The Biggest Ideas in Philosophy

in the city of Cyprus in 300 BC there lived a very wealthy traitor called Zeno while on a voyage from phenicia to Perez his boat sank along with all of his cargo because of that single event an event that was entirely out of xenos or anyone's control this very wealthy man suddenly became poor in an instant imagine you were Zeno how would you react to your entire life's work getting flushed down the drain by the sheer force of nature what is the proper reaction would you be angry sad would you feel life has cheated you for most of us this would all be normal reactions but not for Xeno the father of stoicism One Small Change lasts in eternity and one small reframing of your mindset can Cascade into larger and more impactful changes later down the line the core of stoicism is the very definition of acceptance and indifference after reading the works of Socrates and other great philosophers Xeno created and taught stoicism according to Zeno although we don't have much control over what happens to us we do have control of how it affects us and we must use this control to great effect rather than crying over spilled milk or in this case drowned Goods Xeno focused on maintaining his composure over the situation remaining calm and neutral despite his predicament today people inadvertently view stoics as people who cannot be broken people who don't often linger to the emotional extremes going through things like fits of Rage or bouts of anxiety but the original idea behind stoicism was much more than that rather than just a way to describe people who are unemotional stoicism was a way to view describe and understand the world it was a way of life and that way of life has lasted for centuries stoic philosophy can be applied to situations today the same way it was applied thousands of years ago and its benefits are just as impactful stoicism allows us to process these negative emotions from negative experiences and turn them into the thoughts that give us a unique perspective of the world perspective is everything and everyone in the world has different experiences and thus different perspectives on things since the stoics gathered disgust and taught philosophy in a public place their General philosophy was widely known they believe that the stoic principles could greatly benefit anyone and everyone and so it didn't make sense for them to hide that knowledge behind the four walls of a school or of the palace courtyards as a result everyone from slave to Emperor could learn and become a stoic and they did some of the world's most notable stoics include Epictetus which translates to acquired as he was once owned as a slave Seneca who was a well-renowned Statesman and Marcus Aurelius a Roman Emperor and one of the most powerful men to have ever lived the early stoics practice what they preached avoiding all forms of segregation and leading the fight against inequality they even invented the word Cosmopolitan which literally means citizen of the world when people hear that word now we think of cities like New York Toronto Dubai and London because of how diverse they are this was the type of unity and togetherness that the stoics preached even at a time when it wasn't popular women were allowed to freely learn about stoicism and become stoics themselves so why do so many people adopt stoicism as a way of life in a world full of unexpected turns of events our emotions can tend to get in the way of things in reality we don't really get sad because bad things happen to us we get sad because unexpected bad things happen to us Rain Is a Good Thing it helps to water our plants provides water for livestock and keeps the temperature cool and humid but the truth is when that dark cloud catches you outside without an umbrella it's never a good experience so why don't we start crying once it starts to rain it's because although the situation is bad we've learned to expect rain it's something that is unavoidable we can't control the weather although it sucks the rain passes and the light returns stoicism teaches us that in the same way we should expect that everything bad that can happen will happen picture the worst outcome and be content knowing it could happen one of the stoic exercises is known as voluntary discomfort an exercise aimed at increasing feelings of gratitude sleep on the floor of your kitchen taking cold showers when you normally take hot ones eat nothing but potatoes for a few days things like this this exercise helps you to understand that no matter how hard it gets you'll still survive and potentially Thrive if your mindset is right by being able to withstand these uncomfortable situations we indirectly prepare our mental for future misfortunes with the current state of the world where advertisements are constantly being shoved down our throats we're made to believe that if we don't have the next best thing look a certain way or make a certain amount of money that we will never be happy this message is more important now than ever we enter the world not knowing much of anything we grow up being taught things at home in school and by observing the world for ourselves the thing is a lot of times all three of these sources of knowledge teach us in different ways the question is do we need to internalize all of this knowledge if we do we could unknowingly be setting unrealistic expectations for our lives leaving us ultimately disappointed and unsatisfied in the end that's no way to live we should instead focus on improving ourselves for ourselves we should do things for ourselves and only for that reason attaching any external hope or secondary attachments to the actions we take almost always lead to disappointment most of the time we end up trying to fulfill that emptiness with external things blowing all your money on a fancy car a house or even starting a family sometimes we do all of these things for their external value and not their internal value but stoicism teaches that if you approach life this way you place your happiness in the hands of external forces forces that can always fail cars almost always break down natural disasters wipe away entire cities and divorce rates climb higher and higher each year but even the free things in life come at a cost the cost of space both physical and mental a Seneca once wrote learning to live with lusts will create space in your life for the things that truly matter to you instead we must place our happiness on our intrinsic value as humans and on nothing we have where it can physically acquire we must choose to do our best to keep a cool ahead regardless of what life throws at us because regardless of what it is we want at the end of the day we don't have any control over the majority of things that happen to us but we do have all the control over how we react to those things that is the dichotomy of control the most important principle in stoic philosophy stoics teach that we must learn to separate what we control from what we cannot control we need to determine our value not from things we can't control but from the things we can striving towards goals is a good trait but breaking down when those things don't go your way is in a stoic's point of view useless making YouTube videos is well a lot easier than being a Roman Emperor but it can still prove to be challenging sometimes first you must form your idea which takes forever then research that idea scrap it because it sucks start over script the video create the video edit it make the title thumbnail and everything else before you hit upload everything up until the point where you click upload is all up to you however once you click that upload button the power shifts to the YouTube algorithm still a lot of people judge the success of their YouTube channel or Instagram account based on how many views and subscribers or followers they have metrics of which for the most part are beyond your control stoics teach that instead you should judge the success of your work based on the amount of effort you put in and not on the outcome of your external hopes trust the process think about a person who has been working hard at their job for the past six months he now feels he deserves a promotion and so he walks up to his boss with his performance report the boss says thanks doesn't Grant him the promotion and he goes home thinking he must suck at his job he doesn't consider that the boss might have simply woken up angry someone else might have been better qualified at the time or maybe the company was just losing money and couldn't afford it he doesn't know the reason but he's still upset if he simply placed his value on the quality of the performance report he turned in kept doing what he was doing to earn the promotion he wanted he could have been much happier overall with the right perspective his goal wouldn't have been diminished but just postponed it's this reframing of your mindset that is crucial a true stoic does not view their successes based on the financial gain of their Ventures but is comforted by the fact that they can live a comfortable life without all the things money can buy these are the four main virtues of stoicism wisdom courage Temperance and justice wisdom is being able to separate between what is internal and what is external and the ability to choose our reaction to the things that happen to us as Viktor Frankel said between stimulus and response there is a space and that space is our power to choose a response courage two words persists and resist Temperance or moderation is what I just did there doing more with less saying more with fewer words while Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are fighting at the top of the Forbes list stoics believe that the limit of wealth should simply be having what is essential and then having what is enough Justice is the most important of all the virtues it instructs that no one should do harm to another because we were all born for each other to do good to one another and not to ourselves Nelson Mandela was one of the most famous African leaders in the world while he was fighting against apartheid he got sentenced to life in prison where he stayed for 27 years before finally being released when he was released from prison he was elected president of South Africa and thus many people thought he was going to brutally punish all the people that had anything to do with apartheid or his imprisonment but of course he did not throughout his time in prison Mandela read The Works of Marcus Aurelius and learned many of the core values of stoicism all of which he practiced throughout his life instead of calling for the heads of the wrongdoers Nelson Mandela urged his people to instead seek the opposite to relax and rebuild he stressed that the past was now beyond their control and that the only thing they could do was find a way to move forward and build a better Nation this is the way of the stoic in modern day medicine stoicism is at the core of procedures like rationally motive behavioral therapy and Logo therapy rebt helps patients to identify negative thought patterns that might be causing emotional and behavioral issues it allows you to challenge the reasoning behind all these negative thoughts with logic and when you realize that many of them are unfounded you can then replace them with more productive and healthier beliefs logotherapy on the other hand is based on the stoic principle that humans are driven by purpose even in the darkest of situations we can fill our lives with meaning and Happiness by simply finding out what that purpose is as many of us know though this is easier said than done it's a process much like everything else we have to rewire the way we think out with the old in with the new to fix our problems with happiness we must practice self-worth by redirecting our definition of value to the things that we can control we can stop getting fixated on the things we cannot control and overall we can lead a much happier and more fulfilling life stoicism helps us steer through past and present storms into calmer and more Peaceful Waters and if our ship sinks and we all drown we can take peace in the fact that we lived a good life albeit not as long as we had hoped because remember everything has meant we all know how it goes one day we're born one day we die everything that happens in between we know and understand but everything that happened before and will happen after we know nothing about as a result it's really difficult to say what exactly the meaning or importance for us being here is if we can't tell how we came or where we came from how can we know why we're here in the same vein if we don't know where we're going or what we're going to become how can we tell if any of our present actions have any significance at all it is this uncertainty of both our Collective pasts and Futures that has allowed the question what is the meaning of life to plague Humanity ever since we became sentient we've never been able to objectively answer this question as a species however a lot of us have found comfort in many different ideologies to at least subdue the anxiety that it causes in many different religions a deity made the entire universe put us all in it and whatever we do on this Earth will be used to determine when and how we spend eternity afterwards for some others the meaning of life is the love we share with friends family and our loved ones some others believe the existence of life in itself is what makes it worth living but for nihilists life is meaningless all action suffering emotions both good and bad are entirely senseless and meaningless this is nihilism the belief in nothing at some point in our lives many of us have been faced with nihilistic thoughts were hit by a strong sense of purposelessness like our lives have no meaning and we have no intrinsic value usually this happens when we begin to question our old beliefs but also just before we get new ones to hold on to it's in that phase where you're growing out of your parents beliefs learning new things getting new experiences and forming your own views about the world and usually all of these thoughts begin with one simple question why three lettered monosyllabic word that's capable of making anything and everything that feels like the rock of your foundation start to become slippery like quicksand dragging you into the misery that may be just maybe your whole life hasn't been what you thought it was just pause and take a moment to think about your core values and just ask the question why why do you believe those things where did they come from who did they come from keep asking and eventually you'll arrive at a point where there's no longer an answer you'll arrive at nothing all the religions of the world all of our scientific discovery but yet the question why is one that we still cannot answer and so for the nihilist it is at this point that they come to the conclusion that there is no why there is no answer there's simply nothing as Alan Watts once wrote Life is nothing more than a trip from the Maternity Ward to the crematorium it's really in the name the term dialism comes from the Latin word Nile which translates to nothing and ISM which translates to ideology it's the ideology of nothing but that doesn't really help us in understanding it completely usually people confuse nihilism for pessimism but they are very different from each other pessimists believe in the worst outcome they have a downtrending view of the world and tend to focus on the negatives in life because they believe that in the end evil will always overcome good and this is what makes them different pessimists believe that there's good in the world but they just don't think humans are capable of doing it at least in its entirety nihilists on the other hand do not believe in anything they don't believe that there's evil in the world neither do they believe that there's good in the world in the mind of the nihilists the world simply exists and humans created morality thereby creating Good and Evil let's take the glass cup metaphor for instance optimists say you should see the glass as half full while pessimists say we should see the glass as half empty nihilus they say throw the entire cup away because what does it matter if it's full or empty full empty good bad it's all irrelevant we're all going to die anyway nihilism is also often compared to several other philosophies like cynicism and apathy but again they were all very different from one another and correctly categorizing your thoughts in these baskets may be harder than you think cynics believe that people are always motivated by self-interest they don't believe that anyone can have intrinsically good motives they have no faith in the human species and believe that we're all entirely selfish only fighting for our own benefit however the idea that humans are not good means that in the mind of the cynic good exists out there somewhere just not in humans in the mind of the nihilist nothing exists out there there's no good or evil they don't see people as evil neither do they see them as good because they don't believe either of those things exist they're simply traits we've applied to things apathetic people just don't care they believe that there's meaning to life but they simply don't care about it nihilism on the other hand is the idea that there's no Grand Design or purpose nothing to believe in and therefore no meaning this brings to mind the Paradox of nihilism if you believe in nothing then that nothing becomes something that you believe in but since you now believe in something then there is no nihilism because nihilism is the belief that there is nothing nihilism is quite different from other philosophical ideas because it was first a literary invention before it ever became philosophical as a result it's not clearly defined as many of the other philosophies that exist many different people explained it in many different ways but eventually these different definitions got categorized forming many different kinds of nihilism there's political nihilism political nihilists believe that for Humanity to move forward as a species all political social and religious order must be destroyed then there's ethical nihilism it rejects the idea of absolute ethical or moral values with this type of nihilism good or bad is only defined by society and as such it shouldn't be followed if we as a species will ever attain absolute individual Freedom we can kind of just do whatever we want and then we have existential nihilism it's the understanding that life has no value or meaning it's the most popular kind of nihilism and the one we've been talking about for most of this video for nihilists the existence of things like the state religious bodies and even communal morality is a breach on our freedom as individuals if we can't do absolutely anything we want to do then are we truly free or have we simply bound ourselves by some kind of invisible mental chain for reasons we can't explain one night I was scrolling through Reddit and I came across the question if you had the chance to save your pet or a stranger who would you save an overwhelming number of people said their pet pretty obviously when one commenter was confronted they simply asked the question why do you think a human life is worth more than that of an animal and no one really had an answer of course people tried to beat around the bush but the question why was never answered and that right there is the point of the nihilist if we can't answer why we bind ourselves by these rules then why do we choose to do it well it might be because of the existential horror and the emotional anguish that comes with agreeing to the fact that life is meaningless think about it for a minute if life is truly meaningless and everything we're doing has no value then all the Feats of science the wonders of Technology things like space exploration and human rights movements look at how far we've come and then think about the fact that it all might just be a waste a blip in time with no consequence whatsoever in the grand scheme of things knowing that all the things we experience the ups and downs we go through that in the end it's all for nothing we aren't obligated to understand the chaos of reality just to laugh at it Friedrich Nietzsche was a strange philosopher because he argued both for and against nihilism at the same time arguing for he explained that there is no objective structure or order in our world except for the one that we create for ourselves he once said every belief every considering something true is necessarily false because there is simply no true world you believe nihilism would expose all of Humanity's beliefs and truths as nothing but a symptom of defective Western mythology as he famously said God is dead now he wasn't talking about the actual deity of the religions he was talking metaphorically about the power that religious orders held at the time and how people were starting to chart their own paths find their own meaning in life denying what the status quo was at the time but then in the same breath Friedrich argued against nihilism saying that in the coming centuries the Advent of nihilism would drive civilization towards a catastrophe a disaster waiting to implode a river that has reached its end and if you look at the most destructive civilizations in human history we can clearly see that this is true long-standing cultural Traditions beliefs religious institutions and even Financial systems are broken down and nothingness starts to creep in think about it if nothing matters and we're all just a random combination of transient atoms how can we call Hitler objectively one of the worst humans to ever live for trying to wipe out an entire culture at a fundamental level most of us understand that all of these things are indeed terrible but the danger is that because we cannot explain why we feel that way logically we can never convince another person to follow the same path and that is exactly what Friedrich feared some people still blame him for the Nazi era because although he saw all of these dangers he still continued preaching nihilism he believed that if we could work through the breakdown of civilization that nihilism would eventually cause we can then create a new course of action for mankind he believed that to move forward as a species we must create a new morality one that is away with the Prejudice of what existed before because at the end of the day tearing down your old house shouldn't make you homeless rather it should present you with an opportunity to build a bigger and better home pause and look around you for a moment observe everything that's going on particularly on social media and you can see that we as a species might just be heading for another Nile as an outbreak religion no longer holds any saying what is morally acceptable people are destroying long-standing beliefs and cultural practices and are instead charting new courses for themselves anything no matter how Despicable you think it is now has a loyal fan base defending why they have a right to do whatever it is they want to do and in reality why not that's the question no one can answer Humanity will keep Shifting the needle forward ever so slightly and to one day none of us will be able to tell the other that they're wrong because why are they wrong William Shakespeare once wrote life's but a walking Shadow a poor player that struts and Frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more it is a tale told by an idiot full of Sound and Fury but signifying nothing if life is truly meaningless and we have no purpose for being here our response should be to make the best out of a bad situation instead of seeing the glass half full or half empty we can simply throw it out and drink directly from the faucet until we're satisfied because at the end of the day life alone is reason enough for living Consciousness it's our awareness our understanding our ignorance our daily Consciousness leaves out more than it takes in and due to this it leaves out important things things that would help relieve us if we knew them if we had a higher awareness a better Consciousness we would feel better we would be more at peace with things the deep down truth of things is screened by our consciousness our sensory organs will pick things out our eyes can only see certain things our ears can only hear certain things we have to create instruments and other tools to see things we as humans cannot to expand our understanding and thus our ego or consciousness humans evolved and became the dominant species on Earth by a long shot it's due to our innate ability to network with each other if Humanity was wiped out and restarted like loading an old save file communities would still form structures within Society are inevitable due to the variety of brains some are good at critical thinking others are more artistic however we are all wired with some innate features just as humans form societies that evolve other creatures do as well but we're different we are customizable characters basically we can kind of mold ourselves into whatever kind of person we want to be we can't know for certain that animals or any other life on Earth is conscious or can even function in the same way that we do let's put it this way I know that I have my own thoughts and feelings and emotions but how can I know for certain that you or anyone else does there's no way I can go to your head and see things 100 from your perspective I can't know what you're thinking or if you can even think in the first place to truly understand the universe to understand and actually experience life you have to give yourself up there's no point in sustaining Bliss and being permanently at an all-time high the life you're living is what you have put yourself into what ego you've formed only you don't want to admit it you want to believe it happened to you day to day you play non-bliss in order to be able to experience Bliss you put yourself into bad situations you let in the negative experiences in life just to feel some kind of satisfaction when it goes the other way self implies other white implies Black Death implies life you could feel your existence as fundamental not as an accident at the basic level at the lowest level imaginable you are the fundamentals of existence the same thing that makes you is the same thing that makes up everything else if you can step back from what you believe if you can step back from what your sensory organs have turned you into you start to see things for what they actually are do you define yourself as a victim of the world or as the world love is only possible due to the lack of self you give up all your secrets the walls you've built to keep people at an arm's distance slowly lower one by one until you're a completely open book until all your pages have been read and the rest of the pages are blank waiting to be filled with this newfound love in basketball or soccer or football you're constantly giving the ball to someone else the point of the game is to have the ball in your hand for the least amount of time to constantly be passing it to someone else to shoot it to get it out of your hands it keeps the game going and life is the same way if you define yourself you as only being what your ego is as the things you do voluntarily then you're the victim it's because of some higher power that you were put here when you didn't ask for it but what about the things you do involuntarily do you beat your heart or does it just happen to you you do those things even though you don't know how words don't work here as Alan Watts said everyone is fundamentally the alternate reality not God in a traditional sense but God in the sense of being the self the deep down basic whatever there is and you're all of that only you're pretending you're not a mind that can ask who am I why am I here what is the purpose of all of this tends to forget as I said your Consciousness tends to leave out critical information at times the Consciousness that can view the world and take in sensory information tends to forget what's behind those eyes a mind that hasn't gone deep enough to find where those questions come from because the same place those questions come from is the same place those answers lie the brain controls everything in order to go to the extremes of the universe to places we can only dream of going we must first dive deep into something that is all inside of us take the big bang for example now there's hundreds thousands of theories as to how we came into existence but let's go with this one you believe that you are strictly you your human body is all that you are and all that you have ever been You're simply a small Speck of dust and a vast sea of galaxies stars planets you're irrelevant but rolling back the clock things get smaller the universe was more compact the atoms that make you up are building blocks of the universe of the hot gas clouds that form stars that allowed solar systems to form that allow planets like Earth to form if you keep rolling back this clock you were around at the very instant everything came into existence that is you too when everything was infinite testamentally small you were there but we Define ourselves as being only us mere humans walking on a planet that we didn't ask to get put on but frankly every one of us somehow made this happen we just go on and pretend we didn't it's because of how we Define ourselves are you the victim or are you the world as cringy as it may sound everyone you meet is just a small packet of the universe a present whether they're a pleasant one or not that was packaged together from billions of years of engineering and architecture on a universal scale but instead we Define ourselves as something completely separate from it something not connected whatsoever which is a foolish view we tend to search for How the Universe came into being but we're just the universe trying to understand itself in order to get to that conclusion we have to reframe our mindset we're not as different as we all think your name is given to you at Birth your ideas and personality are collected from the world scraps bits and pieces here and there are cling to you like a magnet so what part of you is you we are all different manifestations of Consciousness but we are all fundamentally the same thing we all may have different egos different personalities but when you step back drop the ego we are all connected view the universe as a forest every one of us is a twig a leaf a branch but together we form life our origin Our Roots are connected together just as the roots of trees form a vast Network which brings these massive Force to life Humanity's Roots all come from the same place energy cannot be created or destroyed it can only be transferred from one form of energy to another but many of us have this fear that it's all going to come to an end and while yes your life will end your energy will not it will continue onward forever but our Consciousness has convinced us otherwise we form this thought process almost like we've been hypnotized to think that we are all there is and all there ever will be and that it's all going to come to an end this leaves us unsatisfied and unhappy but the universe is continuous and you are technically the universe so you will continue on as well your death is not the end of you it's the death of your ego many people experience the same exact thing while living ego death it tends to be induced through psychedelic drugs LSD shrooms the list goes on while working on this video I actually experienced it myself and although not intentional it provided Clarity in a way I've never before experienced it's not the ego in the vernacular sense as describing a person's self-worth it's the philosophical ego it's the complete loss of subjective self-identity everything that you believe you are will disappear your Void of emotion of connection to anything around you of connection to what makes you you the idea of being a person doesn't make any sense the words I me and myself have zero meaning whatsoever the world can normally be put into two categories myself and not myself while experiencing ego death this line is blurred I am completely gone there's only the awareness of existence the lifetime accumulation of your thoughts and emotions are put on pause it's as if you're on a cliff approaching an infinite void beneath you your life is continuous and exists all the way up the mountain until you reach the edge beneath you though is the unknown ego death is jumping into that void leaving behind everything you've ever known it's as if you've stepped out of your body into a separate entity you start to see things for what they actually are but things don't actually exist things is just a noun it's a fragment of speech and speech is just another instrument we've created to try and understand the world around us our senses allow us to go about our daily lives and Traverse the world but they don't really offer any explanations so we have to make them up ourselves while experiencing ego death you disconnect from all of that you have a heightened awareness it's truly as if you're experiencing a higher level of Consciousness that no person can understand you reach this level that words can't explain the instruments we made to try and understand are a place in the universe shatter completely explaining it in terms of I saw or I felt don't seem reasonable our languages are instruments created to explain things that someone experiences but while undergoing ego death there is no someone there is no me so how do you describe it it's as if your slate was wiped clean your character's save file was corrupted but you're still in the game because of this ego death can be scary but it can also be a very enlightening experience it's both constricting and freeing it's white and black it's like you're defining what life is like through experiencing death we cannot be more sensitive and welcoming to pleasure without being more sensitive and accepting the pain you're flying and sinking at the same time being pulled from below and above in every direction at once while going through it I ended up reaching a moment of acceptance ego death while often extremely anxiety-inducing offers a glimpse into a reality free of that a life free of your personal flaws your daily thoughts your responsibilities it personally feels as if time is Frozen and wherever your mind wanders is free to judge things as they truly are you are the Observer and the observable surprisingly the conclusion I came to is the same conclusion I came to while making a previous video of mine and it said Nothing in life really matters fear in general tends to come from us not being able to make peace with the chaos that is the universe not being able to cope with the idea of entropy that everything is tending towards disorder forming an ego is disorderly in the same way you go further and further down your own tunnel and stray further from everyone else experiencing ego death is breaking out of that tunnel pulling back and understanding that the network of these tunnels that Encompass every human on earth all eventually return back to the same place when I die when my ego is completely gone forever when my physical body breaks down and no longer resembles the form it's in today I'll still somehow be here right now I'm an hourglass the sand is slowly leaking its way to the bottom and eventually it'll all be there it's the end of the line for me but when that day comes the universe will stop by take The Hourglass flip it over and whatever made me me will then become something entirely different we're all just a temporary collection of atoms and whatever you and I subjectively believe we are won't last forever but objectively we will for now just enjoy the ride in the year 165 CE a black wave of death Rose from the East and quickly spurred across the globe faster than anyone could have ever imagined they called it the antonine plague after the reigning Roman Emperor at the time Caesar Marcus Aurelius antoninus Augustus lasting throughout the time of his rule this plague claimed upwards of 18 million lives and nearly destroyed the Roman Empire that entire armies could barely scathe but it didn't under Marcus aurelius's rule the Empire thrived despite the economic crises the numerous invasions in the grueling pandemic it is precisely during times of distress that true leaders are tested and the Caesar Rose to the occasion every single time Aurelius was a philosopher before anything else regarded as the last of the five good Emperors of ancient Rome a term coined by Nicolo Machiavelli in the 15th century it was his stoic philosophy that differentiated him from his predecessors during the plague he set his ego aside and broke the mold surrounding himself with talented and experienced public servants instead of aristocrats and Nobles he listened to advice and empowered those around him to make decisions he hired the best physicians to lead the battle against the disease decimating Roman populations and to give him the opportunity to focus on the growing economic crisis he canceled debts sold Imperial effects and possessions and confiscated capital from Rome's upper class to keep the economy afloat at a time when fear infiltrated the Empire Marcus practiced self-control and inspired his people to remain calm as if things couldn't get any worse late in his Reign Marcus received news that an old friend and former General avidius Cassius had staged a rebellion and declared himself Caesar in an attempt to overthrow him Marcus's response was unusual considering the circumstances but as disciplined and stoic as he was ever known to be instead of getting angry and immediately setting out to destroy the man that threatened the Empire his family and his legacy Marcus waited to give The Defector a chance to come to his senses when he did not Marcus demanded that Cassius be captured but not kill him in true stoic fashion he said concerning the matter forgive a man who has wronged one to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship to continue faithful to one who has broken faith the last of the five good Emperors was a student of stoic philosophy he was greatly influenced by the writings of Seneca and Epictetus as evident from his personal Reflections during campaigning and administration he didn't get angry he didn't allow his emotions to guide his judgments and he didn't despise his enemy he acted firmly and justly a posture that calmed an already nervous Empire in times of extreme tensions stoicism provided Marcus Aurelius with a guideline to use when facing this dress of life and as the leader of the most powerful Empire in history you know that his stressors were plenty this guideline was compiled into meditations Marcus aurelius's personal Diaries the private thoughts of the world's most powerful man giving advice on how to be wise on our decisions just in our judgments Brave in our actions temperate in all of our doings to practice self-control discipline and modesty in short meditations as a Timeless piece of stoic philosophy that is as relevant today as it was in the ancient days of Rome it is a guide to the key principles of stoicism from the philosopher king himself one of the most prominent principles of stoicism that Marcus really is continually reiterates in this piece of literature revolves around the dichotomy of control despite all of his power the Caesar of Rome constantly reminded himself that he couldn't control all that happened around him but he could always control how he responded to those things flowing from this concept there are five key and profound lessons we can learn from Marcus's meditations that are a testament to the practicality of stoicism as a philosophy and by understanding these lessons we can lead healthier and more fulfilling lives even Millennia after Aurelius reigned [Music] the things you think about determine the quality of your mind it's all in how you perceive it you're in control you can dispense with misperception at will like rounding the point Serenity total calm safe Anchorage before Marcus the release this time Epictetus and Seneca both wrote vast amounts on the power of perception it's no wonder then that rebellious echoed these thoughts as it is one of the most essential tenets of stoicism our perceptions influence all that we experience your car may not start before your important meeting or your boss may not give you the promotion you think you deserve just like Marcus had a choice when the play kid you also have a choice to make whenever you are facing a troubling situation you can choose to feel angry scorned depressed or defeated which will accomplish nothing or you can train your perception to not be influenced by what is outside your control it's a form of self-discipline that places the quality of your life in your hands instead of in the hands of other people or situations Marcus's entire Reign rested on this guiding principle as a formidable leader he understood the power he had and always separated his perceptions from his emotions he faced in Visions from Germanic tribes and internal uprisings within his kingdom but he knew he could not alter these situations to his favor his true power came from within from how he perceived these Grievous situations so instead of reacting rashly he didn't allow these horrible negative effects to affect him instead he seized his own mind and was able to make just decisions that were avoid of any emotional attachment even in the face of the most troubling situations [Music] to refrain from imitation is the best revenge when someone despises us the easy thing to do is to despise them back but what would that accomplish when dealing with cassius's Rebellion it would have been easy for Marcus to order his troops to seize and brutally murder him for his insurgents to use him as a message to all who dare attempt to take his crown instead he was compassionate and chose to forgive him people will never meet our expectations so instead of letting their behavior evoke our emotions it's more prudent to Resort back to what is in our control which is being virtuous a better stoic and a better human just as nature takes every obstacle every impediment and works around it turns it to its purposes incorporates it into itself so too a rational being can turn each step back into raw material and use it to achieve its goal before anything the stoics were realists they understood life's challenges but instead of shying away from them they embraced them the truth is that struggle is an essential part of life it builds character develops resilience and ultimately leads to success again this principle is centered around perception we can either perceive an obstacle as a hindrance to our progress a knockout punch that will never be able to recover from or virtue a test of our ability to respond to adversity it will be foolish to go through life avoiding struggle and conflict instead we should welcome them as an opportunity to strengthen our character the obstacle is never in the way the obstacle is the way [Music] accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together but do so with all your heart Marcus Aurelius believed that the formula for human greatness is to accept Our Fate no matter what it is this notion is deeply rooted in stoic philosophy whatever happens to you you must love it for it is your fate Epictetus faced countless adversities throughout his life but still Embraces his Destiny without complaining he was tortured by a master who twisted his leg and broke it permanently crippling him instead of spending the rest of his life feeling remorseful for himself Epictetus took control of his mind instead and said do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to rather wish that what happens happens the way it happens then you will be happy the true Testament to being a stoic is wanting nothing to be different not better or worse strength of a person isn't accepting what the universe has in store for you and not resisting it you could leave life right now let that determine what you do and say and think no one understood their Destiny and loved their fate more than Seneca in 59 CE Rome was ruled by an insecure and unjust Emperor Nero he was an uncaring dictator who spared no one from his wrath including his own mother and sister after a failed attempt on his life Nero gathered all the suspected conspirators and either banished or executed them Seneca was wrongly accused as being one of those plotting against Nero's life and even though he had served as his leading advisor Nero did not spare him and ordered him to take his own life instead of finding the hand that feet dealt him Seneca not only accepted his feet but was stoiced to the final moment of his existence as he famously said wouldn't you deserve to weep over parts of life when the whole of it calls for Tears Seneca then cut the veins in his arms and bled to death despite being one of the most powerful men in the world Marcus Aurelius reflected on the fleekness of his life anyone in his position could very easily get drunk on power but he reminded himself all the time of those who have come and gone who have left behind nothing of the power they ever severely accumulated throughout their lives and meditations Marcus thinks of morality as an inspiration to live his best life and let go of trivial things he did not see death as morbid but rather as a motivator to live a life of virtue and gratitude for the time we have Marcus Aurelius led a Roman Empire that went through both hardship and prosperity he was criticized and praised and loved and hated but through it all he always reminded himself of the teachings of stoicism and the dichotomy of control there are things in our control in others that are not which ones will you focus on if we can learn to emulate Marcus's lessons by mastering our perceptions accepting others for who they are embracing the inevitable challenges as an opportunity for growth loving Our Fate and finally accepting our morality then we can truly live a virtuous life just like that of the philosopher king himself waste no time arguing what a good man should be B1 in 2012 Drake made a song titled the motto but what most people remember from it is YOLO YOLO tells you to live in the moment enjoy life you have today and not worry too much about tomorrow because at the end of the day you only live once while Drake certainly popularized The Motto he wasn't the first to use the phrase and he certainly wasn't the first to come up with the idea of enjoying the pleasures of today without worrying about tomorrow this idea has been around since the 4th Century BC as what philosophers call Hedonism a school of thought that was created by aristipus of Cyrene a student of Socrates Hedonism is the idea that the end goal of all of our actions in life is to one pursue pleasure and two avoid pain aristipus believed that the only good cause worth pursuing was one that will ultimately bring you pleasure in today's society we're taught that the way to succeed is to suffer today so you can enjoy tomorrow to save for the rainy day once we get out of college we're encouraged to find a job and work hard at a nine to five for many years live modestly and save as much as possible so we can enjoy our retirement 50 years later there are stippers didn't believe in any of that he didn't believe in the idea of delayed gratification and he always advocated for people to Simply get pleasure from what is present and available he was completely against the idea of suffering in the present in order to get something that only might be pleasurable in the future so instead of telling students in college to study hard for their exams so they can land a good job after school for example aristipus would encourage them to fraternize drink and party lavishly because these are the pleasures that are readily available to them on one hand you can see him as stupid and lacking foresight after all if you squander everything you have on the pleasures of today you'll quickly run out of resources and all of that pleasure will turn to pain from people losing everything they had because of an addiction to people living in poverty as a result of their own laziness we've seen the results of solely focusing on the present Pleasures but on the other hand there's some wisdom to the school of thought it is truly tomorrow isn't promised to any one of us what's the point in working hard at a nine to five for 50 years ignoring all of the pleasures of the time only to die a few years before retirement and let's say you do make it to retirement the sad reality is that one in four people will have a disability by the age of 60 in the older you get the chances of that happening increased drastically knowing all of this is it still foolish to think that we are all better off just enjoying the pleasures that we do have in the present Socrates and other philosophers at the time certainly believe so a lot of philosophers hated the idea of Hedonism because saying that the end goal of the entire human existence is simply to pursue pleasure and avoid pain just sounded vain this opposition combined with the rise of Christianity in ancient Greece at the time meant that this extremely rash idea of Hedonism died with aristipus many years later epicurus who was considered the father of modern day Hedonism redefined what Hedonism was and to do that he had to start by redefining a certain word pleasure for aristipus pleasure was a state of ecstasy and excitement that amazing feeling you have after biting into your favorite food or after that first sip of coffee in the morning and for most of us this is how we Define pleasure but not epicurus for epicurus pleasure was a state of Tranquility instead of encouraging people to indulge themselves in constant gratification epicurus believed that the true meaning of pleasure was to kill the fear of both death and God because only then would you truly be able to fully enjoy what this life has to offer while aristipus simply encouraged people to pursue pleasure epicurus believed that all human beings do everything to gain pleasure and absorb pain he didn't encourage it because according to him that was our Natural State anyway to defend this point epicurus asks everyone to look at how babies view the world around them they don't really understand how the world Works yet but they do understand two things when something feels good and when something feels bad when something feels good the baby is joyful and happy when something feels bad the baby cries because it wants that pain to stop and it wants to return to said pleasurable state I'm sure at this point you're wondering if we're all solely pursuing pleasure then what about selfless acts acts that are done solely because they are virtuous or valuable for other people and not ourselves how do we describe those well in hedonistic ideas it's simply because those things make people feel heroic which ends up being processed in your brain as a pleasurable feeling so at the core it is still pleasure they're chasing just not the kind we might be thinking about according to hedonistic teachings there are two types of pleasure there's moving pleasure and there's static pleasure moving pleasure is when you're in the process of satisfying a desire when you're hungry you eat when you're thirsty you have a drink when you need a time out you take a nap static pleasure is the Tranquility you feel once you're done satisfying those needs at this point the adrenaline has finished coursing through your veins and you're left with a sweet feeling of satisfaction in that moment you feel a sense of tranquility and you keep feeling it until it is sadly replaced by pain because according to epicurus there is no in between the absence of pain is pleasure and vice versa but even with this more modest way of explaining Hedonism a lot of people still disagree and even frown at the idea and this is because of one thing the idea that pleasure is the only source of intrinsic value think about it for a second if pleasure is the only intrinsic value then what do we make of things like finding meaning in life achieving great things building and maintaining long-lasting relationships becoming a legend in a particular field or even something as simple as living religiously or upholding a set of moral beliefs that we hold dear to our hearts Judith might try to argue that all of those things do not hold any value of themselves and that they're only valuable because we get pleasure from them but something like upholding religious beliefs isn't always pleasurable in fact most times it restricts the kind of pleasure you can get but still it gives people a sense of fulfillment that for them is better than the pleasure they're forsaking if self-pleasure alone is the aim of human existence the people who benefit from the wrong that happens in our society will never fight against it people will never fight for the common good when it might affect them negatively but yet every day we see people put their own desires on the side to help other people get excommunicated from their families rejected by those they love because they chose to speak up and fight for what's right even if the issues don't affect them directly if we're all chasing our own Pleasures that would never happen we'll all be too busy enjoying our broken Society because it benefits Us in not worrying about trying to change it for someone else another huge stumbling block that he didn't face when trying to argue their beliefs is the worth of reality if pleasure is the ultimate goal then it shouldn't matter whether that pleasure is real or imagined right if we say that people always intrinsically pursue things that are pleasurable then if there is an option for unlimited pleasure they should never choose anything else right to answer these questions Robert knows it created a thought experiment giving people two options he asked them to choose between being plugged into a pleasure giving machine for the rest of their lives and living their current reality with the pain that exists in our world people always picked this reality because in the end living a life that's not real is pointless and meaningless and even with the option of the most pleasurable thing in the world people would rather have pain that's real whatever real means as I've said previously the best memories are the ones you remember with both Pleasure and Pain 20 years after he left his childhood home Abraham Lincoln came back only to see the entire place in ruin as he looked at it with tears in his eyes he said my childhood home I see again and am saddened with the view and still as memories cloud my brain there's pleasure in it too this beautiful mix of Pleasure and Pain is something that the hedonistic view of the world simply does not account for when you're graduating high school you're excited for the adventures that await you in college you'll probably be leaving home for the first time and you'll finally be alone able to enjoy what the world has to offer that feeling is pleasurable but the feeling is also painful you'll miss your high school friends and the Simplicity of childhood you'll miss your parents your siblings and the community that you grew up in and though these painful thoughts Cloud your brain there will be pleasure in it too Hedonism is frowned upon in modern day Society because it opens the door for a trap that you can easily fall into pleasure is an insatable desire if you get hungry and fill your belly it only takes a few hours and you're looking for something else to eat it's an unending Pursuit so if that becomes the entire reason for your existence it can quickly become difficult to control this is how most people become addicted it starts out as just a fleeting pleasure and before you know it the reason you're doing those things stops being the pursuit of pleasure and starts being an unquenchable and uncontrollable thirst for those things a trap that's very difficult to come out of one that many people get stuck in for the rest of their lives but this isn't to say that we can't learn some things from hedonistic principles because as much as we might not like to think about it it's true that tomorrow is not promised so we might as well make the best of today things like making a conscious decision to enjoy the little everyday Pleasures can help us lead a happier life if your car breaks down and you have to walk to school don't be in haste embrace the journey walk with a friend make jokes with them and always leave each other on a good note craving a cup of coffee head out to your favorite coffee shop and order your favorite drink you've earned it you don't have to wait until you're retired before you can start reaping the fruit of your labor take those vacation days the promotion can wait a few more months stay on that call with your friends for an extra hour missing an hour of study probably won't make you fail because even if seeking pleasure might not be the ultimate goal of human existence it's certainly a worthwhile Pursuit in 1993 Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to victory over the Phoenix Suns in what is widely known as his greatest NBA Finals ever he averaged 41 points per game the highest ever in NBA finals history cementing is placed as one of the greatest if not the greatest of all time of course Jordan's raw talent and extensive training were key drivers in his success but there was something else at play here a state of mind that those at the top of their game seem to be able to access you see it in the surfer of the 100 foot wave the concert violinist leading an orchestra even in your co-worker whose productivity seems superhuman what all of these top performers have mastered is flow a state where the outside world Fades away time stops and you become completely immersed in what you're doing research has shown that we all have the ability to find the Flow State but how we do it is not as clear-cut the idea of deep concentration in Rapid tension has been around for much of modern human history Transcendent spiritual experiences like flow states have been reported for centuries in different religious texts around the globe but the official flow theory was created by psychologist mahali chiksen mihai in the 1970s mahali began surveying people about times in their lives when they felt and performed their best he spoke to rock climbers musicians painters and scientists curious to figure out what made them continue to perform and create at a high level despite the challenges he concluded that when respondents enjoyed certain experiences so much they were willing to go to Great Lengths to experience them again they all described a kind of current that carried them through these activities and experiences today there are researchers and companies that devote their resources to unlocking the power of flow Stephen Cutler one of the leading researchers on Flow became interested in the topic after watching Action Sports athletes like snowboarders skateboarders or BMX bikers how did they achieve seemingly impossible aerial tricks and death-defying moves with such Grace over and over again kotler like mahali before him identified factors such as risk and challenge to be key to achieving a state of flow eventually he founded the flow Collective a group which both researchers flow and trains people and companies in the group to create a happier more productive World challenging your mind means not getting caught in an echo chamber where the only opinions you hear reflect the ones you already own a balanced view of the world allows you to make well-informed decisions and helps you pick out what's true and what isn't when you're in flow your brain shuts off all non-critical processes you care solely about the task at hand and embody a mindset that is focused on the journey not the destination the game not the metal The Climb not the view from the top you get it we were able to find this Focus because in a flow State boredom and fatigue are not a thing you don't get antsy or achy your mind chatter Fades away and you become completely free of distraction but don't mistake this for relaxation when you're in flow you're not relaxed according to research over the past several decades the most important component of finding flow is a task or experience that meets a particular challenge skill balance think of it this way if you're really good at drawing but don't find a particular piece very challenging you'll probably get relaxed and eventually bored alternatively if you're a beginner skier and you're insisting on going down the steepest runs you'll grow frustrated and angry with yourself and the possibility for enjoyment is pretty low to unlock flow you need to find tasks that allow you to be comfortable with being uncomfortable you need to be put in situations where your brain needs to work but not so much that it gets frustrated by poor results think of an activity that you enjoy or skilled at but just find challenging enough that it'll hold your interest that might be a great place to find your flow but finding flow isn't quite that simple though much of the internet might want you to believe it is there are tons of videos on how to enter a flow State on command and even playlist called Flow State music that promise you the deepest concentration at the snap of a finger but in reality going into the Flow State requires practice and there's no one-size-fits all formula but there are definitely some things you can try you can start by creating a ritual every time you're faced with a task letting your brain know that you're about to begin this is one of the reasons many athletes have a pregame ritual where they eat the same thing and do the same thing before every single game these seemingly small acts help to condition the brain letting it know beforehand that it's time to get serious other things that can help trigger flow include meditation and other mindfulness activities since they help to eliminate distraction and promote Focus novelty or risk can also trigger the Flow State if you're used to working at home try going to a coffee shop to experience a new environment if you've been lifting the same weights for months try something a few pounds heavier that added risk of failing might be just what you need to tune out the noise and focus on what you're doing think of all dsas or assignments you did in record time back in school when the risk of failing was imminent pattern recognition is another great way to get into the Flow State ask any writer you know and they'll tell you that there's nothing worse than staring at a blank page well instead of doing that you can start your workday by editing what you wrote yesterday this process will trigger the pattern recognition in your brain telling it that it's time to focus then when you get to the blank page it becomes much easier to create since your brain is already in the Flow State it's also helpful to find out what your Peak creative and productivity times are are you an early bird a night owl maybe you really are superhuman and you do your best work on Wednesdays at 3 pm when the rest of the world has hit its crash once you find your time try your best to schedule your calendar so that you're doing your most meaningful and challenging work at this time you can also turn towards your emotions for help if you've ever fallen in love you've experienced the tunnel like attention you give your partner to use a cliche it's like nothing else in the world matters similarly feelings like love passion and curiosity for the task you're taking on or the experience you're about to embark on can help achieve a flow state once the parameters are set it's time to turn your attention inward focus on your body your breath and let your concentration and creativity take over now so far we've been talking about the flow in relation to an individual but ask Michael Jordan himself and he'll tell you there's no greatest player of all time only the greatest team of all time we see this every time we watch an amazing game or see a talented cast of actors navigate the story of a play in group flow there is no domineering ego or negativity members of the team cast or group merged together as one and the challenge skill balance is important here too if you put Meryl Streep in a High School drama production the students would probably feel intimidated and might not be able to stay present in the work or if you see fans holding their breath when the third string quarterback enters the game it's because they're unsure that the rookie can handle the pressure and lead the team back into its Collective flow whether you're on your own or in a group flow will come when you not only concentrate but truly love the thing you're doing if you don't love music it's very unlikely you'll find any flow trying to teach yourself to play the piano but if you're obsessed with coding and are constantly challenging your skills you're probably very familiar with how good the Flow State makes you feel why does it make us feel so good though because the brain in a flow state is getting constant hits of dopamine the neurotransmitter associated with a reward system once the dopamine starts releasing it reduces fatigue and discomfort and allows us to be immersed in the task at hand while dopamine tends to be the star of the show when it comes to studies on the Flow State the brain Locus ceruleus norepinephrine or lcne system has also been researched as a key component of the Flow State the lcne system is involved in regulating how engaged we are with the task if the lcne system wants us to disengage from a task it can trigger boredom inattentiveness stress and distraction none of which are really part of a healthy recipe for flow many of us struggle to stay focused for long periods of time on things we dislike if you have ADHD this feeling can become chronic in any instance of struggling to stay engaged our lcne system is signaling us to disengage from the task at hand maybe because we're not receiving enough dopamine to keep the brain interested but if a reward system keeps firing and the lcne system doesn't tell us to disengage we find ourselves in control feeling clear and having a sense of direction and the benefits of being in this mental state are endless one study by the flow Collective found that motivation and creativity can increase 400 to 700 percent while the Department of Defense conducted a study which found that learning spikes 200 when you're in flow now medical researchers are starting to use this concept to help patients with certain medical issues helping older patients experience flow later in life has proven helpful for cognitive optimization similarly video games and virtual reality applications are being developed as therapeutic training for people with neurological diseases and people who are rehabilitating from neurological damage by gamifying certain exercises and therapies some doctors find that patients stay motivated to engage and therefore heal not only does flow provide us with focus and enhanced intellectual capacity but it's also a positive happy experience where people describe feeling ecstatic Stephen Cutler the founder of the flow Collective said that if people want to enjoy their life learning how to find flow is the best pathway but what if we can't find that little voice that seamlessly guides us through a challenging task what if flow doesn't always feel like it's in reach most of us dread doing our income tax or answering emails so any attempt to find flow in these activities is probably futile yet as with so many buzzy ideas it can feel like we're expected to find flow in everything we do or we're just wasting valuable productivity stored elsewhere somewhere in our brains but the reality is that we can't find flow in every task and we shouldn't feel like we have to it's not just dreaded tasks that can feel difficult to jump into even the idea of an accomplished artist or athlete constantly locking into their flow state is a myth tick rating for example what's one feeling we don't get when we're in a flow state board if you've ever sat down to write anything creative you know that a large part of writing is boredom the quiet wandering mind is where we conjure up ideas easy to go down in Internet rabbit holes how to find your Flow State you might even be in one right now as valuable as learning how to find your flow can be obsessing over finding it will most likely have the opposite impact like anything else finding flow is a skill and learning new skills can be tough and frustrating to learn not being able to find flow even in a task that meets all the parameters of enjoyment Challenge and timing that we've talked about doesn't mean the task isn't worth doing if we start using flow as a precondition to get things done we'll most likely get a lot less done if flow doesn't come it's all on us and all the other mechanisms we've built inside ourselves to deal with the internal triggers like self-doubt and external triggers like that dirty laundry rating to be folded and get the work done close the tool where you can seek out to improve our lives it's a mindset to help us boost productivity conquer challenging tasks and lean into our creativity the promise of being able to turn off the outside world and turn on the most positive parts of our inner world is alluring in something to strive for but as soon as we get too fixated on achieving these things we might lose what flow is really about Suppose there is a couple the Joneses who just gave birth to a baby boy named Sammy as they stand together in the hospital gazing down at their newborn they share an awareness that the life ahead of Sami will be filled with an indeterminable amount of both pleasure and suffering happiness and heartbreak miracle and tragedy than in an instant the harsh reality of their baby's future hits them and for a fleeting second they look into each other's eyes and think if we hadn't given birth to him in the first place he wouldn't suffer anything right there they both make the decision to give Sammy the best life they can and to prevent him from experiencing as much suffering as is humanly possible the Joneses are great parents for thinking this but in the words of David Benatar it is curious that while good people go to Great Lengths to spare their children from suffering few of them seem to notice that the one and only guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is to not bring those children into existence in the first place this is the philosophy of antenatalism it's the thought that human procreation is unethical the belief that any action was suffering as its byproduct should not be encouraged no matter how much pleasure will follow as well although the roots of antenatalism can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece the philosophy has experienced a particular spike in popularity over the last decade or so this recent Resurgence can be accredited by and large to the South African philosopher David benator who authored what may be the most widely known literature on the subject in his book better never to have been Venusaur argues that his anti-natalist views come from a place of compassion stating that the only way to truly prevent the suffering that comes with existence is to not exist in the first place and he isn't the first person to have this thought the Greek tradition Sophocles once said never to have been born is best Heinrich the 19th century German poet wrote sleep is good death is better but of course the best thing would have been to never have been born at all and the preacher in ecclesiades said praised the dead they're already dead more than the living that are yet alive but better than both of them is he who has not yet been who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun so as you can see the school thought that non-existence is inherently better than existence isn't a new one in recent years though these ideas have given rise to the anti-natalist belief that seeks to end human procreation there are two different schools of thought under the antenatalistic argument the first is the one David Benatar makes when he says we should spare The Unborn from suffering that is life this argument centers around the harm in which existence poses on the baby being born on the other hand of the spectrum the misanthropic Arguments for antenatalism the center more around the harm that babies being born will go on to afflict upon one another other animals and the environment as a whole to put it into context consider this the average carbon footprint for a single person in the United States has been estimated to be around 16 to 20 tons per year meaning that just fulfilling daily Necessities such as driving showering eating and using electricity has unimaginably damaging consequences towards the environment we live in so to antenatalists the most ethical way to solve this problem is to prevent it from happening in the first place both antenatalist arguments whether philanthropic or misanthropic are centered around one core problem suffering and one proposed a solution to stop giving birth and you might say well what about all the good things in life why would you not want a child to experience all of that well antenatalists believe that in human life there is an inherent imbalance or asymmetry between pleasure and suffering let's take Sammy for instance because Sammy has been born he would experience pain which is bad and pleasure which is good however if Sammy was never born then he would never experience pain which is good and he also wouldn't experience pleasure which is not bad the argument therefore is that the presence of pain will always be objectively more harmful than the absence of pleasure and so it makes sense to preserve the absence of pleasure rather than introduce the presence of pain everyone suffers from being human but no one suffers from not existing in the first place a second argument that the followers of antenatalists bring forward is the hypothetical consent argument which states that no one can consent to being born consent is simply defined as the act of giving permission for something to happen and according to the anti-natalist hypothetical consent argument The Unborn cannot give permission to being brought into the world and so as a result the act of procreation should be seen as non-consensual and therefore unethical if we're focusing solely on the information we have about pre-birth that is scientifically provable then the hypothetical consent argument is pretty difficult to argue against but of course as we know the full extent of our pre-birth experience isn't yet known by scientists or even anyone for that matter [Music] I am a psychologist and I know that there are depths of the mind that have remained untapped for most of us in our normal business of going about our affairs this uncertainty opens up the door for a wide array of pseudoscientists who seek to explore the nature of our pre-birth experience using methods which although can't be definitely proven by science still adds some thought-provoking counter claims that are worth considering one of those pseudoscientists is Helen Wambach who hypnotized 750 subjects in the 1970s and asking the question did you choose to be born the responses she aggregated were quite staggering 81 percent of one box subjects reported that they did choose to be born while 19 reported that they were either unaware of the choice or they got no clear answer to that question of course again research and findings gathered from hypnosis can't be scientifically proven but in the face of the seemingly unknowable studies like this pose at least some perspective that should not be disregarded entirely however focusing back on the data that we do have definitive answers to consider the story of gold Nana written by Sian schifrin which is used by antenatalists as an example for the hypothetical consent argument cold Mana is a wealthy man who lives on an island and decides one day for reasons unknown that he wants to donate some of his wealth to his neighbors on an adjacent Island these neighbors are comfortably off but would still objectively benefit from his donation unfortunately though due to historical tension between the governments of these neighboring Islands goldmana and his agents aren't able to physically go to the adjacent Island nor are they permitted by law to even communicate with the people living there but still determined to donate he handcrafts several heavy cubes of gold each worth five million dollars then he flies his plane over the neighboring Island and drops the cubes down to the civilians underneath he tries to avoid hitting people with the cubes knowing that it could cause injury but eventually after gifting several people with the wealth he hits one person with the story aptly names unlucky the impact of the cube breaks unlucky's arm yet at the same time grants them five million dollars schiffrin acknowledges that on the one hand with all the elements of the story considered unlucky was an overall beneficiary of Goldman's actions as the five million dollars that they received is enough to cover the cost of the broken arm and then some yet on the other hand schifrin argues that an objective wrong was still committed by gold Mana since the harm he inflicted onto unlucky wasn't consensual despite how much the payout might have outweighed the harm unlucky was living a decent life before Goldman came into the picture his life wasn't pleasurable but he didn't suffer any pain either after the cube dropped on his arm he experienced both pain and pleasure in light of all this we have to ask the question which then does better to have experienced pain and pleasure or not any at all I think to answer that we have to Define what pain or in this case suffering is [Music] formania philosophers have traveled to Great depths to dissect what this experience really means and why it corresponds so closely with human life one of those philosophers was Fiora Dostoyevsky the infamous Russian novelist whose work contemplates the spiritual dimensions of human psychology in extraordinary depth and who invented the genre of existentialist literature dostoyevsky's final book The Brothers karamazov tells the story of Three Brothers Dimitri Ivan analosha whose opposing spiritual and World Views are forced into question when they are tasked with solving their father's murder the novel's most theatrical ideological Clash occurs between Ivan the middle son who was broken away from his religious family in pursuit of a more Western and rationalist education and aloysia the spirited younger brother who has chosen to remain attached to his family's Faith Ivan claims that due to the existence of suffering and more specifically the suffering of innocent children to believe in the omniscience of God and the goodness of people is a logical impossible and impermissible he laments listen if everyone must suffer in order to buy Eternal Harmony pray tell me what children have got to do with it it's quite incomprehensible why they should have to suffer through the character of Ivan Dostoyevsky paints a clear picture of a man whose compassionate intellectualism supersedes his faith in humanity so far to the point where he rejects the idea of human life altogether sound familiar several parallels can be drawn between dostoyevsky's Ivan and benatar's antenatalism as both believe that if suffering is so synonymous with human life the non-existence is the better alternative this argument Ivan poses is more broadly referred to as the problem of evil and it is one of the most ancient and compelling defenses against the belief of God that exists in philosophical literature to date the argument's possible Origins have been traced back to epicurus in ancient Greek Sage who famously asked is God willing to burn evil but not able then he isn't omnipotent is he able but not willing then he is malevolent is he both able and willing than from Once comes evil the last question once comes evil or in other words where does evil come from is yet another heavily debated subject which is of course ultimately unanswerable however antenatalists would likely argue that whatever origin or meaning suffering may carry matters little as it is Irrelevant in the face of suffering's devastation and in a sense I completely agree as searching for meaning to assign to suffering can so easily become a slippery slope which all these people and the suffering of others yet at the same time the practice of assigning meaning to suffering can also be a powerful coping mechanism which can transform the internal world of a person who is tasked to live with its heavy burdens the answer like most things possibly lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes and differs from person to person in a way both antenatalist philosophies and the ideas of dostojevsky's Ivan challenge us to come to terms with the reality of human suffering every day we're faced with things in our existence that are so factually unanswerable to the point that they can only be addressed through the lens of hypotheticals or faith however suffering unlike these elusive unanswerable existential questions is very much real tangible devastating overwhelming and ever-present you turn on the TV and hear one bad news story after the other you go online and you're reading stories of corruption human rights violations and Wars all around the globe with Humanity suffering even more prominent now that we have access to world news at our fingertips is no wonder then that Arguments for antenatalism are becoming more and more compelling and seeing arise culturally in the end we're faced with one question in the face of all that we know to be concretely true about the reality of suffering should you choose to believe that human life isn't worth creating or that it would have been better if you hadn't been born or do you choose to still have faith in that intangible sliver of hope that there is some larger reasoning for your coming to this earth in the first place despite the suffering that your existence entails no matter which side of the fence you stand on I think it's important to acknowledge questions of this nature questions of faith it's because our attitudes towards and surrounding all that it is unanswerable but our existence ultimately forms the philosophical Bedrock of how we view the world and how we'll go on to act in our lives although aloysia Ivan's faithful younger brother doesn't pose a very compelling counter argument to Ivan's laments during their famous fight that I mentioned earlier the subsequent actions he takes throughout the rest of the novel go on to demonstrate dostoyevsky's final illustration of how one should conduct themselves even in the face of suffering and in relation to the problem of evil Aloysius Direction has him working on the ground directly with the impoverished school children of his community doing the tedious work of actually making their day-to-day lives more enjoyable and infusing their lives with the sense of meaning alosha becomes an active participant helping out in every instance of suffering he encounters this is made particularly clear through his mentorship of a young impoverished boy whose suicide Alicia prevents with his compassion meanwhile Ivan spends the second half of the story dissolving into a state of delirium after realizing that his intellectual arguments against human life led to the murder of his own father as they gave another man the confidence to abandon his faith and carry out an act of evil in the world dostoyevsky's final message was that ultimately the actions we take in the face of suffering matter more than the intellectual beliefs we hold and preach to others about the nature of suffering to me whether or not one chooses to believe that human procreation is ethical matters less than the quality of the subsequent actions which that belief system guides them to take in the world like the Joneses would you be aware of the harsh reality of human suffering and prepare yourself to do everything in your power to protect the ones you love from it or will you simply throw your hands in the air and say I didn't choose to be here anyways so I don't care what happens in the end one should only feel confident holding beliefs against procreation after they can assess whether or not these beliefs can serve them within an effective means of coping with and helping others to cope with the suffering directly within and around them because again whether we realize it or not our beliefs about the nature of existence hold great power over who we are and how we act in the world as dostoyevsky's final novel boldly States is the only meaningful resource we have to combat the reality of suffering that comes with our existence

Channel: Aperture

Views: 741,457

Keywords: aperture, yt:cc=on, shower thoughts, philosophy, stoicism, nietzsche, reality, hegel, zizek, big ideas, philosophy lecture, philosophy tube, philosophy of life, philosophy podcast, thinker, learning, lecture, marcus aurelius, hegelian dialectic, artificial intelligence, inner peace, tiktok, daily dose, stoic, deep dive

Id: WpM-QjkNufw

Length: 84min 44sec (5084 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2023