Mapping the existential iceberg
Notes from an existential-crisis iceberg video and the physics tangents it pulled me into.
Watching this video, I expected a philosophical spiral, but it turned into a science-backed tour of how reality keeps us guessing. The "Existential Crisis Iceberg" chart is equal parts meme and map—each layer pulls in a different model for how the universe might work.
The Existential Crisis Iceberg
A layered look at how deep existential questions go once physics joins the chat.
The idea that "observation creates the universe" lit up a familiar curiosity: our eyes invert what they see, and the brain quietly flips it back. What other "obvious" facts are really just constant adaptations?
Upside-down goggles
Experiments showing the brain's ability to recalibrate vision when the world flips.
Living life upside down
A quick look at how perception adapts when goggles invert everything.
Then entropy shows up with the Boltzmann brain thought experiment: in an infinite timescale, the unlikely becomes inevitable—maybe even us.
Boltzmann brain
A statistical mechanics puzzle where self-aware observers appear out of random fluctuations.
And if consciousness could hop timelines, the many-worlds interpretation hints that every decision spawns another version of us. The catch is assuming consciousness is bound to the body—something the quantum suicide experiment loves to poke at.
Quantum suicide and immortality
Thought experiment exploring subjective experience across branching universes.
That's the fun (and the threat) with existential frameworks: the closer you look, the more physics and philosophy try to explain each other.