Physicist Reacts to Optimistic Nihilism By Kurzgesagt 

I love the combination of the Kurzgesagt videos and your perspective on it, even more when you talk about the philosophical point of view alongside science.

My therapist and I were debating consciousness the other day. I told her that I compare it to the flame of a candle. The same as the flame of a candle is nothing more and nothing less than the energy produced by the burning wick, to me, consciousness is nothing more or less than the energy produced by the biochemical reaction that is life. The same as we identify and value a candle as a utilized commodity with an intended purpose, to give heat and light, the identity and value of our consciousness lies not in what it objectively is, but, rather, in our subjective view and utilization of it and its processes toward our daily survival as individuals and our overall survival as a species. The offshoot of all that is that the social tools we have honed to express our conscious awareness are all equally as subjective as the consciousness' that produced them and, thus, equally fallible, prone to becoming outdated, amended, discarded as time and generations move forward.

The movie Everything Everywhere All at Once is precisely about optimistic nihilism and I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it.

Optimistic Nihilism sounds like the best kind of Nihilism

"Why are we here?" I don't think an answer exists, at least one we will be satisfied with.

I disagree that our animalistic nature is something obsolete that we should try to overcome, but instead something we should use our sentience to acknowledge and try to coexist with.

I really needed this video for some reason. Good job, Dylan!

Optimistic nihilism music goes hard for sure.

As a Christian I'm not offended by your views at all, I appreciate the "either there is a God or there isn't, and neither scenario makes any sense" because the reality either way is pretty much incomprehensible. Reality just IS. We can think it to be X or Y, but we can't know definitively and we can't really get our heads around it regardless. Brute facts exist whether we like it or not. Also, I'd love it if you watched my favourite Kurzgesagt video which is the 1 "the Day the dinosaurs died", I really enjoy it even though its quite terrifying

Well, I am but a simple man, however, I do like to think about these things. And a thought I've had from experience with the "animal instincts" is half is base nature, but there's also a nurture part to go along with that. So, good example for me is I have some mental illnesses; patricianly serious clinical depression and psychosis. Now the primal part of me would heavily lean into survival techniques and intuition that I gained with all of my life by naturally living and dealing with these things. I never knew what these illnesses were or what they even do until near 30 years later as an adult who had this and a buncha other trauma and primal senses literally BEATEN into me. But then later I get help and find a way to more focus on the sentience. The fuller understanding. And while the primal never really goes away, it starts becoming balanced by the sentience and logical. You are correct. We ARE animals. Just ones with big boy brains and opposable thumbs. And over 10,000 years of primal instinct beaten into us. That's hard to just fully say "no" and then have it not exist anymore at the tip of the hat. It's something we have to learn. And hell, even then would it be good to fully go onto the opposite side of that spectrum? To be fully mentally cognitive but have zero primal instinct? What would happen if we lost it? Maybe it's good to have both. Or maybe it just doesn't matter in the end anyways.

wheres the "you filthy animals" intro? *WHERE IS IT??!!*

8:25 that’s the point of optimistic nihilism. If the universe doesn’t have set rules and principles, the only ones that matter are our own

This video will do great Dylan, do not worry. :)

I find the corilation between neuro diversity and ways of thinking particularly interesting

I absolutely agree! The more I learn about science the more incredible it becomes. We often take for granted so much things in our lives like amazing advancements in knowledge and technology. Including how much work our predecessors has done to achieve even the simplest part of our civilization. It truly helps you to fully appreciate the fantastic universe we live in. The more you learn the more magical and even mysterious it becomes.

Intuition is based on previous experience, which we don’t recollect at that point in time

I appreciate that big sexy brain of yours! It is refreshing to know others have a similar thoughts on these topics. Thanks for sharing!

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Apology of Socrates). This quote could essentially, in and of itself, summarize this video. It goes without saying that I think that it is imperative to question everything and ergo, to not take anything for granted.

Such a strong jawline

Thank you, Dylan. You are always brightening my day.

I’m so glad you popped up in my recommended lol. I feel less alone with people like you in the world. Personally, I’m a bit more of a pessimist than an optimist. Of course, like all people, I’ve been shaped by life experiences, and let me tell ya: life has sucked major fucking ass for me compared to the lives of my peers. I’ve gotten my ass kicked by Cystic Fibrosis, divorced parents (and their shitty and abusive partners), bullying, anxiety, depression, and undiagnosed Autism (I didn’t get my diagnosis till I was 19. I’m now 21). I’m really only here today because of a few freak miracles (which, I will admit, have made me believe in a God moreso than I disbelieve in one), and medical science making huge strides towards curing CF. Long story short, I have a lot to be thankful for now as an adult. I’m healthy, I’m alive, I have friends, I’m able to attend college and pursue active hobbies. But, I’m still a pessimist at heart, and I wrestle with life every day. Why? Because, I am very envious of my peers. I spent the first 18 years of my life struggling to breathe due to CF and repeat lung infections, and I didn’t know how to truly connect to people because I was (and am) Autistic. Now that medications have come out that have basically rendered me CF symptom-free, and I’ve gotten my ASD diagnosis, the veil’s been lifted. I know what I’ve missed out on. And damn, I am pissed lmao But, it’s all about perspective, right? I can sit here and soak in my anger and resentment, or I can take advantage of what I now have and start moving on with my life. I’m still grieving the “loss” of my childhood to my CF, but I can’t just sit around and fester in my pain. We must keep moving and getting on with life, even if we need to beat the shit out of a punching bag and scream obscenities at God at the end of the day lmao Finally, I do consider myself a Christian, but my faith is grounded in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I don’t believe in an angry God who sends everyone to hell who doesn’t believe in Him. I don’t believe God is so petty that He demands constant love and affirmation, lest we get flicked into the lake of fire at the end of the day. I don’t believe in the American Evangelical God I grew up surrounded by, because that’s not the God whom Christ emulated. I don’t believe in a God who can’t take our anger and fear, even if we’re wrong to be angry and afraid. I believe in a God of unconditional, reckless, infinite love and understanding; one who can accept my fits of rage against Him and appreciate the fact that, as angry as I am, I’m still doing my damn best in life and sometimes just need to vent.

Loved hearing your take on consciousness! I'm of very similar mindset to yours, as in that there is a correlation between how much one can self reflect and how intelligent said person is. Also you mentioning that sentience gives one the strength to override instincts and even emotions, yet it seems that not all humans are capable of doing so is a very interesting thought.

Death does not really scare me. It is hard to prepare for, as there are so many things one would like to do before, but there are much scarier things that can happen before, like dementia or chronic pain...

The universe will exist only once or universes are born and die without end, in which case everything is going to repeat infinite number of times. Both scenarios seem nonsensical.

Growing up in a Mexican family, there was a saying in Spanish: "Vale mas la pregunta que la respuesta." Which means, the question is worth more than the answer." If the question is "Why are we here, experiencing all this?" Then I would say the answer to that question is meaningless. But the question is not. Once you understand that the value and the meaning of life lie in the question, not the answer, existential dread seems to evaporate like a puddle on a hot sidewalk in summer.

Although I don't see things to such a degree myself, I do like to see how each things (basically, from all the energy in the universe to death) are interconnected to one another, so much so that I've made it a personal theory of mine; Life is a reaction, but you can build on it the way you want it to be, like a sandwich. Find your purpose, no matter how small it is. If someone else adopts that idea, you're on the right track.

I am comforted by the thought of complete oblivion upon death, but it's probably not that simple. Maybe we, the conscious part of the universe, is up to something we can't understand.

I really love this video

Youll find among thr greatest minds, animalistic natures. Who is to say someone is less conscious because they aren't invested in existentialism?

Love your videos, would it be possible if you could talk more about current events of the James west telescope? And it's possible abilities to detect man-made objects in other solar systems or the possibility it will find water and or life? I really like all your videos they are funny and educational But outer space really captures my admiration and imagination.

Been here since the very beginning not of the universe, but of your channel.

Because we think and feel.😢

I'm buying this man a beer one day. 🍻

Great analysis

It is good to have fun thinking about abstract concepts but what if that becomes boring? What will be left?

I fight with anxiety every day, you could say I fight my animalistic instinct of fight or flight response to danger, sometimes I sucumb to it, other times I overcome it. This to say, I wish our instinct could be turned off in a flick of a button, but it can't.

"we'll certainly die" I'm not so sure about that anymore.

If there is no afterlife... I'm going to stick with plain old Neutral Nihilism. Why be optimistic or pessimistic about a mad circus which one day just ends? _Life "is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."_ -Shakespeare

perhaps THE BIGGEST takeaway i got from my first acid trip long ago WAS that... ITS ALL FUCKED UP. i say that in neither a positive way nor a negative way - just matter of FACT. ITS ALL FUCKED UP. if you think about ANYthing and/or EVERYthing long enough and hard enough, then eventually youll inevitably come to that point where NOTHING about it or even remotely related to it makes ANY sense AT ALL. in spite of that, ALL that we can really do IS to just, simply do the best we can regardless of WHATEVER. again, i discovered that during my first acid trip. and, THATS FUCKED UP.

I grew up raising my brother because my dad left and my mom did her best. It was ruff and Monty Python was mu happy place as well. Holy Grail was super amazing. But yeah I made a life for my three girls and what I never had as a kid. The chance at being a kid. But yeah I have crisis about existence nearly on the daily lol

Downloaded the VPN Instantly, nice with a simple and free VPN if there wont come some membership latera, very cool thank u!

How is that arrogance to say we are the universe experiencing itself? It is literally true! Not just us, but all life, everywhere! Anything living is experience.

You seem like a really great soul 🙂

On a lighter note, your hair is looking exceptionally great today.

Like that kind of videos 👍

The bell is not the same as hitting the subscribe button again. 😮

I am going to buy wen it gets out on iOS

you should start a podcast

I recommend you ScienceClic English's channel. He has a lot of intresting video, like "We all move at the Speed of Light".

To be fair to the point about us "being the sensory organs of the universe," the narrator did preface saying this was unscientific and more philosophy, so proof isn't really relevant. BUT I will say if we are the collective hive mind of the universe, it could slightly resolve all observers down to a single universal frame of reference, potentially without quantum entanglement.

Personally I disagree with the part where intuition is combined with animalistic instincts of us. I believe we have way more adaptability than suggested in the video, our intuition is extremely malleable, when there isn’t always data from past experiments to depend on and at that point we have to be able to make decisions based very different situations on a future problem. This has been relatively successful until now if we simply see how much innovation we have created in the past two centuries. Not saying all innovations are leaps of faith into darkness but clearly not all are inevitable results of scientific development. Typically as we progress, there hasn’t been any paradigm which is purely based on intuition but it played a very big part in our scientific discoveries. Animalistic nature describes physical needs such as water, food or drinks, nowadays “scrolling through your phone” or “keyboarding on reddit”… these do not encourage innovation they encourage consumerism and trends, sometimes it can be good, sometimes bad. This is very different from intuition, where intuition is what most engineers rely on when there is a problem where there has been no prior knowledge. Animalistic nature almost always looks for an easier way out, such as procrastinating or “not thinking” where intuition is normally controlled and has implicit basis for a decision. That’s a lot of random talk, don’t mind me…

Hahaha my whole life repeating itself in a video.

god of the gaps

Oh, you don’t know why people don’t want to Overcomer animalistic inclinations? IQ.

You should do a reaction/review of the video called “Ten dimensions explained” by WeThePepe, I think it's pretty interesting, its a pretty old vid too

Hey Dylan, do you think your comment section is being targeted by bots? Just giving you a heads up.

you should react to some videos from sciencephile the ai

the original video you have posted in the comments doesn't lead to their optimistic nilism video, it leads to their nuclear accidents video.

You are an incredibly smart guy. 土下座をする。🛐 People like you exactly are the purpose of my existence. 🦍

I think letting the animalistic nature helps the mental and emotions to some degree, the brain has evolved to reward those stuffs I guess. Not all people have the same mental capacity we have no control over those thing. A good watch of sports, or a night outside with friends doing animalistic stuffs helps my brain relax somtimes.

How do you have 156k followers 🤔

React to time the history and future of everything remastered from kurzgesagt

I truly think an INTP is a subset of human cause istg the way people act compared to us is 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I downloaded and tried using Qalvpn but my pc is too shit to handle it lol I tried, we u get I better computer I'll try again!

You look like that one gigachad image

Smart people tend to become more nihilistic than others.

&:32 ......."but obviously".........WHAT?

This may sound weird to you but science increases my belief in a God.

Watching this video and listening......I am hearing many fallacies and.......hypocritical lies......SOOOOOO FRUSTRATING!

Nihilism is overriding our animalistic nature.

Sentience is animalistic. Our ability to develop science is animalistic. We're not animals with additional higher traits. We are animals. We have some different traits than other animals. Put on your biologist cap, and you'll see that's it's just diversity. "Sentient" is usually used to mean entities that can experience pain or feelings in general.

What's going on with this whatsapp?

You should watch the Neutronstar Video from Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell. I kinda want to know your opinion. 1

"People aren't using that thing in their head to override their animalistic nature" Why should they? Isn't using our sentience what has led us to create industrial civilisation, which fills the air with dangerous levels of CO2? Isn't using our sentience what has led us to outcompete everything and overpopulate the world? Isn't using our sentience what has allowed us to create nuclear weapons capable of obliterating significant chunks of the planet's surface? I'm not saying all of those things don't have their benefits. This entire human game to me seems to be a faustian bargain between greater advancement, consciousness, and power in exchange for a price that grows exponentially higher all the time. I'd be very careful diving into the "maybe what life is all about is finding those special few people whose intellect is stronger than their intuition/emotion", Arthur Schopenhauer also thought that and the conclusion he drew is that the ultimate goal of consciousness should be to achieve human extinction through the refusal to procreate - 'overriding our animalistic nature' and bringing an end to the whole game out of bitterness. Do you think this is the good ending for humanity? Many meditative practices recognise that the mind is an enemy as well as a friend. It is a great servant, but a terrible master. Why do you think sentience is all that, anyway? Hasn't nature been doing incredibly well for billions of years without it, and now that it's here (only been here for a microsecond of geological time), things seem to be going downhill? The truth is consciousness only ever evolved as a tool to SERVE the animal nature. But now it has grown into its own, runaway thing and I can't say I agree that our goal as a species should be to privilege our intellect or consciousness as the greatest virtue. Seems to me like the ideal outcome would be some sort of synthesis: get the consciousness to have what's in the best interests of animalistic human nature at the heart of its purpose. What's the alternative? Commit collective suicide? No thanks, I don't really want to push for that. It's as Nietzsche said: 'There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy'. Your intuition knows better precisely because it has evolved over millions of years to know better, whereas your sentience is only as old as you are and only knows what you allow it to know, lol.

Dylan stop making such unique and different artistic thumbnails!

Hello

Surprisingly niave rant at end. It's going to come off as rude, but it is. It is primal, most primitive, animalistic nature to live. Everything you do my friend is based on the most primitive foundation of life. The most truthful thing is that everything we know is paradoxical. Everything. There is no truth, none. Truth is all conditional. The moment there is no time, there is no past or present. What we feel right now never existed.

For some reason, I came to terms with death when I was 16, after reading the book 1984.

I think some of these assumptions are a bit hasty. You make such a big deal about humans being animals and then blame humans for sometimes acting like animals? Who are you to deny humans their nature? I also have a problem with you implying that reflecting more about your life and being more conscious of how everything works make one's life necessarily better. Would you say, Schopenhauer, miserable and alone, lived a better life than some simple Hungarian Farmer taking care of his family and fields?

This channel is beyond silly. Because this dude is an authority on one subject, we should appeal to his authority on subjects he has no authority on.

I don't think there is any evidence that deep thinking leads to a well-adjusted person. Look into the biographies of philosophers....

Hi Dylan it's me Lauren your old friend from uni. I hope you are doing well and I am glad you have a successful RU-vid channel and are doing your PhD. I spent my whole adolescence struggling with existential dread as you might remember me telling you about. You try to convince yourself that life has meaning, but it's only subjective meaning. But in your heart you are unfulfilled. That's because as St Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in You" - You being God of course. That's why many godless people turn to hedonism and degeneracy in this day and age, to try and fill that void, like what you see with the Kardashians. Yes I used to be the most staunch atheist you could possibly be, but when I honestly thought and looked into the question of God's existence, I started to see that it wasn't so silly after all. I read the Holy Bible and a lot of helpful books surrounding it. The one book I would recommend is I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. It has so many points I'd never heard or thought of before, and are hard to refute. I slowly started to believe in God and it took a while to fully understand, but I do believe now and I feel my understanding is sufficient. And no, I absolutely don't believe in God just because it is comforting, but because I believe it is the truth. Like you said, science can only provide us with so much, but at a certain point we have to look elsewhere if we want to be truly fulfilled. And I am truly fulfilled now knowing that there is a God who created us, who loves us miserable humans so much that He suffered and died for us, and that there is real meaning to all of this. I haven't felt existential dread/depression since I started believing. The world makes sense to me now. Humanity is bizarre and messed up, but that's what you'd expect because we are fallen. There is more to this life than the material and I think we all know that. Science doesn't have much to say about love, but it would be stupid to deny it exists. And I know God may seem like a vague concept, but all the beauty, order and majesty we see in the universe is the work of God. When we feel love for another human being, it is because we are made in His image. When we use our minds to create and discover, it is because we are made in His image. The fingerprints of God are all around. One statement from the book I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist that really got me thinking went something ike this: If matter, space, time were created at the Big Bang, then whatever caused the Big Bang had to have been immaterial, spaceless and timeless. And that's exactly what God is. Just thought I would share my thoughts and my experience. My prayer is that you will find God and come to understand it all. God bless.

Please stop pressing play when you are still talking, I can’t hear you finish your point.

I’m extremely early

IDK optimistic nihilism sounds humbling. So I don’t get why this can’t be appealing to certain religions which value humility. I’m glad you still value philosophy as a physicist, y’know, unlike a certain big ego celebrity astrophysicist.

You guys should watch :Islam an antidote to nihilism by Yusuf ponders

In general I don't agree with this video. I don't disagree with finding your purpose in life and finding what makes you happy but saying the universe has no purpose is just very shallow and illogical. If there is no purpose then there is no reason for things to happen in the universe and if there is no reason then there is no logic behind those reasons but it turns out with science and rationality you can explain the logic so there is logic behind the reasons so there is reason so therefore there is purpose. At the end of the day, universe and life has no purpose then how come it's so consistent, how come there are patterns everywhere and you can use science to explain so much, humanity hasn't been to the sun but scientist know that the sun is just massive fusion reactor. If the universe has no purpose then how come we don't have control over everything? And speaking of god, As Einstein said, he believed the god of spenoza, the god of order, simplicity, harmony, beauty. The universe could've been messy and random but it turns out there are patterns and rythem and harmony. The universe could've been a mess but it's not, it's beautiful. And the more we learn about the universe then the more we find out how much less we know about it and how much there is to learn and human beings in general are curious creature so the more we get to learn and know, the happier you'll be. Finding purpose in life and doing what makes you happy in life it all sounds good and most people aren't gonna disagree with that but being nihilistic and not having any moral and religious belives are the reasons for collapse of a civilization, said by Nietzsche, the guy who preached nihilism. You sacrificed a little bit of your human freedom to have a functioning society and civilization.

Second?

First

You are making a non belief-system into a belief-system. A belief in nothing, is not a belief. Can you see how not believing is not a belief. I honestly don't know much about nihilism but if you would like to call me a Nihilist or an Atheist or all these things together im totally fine with that, i don't have a problem with it since man is individual and not a group. Im not part of any category. There is no belief without doubt. A belief can never be certain, only knowing can be certain. Being certain in your belief would be a contradiction in terms. If you start with belief then you lose the inquiring, because the approach is to know. The approach is not to believe. This is where religious individuals lose intelligence. Some may be highly intellectual but far from intelligent. If they could bring the same scientific approach towards religions as they did with everything else, but when it comes to religions they keep the blindfold on. There is no more inquiring because the eyes are set on belief. And they keep protecting that belief like it was worth dying for.