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One Must Imagine Sisyphus Important

2026-07-24 · letter vlog · Hank · 4:42 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Science & nature) · mode: Personal essay

Replying to John's Sisyphus video, Hank uses a planned video question, the most important thing that ever happened, to argue that importance itself began only when experience arose in the universe, so importance is important; the Sisyphus story moves us by making us feel, and his fame outliving the gods may be another joy.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The most important thing that ever happened: Big Bang, life, the Chicxulub impact, and important to whom

  • ★★ Hank says John's video reminds him of a Hank's Channel video he is working on, starting from the title The Most Important Thing That Ever Happened. — 00:00:00 · hankschannel
  • ★ Hank likes this kind of content: asking a question that cannot have an answer, then really trying to answer it and finding things out. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says the question first asks for candidate events: the Big Bang, obviously, or, setting that aside, the formation of life or multicellularity. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says the question also asks: important how, and important to whom? — 00:00:29
  • ★★ When Hank asked the question, a frequent answer on social media and from Eons host Kallie Moore was the Chicxulub asteroid impact. — 00:00:29 · social media, Eons
  • ★★ Hank says that answer assumes importance for us, not for the dinosaurs, whose future it ended, apart from the birds. — 00:00:29
  • ★ Hank is glad the impact happened because he likes existing, which oddly puts him in the position of rooting for a mass extinction. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Hank says that, in the question on its own, importance for us is not a given: we are just one of many things that could have happened. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Importance for the existence of importance: the arising of experience, evolution of sensation, consciousness as illusion

  • ★★★ Hank's answer: the most important thing is what made importance exist, since for probably billions of years after the Big Bang nothing could care, suffer or rejoice; there was just stuff. (hedged) — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Hank says care, experience, suffering, pain and joy then began; when is unclear, known somewhat better for Earth, but the universe is large. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank calls it a mystery why and how evolution selected for sensation: other solutions are imaginable, and it is unclear where experience arises. (unsure) — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Setting aside the hard problem of consciousness, Hank says experience exists for him; whether it is an illusion, like a rainbow of light off raindrops, he does not know. (unsure) — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Importance is important; the Sisyphus story works by making us feel

  • ★★ Hank asks whether, if the observer is the illusion, the illusion becomes real the moment it observes. (speculative) — 00:02:55

  • ★★★ Hank's point: importance is important; a universe without sensation would be very cool, but not this cool. — 00:02:55

    “I think importance is important.”

  • ★★ Hank finds it extremely cool that the Sisyphus story is shared and usable, like ants' pheromones building a more capable colony. — 00:02:55

  • ★★★ What amazes Hank most is that the story shapes him by making him feel: he feels about Sisyphus, perhaps before he thinks about him. — 00:03:36

00:04:05 — Sisyphus's possible joy in being remembered over the gods; sign-off

  • ★★ Living in the myth, Hank suggests another joy for Sisyphus: we still think and feel about him, and his story still shapes our world, a triumph over the gods. (hedged) — 00:04:05
  • ★ Hank says Sisyphus may be better known than Thanatos, the god he tricked, though not than Zeus, who doomed him. (playful, hedged) — 00:04:05
  • ★★ Hank would not suffer forever for such fame, but, as John says, perhaps Sisyphus does not suffer. (hedged) — 00:04:35 · John Green

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Hard problem of consciousness · Sisyphus

Also: People: Kallie Moore

Projects: Eons · hankschannel

Concepts: abiogenesis · Big Bang · dinosaur · evolution · Extinction event · rainbow · social media

Events: Chicxulub impact

Myths: Thanatos · Zeus

Also centred on Sisyphus: One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

Replies to

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