Existentialism: Crash Course Philosophy #16
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- Now that we’ve left behind the philosophy of religion, it’s time to start exploring what other ways might exist to find meaning in the world. Today we explore essentialism and its response: existentialism. We’ll also learn about Jean-Paul Sartre and his ideas about how to find meaning in a meaningless world.
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"To be is to do" - Plato
"To do is to be." - Sartre
"Do be do be do." - Sinatra
KutWrite Gary Larson
*Incorrect
“Do be do be do.” - scooby
"Do be do be do ba" - Perry the Platypus theme
Needed a chuckle thanks.
Uhh no. Louie Armstrong had him beat.
"the meaning of life is whatever that is preventing you from killing yourself"
No truer words has been spoken.
It's so awesome because it's a double entendre.
Yingdi Han true
Yep, the authoritarian/hierarchical system you talk about is nothing but a game we were born into and as kids coerced to partake in. I believe we become adults when we realize this and now we can make our own choices.
does anyone have a reference on that quote, I saw it attributed to Camus a few times, but never a reference
Кеша А. I thinkit's not an actual quote, but rather a short explaination of albert camus' work
"Do it or don't do it - you will regret both."-Soren Kierkegaard
"Do or do not. There is no try!" - Yoda
"Choose for yourself, whichever decision you will regret the least" - Levi Ackerman
Existentialism: choose your own adventure
Yes, precisely. In choosing your own adventure, you create your own purpose and meaning in life by your own force of will in the absence of any meaning or purpose floating down on you from the heavens.
@@davidwilliams454 Very well, then. In place of King and Keller, select any two atheists you care to who chose to give meaning to their lives by choosing to fight rather than passively submit to evil circumstances that were imposed upon them. And realize this: A person being herded into a gas chamber at a concentration camp could choose to passively walk into the chamber like a bleating sheep or he could choose to pick a rock up off the ground and assault a guard with the intent to bash his skull in. The one who chooses to assault a guard instantly transforms himself from a contemptible victim into a heroic freedom fighter. The one who chooses to assault a guard will be riddled with bullets in seconds, but, he will die *fighting.* In choosing to die fighting, he will have chosen his own adventure to achieve existential meaning and purpose in his life.
@@davidwilliams454 So what is your position? From where and from what do you derive your purpose and meaning in life (if you *even have* purpose and meaning in your life)?
@@davidwilliams454 All you have written is fascinating and thanks for writing it. I would like to hear the results of your research. I would offer that the best way to study the Bible is by reading it in the languages in which it was written: Aramaic, Greek, Latin, whatever.
@@davidwilliams454 Beautiful words.
"We are creatures who need meaning, but we're abandoned in a universe full of meaninglessness. So we cry into the wilderness and get no response. But we keep crying anyway."
When you're alone in the woods and it's getting dark and you're cold and hungry, you know what "meaning" is.
Suyay Shah: Yes. I think there's a lot of truth in what you've said there.
Only at weekends. During the week I'm too busy to worry about it.
Only for a while if you are intelligent. Stopping the search for meaning is key to finding happiness. Do whatever is fun, for you, and keep doing it. This is the key to finding happiness in life.
@@BladeRunner-td8be I couldn't agree more. People are way to worried about giving everything meaning.
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche.
that phrase is intresting. do you guys think he choose more to live or to survive? maybe he prefered to suffer than to be illuzioned by a meaning? suffer in the "wilderness'? out there? living? or defining life with a meaning (changeable)? maybe ylu end up living in both but in different "states"? thanks for the post
or you live suffer first and then give meaning to the suffering so the trauma/suffering is cured with understanding and use to your way of the superman to overcome man. or this could be an illusion. and we are staying right where we are. ???
this reminds me the teachings of Lord Buddha, suffer is the part of the life. To be Buddha(Wise) is the only meaning of life.
Lucas Ometto personally, i’ve interpreted it as suffering being an unavoidable part of life and to find meaning in that suffering is to grow from it. i don’t believe this means we should surrender to suffering (such as wallowing in sickness without seeking treatment), but rather accept that we will be subject to pain at some point or another and it will not do us well to be consumed by said pain for the rest of our lives. just a thought though
Says a man who didn't achieve what he wanted out of life, was poor, and died alone and bitter about life. Many people live happy live, some without suffering.
Life is hard. But life is not to suffer.
This reminds me of one of the best lessons I was ever taught. I was seeing a therapist for depression and told him I felt like a flower that couldn't fully bloom: half its petals were still scrunched up. So he asked me, "What is the purpose of a flower?" I said I guessed it had something to do with enriching the earth or some such thing, but my therapist stopped me. "No," he said, "the purpose of a flower is to be a flower." That changed my whole outlook on life. And now, after all these years, I know where he got that idea. ;-)
That's a good therapist right there. He merged psychology and philosophy in one. I wish I have such mindset as him. I hope you're doing great now that you are seeing a therapist.
@@darwinadvincula4758 Thanks for the kind wishes - and yes, he was a very good therapist.
@@johnalden9364, I could have not phrased it better than you!
@@johnalden9364 Why do you think Jesus is real? Why not Odin & Thor, or Zeus & Mars, or Allah, or Vishnu or any of the other thousands of gods that mankind has made up? How do you differentiate between your faith and just wishful thinking?
@@johnalden9364 Oh my god, don't tell me you're actually using the "Liar, Lord, or Lunatic" argument. That's been debunked so many times, it's not even funny.
“The key to being happy isn’t a search for meaning. It’s to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you’ll be dead.” -Mr Peanutbutter
Best line of the whole show
That seems so depressing to me and that wouldn't make me happy.
I'd rather choose to have meaning through doing the things that I care about.
@@ramyramy9620 the things you care... Will it be important in a few years time?
Close but no cigar, well at least not a good cigar. They key to being happy is to have fun. Find things that are fun and do them and stop with the search for meaning.
I don’t know who mr peanut butter is, but this made me laugh so loud I may have startled my neighbors
Supercalifragilisticexistentialcrisis
a.k.a pornhub
Love your name.
+You wouldn't shoot a guy with glasses, would you? a.k.a. meaning of life! 😂
That was funny XD
Well done.
I find it absurd that many people don't find this world absurd
existentialism keeps me up at night and death
Existentialism keeps me from taking anything for granted.
unquestioning tradition worshipers
What's even more absurd is how we comprehend it at all.
M I think everybody has those thoughts, and if they say they don't they're either insane or lying.
When I was a teenager, I thought I had landed on some amazing insights into life. Then I read Mark Twain and realised he'd already thought about those things, and much more about the world we live in.
That doesn't diminish the mental work that you had to do to get to those insights. Wouldn't that just mean that you too have a great mind?
Who's Mark Twain?
@@briantyson7744 A great American writer. Best known for his book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".
@@nathancampos6277 Well said. Not just a Great American writer,in my opinion, but the first modern philosopher who reflected the thoughts of the 'common' man.
@@nathancampos6277 I was being a typical American, I was just kidding. I've even read the Innocents abroad.
More to my surprised pleasure though, is what a polite American you are.
Take care, be well, and keep being a positive person.
The idea that it’s all meaningless soothes me.
It means that the stakes are a whole lot lower.
I went through a very deep depression after getting out of an abusive situation and my parents continually tried to offer comfort the only way they knew how: through religion, encouraging me to 'give it to God' as they say. The only thing that truly gave me comfort during this time was existentialism. It empowered me to accept what had happened to me and that as shitty as it was, I could learn from it. It empowered me to accept my depression instead of feeling guilty or shaming myself for feeling the way I did. It empowered me to go and find help because I realized I couldn't fix it myself. I didn't truly get the appeal of existentialism until I realized that it is not about meaninglessness but about one being in control of one's own life. Great video, guys.
You can give your troubles to God and trust him to lead you while also bettering yourself and figuring out your path in life. Nothing says existentialism lays all claim to someone pursuing a career or whatever.
?? that wasn't what I was saying at all. And I agree with the video, I don't think religion and existentialism are mutually exclusive at all! I'm just relating what aspects about existentialism gave me comfort and what it meant to me.
+coughdrop01 okay, well thanks for clearing that up.
Are there any specific books you read that helped you with the idea? I could use a suggestion
Thus Spoke Zuthurustra, dense reading, but wonderful to just read one chapter and think about it for a week. Even better if you read it with a friend and discuss it.
"If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice " - Rush
Someone once said: "Indecision may or may not be my problem; I'm really not sure.
Very true.
Yes Freewill
" If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" - Rene Descartes
Thank you, I have a new favorite song now.
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”-Alan Watts
Looks like I was an existentialist before I knew the term existed.
So, the meaning of life is to give life meaning...
i like that, mind, of thinking
The meaning of life is to recognize its scarcity. Recognizing its scarcity forces the observer to realize the self is useless without family. What is family? We must define it if we are to understand. Family is ANYONE who carries your surname either by blood or social construct after you have passed. They are your memory lived or unloved. Family helps your bloodline and meme[ory] continue. Selfish people generally are forgotten in lineage and history--or should I say infamous for the wrong reason. Getting back to scarcity. Once scarcity is recognized and the existence of all others depends on the actions of your life, then you will understand what you cannot possibly understand until you live it--perspective. Life is about perspective. In fact, 90% of people who will comment here will not understand my situation[or I theirs...]. Without perspective and context life IS meaningless. The trick is to realize life isn't always what it seems or what a system of doublethink tells you it should be...
So, are you saying that life is meaningless unless people have children..?
What about free will? There are millions of couples who simply don't want any children (or can't). Are their lives meaningless?
What about all the famous people throughout history who didn't have any offsprings? They are remembered long after Joe Blow and his eight kids;-)!
@@MusicForTheBroken Wow, what a total and complete non sequitur argument surrounded by mounds of moldy word salad. You started right off with a statement that is not even remotely based on any kind of observable evidence: "The meaning of life is to recognize its scarcity" (is it really so scarce?), and then you followed that to some random personal conclusion that "scarcity" means family, and is somehow a rejection of your own very specific definition of selfishness.
Yeah but what's the point of giving life meaning when it originally doesn't have one?
Nietzche didn't embrace nihilism, he loathed it. He was an existentialist.
Proto existentialist, but yeah.
Exactly. I was thinking the same thing. Sartre's thoughts on finding meaning in a meaningless world is Nietzche's words and ideas. He came before Sartre so he deserves most of the credit that was given to Sartre,
Dracula Nova yes! I was very upset, for this episode did Nietzsche an injustice. Nietzsche was nihilistic in knowing that it is all meaningless. Yet, he proposed that we must take control of our own meaning with our "will to power". A man that could rise above with his own meaning and own morality could evolve into an Ubermensch.
Luke Earles I KNEW IT
Luke Earles i was right all along lol
I'm a 59 y/o, somewhat uneducated woman who inadvertently landed on both agnosticism and existentialism at the time time in 1987; I had a serious illness followed by a devastating surgery that changed my life dramatically. I would never have had the intellectual capacity to glean much from books on these topics back then, but did find sufficient material to define for myself, closely enough, what I was feeling philosophically.
This video had me blurting out "YES!.....YES!... Omg, YES!" throughout, much to the dismay of the 5 cats in the same room as I. So much of what he said solidly hit home. Yet so much of it still confuses me. Like I was emphatically identifying with seemingly contradictory philosophies. Is that even possible? I need to pick up more books, I guess.
I gave up a long time ago. I get up in the morning, go about my day, enjoy what I can, be thankful, clean up and go to bed at the end of the day.
and you're still here
Camus would say Imagine Yourself Happy
when i’m 16 and agree, kinda sad lol.
to be honest it always felt that people had kids because they couldn’t find purpose so they’d just take care of someone else and hope they can find purpose and be happy
@@ameliepare6062 Is it sad though? What's sad about enjoying your day? What's sad about being satisfied with the small things? What's sad about stopping an agitated endless search for something you don't even know what it is or if you can find it or even if you already found it? As said in the video: If there's no meaning it's just crying and howling into endless void without response. That sounds sad to me.
GreenMareep that’s edgy as hell bro
"The literal meaning of life is whatever you are doing that prevent you from killing yourself."
That's good. Gotta remember that one.
You should definitely read Camus' work. It certainly was translated into english or whatever language you most commonly use. The Stranger (L'Etranger in the original french) is a good depiction of his views on the absurd. Hope you'll find it interesting, it blew my mind.
Truly, a depressing and hilarious believe.
not really depressing, i'd rather say "nothing matters, so party hard and do what you want"
If you really want to get into the hard stuff, you should read straw dogs, thoughts on humans and other animals by john gray.
Albert Camus is eternally captivating. The School Of Life have a good presentation on him, if interested.
"What is my purpose?" "You pass butter." "Oh. My. God."
"Yeah, welcome to the club, pal."
Brandy Raccoon wubba lubba dub dub!
Having had an existential crisis at 16, this entire playlist has expanded my mind so much. Just, wow.
2:22 : correction : Nietzsche did *not* "embrace" nihilism - he discusses it.
Right, he wrote in part to confront Nihilism.
Why did he say that? Nietzsche was not a nihilist, he knows nothing of Nietzsche.
when you discuss and explore a topic you embrace it - you understand it
@@nicholasdsilva1832 So, when MLK embraced Civil Rights legislation, suffragettes embraced the franchise for women, or Henry Ford embraced antisemitism, they only sought to "discuss and explore a topic" in order better to "understand it"?
@@brianbuckley4770 they understand the topic, they discuss and explore it, so we - the general public - can have opinions and views on it also
All of the vibrating air you forced out of your meat pipe really resonated with my electrical head sparks created from the sound receptors on the side of my view sockets.
This is too constructive for RUclips comments.
that comment, combined with the profile picture, seriously creeps me out for some odd reason
I think you have read a bit too much philosophy about materialism lol
Absurd
Such a Sartrian description
Existence is Pain
-Mr Meeseeks
Brian Zemer aka life is suffering - the first of the Four Noble Truths
*I JUST WANNA DIEE*
So mr messes was a nihilist
Is a lack of existence pleasure, then?
without pain we will never know what hapiness is
It's all about the journey, not the goal. 'Every man is the sum-total of his reactions to experience.' (Hunter S. Thompson)
Note however that the direct experiencing is fundamental, the reactions derived from it secondary to it, dependent upon it. Moreover, reactions, being past based, demand continual tweaking, refining, updating through fresh new inputs or easily mislead and confuse. Direct experiencing moment to moment then is more primarily who/what we essentially are, not reactivated patterns or accumulated knowledge, altho memory based functions also are indispensable for life in general, found in all life forms...
Thanks man you just helped me with my homework.
---and the extent to which Personality can drill down and see the "Meta-MEANING as a thread in the out-stretching artifact of thread and welded steel ...two kinds
I dont follow that philosophy, id be dead already.
Life is the integral of a complicate multi variable function over time
Need to go get some popcorn.
I like my existential crises with snacks.
@West Asian Levantine need a hug?
Pass me some popcorn
Same here now I need popcorn 🍿😂😂
same, sweetened popcorn only tho
@West Asian Levantine someone doesn't get enough popcorn
Just take your grandmother to war.
mr doge that will be meaningless right... but if he choose that does it make it the right decision
No, no, no, no, no. Take the war to your grandmother.
And yes to combat Poe's Law I will explicity state that this is meant to be a joke and should not be taken serious in any way, shape or form.
Lol problem solved!!
The correct answer is: Remain with your mother. Yes, that way you can not be there, fight in the war, and contribute to that cause that you believe in by being on the battlefield, but that does not means that you can not contribute to the cause you believe in. By working in the factories that produce ammunitions, or other supplies for those that have went to the battle fronts. In such a manner, you will in turn, be contributing to the cause that will affect millions of peoples lives, and will be contributing greatly to one person's life at the same time.
Gotta love someone who thinks outside the box
Can we take a second to appreciate the amount of views this video has? CrashCourse is doing an amazing job at educating the public in a way that we all can enjoy. Thanks guys.
Yeah, but if you pay close attention to the end of each video, he refutes every argument there is for the existence of God.
Abbey: Is that a bad thing?
"Nietzsche was a nihilist" These people don't know what they are talking about
"We are creatures who need meaning but are abandoned in an universe full of meaninglessness"
Can I just say how grateful I am for this platform.. the fact that you offer Arabic translation touches me on a personal level especially in something as complicated as philosophy. شكرا لكم من قلبي.
"Be yourself, everybody else is taken", Mark Twain.
The greatest philosopher
I thought that quote was from Oscar Wilde?
@@tardisgirl1237 Your right, I was mistaken. Not only that, but it was also (unintentionally) a misquote.
My apologies, I am embarrassed. I guess this means I'm no longer a card carrying grammar Nazi...
@@johnkeith8072 Don't worry about it, everybody makes mistakes.
John Keith You could update your post to fix it :)
I love Sartre's existentialism. I think it paints such an honest picture of reality.
I watch this video every once in a while.
For those who are interested in Sartre's work but don't know where to begin I recommend his essay: ''Existentialism is a Humanism''. Is very short and relatively comprehensible.
Thanks.
Actually this video answered the question of why existentialists are so crazy, They've forgotten that even if there is no divine source of ethics, there is still the human source. Humans care if you've been virtuous to them or not, and from this you can make a universal, objective theory. This is of course what the Stoics did, and why the basic principles of Stoicism were confirmed in Becker (1998.)
Stephan Brun Good point
pro: Yes, that was a good essay, but I'm pretty sure that his gal pal Simone wrote it, not Sartre. Both were great thinkers, at first, but their long side trip into Communism (which Sartre eventualy gave up on) was odd.
"Existentialism is Humanism" is flawed on many levels. just to mention one... Example of knife is oversimplification of the fact that knifes dnt hv choice to cut or hammer, however on the other hand, humans do have choices as Sartre explained yet HUMANS dnt take decisions in the air, their decisions are the result of their periphery...we are not doomed to free, we are enslaved to our circumstances. A baby born in say muslim family dont hv choice to leave this religion, if SARTRE emphasize he does, then CAMUS won't agree since the guy would be dead very next moment as per his religious periphery. So is the case with everyday's life... There is scientific study which concludes that m=in modern world, what matters the most is WHERE U R BORN! A guy born in a village with no schools or no permission to go to school as in many asian countries(example) can not be questioned for his failure or in SARTRE words..cowardice.
@@danialqadir7894 I agree with you. We are not free but enslaved to our circumstances.
This is my shii right here. I knew I should’ve been a philosophy major.
"Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'. That's damn right" -Red, the Shawshank Redemption
The young man took so long deciding that before he knew it the enemy tanks were rolling over his garden and up to his house, at which point his mother had a heart attack.
The moral is this: do or do not, the only wrong choice is not to choose. and if you stay in one place too long, life will move on without you.
something i love to say.
Wertsir profound
I choose to make no choice ;)
If you choose to make no choice, then you are meaningless. you may as
well be non-sentient if you simply allow events to happen as they would
without your intervention. you put your fate in the hands of others,
rather than grasping it for yourself.
Aaron Burr disagrees
For further study on this subject please refer to the educational television program 'Rick & Morty'.
or wisecrack's video on the Philosophy of Rick and Morty, great video
"Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die."
+APaleDot I'll just watch tv now
👍
YESSSSS
I watched this series when it was regularly aired and now I'm rewatching several episodes like this one for my oncoming oral exam in philosophy in two days after months of no classes/school. thank you so much
A brilliant teacher you are, undoubtedly.. Existentialism has always mesmerized me...
Anyone that has actually read Nietzsche will know he's in no way a nihilist.
What he did was describe the state of nihilism, and try to 'help' people to overcome said nihilism.
of course he was a Nihilist...
HJ GE It is strange that his words have been around for so long and he is still misunderstood by so many
HJ GE you're right sir, and he established a way to do it, which is the self-overcoming
But does it even matter?
he was probably a nihilist at some point before his existential revelation
But in the end, aren't we all just comments in the RUclips comments section of life?
Hey come on now
I like your anime i r8 10/10
Deep.
Arigatou, cory sensei XD
+TootTootMcbumbersnazzle when im not being stupid in nobles comment section im a well educated man
You left out Dostoevsky, Frankl, and Solzhenitsyn. they were outstanding and added a lot of context to the existential worldview
Thank you for taking the time to encapsulate complex ideas and philosophical movements into a well-articulated and entertaining 9 minutes. You're very good at what you do. :)
NIetzsche didn´t embrace Nihilism, he merely pointed out that a person might succumb to it when their previous value systems (like religious belief structures) were rendered obsolete. That´s what the whole "god is dead and we killed him" thing means....
( He also predicted totalitarianism btw, quite the genius .....)
he pointed out the nihilism that lives within Christianity. this video is wrong.
definitely,. he was prophesying the collective nihilism he foresaw which at the time was soon to grip the world i.e world wars, the death of god, and how one could reconcile themselves when they themselves are afflicted with nihilism.
not only religious but moral
Klaustro Phobert ugh nietzsche was a megalomaniacal idiot who went psychotic. Totalitarianism existed wayyy before Nietzsche came along. He was basically eternally depressed and in search of meaning said that he had to suffer deeply in order to be happy.
Nietzsche is the personification of emo angsty teenagers putting on eyeliner and listening to my chemical romance.
I actually have a lot of empathy for Nietzsche but his fans are typically douchebags *cough*Hitler*cough*
Klaustro Phobert yeah but did he predict that we would call it democracy and think we are free? xD
Meaning is a state of consciousness. You're likely to experience meaning when you're deeply focused on a task or voluntarily exploring the unknown. Why is it like this? Because that's how humans evolved. The fundamental purpose of humans is to explore the unknown and turn chaos into habitable order. The unknown is not just an unexplored area in the physical universe, but what exists beyond the limits of your competence.
This episode is by far very comforting to watch! Excited for more to come!
7:14
Albert Camus is savage dude.
But he presents a good point.
He doesn't. He was a smoker. Isn't smoking a way of slowly killing oneself ?
@@Jarell1661 Camus mostly wrote between the late 1930s and the early 1950s. At that time the notion that smoking wasn't bad for you was still very commonplace, so Camus likely wasn't aware that he was participating in a habit that may have ended his life, if a car accident hadn't done it first.
Jean-Paul Sartre's eyes tho
He can see eeeeverythiiing
He can see around corners!
One eye on the intrinsic meaningless of life, the other on yo girl.
With eyes like that he's omnivisient.
res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--hqzbaOSl--/t_Preview/b_rgb:484849,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1446954788/production/designs/326200_1.jpg
This explains why I'm always having existential crises.
Me too :'(
convert to nihilism; we have no cookies because cookies are meaningless.
this is the best joke I heard in a while :DD
Are they the same as mid-life crises?
+Nathan Hawkes kinda similar, and an existential crisis basically questioning your entire life and if it has any purpose and it has no age limit. if you want to know what an existential crisis is go watch danisnotonfire's video titled as such.
We are brought into a world with no fundamental organization, yet in this chaos we make our own order, our own justice and our own freedom
Not to argue, but the Toltec would beg to differ.
Absolutely fantastic video to explain a concept which most fail at conveying. I've been searching for a great intro video to show to a friend about existentialism as I think a lot of the maxims will really resonate with him. This was incredibly digestible and relevant to people's everyday conceptions. Love your channel!
As a Brit, I want to know what my role will be in life when Britain leaves the EU. I'm a Brexistentialist.
Move to scotland....
That was brilliant
The tragedy of true freedom is an interesting topic for discussion. In a way this Freedom is the ultimate kind of abandonment, and the truest form of loneliness. To act completely blind, without a hint of guidance, and without the slightest force compelling you to stop is the pinnacle of freedom, but it is also random, with no intrinsic value assigned to any action. Without a model to compare it to, success and failure don't even exist. They are only "events". Things that have occurred and simply are. Without that purpose, without that risk, without that defining line between success and failure, when everything is rendered as Is or Isn't. Who's to say it ever was?
thoroughly described!
The mental state of an individual in nihilism must succumb to the conclusion that he is in the matrix. Never discovering the corners of the box he is in drives him deeper into meaninglessness and a slave to his own mental wattage.
But thats missing the point, you are still in bad faith because you haven't recognised that the certainty with which you knew their supposed moral rules were wrong is itself mistaken; you have failed to appreciate the absurdity. In order to live authentically one must recognise ones own moral laws as self given and be in the process of constant reaffirmation of the relevant identities constituting ones essence.
haseothepkker. There is no freedom.
Everything was already planned out in the timeline: even this comment and the thought that made me type this was already set in stone of history
haseothepkker those single points of indefinite success called consciousness
I have to give meaning to my own life now...uuuggghhhh I'm too busy... I'll do it tomorrow
During a trip i had when i was younger, I talked to what i believed to be "god" it introduced itself as the creator and we had a lonnggggg conversation one of the things i asked was what is the meaning of life..... and it still rings in my head to this day "the meaning of life is to find meaning" it can be taken a number of ways but the way you take it is your meaning :)
So I'm existentialist? news to me.
you should probably research the group a little more before claiming a label to yourself. You never know what some minor distinctions could be.
If you spend a lot of time online, then you are most likely inspired by both existentialism and nihilism to some degree, but there is more to philosophy than just finding the best single label for you. As complex beings we are many different things at the same time, and your subconscious and conscious might not always agree on things in the regard.
Everyone can easily define themselves as existentialists, but often that is neither a fair representation of them and of existentialism, as there are more philosophies that will explain you as individuals even better.
can you expand a bit more on how is spending a lot of time online affects likelihood of someone becoming an existentialist?
I mean, i do spend a lot of time online, and i also can consider myself an existentialist, but what exactly do you think creates this connection? In your opinion.
Online you are bombarded with unfiltered controversial humour, brutal political realities, hentai etc. If you watch TV they have filters or warnings, but the deeper you get into the internet, the closer you get to /b/. So therefore you might easily lose a meaning to it all, which is also evident in how the "rules of the internet" are written (there is more to them than just 34...). Therefore if you in this meaningless horror of unfiltered reality and fiction choose to believe something still has value, then that value is attributed against the logical choice (nihilism becomes logical, when you get used to the loss of "faith in humanity" and the horrors humans conduct on each other, other animals, the planet, lalala...). Therefore the value is only there (in your personal experience), because you choose for it to be there. That is a form of existentialism.
A lot of people deep in internet culture will eventually accept oblivion and become nihilists, but as long as you fight it, then you are making a choice to attribute value. And what they fail to mention in the episode is that the core of existentialism is to understand that everything is a choice. Inaction is action, so you choose to be existentialist or nihilist.
I know this is a very two dimensional presentation of internet culture, but to put it in Nietzsche way of thinking, then the internet is the cultural abyss, so when you stare into it, then it stares into you as well, and therefore you can either become the abyss or choose to not be the abyss.
This in no way means to present anything as positive or negative, I academically agree with discourse theory, but I do not personally practise it (unless I am trying to influence someone). I love the dark horrors the internet have to offer, and I much prefer what it can teach me, over the bliss of ignorance. The internet is my home, my country, my world, it is dark, horrible, and awesome.
That is my take on it anyway. Others my feel very different.
After all people tend to have a lot of opinions online :)
bloodlazio nicely said. I agree with everything you wrote, except the part about the "TV filters". In my opinion, the TV is not just a source of filtered information, it's much more oposite to the internet than just that. It can be widely used by some people to impose their own meaning on life of others, at least that's what i see where i live (Russia). People who don't spend much time online, but spend a lot of time watching TV tend to be less existentialistc and are more prone to live by standarts that are imposed from the outside.
So yeah. I'm not sure what is better - to accept an imposed dogma and have a blissfull life unaware of the lack of an absolute meaning to anything or to be an internet dweller exposed to the ultimate meaninglessness of everything.
I'm afraid there's no way back though. After the internet abyss stared at you, you can't unsee it.
Existentialism is the coolest branch of philosphy.
I liked this video because it taught me more about what existentialism. It also made me understand it better than before and it gave examples of it. “So his choice- no matter what it is- was the only true choice, provided that he made it authentically, because it was determined by the values he chose to accept,” this line is saying that the choices that we make in life are made by the way we live and the values that we have as our own person. The things that we find meaningful to us will not be the same to another person.
"We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."
Damn Camus, take it easy man
Big frank i want that on a T-shirt
Big frank Funny, cause he was famous for being a very laid back kind of guy.
Camus was really cool. A life lover.
also good looking according to the photo and me
Camus takes it so easy. It seems crazy and I love it. To summarize The Stranger, Camus's Absurd Hero, Meursault, doesn't blink when his mom dies, smokes with the caretaker next to her open casket, picks up some hot chick at the beach the same day, shoots a dude just cuz and then, in the end, is pretty chill about being executed.
So I grew up to be a existentialist without knowing it
Pan Makser so the meaning of your life was to find that there was no meaning to begin with, a path given to find no path at all, not the first nor the last, I sound pretentious. Sorry, dftba, this was a pointless remark
Good for youuuuu
If only I were an intellectual like this guy.
Not surprising; it’s the sort of philosophy implicit in our education.
Exactly how I felt when I first read The Stranger
In this video, it gave me a greater understanding of what existentialism. He speaks about how Plato and Aristotle believed that everything had a purpose in this life, in which includes us. Additionally they believed that even before we were born, we already had our essence or purpose. However, Jean-Paul Sartre challenged that. He questioned, "What if we exist first?", as in what if we are not born with a certain purpose, but we are to find our own and live up to that. This is now known as existentialism, in which we determine who we are, we write out our own purpose by the way we end up choosing how to live. Also there are theistic existentialist, in which they do not believe that God made the universe, the world, or us for any purpose; they do not deny that God exists but they deny that he created everything and everyone for any particular purpose.
It's Chopin's Prelude Op.28 No.4 at 6:00 for those who are wondering
Didn't Nietzsche hate Nihilism?I remember him saying it was our worst enemy, or something along those lines.
Yes. His entire project was specifically aimed at overcoming nihilism. To call him a nihilist is a little like calling a Jew in a concentration camp a Nazi.
Godwin's law.
Isn't a nihilist someone who believes in nihilism? Why would that mean having to act on that belief? I could easily live a life full of actions, all the while being firm in my belief that none of those actions mean a thing.
He talked about how people were engrossed in their own materialistic lives and not really taking note of the world as such. Nietzsche asserted that every action undertaken in this world ands and begins with misery .
Ends*
It is a fairly common accusation against Nietzsche that he was a nihilist. I think there are probably two basic reasons why. First, Nietzsche was the first philosopher to take nihilism seriously and write extensively about it. Many previous philosophers took seriously the problem of skepticism, but nihilism was more of a term used to point invalidity, i.e. if your philosophy is nihilistic it must be invalid. Second, he did reject the common values of his time, most notably Christianity. It's not too surprising that people who haven't actually studied his philosophy presume with some regularity Nietzsche's nihilism given that he writes quite a bit about it and his most infamous quote is, "God is dead."
However, Nietzsche wasn't a nihilist. He clearly doesn't consider himself one and often speaks out against it, for example, "... But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue may display" (Section 10, Beyond Good and Evil). My basic understanding of Nietzsche's view towards nihilism is that it is the inevitable conclusion of the European tradition; the Christian tradition. "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength" (Complete Works, Vol. 13). This is why we are in need of new values.
Personally, I've always thought that Nietzsche's greatness was in the fact that, unlike other philosophers who simply rejected nihilism outright and walked away from it, Nietzsche took the idea of absolute skepticism seriously. He accepted it and flung himself into the abyss, but instead of being destroyed, he found his own personal strength; realized, for the first time, his own values: the transvaluation of all values. Human greatness and the ability to recognize, accept and live out that greatness is what counts. He triumphed over nihilism by conquering oblivion itself.
The Patient really well said, it frustrated me a lot hearing him say he “embraced” nihilism so I’m glad someone pointed this out !
Thank you for this much needed correction.
To say Nietzsche embraced Nihilism was a poor description of a phenomenal thinker. Nietzsche faced Nihilism head on, descended into its dangerous abyss and transcended its grip.
He serves as the trailblazer for anyone to follow who has met Nihilism head on and wants a fighting chance of survival. That isn't "embrace" that is *overcoming.*
@@hihello-sx1sx It kinda depends on how you define nihilism though.
i suppose. How would you define nihilism then ?
@@hihello-sx1sx that there is no objective meaning there is room for subjective meaning.
Edit: actually that definition, he would be against too, as it makes the assertion that something doesn't exist. A better one would be skeptical nihilism which is that there is no proof for meaning in life, therefore we should withhold belief in a meaning of anything.
This is by far my favorite video on this channel👍👏
I think this video overall was very helpful in giving me a better understanding of what existentialism is about. It was very well structured in breaking it down to help us see the different components of existentialism. It really got me thinking about HOW it is we think which I found very interesting because I think a lot but I've never really stopped to think of the way i think. I felt that certain things about existentialism have more structure than what society normally sees things as. Something I saw as quite attention catching was the way the word "absurd" is understood in a existentialist point of view. Instead of seeing absurd as a word to describe something a hit silly, it is used to try finding the answers to things that don not have answers to them. This connect well with the idea that nothing exist for a certain purpose.
Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody's gonna die. Come watch T.V.
You guessed it
Nihilist here
Rick and Morty fan, nice.
J.M. Alexia someone who caught it immediately, also nice.
rick and morty!!!!
Nice Christan Mingle reference
I made that my Senior quote.
this makes me feel a bit, that I don't suffer with these thoughts alone, and that others throughout known documented existence also have came across these thoughts.
You are not alone there in your black hole filled with only questions! ;)
Right! One of the wonderful things about our species is our ability to independently collect and process patterns that have been laid out before us by others in our past
Basically, I'm right there with you
comforting
You should try reading "Either/Or" by Kierkegaard. I don't think Kierkegaard was given nearly enough credit, as he is usually credited with being the grandfather of existentialism.
Thanks for the wonderful mind-opening session.
"the meaning of life is whatever that is preventing you from killing yourself"
This video was very helpful as it was able to help me to understand existentialism better. Also what I found interesting about the video is that how did a ideological idea go unquestioned for so many years. I was able to learn from this video that existentialism is how a human being is able to create his or her life. I believe that this kind of ideology helps people to question their life in general. And this lets people to get more of an insight of their own character and can help people to find themselves. The video was very helpful and very informal about the topic I really enjoyed this topic.
I am sorry +CrashCourse but it is absolutely incorrect to say that Nietzsche embraced nihilism. On the contrary he was afraid that humanity will fall into the abyss of nihilism. In his famous argument "God is dead" he continues "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? ...Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?" So he argues that without God we must become Gods so as to establish a meaning, rules and a moral for ourselves. However he is bothered by the idea that we are not yet ready to face the world in such a way since Übermann is not yet a thing and human nature is something to be overcome :)
Right, he very much expoused existential ideas. Becoming the ubermench was a form of creating one's own purpose unlike those he saw as nihilistic Christians who just waited for God to take them away.
Thanks, I was wondering about this and I'm glad you confirmed it. Nietzsche is often used inaccurately.
I don't think they meant to say that Nietzche embraced nihilism in the way he would define nihilism, but in the way apologist define nihilism which is the rejection of any religious doctrine, aka, atheist are nihilist. But of course, you can always turn it around and say that that the apologist are the nihilists because they believe in something that is not there and cannot be found in a let's say positivist and materialist way. I hope it makes sense, my 2cents.
☝
I do however believe that the statement which was made is essentially incorrect. According to Oxford Dictionary, nihilism is:
1. The rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.
1.1 Philosophy: The belief that nothing in the world has a real existence.
This definition implies that nihilism render living a life meaningless. In contrast Nietzsche explores the need of new morals to be created, morals that are better than the christian, morals that should propel humanity into becoming Ubermensch. Moreover he is not nihilist as it comes to religion as he himself expressed the view that buddhism is the "best form" of religion. Although in his writings, Friedrich Nietzsche consistently criticizes Buddhism, condemning it as a “nihilistic” belief system, and yet he also refers to himself as the “Buddha of Europe.”
And do not get me wrong I love CrashCourse. It is just that Nietsche is my favorite and I am a bit sensitive on this subject :)
Haven't watched this yet. Predicting at least one mention of Camus.
Yep.
That's like predicting at least one mention of Einstein in a video about Relativity...
+Harry Herpson or at least one mention of the mongols in a history video xD
Was scared that he wasn't at first, especially after he covered the Absurd with out mentioning him.
nietzsche?
It's so fun to see the thoughts and perspectives I already had has a name
You presented the essence of existentialism through this crash course. Thank you!
by far this is my fav playlist
Finally some philosophy and no more theology
Implying theology isn't a branch of philosophy?
Implying there were too many episodes on theology
Lol
Perhaps too technical, but there was no theology, only philosophy of Religion. Theology assumes the existence of a God and tries to understand that God. Philosophy of Religion doesn't take God's existence for granted and tries to find logical arguments for God's being or non-being.
everything is connected bro
The thing I love about all of this is that there is no right answer. There is only what people think is right, what people think is wrong, and what people choose not to think about because it's too confusing.
For me, the meaning of life is the accumulation of knowledge.
Disclaimer: No old ladies were neglected in the production of this episode.
"Every existing thing is born without reason prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance." Jean-Paul Sartre
I saw that in a mother s day card
No human can live that philosophy.
I’ve been trying to understand existentialism since high school, for around 5 years now. I even read some camus to figure out. But i missed the point each time.
I just got it.
Seriously.
Thx i needed this talk.
That was a great explanation, so lucky to have stumbled in your page because I’ve been learning so much.
The meaning of life is to distract yourself from realizing that life is meaningless.
Thurgor Supreme incorrect it is to make life better for others
Then what you just said, according to your own logic, is meaningless.
Life is meaningless compared to the earth, animals, space and everything outside our species. Without us, they are all probably better off, but I still like being alive. Perhaps it's meaningless in the bigger picture, but still meaningful to the individual/society.
That's what the Frenchman said.
If it's meaningless in the bigger picture, that means it's still completely meaningless at the individual and societal level. You can't have it both ways. Life either has meaning or it does not. There is no such thing as "Oh, it's meaningful to me". It's impossible to create your own meaning if life is ultimately meaningless. We have to decide: Life either ultimately has meaning or it does not.
Just saying that Nietzsche took up nihilism maybe a little misleading.
Understatement
I would say Schopenhauer was more influential posing the questions about lack of meaning in our lives.
I rather watch a CC video on him than on Nietzsche. The value of Nietzsche was his unapologetic humanism and his denial of religious norms to build a true morality in human beings.
That's what I was thinking. He might have rejected all typical prevailing moral and religious principles, but I don't think he was a nihilist in the sense that he considered life meaningless. He did say that life was justified as an aesthetic phenomenon in his book 'the Birth of Tragedy.' And he proposed ideas, like the 'Ubermensch'. Why give life an idealistic meaning or goal like that if you think it can only be inherently meaningless? No doubt Nietzsche was seminal in modern psychology and philosophy though, only so few really get him.
Sweeney Tod Yes people get him so wrong...and he has been so frequently misquoted over the years by movies that...it is natural to think of him as a nihilist
Thank you so much, You are my last min tutor ❤️
I have been looking everywhere for answers and I find it it here
I appreciate this channel and the team so much 🤓
This video provides a very understandable explanation of existentialism and then over complicates it. From what I understood it is simply finding our own meaning to life. Whether this is a form of higher being or just living life for the fun of it, we choose what we want life to mean. Adding the historical content to the video also gives us a deeper insight to the essence of past people and what that meaning in life could be. The best meaning to me was given by Jean Paul Sartre since he stated “we are condemned to be free”. This thought of running our own life with the only limits you have being your own is my way of living life. This is also relevant in society since the government is literally ran by the people and for the people, so there is no real system that can control society except itself.
Like others have said already, Nietzsche was in no way a nihilist and calling him so discredits lots of his truly complex work. Nietzsche did not believe an objective meaning of life(one reason he was so against religion), but he said, unlike a nihilist, that this gave one the outstanding opportunity to give meaning to life. In the same vein, Nietzsche loved the idea of "setting goals" as a way to live. This idea is elucidated in the following quote, "why you are there, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them! I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible". No objective meaning, only subjective...meaning nevertheless.
Furthermore, I think this video does not go into Kierkegaard's philosophies enough; he was the grandfather(deserves more than a mention). Extremely religious, yes, but his theories give a great way to think about existentialism, dread, the objective and subjective meaning, etc....
But....who knows.
CrashCourse, this is one of the best made series you have created! Thank you so much
Very interesting and thought provoking series.
At 4:50, it is very heartening to see Sartre acknowledging the implications of his philosophy in the most unfettering manner, when these implications have been used as the very premise to attack it.
Wow, a video on existentialism that neither bored nor frustrated me. That's a first!
Rorschach from Watchmen and Existentialism.
"Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone.
Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs.
It’s us.
Only us.
Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.
Was Rorschach."
Watchmen, Chapter VI: The Abyss Gazes Also
Ladies, Gentlemen, Others . . . discuss.
Rorschach was a nihilist: he reacted against the world rather than imprinting himself upon it. An existentialist reacts *upon* the world, not *against* it, and thus creating rather than purely reacting.
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." -Nietzsche
Cíat Ó Gáibhtheacháin Really? So, I suppose the exact opposite of what Ozymandias was doing?
EnvoyOfTheBlackAbyss In a way, yes. That's not a value judgement, though. After all, living a life of meaning isn't necessarily good or bad, but Ozymanidias did at least live with more meaning that Rorschach. He was still a monster, though, at least according to me, for what it's worth.
Cíat Ó Gáibhtheacháin Explain value judgment to me. Seriously, I'm not sure if I understand that phrase. You're saying that "existentialist" doesn't completely define his character? If so, I would agree.
Part, I believe, of what makes Watchmen "Watchmen" is perspectives. Not just of the main characters themselves (although they do help illustrate the rest of the cast . . . and vice versa, the cast helps illustrate the main characters), but also everybody else you see living in the background. In Ozymandias's mind, he was a hero. Sure, same can be said for a lot of villains, maybe even Hitler as well (although I don't know much about him, other than the basics, so I don't know how much truth there is to that statement); and yes, killing people on a large-scale using a psychic nuclear warhead that takes on the appearance of a freaky alien is "bad" but that's our opinion.
You can say the same thing about the rest of the cast: Silk Spectre II was bad because she wasn't a real hero. Nite Owl II was bad because he gave in to social pressure instead of fighting for what he believed in. Rorschach was bad for being a ruthless vigilante, and Dr. Manhattan was bad for being a "cold, heartless, douchebag". I mean, you have a "God" character, and he does nothing, what are people gonna think?
Ozymandias did create some good, he actually managed to pull the ENTIRE WORLD together, even though he based his foundations on mountains of people and blood in order to do so.
Now, I'm not saying that Ozymandias was a good person. Great character, but whether I think he was good or bad . . . well, that's my problem to deal with.
Watchmen, I find, is intentionally ambiguous in a lot of places. From the front cover, to the last page.
I started this conversation wanting to explore the philosophies of Ozymandias and went into a rant/analysis of Watchmen . . . Well, I hope I gave somebody, somewhere, out there, something anyway.
Thank you for the video! This was very insightful, interesting, and thought provoking. Yep it's all about the journey, not the destination as my professor always says to me!
LUV YOUR all inclusive non judgmental presentations. 🌟
Just to let you know my heart nearly broke in half as I waited everyday and finally realized there was no new philosophy vid last week.
And now you guys are back, I almost got a heart attack from excitement!
I'm so glad they include fanfiction as reason to live, because it is one of my reason.
Thank you for this video my entire life I have been trying to explain my views and know I finally have a name for it. I never liked the idea of having a plan laid out for me I would much rather make one for myself
Dude ... This is one of the best videos I've ever seen....