
    - sillysaurusx 4y ago
      Yes. By induction, if nothing matters, then they don't matter either. It helps you relax and put things in perspective. For example, you can focus on achieving high scores just for the sake of it. Have the kids you want, have the life you want, have the things you want, knowing that it's pointless but that you want it and that's enough.
    - zaarn 4y ago
      Why does valuing the journey mean you don't value other people?
      - cal85 4y ago
        It doesn’t. It just refutes the claim that nothing matters.
        zaarn 4y ago
        It doesn't refute anything. The point is rather; what matters to you is part of your personal journey. Ultimately it still doesn't matter in the grander scheme, but that isn't the point of enjoying your adventure while you're around. Does the cosmos care if I give my Mother a birthday present or not? Unlikely it does. Do I? Yes, I send one every year. Does it matter then? Not really, but I like doing it because I like being nice to my Mother.
        cal85 4y ago
        I think we nearly agree, but I’d say you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The bathwater is the notion of a subjective cosmos, some overarching supreme being to whom specific events ought to matter somehow. I’m very happy to throw out that bathwater, along with other theocratic sophistries that still influence our thinking too much. The baby is meaning itself, all of which takes place within the cosmos, and every instance of which is subjectively experienced by some specific subject, by definition. And crucially, these subject–object connections can themselves be observed by third parties as real, objective phenomena through abundant evidence. They are as real as potatoes or sound waves. This part of your comment feels like a non sequitur: > Does it matter then? Not really You just said it matters to you. Then you said it doesn’t ‘really’ matter because it doesn’t matter to…the cosmos as a whole? So what? It doesn’t matter to your toaster either, nor to my cat, but it still matters to you. For something to ‘matter’ there must be some particular object that matters to some particular subject, and in this case the subject is you. Your reason for doing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to you, it’s just an explanation of why it matters to you.
  - abrenuntio 4y ago
    The theist gets a sense of the greatness of God. The atheist concludes his own insignificance.
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
      Count Chocula gets a sense of the length of the central finite curve.
  - cal85 4y ago
    “Nothing matters” is an easily disprovable claim. I assure you many things matter to me. Mattering is subjective. “Everything as a whole does not matter” or “there is no single ultimate purpose to everything as a whole” are more valid claims, but tautological. Something can only matter to some subject by definition, and ‘everything’ is a magic word that includes every thing, so it can’t matter to anything else, by definition, because there is no thing outside everything to which it could matter. This tautology is not well summarised as “nothing matters”. I used to take solace in the “nothing matters” notion from nihilism, but I now think it’s a false and dangerous comfort. 1) it’s straight up disprovable with a few seconds’ analysis – really just a motivated twisting of the above tautology into something quasi-profound, and 2) it’s burying your head in the sand – it’s avoidant wordplay that will eventually fail you, engendering a dull feeling of narcissistic loneliness over time. I now think it’s better to recognise that each case of something ‘mattering’ requires both an object and a subject. That subject isn’t always you, but you might as well start with the cases where you are the subject. You can notice things that matter to you (just basics like pain, pleasure), and that they do indeed matter to you. Then you can consider that there are other minds, and realise that what matters to them isn’t the same as what matters to you - but the fact that things do matter to them may itself matter to you, and so on and on. Once you start looking for meaning you realise the universe is absolutely teeming with it. Just an unfathomable number of connections of meaning between subjects and objects. In human society there is a combinatorial explosion of matterings. Life is indeed a cool trip, an adventure, but only so because it is so full of events that absolutely fucking matter along the way. And yes, then you die. That doesn’t mean none of it mattered to you, and it doesn’t mean none of what you did mattered to anyone else. These are just logical errors. You might think I’m just being pedantic. But I think it’s a very important distinction. “Nothing matters” is not just pedantically different from “There isn’t one single universal reason for everything as a whole”, it’s completely different in its implications. The former is an oversimplification that causes a lot of unnecessary feelings of bleakness, and probably causes a lot of indirect social harm by drawing excellent minds into inaction, springing from a platitude we tell ourselves when things get too much and then repeat as a kind of sad-mantra. The latter correctly reveals itself as tautological wordplay that we may discard as meaningless.
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  See also "Ask HN: What's the point of life?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558
teh_klev 4y ago
It's like looking into the Total Perspective Vortex.
leeoniya 4y ago
it's terrifying how alone and ephemeral we truly are, that there are already places in our expanding universe that will never be reachable even via communication with any technology on any time scale (unless universe expansion reverses course). that any communication we may receive today will be from civilizations that have ceased to exist thousands to billions of years ago. and humans will likely never travel outside the solar system. consciousness is a hell of a drug
- HKH2 4y ago
  It seems more like the fear of missing out. I don't feel terrified at all.
noneeeed 4y ago
One of my favourite concepts from Douglas Adams was the Total Perspective Vortex, a form of punishment that would drive the victim insane by showing them the entire totality of existence and their place in it.
- silentsea90 4y ago
  Wow. That's genius
- _moof 4y ago
  Didn't work on Zaphod though. He just ate the cake.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    The simulated cake. It was in a universe simulation created for him.
layer8 4y ago
You’re aware that this is just the observable universe? It may be completely irrelevant relative to the total universe. ;)
mkeedlinger 4y ago
Indeed, it is truly cause to pause and step back. What's the name of that phenomenon common amongst astronauts when they see the earth from afar? I feel like our society could use more of that. edit: Seems to be called the overview effect [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
WhompingWindows 4y ago
Why existential dread? We're extremely lucky to be alive. That one sperm hit that one egg and we survived to now. That is extremely unlucky, each of us is one sperm out of hundreds of millions, so savor this existence!!

Existential dread pro-tip: The Wikipedia page on "Ultimate fate of the universe" is a fantastic way to compell the question of why anything ultimately matters. Coming up with personal answers to this is the ultimate character resolve exercise!

yreg 4y ago
I found Kurzgesagt's video on Optimistic Nihilism helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14
- Agamus 4y ago
  Awesome link, thank you. Nietzsche's career was an exercise in creating and promoting the concept of 'creative nihilism' as an alternative to existential pessimism, which works for me!
  - arvinsim 4y ago
    Also shown in this XKCD[1] [1] https://xkcd.com/167/ https://xkcd.com/167/
idiotsecant 4y ago
Nothing matters. You live for a while and then you die, but it sure can be a cool trip getting there!
- silvi9 4y ago
  You think nothing matters? How can you be so sure?
  - checkyoursudo 4y ago
    I'm not sure that matters, does it?
- glitcher 4y ago
  Nothing and Everything matters simultaneously, reality is the ultimate paradox :)
  - ckosidows 4y ago
    "Life is all about you and not at all about you" -ZHU
- prometheus76 4y ago
  Do you feel that way about your family members? Your spouse? Your children? They don't matter?
  - sillysaurusx 4y ago
    Yes. By induction, if nothing matters, then they don't matter either. It helps you relax and put things in perspective. For example, you can focus on achieving high scores just for the sake of it. Have the kids you want, have the life you want, have the things you want, knowing that it's pointless but that you want it and that's enough.
  - zaarn 4y ago
    Why does valuing the journey mean you don't value other people?
    - cal85 4y ago
      It doesn’t. It just refutes the claim that nothing matters.
      - zaarn 4y ago
        It doesn't refute anything. The point is rather; what matters to you is part of your personal journey. Ultimately it still doesn't matter in the grander scheme, but that isn't the point of enjoying your adventure while you're around. Does the cosmos care if I give my Mother a birthday present or not? Unlikely it does. Do I? Yes, I send one every year. Does it matter then? Not really, but I like doing it because I like being nice to my Mother.
        cal85 4y ago
        I think we nearly agree, but I’d say you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The bathwater is the notion of a subjective cosmos, some overarching supreme being to whom specific events ought to matter somehow. I’m very happy to throw out that bathwater, along with other theocratic sophistries that still influence our thinking too much. The baby is meaning itself, all of which takes place within the cosmos, and every instance of which is subjectively experienced by some specific subject, by definition. And crucially, these subject–object connections can themselves be observed by third parties as real, objective phenomena through abundant evidence. They are as real as potatoes or sound waves. This part of your comment feels like a non sequitur: > Does it matter then? Not really You just said it matters to you. Then you said it doesn’t ‘really’ matter because it doesn’t matter to…the cosmos as a whole? So what? It doesn’t matter to your toaster either, nor to my cat, but it still matters to you. For something to ‘matter’ there must be some particular object that matters to some particular subject, and in this case the subject is you. Your reason for doing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to you, it’s just an explanation of why it matters to you.
- abrenuntio 4y ago
  The theist gets a sense of the greatness of God. The atheist concludes his own insignificance.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    Count Chocula gets a sense of the length of the central finite curve.
- cal85 4y ago
  “Nothing matters” is an easily disprovable claim. I assure you many things matter to me. Mattering is subjective. “Everything as a whole does not matter” or “there is no single ultimate purpose to everything as a whole” are more valid claims, but tautological. Something can only matter to some subject by definition, and ‘everything’ is a magic word that includes every thing, so it can’t matter to anything else, by definition, because there is no thing outside everything to which it could matter. This tautology is not well summarised as “nothing matters”. I used to take solace in the “nothing matters” notion from nihilism, but I now think it’s a false and dangerous comfort. 1) it’s straight up disprovable with a few seconds’ analysis – really just a motivated twisting of the above tautology into something quasi-profound, and 2) it’s burying your head in the sand – it’s avoidant wordplay that will eventually fail you, engendering a dull feeling of narcissistic loneliness over time. I now think it’s better to recognise that each case of something ‘mattering’ requires both an object and a subject. That subject isn’t always you, but you might as well start with the cases where you are the subject. You can notice things that matter to you (just basics like pain, pleasure), and that they do indeed matter to you. Then you can consider that there are other minds, and realise that what matters to them isn’t the same as what matters to you - but the fact that things do matter to them may itself matter to you, and so on and on. Once you start looking for meaning you realise the universe is absolutely teeming with it. Just an unfathomable number of connections of meaning between subjects and objects. In human society there is a combinatorial explosion of matterings. Life is indeed a cool trip, an adventure, but only so because it is so full of events that absolutely fucking matter along the way. And yes, then you die. That doesn’t mean none of it mattered to you, and it doesn’t mean none of what you did mattered to anyone else. These are just logical errors. You might think I’m just being pedantic. But I think it’s a very important distinction. “Nothing matters” is not just pedantically different from “There isn’t one single universal reason for everything as a whole”, it’s completely different in its implications. The former is an oversimplification that causes a lot of unnecessary feelings of bleakness, and probably causes a lot of indirect social harm by drawing excellent minds into inaction, springing from a platitude we tell ourselves when things get too much and then repeat as a kind of sad-mantra. The latter correctly reveals itself as tautological wordplay that we may discard as meaningless.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
sillysaurusx 4y ago
See also "Ask HN: What's the point of life?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558

teh_klev 4y ago

It's like looking into the Total Perspective Vortex.

leeoniya 4y ago

it's terrifying how alone and ephemeral we truly are, that there are already places in our expanding universe that will never be reachable even via communication with any technology on any time scale (unless universe expansion reverses course). that any communication we may receive today will be from civilizations that have ceased to exist thousands to billions of years ago. and humans will likely never travel outside the solar system. consciousness is a hell of a drug

HKH2 4y ago
It seems more like the fear of missing out. I don't feel terrified at all.

noneeeed 4y ago

One of my favourite concepts from Douglas Adams was the Total Perspective Vortex, a form of punishment that would drive the victim insane by showing them the entire totality of existence and their place in it.

silentsea90 4y ago
Wow. That's genius
_moof 4y ago
Didn't work on Zaphod though. He just ate the cake.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  The simulated cake. It was in a universe simulation created for him.

layer8 4y ago

You’re aware that this is just the observable universe? It may be completely irrelevant relative to the total universe. ;)

mkeedlinger 4y ago

Indeed, it is truly cause to pause and step back. What's the name of that phenomenon common amongst astronauts when they see the earth from afar? I feel like our society could use more of that. edit: Seems to be called the overview effect [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect

WhompingWindows 4y ago

Why existential dread? We're extremely lucky to be alive. That one sperm hit that one egg and we survived to now. That is extremely unlucky, each of us is one sperm out of hundreds of millions, so savor this existence!!