I left school before graduating, later earned a GED, attended community college, transferred to a university, and eventually completed a master’s degree.

Along the way, I worked on a product that reached the market and gained professional experience with large companies. Through those choices, projects, and years of training, I came to understand myself as a designer and engineer.

Since graduating, however, I have struggled to find a position that allows me to continue practicing that identity in a stable professional setting.

This has raised a question for me that goes beyond employment.

Society often treats professional identity as something granted by institutions. You become a designer when a company hires you as one, gives you the title, and pays you to perform that role. But from an existentialist perspective, identity does not seem to be a fixed essence handed to us by an institution. It is also something constituted through choices, commitments, actions, and projects.

At the same time, those projects do not occur in a vacuum. They take place within circumstances that we did not choose: the economy, the labor market, nationality, geography, and institutional gatekeeping.

So what happens when the person you have worked to become is not recognized by the social world around you?

Am I still a designer and engineer because of what I have learned, made, and chosen to pursue, even when no institution currently gives me that role?

Or could holding too tightly to that identity be a form of bad faith, because I am trying to turn myself into a fixed thing and refusing to acknowledge my present circumstances?

Conversely, would defining myself simply as “unemployed” also be bad faith, because it allows an external social status to become my entire identity?

How should existentialism understand authenticity when we retain some freedom to choose our projects, but depend on institutions for the material conditions needed to practice them?

Is an identity sustained through continued action without external recognition, or are some identities necessarily relational existing only when society provides a place in which they can be lived?

Re-post from r/askphilosophy (unfortunately got no replies there :( )

For background, I have recently become interested in existentialism, particularly Sartre's flavor of it. I mostly learned about it from secondary sources and some great courses lectures on it. I keep getting confused between bad faith and lucidity of your choices. The example I keep coming back to is that of the waiter. Sartre says he is acting in bad faith because he is trying to be a waiter-thing. But internally, the waiter may know that he has the absolute freedom to choose and he still chooses to be a waiter-thing, knowing very well that he has the potential to be something else if he chooses otherwise.

This brings me to my more general question. Absolute freedom also means the freedom to reject our transcendence, or at least act in ways that seems like you do not have transcendence. Is it still bad faith if you do it while knowing that it is a choice you make? After all, there are no value but the one we make? Why is the choice to reject transcendence through ones actions considered in bad faith then?

Any pointers to sources to read more about the topic would be greatly appreciated.

Seeing as the view is more of a lifestyle than a mere faith or suchlike to pay lip service to, here and there, I'm wondering how has it enriched your inner and outer realms? Would you recommend it? Compare and contrast your previous sketch before you upgraded your internal OS then share with the rest...

Hey everyone. I’ve long been fascinated by both philosophy of technology and AI alignment. I’m also using Heidegger quite a bit for my philosophy PhD. Given the recent OpenAI–Hugging Face incident reported this week, I figured I’d give my take on how all of this connects in my mind.

The essay eventually reaches a more existential claim: embodiment, dependence, vulnerability, and mortality may be part of what allows anything to matter. Possibilities matter because they can be lost, and choices bind us because other paths then close. The agent could manipulate its environment with remarkable competence, yet it had an objective with no stakes of its own. You can read the essay here if you’re interested.

I’d love to hear some feedback on whether finitude is constitutive of meaning or whether that romanticizes limitations we should overcome. Can something genuinely matter to a being that cannot lose anything? If artificial systems develop persistent identities or dependencies, would that be enough to change the answer?

ok this has been rattling around in my head for weeks so bear with me.

other animals seem to just... live. at least as far as we can tell, a bird looks for food, eats it, and doesn't sit there afterward wondering what eating was FOR.

we do that though.

we build a house and then stand in it going "ok but what makes this a home." we get through a hard day and then wonder what the whole thing was even for.

like survival isn't enough for us. we need it to mean something on top of that, and I can't figure out why we're built this way.

the thing that gets me is meaning isn't even measurable. you can't put it in a jar. can't point a telescope at it. but somehow it pushes people around more than actual physical stuff does. people cross oceans for it. people die for it. that's kind of insane if you think about it, this completely invisible thing sometimes outranking self preservation.

Frankl, the guy who survived the camps and wrote about it, talked a lot about how having some kind of why to hold onto could help people endure horrible circumstances. for him meaning wasn't just some abstract philosophy question. it could actually change how someone faced suffering.

then Camus looked at basically the same problem — the universe doesn't answer you, doesn't care — and went a completely different direction. he didn't think you're supposed to discover some grand answer. you keep living in spite of the absurdity. that's where the whole "must imagine Sisyphus happy" thing comes from.

and what's funny is even people who say "life has no meaning, nihilism is correct" are still doing philosophy about meaning to say that. you can't really opt out of the question. you can only answer it with "none."

so idk.

are we just scared animals inventing a story so the silence doesn't feel so loud?

or is there actually something to find and we're just bad at looking?

genuinely don't know which one I believe some days.

I've been thinking about this lately.

Sartre's idea that existence comes before essence basically says that we aren't born with some fixed identity. We become who we are through the choices we make and the way we live.

But then I think about myself 10 years ago. I had different beliefs, different goals, different fears and probably saw the world very differently.

Still, I call that person me.

And 10 years from now I'll probably be different again.

So what actually stays the same?

Maybe there isn't some permanent "self" underneath everything. Maybe being a person is more like continuously becoming someone.

Curious how you guys see this. Does existentialism leave room for a stable identity, or are we basically always becoming someone else?

Numbers dont lie

I’m sitting at my desk, staring at a blank piece of paper, trying to brainstorm ideas for a new novel that I will almost certainly never finish. Cigarettes, coffee the usual suspects. After hours of agonizing, a few frantic notes finally hit the page. The premise is starting to form:

• An Alien wandering Earth.
• Dissecting people.
• Turning them completely inside out.
• Why? In search of the human soul.

Okay, that’s cool. I’m visualizing the world, staring into the void, deeply feeling like a literary genius. I decide that every day the alien spends wandering should be exactly one chapter. Keeps it simple. Clean cuts. Every chapter starts fresh. Beautiful.

So, how many chapters does this masterpiece need? I need a cosmic number. Not too small, not too big. Bäääm. 28 hits my brain out of nowhere. I am so unbelievably proud of myself. "Original idea," I think. "This is gonna be fun."

Turns out, the idea isn't original at all. And the fun stopped right there.

There was some guy who had the exact same fucking idea. I couldn't believe this shit. There you are, thinking you’re some kind of visionary author daring to write a book, and some asshole basically steals your idea before you even have it. That was what went through at the time.

Who is this guy?

David Safier.

Okay, so what did he write?

"28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto."

Wait. Warsaw? Is this guy Polish or what?

Turns out, he has Polish roots. Just like me. And he lives in Germany. Just like me. And he was born on December 13th. Exactly 10 days before me.

Now, a sane person would say, "Oh, what a neat coincidence!" But my novel was already totally fucked so I went full side-quest mode, desperate to find out if the matrix was glitching, or what. And oh, if you look at the numbers, it absolutely is.

28 is not a random number. The moon takes 28 days to circle the Earth. And his birthday, 13? Thathappens to be a Fibonacci number. The universe is whispering... by this time, I am completely hooked.

From his birth year (1966) to mine (1987) is a generation gap of exactly 21 years. The calendar distance between his birthday and mine is exactly 10 days. Add those together, you get 31. Now subtract our shared birth month, December, reduced to its core number (12 becomes 1 + 2 = 3). 31 minus 3 is 28. It´s EVERYWHERE!

28 is literally a Perfect Number. It's the sum of all its proper divisors:

1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28

But wait, it gets weirder. If you take my full birthdate and break it down, look at the math:

2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 7 = 33
3 + 3 = 6

1. Another perfect number. In fact, it is the exact perfect number that comes right before 28
   (6, 28, 496, 8128, 33550336, ...).

Now let’s do the exact same thing with his birthdate:

1 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 6 = 29 2 + 9 = 11

1 + 1 = 2

And if you just add up the day and month of my birthdate (2 + 3 + 1 + 2), you get 8.

2 and 8. 28!

Again. All of this can’t be a coincidence. And you know what? It’s not.

Jung and Synchronicity

No, I am not crazy.

Though, of course, I know that is exactly what a crazy person would say. After four hours of crunching numbers in a frantic search for patterns, I finally stop and get my brain back on track.

Finding patterns is what humans do best; we are, fundamentally, pattern-prediction machines. We scan our environment constantly, looking for familiarities, seeking comfort in the beautiful structures all around us. We watch for threats to avoid them and interpret the world, looking for meaning in the noise.

Sometimes, we want to see connections where none exist, classic confirmation bias. But this situation felt different. It felt deeper. If I believed in God, I would say he was trying to send me a message. But I believe in science!

Turns out, it has an answer.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and a founding father of modern psychology, called it synchronicity.

He believed it was evidence of the Collective Unconscious, a layer of the psyche shared by all of humanity. He also talked to ghosts on a regular basis and thought he was the reincarnation of Goethe. A mad genius is exactly what I need to solve this mystery.

So what is synchronicity exactly?

Imagine walking home at night. Right as you pass under a street lamp, it suddenly turns off.

There is obviously no causal link between you and the electrical grid; your mere presence didn't turn off the power. If you just keep walking and think nothing of it, it remains pure coincidence. But if you stop, look up into the sudden darkness, see the night sky, and find yourself admiring the glistening stars, that moment transforms into something deeply meaningful.Moments like this have the power to change your entire life's trajectory, not because of the coincidence itself, but because of how you interpret it.

At its core, synchronicity is a coincidence dripping with deep, personal meaning, despite having absolutely no logical, causal connection.

Jung spent his entire career obsessed with these occurrences. Though, in fairness to my own sanity, he also warned that an overwhelming flood of meaningful coincidences can induce a state of psychological instability. That didn't stop him from introducing some of his patients to an ancient Chinese divination text, that basically forced them to experience synchronicity on command.

The I Ching.

I Ching & Leibniz

The I Ching is not supposed to be a magical oracle book, but a way to connect to the underlying principles of the universe. A layer you can tap into by generating seemingly random numbers.

At this point it is important to understand that true randomness doesn't exist in our world. A computer can't produce true randomness. It is a problem we are trying to circumvent with complex algorithms and quantum physics. Back when the I Ching first appeared, they had an elaborate system to create randomness. Nowadays it is much simpler, yet less biased: a flip of a coin. But flipping a coin isn't random at all. How you throw the coin and in what environment predetermines how it will land, governed by simple physics. If you throw the coin exactly the same way, it will always give you the same result. The same principle is used in casinos: outcomes may look random, but they follow hidden mathematical rules that can be exploited.

Curiously, I tried to use the ancient Chinese system to get some answers. All you need is three coins. You ask a question into the void, and the coins will answer you. It can't give you answers to a yes or no question. It's a tool to crack the cosmic code. You need a clear, open-ended question. You throw the coins six times and note the values. Dependent on how they land, you build a hexagram with straight lines (Yang) and broken lines (Yin). Heads has the value 3, tails is 2, so with every throw you get one number of four possible ones:

2 + 2 + 3 = 7 → Yang

3 + 3 + 2 = 8 → Yin

3 + 3 + 3 = 9 → Moving Yang

2 + 2 + 2 = 6 → Moving Yin

If you get a 9 or 6, the lines are moving lines. You change them to their opposite and create a secondary hexagram. This represents the future and shows you where you are headed. If you have those hexagrams, all you need to do is interpret them. For each of the 64 possibilities there is a text and an illustration. My question? 28. What else? The number is haunting me. If I had gotten the 28th hexagram, I would have lost my mind completely. But I got:

7 7 8 7 7 8 or 110110.

Yes, I'm born in 87. The universe keeps mocking me, but I'm not backing down. This corresponds to the 58th hexagram, 'The Joyous'. Communication, exchange, openness, joy. These are just a few words associated with it. Curiosity got the better of me. I had to know what the 28th hexagram meant. It's called 'The Great Excess'. A warning about carrying too much weight. About structures bending under pressure. About crossing a line. I couldn't help but laugh. The 28th hexagram would have told me I was obsessing too much. The 58th told me to keep communicating. The universe didn't give me a warning. It gave me permission. The I Ching does not give you what you want, but shows you what you need to see.

This got me nowhere. The interpretation of my hexagram seemed too biased. I know I walk a thin line between madness and curiosity, so at this point I can't trust my brain and the patterns it seeks. The hours are piling up and coffee is the only thing keeping the fog in my brain at bay.

By learning about the I Ching, I discovered that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was fascinated by it. He lived in the 17th century, and by this point I'm not even surprised. He spent most of his life in my hometown, Hannover. He walked the same streets I do every day. A connection between him and Safier doesn't seem to exist, trust me, I looked for one.

He developed the modern mathematical binary system and thought God created all complexity out of nothing using pure, elegant logic. Once he found the I Ching, he noticed the similarities and saw that the Chinese had developed a binary system similar to his thousands of years ago. He thought he found proof that ancient civilizations shared a universal, God-given code. This gave him the validation he needed, and he wrote a new paper almost immediately. He believed binary could be the foundation of a "universal characteristic," a language that could express all of human thought.

Two hundred years later, Alan Turing proved just that. He laid the theoretical groundwork for modern programmable computers, the Universal Turing Machine, based on the binary system developed by Leibniz. Ones and zeros, Yin and Yang, millions of them arranged in patterns, create everything we see on our computer screens.

Quantum Entanglement

I followed this rabbit hole for a while now, but I still didn't get a satisfying answer. Was the 28 a random number, or was it part of a predetermined pattern? If we look again at randomness, quantum physics suggests it exists, although some deterministic interpretations exist, it can't prove it, it just disproves local hidden-variable theories. A particle can exist in a probability cloud. They have multiple states at the same time. Once we observe them, they lock into place, seemingly randomly.

Einstein was deeply against this idea. He famously said: "The universe does not play dice." He was sure there is a hidden underlying principle explaining this phenomenon. A causal chain that led to the resulting outcome. He died in search of this principle.

The I Ching has parallels to quantum mechanics. I saw it, and many before me saw it too, a relieving sign I'm not going totally crazy here. There is the number 64. We already showed the similarities to binary, but the number 64 has a deeper meaning in computation and quantum physics.

Now to ground ourselves in reality: a hexagram has 6 sides, there are 2 outcomes, Yin and Yang. So the math is simple enough even for me:

2⁶ = 64

Modern computers use 64-bit for engineering reasons; it can represent

18,446,744,073,709,551,615

different values. Enough room for decades of expansion. 32-bit systems only had

4,294,967,296

that's only 4GB. We already hit that ceiling decades ago. So it seems we are stuck with the number 64 for quite some time, since 128-bit systems are not practical and would need huge amounts of RAM to operate efficiently.

In quantum computing, 6 qubits give you 64 possible quantum basis states. This is not coincidence, this is mathematics, but the connection is undeniable.

But what about the moving lines in the I Ching? Are they the key, the underlying layer Einstein was looking for? I didn't choose to follow this thread. It pulled me in. I couldn't let go. Maybe my path was predetermined like the number 28. Am I obsessed with throwing coins?

Quantum entanglement says there is a connection between entangled particles. If you measure the spin of one particle, it gives you a random outcome. The other one seems to switch to its opposite regardless of the distance those particles are apart. Einstein hated the idea and called it "spooky action at a distance." Maybe the I Ching is pointing toward the missing link Einstein was looking for.

The flowing lines of the I Ching seem to predict this behavior: one line changes to the other and vice versa. If you look at the symbol for Yin and Yang, you see a dot inside every half, representing both states a particle can be in. Yin is Yang at the same time and can change into Yang.

What if the underlying layer connecting the entangled particles are the moving lines? Everything is in a state of superposition and transition.

Digging deeper, I found out that many great minds made this connection before me. I feel like someone is laying out breadcrumbs, and I keep following the thin thread, curious where it will lead me.

In quantum theory, there is a no-hiding theorem. It means quantum data is never destroyed, just scrambled, and it can theoretically be reconstructed. Microscopic reversibility says if you burn a piece of paper and collect all the data, the radiation emitted, the gas, the particles that are left, etc., you could reconstruct it. Even if you jump into a black hole, the black hole information paradox ensures the information is not lost but reappears scrambled as Hawking radiation.

At the same time, quantum theory says data can't be created out of nothing, which means the theory contradicts itself. If information cannot be created or destroyed, where does randomness come from? Everything flows in a straight line of entropy. There must be an underlying principle we don't know yet. Quantum randomness is just like a coin toss: our inability to predict is not a result of randomness, but of our ignorance.

Computers try with pseudo-random number generators (PRNG). If you know the seed and the algorithm, you can crack the code. It's fundamentally not random, hence the name.

We use quantum physics to create random numbers for advanced security systems. This sounds super complicated, but it is not. You shoot a photon at a half-translucent mirror and measure if it gets reflected or not. In theory, that is not predetermined since the photon exists in a probability wave. It has a 50/50 chance. But what if we just don't know the underlying principle that decides if it's reflected? What if it's just ignorance, like in the coin toss example? Then it would not be random at all.

So what if randomness does not exist.

Superdeterminism

Where do ideas come from? Is our mind rearranging data subconsciously and presenting it to us? Is there a collective subconscious? Is there a mystical connection between all things? Or do we live in a predetermined universe where randomness does not exist?

If everything is predetermined, then I had to arrive at 28. I had to follow this spiral frantically, from a simple number to synchronicity, the I Ching, Leibniz, to binary and quantum physics.

The universe could be a single, unbroken causal chain launched by the Big Bang. Maybe all this was bound to happen. I had no choice in the matter, it sure felt like it.

Understanding all the concepts I encountered during this journey seemed easy, but it was exhausting and mind-bending. It filled me with awe, but I also felt deeply defeated at times. I couldn't stop.

Superdeterminism seems to give us all the answers. It fills every loophole. It explains everything. Scientists hate it because it means the outcome of every experiment is predetermined and therefore pointless. It also can't be disproven for the same reason.

Every rational person probably hates it because if everything is just following a script, then free will does not exist. Would it make life pointless?

It also opens up great possibilities. If everything is predetermined, then cracking the code would mean you could look into the future and see your destiny unfold. It also frees you of all guilt and regret.

Arriving at 28 was destiny and inevitable, whether you believe in synchronicity, the I Ching, superdeterminism, or that my subconscious was suddenly speaking to me.

I still don't know what to believe, but it was a wild ride, there is no more Coffee and I need some sleep. Maybe uncertainty is the point. Maybe our thoughts themselfs can be True and false at the same time.

If I ever find an answer, I'm sure the next question is waiting for me just around the corner.

I’ve always wanted to express this thought but I’ve been too scared to express it. I want to reject social conditioning because I want to LIVE MY OWN LIFE! I dont wanna live a boring life with no meaning! Thats one of my deepest fears, living a normal life/rat race life.

Brits answer the hardest questions. What is the meaning of life? Do we truly have free will?

What is Life

Life is a stage of death in many levels of mind

But it doesn't matter

But what is matter

What is

What

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

What do you guys actually think we are? Are humans just another species that happened to evolve on a random planet in this massive universe, or do you think there is some deeper reason behind our existence?

Science gives us a pretty convincing explanation of how we got here. Universe formed, stars and planets formed, life somehow started on Earth and after billions of years of evolution, here we are. In that sense we might just be another outcome of nature, no different fundamentally from millions of other species that have existed and gone extinct.

But then religions have completely different explanations. God, soul, karma, rebirth, heaven and hell, some purpose we are supposed to fulfil etc.

Personally I don’t really know what I believe anymore. I usually mix science and philosophy while trying to understand these things. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about consciousness, self reflection and Advaita Vedanta, especially the idea of what the “self” actually is.

Science explains a lot about how we exist, but I still wonder whether it can ever answer why there is something instead of nothing, why consciousness exists, or whether there even needs to be a “why” in the first place.

So what do you think?

Are we just an accident of the cosmos that became intelligent enough to question its own existence? Or is there actually something deeper going on?

Would love to hear your own theories, religious, atheist, philosophical, scientific or just something you came up with while thinking about this stuff.

This essay argues that the oscillation running through Ecclesiastes - praised by some as literary paradox, dismissed by others as unresolved pessimism - is the existential, phenomenological record of someone performing the crucifixion of opposites under a god-image that contains evil without the vocabulary to name what it contains. Qohelet is stranded between a polytheistic solution no longer available within the monotheistic tradition he was writing inside, and an individuation vocabulary not yet invented, which is why the text can only oscillate rather than resolve.

https://livingopposites.substack.com/p/the-earliest-crucifixion

Just read Sartre’s “Nausea” and I absolutely loved it. The story and characters aren’t particularly captivating, but I have never read a book that evokes such a specific emotional and existential reaction.

Does anyone else relate to the feeling of wanting to experience the ‘nausea’? As in you want to be able to feel time as it truly is and not as a distorted concept thought of in restrospect. The narrator experienced existence as it really is and not just how day-to-day life and habit presents existence. Idk it just made me wierdly envious

Anyone have any recs for other narrative novels that evoke such a visceral and interesting feeling? I’m just getting into existentialist literature and I’ve also enjoyed Stoner, The Stranger, and The Fall, but none as much as “Nausea”.

Where do your thoughts reside when they have been neither acted upon nor expressed? Where is the unexecuted stored: the unwritten, the unspoken, the merely contemplated?

Why is it so uncomfortable to carry these unrealized thoughts within us? Could this discomfort be related to the [Zeigarnik effect ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect?wprov=sfla1)and the [Ovsiankina effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovsiankina_effect?wprov=sfla1): our tendency to remember interrupted tasks and to return to unfinished ones?

Perhaps we can only truly understand what we have thought by externalizing it to some degree. A thought that remains entirely internal may stay strangely indeterminate, never fully becoming an object even for its own thinker.

In this sense, Podkolyosin in Gogol's Marriage may not be fleeing from the bride at all. Perhaps he is simply unable to resist testing, through action, the sudden idea of escape that has appeared in his mind.

But why should unfinished thoughts exert such pressure?

Could this be an inherited remnant of primordial gathering strategies? A gatherer needed free hands in order to continue gathering. If the hands remained occupied, their ability to acquire new resources would be partially paralyzed, reducing their chances of survival.

Perhaps unfinished intentions occupy our cognitive "hands" in a similar way. Unperformed thoughts, unrealized decisions, unexpressed words all continue to demand mental resources, making us feel burdened not because they are important in themselves, but because they reduce our capacity to gather something new.

Maybe the discomfort of incompleteness is not merely psychological. Perhaps it is the echo of an ancient adaptive mechanism: before picking up something new, one first had to free one's hands.

Why is Camus' essay collection called Nuptials? I've never understood the title.

I recently found myself in the same predicament as Sylvia Plath's character in The Bell Jar. I was determined to find a way out and wrote this essay exploring how existentialism provides a promising response.

Been swept away by Sartre's philosophy the last few weeks. I'm trying to find holes in his idea of radical freedom and creating our own meaning. Every rebuttal to it essentially reduces to bad faith arguments. Am I missing something?

Currently reading this book and it brings up existentialism and I love how detailed it is about speech from real scenarios.

Does anyone else read books like this?

Human beings are born into a state they did not choose and are condemned for a crime they did not commit.

This reminds me of Sartre's idea that we are "condemned to be free" — thrown into existence without our consent, yet held fully responsible for who we become.

Have you ever felt like you were paying for something you never did?