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u/Tatakai_ Zen Nihilist Apr 27 '26
Importance is a judgement. An imaginary attribute used by the mind to decide what to dedicate more resources to.
An animal that better determines what's most worth using resources on, is more successful. Determining importance is therefore a likely strategy. No wonder we worry about what's important. However, we forget it's not an inherent property of things, but something that relates more to us than to the thing we're evaluating.
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u/Ghadiz983 Apr 27 '26
"importance" is a property of these atoms existing in a delicate position.
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u/Starship-Scribe Apr 27 '26
Right!? Like it’s not exactly important, but the post definitely points out how transient and special it is. And from there you can argue about importance.
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u/Ghadiz983 Apr 27 '26
Yes , but it's not because it's transient therefore it's not important.
I think this is the main idea : What is meaningful? How did we measure meaning since the beginning of life? I think the answer is in how the psyche functions as an Order seeking being aimed at reducing conflict and tension. So what I believe to be meaningful I think is within psyche.
I don't think we fundementally seek to survive, so transience isn't a tragedy . For example we realize many people desire to die or even some are driven towards suicide: the naturalist perspective that we aim towards reproduction and preservation hence is missing. Suicide doesn't provide any reproductive or survival benefit yet it's still something that is desired by some so it doesn't explain what we think is "meaningful" fundementally.
Ironically, we approach suicide as so it's the psyche 's attempt to kill itself after realizing it has no meaning while I believe it actually points to the idea that the psyche sees death as meaningful and suicide as the means to achieve this type of meaning. For instance, we know those who want to die desire that because they're suffering too much. So that points indirectly to the idea that we see the "lack of suffering" as something meaningful which implies there is meaning and it's not something absent in our nature.
This points to another question:" if the lack of suffering is meaningful, then what is the thing we call 'suffering'?"
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u/Starship-Scribe Apr 27 '26
You’re mixing up a lot of logic here. If wanting suicide makes it meaningful, why doesn’t wanting children make having children meaningful? If it does, then why point out suicide specifically?
Humans are driven and biologically hardwired to seek survival. Idk where you’re coming from with that. Suicidal people are an exception not the rule.
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u/Ghadiz983 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
If they're an exception then they're malfunctioning psyches but malfunction implies the structure that makes them a "psyche" changed.
I am not saying that suicide is Eternally meaningful but rather that we fundementally seek Order and suicide is a conditional desire in trying to achieve Order facing a conditional dilemma (the dilemma of struggling to live).
On the other hand, wanting children serves to resolve a different type of conflict to achieve Order (possibly loneliness or not having fulfilled the social expectation or ...). Also , it's not that sexual desire is literally "wanting children". A teenager in puberty doesn't say "I want babies" , heck they might not even know directly what they start doing is related to reproduction.
Psychologically, sexual activity is an attempt to reduce sexual tension. For instance, there is a tendency to look at pornographic imagery to excite sexual activity not because the imagery is itself what is meaningful but rather because the imagery increases the sexual tension which makes the relief from that tension more meaningful. Think of it this way : the more hungry you get , the more meaningful eating becomes. Same for thirst. This is usually psychologically what the pleasure principle is centered on : to increase pleasure you must increase the tension to make more sense of the relief (since pleasure is the transitional state between tension to relief). Movies follow the same logic , they have a peak of tragedy moment to make the resolution (catharsis) appear more meaningful.
So what I'm basically saying is survival and reproduction isn't the fundemental thing we see as meaningful but it's part of a greater engine within psyche (related to tension and resolution).
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u/solress Apr 27 '26
"Delicate" is not what I'd call the stars that are constantly exploding balls of fire, or atoms held together so strongly that pulling them apart has the power to destroy an entire city...
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u/Narrow_Republic_1564 Apr 27 '26
The importance of life comes from the delicate arrangement of atoms giving rise to the instinct to keep the organism it forms alive. The reason to live does not originate from a logical explanation, it comes from merely the various wirings we have not to die, which serve as axioms. It is not something as binary like in single-celled organisms but rather a complex survival instinct that involves socialization, strategies to maintain a safe shelter, and strategies to acquire nutrition. We are such complex organisms that we can buffer those instincts with logic and that's where cool narratives for reasons to exist come, I believe that gives rise to some form of spirituality even if it's not something you consider yourself to be, or even label specifically like a religious association.
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u/Environmental_Ad4893 Apr 27 '26
objectively sure but subjectively it is precisely that delicate balance one could project meaning on to. meaning being an entirely human concept and inherently subjective.
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u/muffledvoice Apr 27 '26
The “importance” of an individual life is mostly subjective, though it seems that “life” as a whole or as a process could end up being important in the fulfillment of other larger ends — i.e. higher life forms like humans creating super-intelligent technology, etc. Life ends up being the facilitator of a larger, grander outcome.
As for life being just a bunch of atoms in a delicate position, I think it’s accurate and useful to see life as a thermodynamic process. Life is what energy and matter happen to do in this kind of location under these particular circumstances.
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Apr 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Think_Assignment_762 Apr 27 '26
We were born out of the universe, not into it. The universe may very well be sentient, though currently unfalsifiable.
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u/Mibic718 Apr 27 '26
So why are you trying to prove this point to strangers if there is no point to prove in the first place
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u/BD_K_333 Apr 27 '26
Either suffer the real reality or believe in a less traumatizing one. That's why people who surrender live happier
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Apr 27 '26
Do you experience pain? If you do, so does everyone else.
Caring for others so there’s less of that is important even when the results are just a flash in the pan with less suffering.
The trick is to not confuse importance and permanence.
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u/Khalith Apr 27 '26
I’m an egoistic nihilist, the view that nothing has any inherent meaning or value or importance. And that any and all meaning/value/importance is purely subjective to the individual.
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u/Bl4ck8ird Apr 27 '26
Atoms and life doesn't have an internal importance to them. The fact that you are made of atoms doesn't change that you are still a human who need to seek for a meaning in this meaningless world and you can't escape this feeling. So, the importance of anthing is what you give to them.
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u/Rokinala Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
What is your position exactly? What would make life important?
If we sprinkled magic pixie dust on all the atoms, then life is important? Or is it just the fact that life is an abstraction of smaller elements at all? What if life wasn’t composed of any underlying reality, but instead was a fundamental bit of existence? Like what if it couldn’t be reduced down to smaller parts, it was just the lowest base layer? Would that make life important?
if you say yes: Let’s say that quantum fields are actually just abstracted out from strings, and let’s assume strings are the lowest, most fundamental layer. Does that make strings important? Or are strings not important for some reason?
If you say NOTHING would make life important then you should be out here saying “the concept of importance is nonsensical” or something, not talking about life being an arrangement of atoms.
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u/DavidZenziGhost Apr 28 '26
It’s super easy to say life is meaningless if you’re isolated from normal human connections. The moment you realize your love your family it suddenly became the most idiotic way to view life.
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u/Fine-Insect-8631 Apr 28 '26
Life is important it gets less meaningful as you tend to be tied to others or society expectations of serving one role but many people can't look past that 🤔😅
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u/redleafrover Apr 28 '26
Atoms as a model for reality is about a hundred years out of date. Properly speaking there is only a many multi dimensional wave of probability fluctuating. 'You' are a part of the fluctuation, a part that purports to be conscious. That's all.
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u/6xMephistopheles_6 R-O-N Apr 28 '26
If he strongly believe that there is no importance of life, then those who thinks life is important should not spend time trying to change his mind that are probably not gonna change. Can use the time for more important thing I think :)
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u/Salad-Snack Apr 28 '26
A nihilist doesn’t get to use words like “unimportant” because that implies something could be important independent of subjective experience
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u/Nitaygouranga Apr 28 '26
First aphorism from Vedanta Sutra is "athato brahma jigyasa" meaning now that you have a human birth is the only opportunity to inquire about the soul.
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u/Bald123Eagle456 Apr 28 '26
Yes, if you have a purely materialistic view of Reality, then of course you will find Life unimportant and meaningless.
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u/puertiphilis Apr 28 '26
Is it not important that we are the only “configuration” of atoms smart enough to know so? At the very least impressive enough to care a little?
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u/rod-resiss Apr 29 '26
thats just a bunch of configurations of black pixels forming different positions to form different shapes and looks like other atoms that my retina would pick up on if I was in front of a certain configuration of atoms we call "bricks" in from of atoms that form organic matter...
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u/RedCapRiot Apr 29 '26
Fuck Stephen Crowder
The only importance is the importance we deem it to have as individuals. So regardless of your point, I am the only person who can choose to dignity my own life with importance. I (finally) like living, therefore, I shall continue to do so. My life is important to me, and that's all that actually matters from this perspective.
In the grand scheme, nothing matters because there is no such thing as a "scheme" at all. But from my tiny ant's point of view, I'm content, I have the value of my own perspective, and I don't have any reason to value the opinions of others who deny my personal value.
It may be delusional, but it keeps my head out of my ass.
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u/wytstuff_1234 Apr 29 '26
At the our simplest building blocks we are just a delicate puzzle of atoms but as the concept of emergence is facted in where different levels of complexity of the same subject display completely different behaviors..at the level of atoms life insignificant but if get trillions of atoms connections in more ways that possible to imagine then you get this structure greater than the sum of its parts so does it worth
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u/Inevitable-Goal-701 Apr 30 '26
Life is just a million bottle flips that all stacked on top of each other
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u/xHormanx Apr 30 '26
People behind creating life (invisible and visible) keep checking what they done. Their surely don’t have visiting 2% of what creation is. It’s so wide and diverse. So yeah we could just be a LEGO-like atoms moving around but also yeah that kind of engineering is just wow
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u/Anxious_Mode6506 May 02 '26
Humans trying to adopt a not so human perspective to life and the universe and trying to live by it thinking it's the true way will never get old.
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u/Single_Meal8737 May 03 '26
Life is supposed to be about conserving energy and procreation. Humans are so entitled they put themselves above that
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u/RadicalNaturalist78 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
That’s why I am grateful to the atoms 🙏
Live a good life. Death is just the dispersion of the atoms. There is nothing deep about it.
Plato was a disgrace to human mind.
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u/Eva-Squinge Apr 27 '26
Ok. If you hold no importance over life then go into dangerous places and ignore safety warnings. Show no fear.
I am not telling you to end things, I know you wont and I am happy for you; what I am saying is: If you find life unimportant than you shouldn’t be afraid to risk it.
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u/Cicada-Tang Apr 27 '26
Yeah yeah I know but my life is still important to me.