The Nihilistic Reduction of Meaningful Experiences

Experiencing his mother's suffering shattered his nihilistic worldview, revealing the deeper meaning behind life's struggles.

### The Illusion of Meaning: A Journey from Nihilism to Understanding
* 🌱 Walking in the garden with my mom during a tough time was a pivotal moment that led to my **conversion and a deep realization about suffering**.
* 💔 I had previously embraced a new age perspective, influenced by thinkers like McKenna and Watts, but witnessing my mom's pain **shattered my worldview**.
* 🤔 In that moment, I questioned the notion that **suffering is merely an illusion**, recognizing how **superficial and nihilistic** that belief truly is.
* 🔍 I often challenge those who reduce meaningful experiences to mere physical components, highlighting the **absurdity of dismissing deeper significance**.
* ⚖ For instance, when someone claims that a meaningful gesture like a handshake is simply **touching hands**, they overlook the **ritual and identity** behind that action.
* 📉 This reductionist approach can lead to a cynical outlook, as seen when someone **dampens excitement about Friday** by pointing out that **Monday follows**.
* 🌌 Neil deGrasse Tyson exemplifies this tactic by trivializing significant dates, such as December 25th, emphasizing that they **lack intrinsic meaning**.
* 🧠 Once you recognize this pattern of **reducing meaning**, it becomes easier to see through such arguments and appreciate the **depth of experiences and traditions**.

one of the experiences I went through that really led to my conversion was actually walking in the garden with my mom. She'd been going through a very rough time at the time. This was a few years back, about I think six or seven years back. I was kind of the, I don't know what you would say, the new age guy who went to Cambodia and came back and thought he understood Zen, and was reading McKenna and reading Watts. I was very much within that whole world, and I just saw suffering. You know, I saw my mom going through a very rough time, and I just, my whole world view just collapsed right in front of me in that moment. I just realized that telling, saying to her in that moment, I didn't say it, but you know, it was on my mind wanting to say to her, you know, all this suffering, all this pain, it's all just an illusion. In that moment, I just realized how phony, how superficial, how flat, how nihilistic that actually is.

um because it's almost like you don't have to care about anything really. Uh, and I still cringe a little bit when I hear people say, Well, everything's just an illusion. I'll say, Okay, but now what? Right? Where do we go from here? What's the point of doing anything if everything's an illusion? If all the suffering, all the ambition I feel is just... When they say that, like right away, just slap them really hard in the face and then to just smile. All right, let carry on then, Mr. Illusion. It's like, Yes, well, yeah. I mean, it's like people who say, 'Uh, I don't have a moral problem with stealing,' and then they get robbed, right? And then you realize they actually do have a pretty big problem with the left, right? I can tell you, like, I can give you the trick, like the... If you want to understand the new atheist trick or like the materialist trick, the nihilist trick, it's very simple and it doesn't take it

doesn't take much. Once you understand it, all you have to do is reduce a United being to its components. And you don't have to do it. You have to do just one level, right? So someone said, someone says something is meaningful. And then you say, Oh, that's just like a human being is just, you know, a bunch of chemicals, a bag of chemicals, you know? So what you do, and so, and so the funny thing is that a bag of chemicals is also an identity. They all, all those things, the elements also have identities because, you know, there's a hierarchy of that, uh, but that's if you want to understand people do it all the time. They'll say something like, you know, it's like whatever it is that you're doing that's meaningful, they'll just reduce it to its elements. It's like shaking hands. What? You just touch people. We just touch our hands together. That's what we're doing. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous to touch our hands. What are we doing, right? So you can do

that for anything, anything that has meaning. But then the trick, and this is the trick, is that all the elements you bring it down to are also meaningful and symbolic and ritualized. And so you would have to like go all the way down. It's like you could always say about everything, Oh, it's just a Quantum field, or whatever, It's just a field of possibility, everything just a field of possibility. But usually, you can just do it one step. So it's like if you really want to be Mr. Cynical, that's all you need to do is just, Oh, it's a... You just have to reduce it to its elements, right? It's like, you know, a story in the Bible or some guy, right? Some guy gets nailed to a cross, he dies, and he comes back to life. Like, that's it, that's your religion. Seriously, it's ridiculous, right? And you can do it with anything, it's great. It's like, it's a beautiful, it's

like a trick, but once you see it, once you see that that's what happens, it's like you can't, you won't fall for it ever again when somebody tries to reduce something to its elements. Yeah, well, as you were saying that, I mean, you mentioned people can do with anything. I, I, it's almost like a good example of how it kind of injects nihilism into things as supposing I come to you and I've had a really rough week at work and it's Friday and I'm in a good mood because it's Friday and I think, yes, the weekend's coming up, I've got Saturday, I've got Sunday, aren't you glad it's Friday? And you say to me, well, look, you know, in three days it's Monday or I come to you in December, I'll come to December and I say, I'm so glad it's December and you say, yeah, but guess what next month is. And it's in a way to me, it's traction is the same thing as to

what you're describing, it's in a way reducing things to um components. Well, okay, what really is, what really does Friday mean since, you know, it's just another arbitrary point. It's just the convention, yeah. It's just a Convention of time that we've imposed on ourselves, and it's just funny, yeah. Like I said, it's hilarious. Neil deGrasse Tyson does that all the time. That's like, it's basically, it's one move. His one move is to say something like, There's absolutely nothing special about December 25th. You know, it's not even the solstice. It's like a few days after the solstice. It has no, like, there's no, there's no uh Geographic, you know, thing and happening in the sky that could explain the significance of that day. Just another day, basically. So you could do that, and he does it constantly. It's, it's hilarious. I think now that you've revealed it, I'm probably going to start noticing it a lot more. I don't know. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

you pay attention to him in particular. He's the... I don't know if he's still even online much, but like, if you look at his tweets, look at his posts, you'll see that he does it constantly. He just reduces something to its elements and then declares it to be non-meaningful. Thank you. [Music]

You'll Never Be Able to Unsee this Nihilist Trick | Jonathan Pageau (@dylangous)

Jonathan Pageau - Clips

Walking in the garden with his mom during a tough time for her led to a profound realization for him.

His new age beliefs and perspective on suffering felt superficial and nihilistic in that moment.

He questioned the validity of viewing everything as an illusion and struggled with the moral implications of such a worldview.

Understanding meaning often involves reducing it to its components, such as viewing a human being as just a bag of chemicals.

This reductionist approach can be applied to any meaningful action or event, like shaking hands or religious stories.

However, the elements themselves also hold meaning and significance, creating a complex hierarchy that challenges the simplicity of reduction.

The Impact of Reducing Things to Their Elements

Reducing events to their basic components can inject a sense of nihilism, making them feel less significant.

This perspective is often used to downplay the importance of milestones, like Fridays or holidays.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is known for this approach, humorously pointing out the arbitrary nature of significant dates.

The individual in question has a habit of reducing complex topics to their basic elements and declaring them non-meaningful.

His online activity, particularly on Twitter, is constant and noticeable.

This approach has drawn attention and criticism for its simplistic interpretation of various subjects.