Comments by "Brent Jacobs" (@br3nto) on "Unsolicited advice" channel.

26:44 Nihilism is very misunderstood by the great philosophers. Nihilism isn’t a state of mind, nor is it about lack of meaning. Rather, it’s a blank slate from which everything can build upon. E.g imagine you and only you exist. Even though it’s only you, there is also the nothing that surrounds. There is a permanent dichotomy that exists between everything that exists and that we can experience, versus everything that we cannot experience. Now let’s build upon this emptiness slate. Let’s add another person into this nothing. Everything you do is now relative to the other person and visa-versa. If they hit you, you get hurt, and visa-versa. All of a sudden, we’ve got game theory. Which forms the foundations of moral systems. Every action in the past informs and moulds the future. So everything is relative to what happened in the past. This is a bases for information theory. Information has an entropy… the effects ripple out. So two core concepts of Nihilism: the nothing always exists no matter how much we explore into that nothing; and every thing is relative to everything else… we can’t escape the actions of any other object in the universe.
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4:25 if no one put their trolleys away, there would always be a trolly nearby ready to use. 😉
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24:48 the poor guy… so close to understanding nihilism, yet so wrapped up in the idea that opinions matter. Everything is but a fleeting interaction that only has meaning at the time but yet leaves a solid foundation that influences every future interaction. Every interaction does not happen in isolation but is a dance between multiple things. The interaction ripples out new interactions that are also meaningless without context, but also form the foundation of future interactions.
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The nothingness that we all exist within is not just empty, but contains all the things we haven’t explored and all the things we don’t understand. There is both a physical and abstract component. It’s like a veil (or fog-of-war). As we explore the physical world, we see and know more, the vail shifts, but is never removed. The veil always exist and always hides more stuff. We have can have assumptions and hypotheses of what’s beyond, but these are only validated when we seek and find the answers. When we do find solid answers, the veil shifts. This is why both religion and science exist, and why both are useful, they pose questions for us to seek answers to. The problems occur when we see questions, assumptions, and hypotheses as truth. This is a problem because we stop expanding the veil and increase our understanding of the universe. Because of this, objective truths do exist, and everything without evidence is merely an assumption to be tested with answers hidden behind the veil waiting to be explored.
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11:33 that assume that humans are not able to maintain social order without a higher power intervening. That just seems like a ridiculous proposition to me. It’s ultra pessimistic.
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@Me_Caveman ""God" represents the unchanging standard by which otherwise we'd have none" --- That's a big assumption that "God" represents an unchanging standard. That would maybe be true if there were gods or higher beings to uphold that standard. But then again, what is to say that higher beings don't change over time? If their standards are unchanging, what is the mechanism for that? And this is still totally ignoring the question as to why we should even consider those standards for ourselves inn the first place. Are we really that incapable of deciding on and maintaining standards for ourselves? To what level is that even true or false? Why would we even want unchanging standards?
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18:46 I think pessimists completely underestimate the power of optimism. You can be hyper optimistic about hard or difficult situations. It’s a learning opportunity to say the least.
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You make the best vids!!! And you have the best enunciation of all the YouTubers… I usually listen at 1.75 speed… most YouTubers sound drunk when the speed changes back to 1x speed… you on the other hand sound exceptional.
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13:08 all these arguments so far are underpinned by an assumption that what is written is true. It’s a form of choice architecture and nudging where other valid options are intentionally left out, and decoy options are included in order to guide the person to a pre-determined choice. If you remove the assumption that what is written is true, then more option become available.
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@nejsnek1410 hmm… I have seen it a long time ago, but I don’t remember anything specific from that show informing my interpretation of Nihilism. I’ve also watched Optimistic Nihilism by Kurzgesagt, which I think was more influential.
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@PixlyPenguin If that’s what you find meaning in, then yes. Let me reframe it a little. The veil is a metaphor for the unknown all around us, both physically at the most smallest scales and the largest. It also wraps around intangible and conceptual things like thought and understanding. That veil will always exist, so there will always be new things to explore and to pique our attention. At the same time things will always change because we are always interacting with and reacting to everything around us and to that veil that surrounds everything. This isn’t just true for conscious beings, but for everything that exists. This also means everything in the past contributes to the future. I don’t think there is inherent meaning in any of it, however, I think we can derive some meaning from it while we exist by understanding that we can take actions now to leave an impression on the future. Or we can sit back and just take in the beauty of it all… it really doesn’t matter… well kind of… it does matter in some sense. For example, you may want civilisation to persist, so that takes many people putting in effort to keep it going. But that civilisation only exists because of the things that happened in the past. Maybe if people in the past put their energies to different things, we would have something else either better or worse. We would probably want to put in effort to keep that around… it’s all contextual. But I’m rambling now… there is a lot to this.
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The seems to be this weird notion that meaning must be given, or life without meaning is scary, or that we can’t cope without a higher power. All of those things are wrong.
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7:14 geez this guys an idjut. We’ve managed civilisation for a few hundred millennia…. most individuals can handle life just fine to a natural death. That one point slaughters one of his foundational beliefs of his thesis. If it weren’t true we’d all end it sooner.
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I want meaty undeniable philosophies. The only reason we should consider religion is because there is always a curtain of unknown no matter how many curtains we look behind
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13:09 “we should do xyz” - no one should be forced to believe in a lie our falls realities no matter how good
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26:19 this is why, although I’m an atheist, I’d never completely rule out the existence of a god like construct, however, I’ve never heard a plausible argument to why anyone would or should worship it, irrespective of be influenced by it. A god as described by these 5 principles has no impact on me or my actions on it.
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I still find it odd that many of the famous philosophers consider Nihilism to be a state of mind or being rather than the foundation from which everything can be built up. If you consider Nihilism to be what is left when everything else is removed that we can see, touch, explore, and understand, then you can see that Nihilism is a vail or fog-of-war that always covers everything we don’t know. As we explore and expand, that vail shifts, but is always there and always hides more things. So science and religion can be considered the same. Looking behind the veil. So where Nietzsche hypothesises that religion can encourage Nihilism, and that is related to when religious authority stifles individual will, I think it’s all backwards. I see it more as religious authority (or any authority really) can convince individuals to not explore beyond the veil, and be happy with what is presented, rather than seeking evidence and the actual truths of the universe. Nihilism, to me, is always present because everything is built on A foundation of Nihilism. My interpretation of nihilism also means there’s isn’t a nihilistic problem that requires solving; religion provides hypothesis of what’s behind the veil, rather than providing a solution to nihilism. So, there is nothing to fight or overcome in my interpretation and understanding of Nihilism; you can choose to do nothing and just go with the flow, or you can take the wheel and drive; it really doesn’t matter one way or the other. You will be fine in both cases. There is no existential dilemma.
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12:41 first off, it sounds like this “being” is t actually a being, but a construct or scaffolding upon which everything else can exist. Second, even if these properties are all true, there’s nothing to say there is any benefit in worshiping or admiring this thing. It just is, and so are we, and we will continue to be regardless of the actions we take. It’s actually very nihilistic. It’s why I think religion and science will always coexist… the more we peek behind the curtain and understand the machinations, the more we discover there are more curtains and more to discover behind it. Both science and religion tackle this.
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@nejsnek1410 ohhhh!!! Yeah I see the connection hahaha, and yeah it fits.
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@TheBlackfall234 to be honest, the concept of Übermensch seems like a 1:1 replacement for Jesus. Just replacing one moral sign post with another. It seems unnecessary to me. Nietzsche seems stuck in the context of a hyper religious world so he can’t see how anyone could cope in a world without a god or godlike replacement. It’s quite a pessimistic outlook really. Because of this religious context, it’s easy to understand why philosophers get stuck on “lack of meaning in life” for individuals rather than considering why it’s necessary to even have meaning. What kind of meaning are they looking for? Why does anything owe anyone meaning? I assume the meaning they seek is again based on some analog of meaning similar to what religions impress upon their followers.
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@DarkMatter2525 with or without god, we have game theory. If everything were permissible we’d have been wiped out long ago. But it’s not, because people naturally work together for the most part. Game theory also explains why societies as a whole may do bad things (regardless of governing religious or secular views); go with the group, or be the “other”. Unfortunately, there are sociopaths, narcissists, and machiavellians that can rise up and corrupt groups of people. This is all irrespective of theist or atheistic views. It’s an unfathomable canyon to jump to consider that people can’t self govern over the long term. Theres just no evidence of that. It’s a hyper pessimistic viewpoint. I know one commenter suggested that without religion there is declining birth rates and materialism etc, I don’t think that’s because of a lack of god. Sure I can see how being told to go forth and multiply would indeed impact birth rates, those qualities are a symptom of unrestrained capitalism, a system where we have sociopaths, narcissists, and machiavellians leading the group. We haven’t yet weeded them out because we are all somewhat benefiting from the system for the time being.
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I think Schopenhauer is flat out wrong with everything said at least up to this point in the video: 6:21. Why bother listening to what else he has to say?
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