Instrumental Nihilism

A Model of Human Behavior and Subjective Experience

Part I. The Well-Being Paradox

1.1. The Observation

In 1820, roughly 80% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. By 2020, that figure had fallen below 10%¹. Over the course of two centuries, child mortality in developed nations dropped from over 30% to under 1%². Life expectancy doubled³. Literacy rose from 12% to 87%⁴. Diseases that once killed millions were eradicated or brought under control.

The average resident of a developed country today has clean water, heating, modern medicine, instantaneous communication with any point on the globe, and the accumulated library of human civilization in their pocket. By every measurable parameter — from calories to bytes — humanity is better off than it has ever been.

The expectation seems obvious: with basic needs met, threats diminished, and opportunities expanded, people should feel better.

The data say otherwise.

1.2. Rising Dissatisfaction

In parallel with this objective improvement, indicators of psychological distress have been climbing. This is not a single warning signal but an entire spectrum — each dimension supported by large-scale research.

Depression. According to the WHO, the number of people living with depression rose 18% between 2005 and 2015⁵. Globally, recorded cases increased from 172 million in 1990 to 258 million in 2017⁶. The sharpest rise has been among young people: in the United States, the prevalence of major depressive episodes among adolescents aged 12–17 nearly doubled in a single decade, climbing from 8.1% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2019⁷. Among adolescent girls, the increase was 12 percentage points — from 11.4% to 23.4%⁷. Crucially, this growth was observed across all demographic groups regardless of sex, race, or income level⁸.

Anxiety disorders. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety disorders and depression jumped by 25%⁹. But the pandemic merely accelerated a trend already underway: a systematic rise in anxiety had been documented since the early 2010s, well before any lockdowns¹⁰.

Suicide. In the United States, the age-adjusted suicide rate rose 35% between 1999 and 2018 — from 10.5 to 14.2 per 100,000¹¹. Among young people aged 10–24, the rate increased 62% between 2007 and 2021¹². Among children aged 10–14, it tripled over the same period¹².

Loneliness. In 1990, 3% of American men reported having no close friends. By 2021, that figure had reached 15% — a fivefold increase¹³. The share of Americans overall reporting no close friends grew from under 3% to 12%¹³, and by 2024 had reached 15%¹⁴. Time spent with friends in person fell from 60 minutes per day in 2003 to 20 minutes in 2020¹⁵. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General officially declared loneliness a public health emergency, equating its impact on life expectancy with smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

In some European countries between 2006 and 2015, loneliness growth was less pronounced, and certain population groups showed a decline¹⁶. This does little to alter the global trend.

Subjective life satisfaction. Despite rising incomes, average happiness scores in developed countries have stagnated since the 1970s — a phenomenon known as the Easterlin Paradox. Within any given country, wealthier individuals report greater happiness than poorer ones in the short term, but long-run GDP growth does not translate into sustained gains in societal well-being. In the United States, real incomes tripled over seven decades, yet happiness levels remained roughly flat or slightly declined¹⁸. An analysis of Gallup World Poll data from 2009–2019 across more than 150 countries found that in developed nations the association between GDP growth and life satisfaction is statistically weak¹⁹.

An important caveat: this paradox applies primarily to high-income countries. In less developed economies, GDP growth still produces significant improvements in well-being. For wealthy societies, the key drivers of happiness shift away from income and toward social factors — healthcare, close relationships, institutional trust, and personal freedoms¹⁷.

1.3. Why This Is a Paradox

Suffering itself is not news. People have always suffered. What is paradoxical is the trajectory: conditions improve steadily while dissatisfaction grows. Two curves that intuition says should move together are moving apart.

Simple explanations cover only a fraction of the picture.

"People aren't suffering more — they're just complaining more." The stigma surrounding mental illness has indeed declined, and diagnostic practices have improved. But the rise in suicides is an objective behavioral marker, immune to complaint inflation. In the United States, the number of suicides reached a record 49,500 in 2022 — the highest figure in several decades²⁰. Rising antidepressant prescriptions and psychiatric emergency room visits confirm that the reporting reflects real changes.

"It's economic inequality and poverty." Inequality does correlate with psychological distress. But the rise in depression is observed among affluent groups as well. In the United States, the steepest increases in depression have been recorded simultaneously in the lowest and highest income brackets⁸. And loneliness turns out to be less income-dependent than expected: among Americans earning more than $100,000, 18% report feeling lonely²¹.

"We're being poisoned — by corporations, toxins, depleted food." Certain environmental and nutritional risks are real and measurable. But collapsing the global trend into a single malicious source does not hold up: dissatisfaction is rising across countries with vastly different environmental standards, across different climate zones, and across different social groups.

1.4. Two Dimensions

The paradox points to a gap between two realities.

The first is objective conditions: income, health, safety, access to resources — everything measurable from the outside. This reality is steadily improving.

The second is subjective experience: how a person feels about their life from the inside — satisfaction, sense of meaning, emotional state. This reality does not track the first.

The intuitive model assumes a direct link: better conditions → better experience. The data show a more complicated relationship. Objective conditions are a necessary but not sufficient factor.

This shifts the focus. The question is not "how do we improve conditions" — that matters and is already happening. The question is: why does improving conditions fail to translate into improved experience?

1.5. Three Levels of Analysis

An answer requires analysis on three levels.

The level of mechanism. How is the system that produces subjective experience structured? Why does the brain respond to improving conditions differently than intuition predicts? This is a question about the neurobiology of emotion, the workings of the dopamine system, and hedonic adaptation.

The level of context. What features of the modern environment create conditions for dissatisfaction? What has changed not only in the quantity of goods but in the structure of daily life — in the information environment, in social bonds, in rhythm and purpose?

The level of practice. What can be done — not at the level of reorganizing society but at the level of the individual? Which interventions work, and which conditions are amenable to change?

1.6. Reframing the Problem

Instrumental Nihilism is an attempt to answer these questions.

The name may be misleading at first. But nihilism here does not mean a rejection of meaning. It designates a model that recognizes subjective experience as the only thing a person deals with directly. Everything else — conditions, achievements, status — matters only insofar as it affects that experience. The model abandons the search for external guarantees of satisfaction, whether wealth, relationships, accomplishments, or metaphysical meaning.

The focus is on understanding the mechanism. The task is reframed: not "how do I find the thing that will make me satisfied" but "how does the system that produces satisfaction work, and how can conditions for its stable functioning be created?"

Part II. Why This Is Happening

2.1. Environmental Mismatch

The architecture of the human brain is the product of millions of years of natural selection. Its core systems of motivation, stress, reward, and social behavior were shaped in an environment radically different from the one that exists today. The evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman of Harvard calls the consequences of this gap "mismatch diseases" — conditions that arise not because the organism is broken, but because the body and brain are operating in an environment they were never designed for²².

The crux of the problem is a difference in pace. The environment has changed in abrupt leaps: agriculture appeared roughly 10,000 years ago, industrialization 200 years ago, the internet 30 years ago. Biological evolution operates on timescales of tens and hundreds of thousands of years. As Randolph Nesse and George Williams argued in their foundational work on evolutionary medicine, many modern afflictions are explained not by something being wrong with the organism, but by the organism responding correctly — to an environment that has changed faster than it can adapt²³.

The specific manifestations of this mismatch touch every major system. Calories were scarce in ancestral environments, so the brain especially rewards the intake of sugar and fat; in an environment of abundance, this mechanism drives overeating. Threats were physical and acute, so the stress system is calibrated for short-term mobilization; in the modern environment, it fires in response to an email from a manager and runs chronically, never switching off. Information was rare, so the brain avidly consumes novelty; in a continuous information stream, this produces overload. The group was a condition of survival, so isolation registers as an existential threat — yet the groups in which the brain evolved numbered around 150 people, by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar's estimate²⁴. Today they are measured in the thousands.

2.2. What Changed in the Structure of Life

For most of human history, the question "what should I do?" did not arise. Activity was dictated by necessity: labor, interrupted by sleep and holidays. Direction came from outside — food had to be procured, territory defended, offspring raised. Motivation was built into the conditions themselves.

By the early twenty-first century, the average resident of a developed country commands an amount of free time unprecedented for any of their ancestors. Household appliances have reduced domestic labor. Medicine has extended active life. The workweek has shrunk — from over 60 hours in the nineteenth century to roughly 40 by the mid-twentieth²⁵. This is a genuine achievement. But it has created a situation for which there is no evolutionary preparation: the need to generate direction on one's own.

At the same time, the structures that once supplied direction by default have weakened. Religious systems have lost their former defining role: in the United States, the share of adults who identify with no religion rose from 16% in 2007 to 28% in 2023²⁶. Stable communities have come apart — a process documented in detail by Robert Putnam in the landmark study Bowling Alone. He showed that by the end of the twentieth century, American participation in every form of civic organization — from religious groups to clubs, from labor unions to parent–teacher associations — was in systematic decline²⁷. Inherited roles have vanished; geographic and social mobility have severed the continuity between generations.

People gained the freedom to choose but not the tools to exercise it. Freedom without the skill to use it is experienced not as opportunity but as burden. The existentialists described this condition in the middle of the twentieth century — but back then it was the province of philosophers. Now it is a mass experience.

2.3. The Information Environment

Before the twentieth century, information about the world beyond one's immediate surroundings arrived rarely and slowly. Newspapers, then radio, then television gradually expanded the information field — but the flow remained manageable.

The internet and the smartphone produced a qualitative break. For the first time in history, information arrives continuously, and every individual is plugged into a global stream of events in real time. Algorithms optimize content not for benefit but for engagement — and engagement is captured by whatever activates ancient systems: threats, conflict, status signals, sexual stimuli, novelty. The algorithms discovered this empirically and exploit it. Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, systematized the evidence for how this transformation has affected mental health — adolescents in particular²⁸.

The consequences hit multiple systems simultaneously.

Chronic stress activation. The news feed delivers threats from around the world without interruption. A stress system tuned for rare acute dangers receives a constant stream of signals. Chronic low-grade stress is a fundamentally different state from acute stress followed by recovery: the body is poorly adapted to it, and the consequences — from sleep disruption to chronic inflammation — accumulate over time.

Distorted social comparison. Instead of comparing themselves with neighbors or members of their group, people now compare themselves with the curated highlights of thousands of strangers. The comparison is structurally unwinnable: against the best moments of the best lives, ordinary life always looks pale. Research consistently shows that passive consumption of social media is associated with reduced subjective well-being²⁹.

Attention fragmentation. Constant notifications, task-switching, and microdoses of stimulation erode the capacity for sustained concentration. Gloria Mark of the University of California found that the average span of uninterrupted focus on a single screen shrank from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to roughly 47 seconds by 2021³⁰. States that require immersion — creative work, deep relationships, complex thinking — become progressively harder to reach.

Displacement of real interaction. Social media create the illusion of connection without its substance. Likes and comments activate the social reward system, but they do not deliver what actual contact provides: co-presence, bodily cues, shared experience. As shown in Part I, face-to-face time spent with friends dropped to a third of its previous level over two decades¹⁵ — and social media have not compensated for the loss.

2.4. The Reward System Under New Conditions

One of the key neurobiological discoveries of recent decades concerns how the dopamine system actually works. The research of Wolfram Schultz and colleagues demonstrated that dopamine neurons do not encode pleasure directly. They encode reward prediction error — the difference between what was expected and what was received³¹.

The logic is straightforward. If the reward exceeds expectation, a burst of dopamine fires — a signal meaning "remember this, repeat it." If the reward matches expectation, firing stays at baseline — "nothing new." If the reward falls short of expectation, dopamine drops — a signal meaning "something is wrong, adjust behavior."

This mechanism explains the phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation (the hedonic treadmill), a term coined by Brickman and Campbell in 1971³². A salary raise feels good at the moment it is announced; within a month, it has become the new normal, and the dopamine signal returns to baseline. In the famous 1978 study, Brickman and colleagues found that lottery winners were, after some time, not significantly happier than a control group³³. The system is tuned not for satisfaction with what has been achieved but for detecting change and deviations from expectation.

In ancestral environments, this tuning was adaptive. Resources were limited, the drive for more improved survival odds, and the environment itself imposed a ceiling — beyond a certain point, there was simply nothing more to obtain.

In an environment of abundance, the mechanism creates a treadmill. Each achievement is normalized. The next goal quickly becomes the new baseline. Satisfaction is structurally located "ahead" and never "now." The digital environment amplifies the effect: social media, games, and streaming platforms are optimized for variable reinforcement — the most addictive pattern described in behavioral psychology³⁴. Unpredictable rewards (likes, an interesting post, a win) keep the dopamine system in a state of perpetual anticipation. Against this backdrop, ordinary reality, lacking that intensity of stimulation, begins to feel flat.

Alongside the individual mechanisms described above, collective processes are unfolding that amplify their effect.

Weakening bonds. The data cited in Part I reveal the scale: the number of close friends is declining¹³ ¹⁴, in-person time spent with others is shrinking¹⁵, membership in organizations, clubs, and religious communities is falling²⁷. Putnam showed that this process cuts across every form of civic engagement — from political participation to informal socializing²⁷. People increasingly exist as isolated units, surrounded by digital simulacra of connection.

Polarization. The gap between positions is growing not only in politics but in the perception of reality itself. According to the Pew Research Center, the ideological distance between supporters of the two major U.S. parties has been widening steadily since 1994, while the share of Americans holding mixed ideological views declined from 43% in 1992 to 34% in 2024³⁵. Social media algorithms generate information bubbles: a person sees confirmation of their own views and a caricature of opposing ones. The shared space of meaning fragments.

Erosion of trust. Institutional trust has been declining for decades. In 1958, 73% of Americans trusted the federal government. By 2023, the figure stood at 16% — the lowest point in over sixty years of polling³⁶. Average American confidence in major institutions — from the Supreme Court to the media to organized religion — sits at historic lows³⁷. The world is increasingly perceived as a place where everyone is on their own.

These processes reinforce one another. An isolated individual is more vulnerable to manipulation. A polarized society generates more stress. Distrust destroys the possibilities for cooperation, and the absence of cooperation deepens distrust. Human beings remain social animals with brains wired for life in a group²⁴ — but the groups in which they evolved no longer exist.

2.6. Summary: A Systemic Explanation

The Well-Being Paradox is neither a mystery nor an accident. It is the predictable result of interacting factors, each of which is supported by evidence.

The first is evolutionary mismatch: a brain built on ancient architecture operating in an environment it was never designed for. Mechanisms selected for survival on the savanna systematically misfire in a modern city.

The second is structural vacuum: external sources of direction — necessity, tradition, stable community — have disappeared or weakened, and nothing has taken their place as a mass mechanism of orientation.

The third is information overload: a continuous stream of stimuli activates the stress and comparison systems in a mode for which they were not intended.

The fourth is exploitation of vulnerabilities: algorithms and business models have found and are leveraging the weak points of ancient systems — from the dopaminergic to the social.

The fifth is social atomization: the bonds that once provided resilience have been severed, and new forms of interaction have not compensated for the loss.

Any one of these factors alone would create difficulties. Together, they produce an environment that systematically generates dissatisfaction amid objectively good conditions. Crucially, none of these factors is the result of anyone's malicious intent. All are byproducts of processes that are individually rational or neutral. This point — the self-organizing nature of the problem — will become central in Part III.

2.7. What Follows

Understanding the mechanism changes how the problem is framed.

The intuitive frame goes something like this: "if I am dissatisfied, it means I am not successful enough — I need to achieve a bit more, earn a bit more, find the right thing." Within this frame, personal success looks like the answer.

The trouble is that the data do not support it. Hedonic adaptation guarantees that every achievement is normalized³². Success improves objective conditions, but it does not switch off the mechanism: successful, wealthy, accomplished people find themselves caught in the same trends of anxiety, burnout, and eroding resilience — because their brains are wired the same way and operate in the same information environment.

The conclusion follows: if the causes are systemic, then personal achievement cannot be a fundamental answer. It can soften symptoms, expand freedom of action, and increase security — but it does not eliminate the source. This is not an argument against success. It is an argument against the expectation that success will "close" the problem of dissatisfaction.

A further question arises: if the causes are systemic, perhaps the system itself needs to change?

The next part explains why that path is less straightforward than it appears — and where the real point of leverage lies.

Part III. Why You Can't Just Fix the System

3.1. The Natural Reaction

Parts I and II described the problem and its causes. The reaction is predictable: if dissatisfaction is the consequence of systemic factors, the system needs to change. Regulate the algorithms, constrain inequality, rebuild communities, reform media.

This reaction is logical. It is not wrong — everything listed is worth doing. But it rests on an assumption that requires scrutiny: that there exists a concrete way to take the system under control and steer it in the right direction.

This part shows why that assumption does not survive contact with reality. Not because "nothing can be changed," but because the nature of change is structured differently than it appears.

3.2. Self-Organization

Most of the processes described in the previous part have no author.

Nobody designed social atomization. It is the byproduct of millions of individual decisions: relocating for a job, choosing the convenience of solitude, spending an evening on the phone. Each decision is reasonable on its own.

Nobody designed the exploitation of ancient reward systems. Algorithms surface content that holds attention. Engineers optimize the metrics set by managers. Managers report to investors. Investors want returns. At every link in the chain, the action is rational. The output is an environment that systematically undermines psychological resilience.

Nobody planned the growth of inequality. Every participant in the economy acts in their own interest: a company cuts costs, a worker seeks better conditions, an investor allocates capital, a politician responds to the demands of voters and donors. The result is an escalating concentration of resources that no one specifically intended.

This is not chaos. It is self-organization: the emergence of order without a governing center³⁸. Birds in a flock do not follow commands from a leader — each reacts to its neighbors, and from these interactions coherent movement arises. Market prices are not set by a plan — each participant pursues their own advantage, and from millions of decisions a price structure emerges. Languages are not designed by committees — they evolve through use.

Social processes work the same way. And that is precisely why they are so difficult to control.

3.3. The Temptation of Conspiracy

Self-organization is hard to perceive. The brain is adapted to look for agents³⁹. If something large-scale is happening, someone must be behind it.

Hence conspiratorial thinking. Inequality is growing — the elites must have colluded. Media are destroying attention — it must be someone's plan. Communities are falling apart — someone must benefit.

The explanation is appealing because it offers a solution: find the guilty parties, stop them, and the problem disappears. Appealing — but wrong on the essential point. Not in the details (lobbyists, collusion, and corruption do exist), but in the foundational model: the idea that a unified design stands behind the observed processes.

The difference is fundamental. A conspiracy can be exposed: documents found, witnesses identified, connections traced. A self-organizing process cannot, because there is nothing to expose. There is no master plan. There is no headquarters. Each participant acts on their own motives, often within the law, often with indifferent or even good intentions.

This does not remove responsibility. But it changes the understanding of where to look for leverage.

3.4. How Power Concentrates

Everyone who holds resources seeks to protect and expand them — a basic behavior described in Part II as a manifestation of the security system. A CEO increases profits because their position depends on it. A politician strengthens their electoral base because their office depends on it. A media platform fights for engagement because its revenue depends on it.

None of these people thinks: "now I will concentrate power." Each is solving their own problem. But the aggregate result is precisely concentration. Resources beget resources: capital generates income, influence opens doors, information confers advantage. The feedback loops are positive — the system amplifies imbalance rather than correcting it.

In parallel, the fragmentation of the governed makes control easier. United workers demand improvements. Fragmented workers compete with one another for the remaining positions. United voters push for change. Fragmented voters vote against each other. This is not a conspiracy. It is simply that a system in which subjects are fragmented is easier to manage — and therefore evolves in that direction.

The data confirm it. In 1965, the head of a major corporation earned 21 times the average worker's pay. By 2020, the ratio was 351 to one⁴⁰. The income share captured by the top 1% rose from 10% in 1978 to 19% by 2018⁴¹. The American middle class shrank from 61% of the population in 1971 to 50% in 2021⁴². This is not the result of a decision made in a single room. It is the result of millions of decisions made in millions of rooms.

3.5. What Power Does to a Person

The concentration of power is not merely an economic phenomenon. It has a biological substrate.

Research shows that power physically alters cognitive processes. People in positions of power are worse at recognizing others' emotions and less inclined to take others' perspectives into account. In one experiment, subjects primed with a high sense of power were three times more likely to draw the letter E on their forehead oriented so that only they could read it⁴³. Power increases risk-taking and inflates the assessment of one's own contribution. The neurophysiological mechanism has been confirmed: the experience of power reduces motor resonance — the activity of mirror neurons responsible for empathic perception of others' actions⁴⁴. Two decades of research by Dacher Keltner crystallized into what he called the "power paradox": the qualities that help a person gain influence — empathy, attentiveness to others, generosity — are eroded by the very experience of holding power⁴⁵.

These changes are not accidental. A leader who hesitates and over-empathizes is less effective. Power selects for a particular psychological profile — and reinforces its corresponding traits. A person does not merely occupy a position; they become someone different.

This closes the loop. Power concentrates because its holders pursue resources. Power changes its holders, making them less sensitive to the consequences for others. The changed holders make decisions that deepen concentration. The circle is complete — and there is no malice in it. There is a mechanism.

3.6. Ideology as an Overlay

It often seems that the problems can be solved by choosing the right ideology. If only the "right" people with the "right" views held power, everything would change.

This is not borne out. Left and right, liberal and conservative — these are real categories, but they operate within the constraints of the system. Politicians' actions rarely match the ideology of any textbook. A liberal in Africa and a liberal in Europe hold radically different positions, though they use the same word. Ideas influence actions, but human nature — the drive for status, resources, security — sets the boundaries of what is possible.

The pattern is visible in a regularity: whatever force comes to power, after a few cycles it begins reproducing the same patterns it promised to eliminate. Not because everyone is a hypocrite, but because the structure of positions shapes behavior more powerfully than beliefs do.

Exceptions exist — tipping points when ideas genuinely restructure the system. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid, the digital revolution. But these moments are not refutations of the logic; they are part of it. Crises accumulate until the system loses stability. The break comes not because someone "finally stepped up," but because tension exceeded the threshold.

3.7. Self-Organization Is Not Only Destructive

It would be a distortion to describe only the negative self-organizing processes. The same mechanisms produce positive phenomena as well.

Wikipedia is a body of knowledge created by hundreds of thousands of people for free. Linux is the software on which much of the world's infrastructure runs. Stack Overflow, GitHub, Reddit — knowledge systems that emerged from millions of individual contributions with no master plan.

The sequencing of DNA, the fight against pandemics, international environmental agreements — these are examples of global cooperation that would have been impossible in the past. Imperfect, slow, but real.

Crowdfunding campaigns, emergency relief funds, volunteer networks — after disasters, aid now mobilizes within hours at scales that were unreachable before the internet.

Why are negative processes more visible? Because the brain is adapted to detect threats. Media exploit this bias, because threat captures attention. Positive processes tend to be slow and distributed. They are harder to notice, but they are real.

The world is not simply getting worse or simply getting better. It is becoming different. The question is not "how do we stop the changes" but "how do we act in an environment that changes according to its own logic?"

3.8. The Biology Trap

All the mechanisms described above are not the result of anyone's mistake or ill will. They are expressions of how the biological species is built.

The drive for resources and status is a product of natural selection⁴⁶. Those who did not stockpile did not survive lean times. Those who did not rise in the hierarchy did not gain access to mates.

In the absence of countermeasures, there is a persistent tendency toward the concentration of power for as long as the holders of that power are members of Homo sapiens. Algorithms will always exploit vulnerabilities for as long as those vulnerabilities exist.

This is not a sentence. Understanding the mechanism makes it possible to build checks: democratic institutions, separation of powers, antitrust regulation, the rule of law — all of these are attempts to create structures resistant to biological inclinations. They work imperfectly, but better than their absence.

Yet none of these checks eliminates the pressure. Each merely redirects it. Human nature is not a bug to be patched. It is the operating system on which everything runs.

3.9. Where the Lever Is

Return to the question posed at the end of Part II: if the causes of dissatisfaction are systemic, does the system need to change?

The answer is both yes and no.

Yes — because institutions, regulation, and environments are amenable to change. A person who builds a company changes the lives of employees. A person who participates in politics shifts the probabilities of outcomes. A person who raises children shapes the next generation. External action is real and has consequences.

No — because the expectation that changing the system will solve the problem of subjective dissatisfaction is not supported. Countries with better institutions, less inequality, and stronger social safety nets still show rising trends in mental health difficulties among young people⁴⁷. More slowly — but in the same direction. Because the cause lies not only in the system. It lies in the mismatch between the architecture of the brain and any modern environment.

It follows that external changes are necessary but insufficient. There is another variable — the state of the person who acts.

The environment shapes the individual: anxiety narrows attention, media provoke reactivity, instability breeds chaotic decisions. A person caught in these processes does not act from their own purposes but as a relay for external signals. Their political stance is a reaction to a social media post. Their career decisions are responses to others' expectations. Their relationships are attempts to fill a void.

This is not an argument for conformism — "nothing can be changed, so give up." It is an observation about sequence: the quality of external action depends on the stability of the person performing it. Not because this is "more virtuous," but because that is how causality works. From a chaotic source, chaotic consequences.

Working with one's own states is not an alternative to external action but its precondition. First, understanding the mechanism. Then, action that is not merely reaction.

The next part describes a framework that makes it possible to organize such work.

Part IV. The Fulcrum

4.1. From Diagnosis to Question

The three preceding parts described a mechanism. Objective living conditions are steadily improving, yet subjective experience does not follow — the Well-Being Paradox. The cause lies in the architecture of a brain shaped for an environment that no longer exists: evolutionary systems of stress, reward, and social comparison generate chronic dissatisfaction amid abundance. External solutions — regulation, reform, policy — are necessary but insufficient, because the root of the problem runs deeper than any particular system.

From this diagnosis a question follows: if the causes of dissatisfaction are structural and cannot be fully eliminated either by external means or by identifying a culprit, what remains?

A fulcrum is needed. Not an ideology, not a belief system, not a doctrine — but a working framework, adopted on the criterion of usefulness. That framework is Instrumental Nihilism.

4.2. Two Words

The name is chosen deliberately, and each word carries weight.

Nihilism, in the philosophical tradition, is the denial of objective foundations for values and meaning. Nietzsche described it as the condition in which "the highest values devalue themselves"⁴⁸. Camus called the collision between the human need for meaning and the silence of the world the absurd⁴⁹. Nagel showed that the sense of absurdity arises from the human capacity to view one's own life from the outside — and to discover that no justification is final⁵⁰.

Instrumental Nihilism accepts this premise as a working hypothesis: in all likelihood, there is no objective existential meaning — no meaning that exists independently of the observer. This is not a claim of absolute certainty. It is an acknowledgment that the question is irresolvable, and that spending limited resources on a problem with no solution is an inefficient allocation of effort.

But the word instrumental changes everything. Classical nihilism stops at negation. In its extreme form, it paralyzes: if nothing matters, why act? Instrumental Nihilism uses negation as a starting point, not a conclusion. The question "what is the meaning of life?" is set aside — not because it is foolish, but because it has no verifiable answer. In its place stands a question that is amenable to investigation: "how does experience work, and what influences it?"

This is closer to the pragmatism of William James than to European existentialism: an idea is evaluated not by its metaphysical truth but by its consequences for the life of the person who adopts it⁵¹.

4.3. What Follows from This

Several consequences flow from adopting this position.

First: the only thing a person deals with directly is their states. Not the world, but the perception of the world. Not events, but the experience of events. The sense of meaningfulness is one such state. It arises under certain conditions: engagement in activity, connection with others, a feeling of competence, the presence of a goal⁵². These conditions can be studied, created, and maintained — not as self-deception but as an engineering problem.

Second: relying on external conditions as the sole source of well-being is an unreliable strategy. Not because good conditions are impossible, but because the mechanisms that shape them, as Part III showed, are indifferent to that goal. Work, relationships, and accomplishments produce a sense of meaningfulness — but they can also disappear, change, or stop working. A person who lacks understanding of the internal mechanism is entirely dependent on circumstances. A person who understands the mechanism has an additional point of support.

Third: working with states is not escapism. Between action and outcome in the external world lie numerous factors beyond reach. Between changing inputs (environment, practices, interpretations) and changing states, there are fewer intermediaries. This is not "control" in the sense of willfully commanding emotions. It is access: a point where intervention has a shorter causal chain.

4.4. What Does Not Follow

Instrumental Nihilism is easily confused with several positions it is not.

It does not claim that "everything is meaningless." Teleological meaning — the meaning of an action within the frame of a goal — exists and functions. Building a house, treating a patient, writing a text — all of these are meaningful within the scope of the task. The position concerns only one level: existential meaning, the kind that exists outside and prior to any goal.

It does not claim that values are illusory. Values are a fact of psychic life. They guide behavior, shape preferences, define the boundaries of the permissible. Their metaphysical status — whether they are "objective" or "subjective" — does not affect their functional reality. A person who values honesty acts differently from one who does not. This difference is real regardless of whether honesty is inscribed somewhere in the structure of the universe.

It does not abolish morality. The absence of an external lawgiver changes the status of morality but does not eliminate it. Empathy is part of the neurobiological architecture⁵³. The consequences of actions are real. Long-term interests are real. A morality built on these foundations is binding not because God or the universe commanded it, but because that is how human beings and their shared life are constituted. This does not make it arbitrary — it makes it empirical.

It is not individualism in the ideological sense. Recognizing that the lever is internal does not mean denying connection. Quite the opposite: understanding the mechanism of states includes understanding the role of relationships in shaping them. Connection with others is one of the most robust sources of certain states. What is proposed is understanding what is happening, not withdrawing into isolation.

4.5. Obvious Questions

Instrumental Nihilism provokes predictable objections. Some of them point to real limitations.

"If there is no meaning, why not kill yourself?" The question assumes that continuing to live requires justification. But causality runs in the other direction. Continuation is the biological default. The organism is wired for survival. Cessation requires active action against that wiring. The question "why live?" is a cognitive artifact: a brain capable of asking questions asks this one too. But from the fact that the question can be formulated, it does not follow that an answer is needed in order to go on living. Camus opened The Myth of Sisyphus with the same question — and arrived at the conclusion that the experience of life itself is sufficient reason to continue⁴⁹.

"This only works for the privileged." Partially true. Working with states requires resources: time, safety, a baseline level of well-being. A person in acute need is occupied with survival. But this is not an argument against the position — it is a description of its domain of applicability. It is addressed to those whose basic needs are met and for whom the question "what next?" remains unanswered. The number of such people is growing, and it is precisely among them that the dissatisfaction described in Part I is rising.

"This is a rationalization of helplessness." Helplessness in regard to what? In regard to metaphysical questions — yes. But acknowledging helplessness before the irresolvable is not defeat. Real helplessness is spending a life on a problem that has no solution while failing to notice the problems that do.

"What if objective meaning does exist after all?" Then the position can be revised. It is adopted on the criterion of usefulness, not on the criterion of ultimate truth. If it turns out that meaning exists — excellent. Until then, the work proceeds with what is available.

4.6. Connection to Practice

A position without practice is an academic exercise. The practical dimension of Instrumental Nihilism consists of systematically investigating the links between inputs and states.

Which actions, circumstances, relationships, and practices lead to which experiences? How does the mechanism of mood, energy, and engagement work? Which interventions are effective and which are not? Which work for some people and not for others?

This investigation is necessarily individual. General patterns exist — neurobiology, psychology, and medicine have accumulated a substantial body of data. But their application requires calibration to a specific constitution. Metabolism, genetics, personal history, temperament — all of these vary. There is no universal prescription. There is a method: observation, experiment, recording, adjustment.

The next part describes the foundation — the scientific basis.

Part V. The Scientific Foundation

5.1. Why This Part Is Needed

Without empirical grounding, Instrumental Nihilism is just another philosophical speculation. Elegant, perhaps internally consistent — but speculation nonetheless. The preceding parts built the argument: the architecture of the brain is ill-suited to the environment that civilization has created; evolutionary systems generate chronic dissatisfaction; external solutions are necessary but insufficient; the only point of direct access is one's own states.

All of this remains a set of assertions until it has been shown why states are amenable to change, how the mechanism that produces them is structured, and on what grounds it can be claimed that interventions work.

This part describes the scientific foundation. Not every theory presented here is uncontested — some are actively debated. But taken together, they form a picture robust enough to build a practice on. Each section describes one part of the mechanism. At the end, they converge into an integrative model.

5.2. The Predictive Brain

The intuitive picture of perception — sense organs collect data, transmit them to the brain, and the brain processes them into a picture of reality — is inaccurate. The scientific picture is more complex and, in certain respects, counterintuitive.

The brain does not wait for incoming data. It continuously generates predictions about what should arrive from the senses and compares those predictions with the actual signals. Perception is not a photograph but an ongoing process of matching expectations against reality⁵⁴.

At every moment, the brain constructs a model: "given everything I know, the signals I should be receiving right now are these." If the prediction matches reality, the signal is suppressed — it requires no attention. This is why a person does not notice the ticking of a clock they have grown accustomed to, or the sensation of clothing on the body. If the prediction does not match, a prediction error arises: a signal that the model is inaccurate.

The error triggers one of two processes: model updating — the brain adjusts its internal representation in order to predict more accurately (this is learning) — or action — the brain changes not the model but the world, performing an action that will bring reality into alignment with the prediction⁵⁵.

The empirical base for predictive processing is extensive. Meta-analyses show that the brain systematically suppresses expected stimuli and amplifies unexpected ones — an effect replicated across studies of visual perception, audition, and motor control⁵⁶. Karl Friston formalized the idea in the free energy principle, a mathematical framework that describes the behavior of any self-organizing system as the minimization of surprise (variational free energy)⁵⁷. It is one of the most influential contemporary theories in neuroscience, though also a contested one: critics point out that in its most general formulation it is too all-encompassing and difficult to falsify⁵⁸. Nevertheless, its specific predictions — about perception, attention, learning — are consistent with experimental data.

For Instrumental Nihilism, the relevance of this theory is direct. A chronic mismatch between predictions and reality is experienced as discomfort. If the internal model predicts that life should have an obvious meaning but reality does not confirm this, a persistent prediction error arises, experienced as existential anxiety. Two paths follow: update the model (revise expectations) or change the inputs (create conditions that match the expectations). Both are part of the practice.

5.3. Interoception and the Body Budget

The brain's predictions are directed not only outward but also inward, toward the body. Interoception is the perception of internal signals: heartbeat, breathing, temperature, hunger, muscular tension. The brain uses these signals not merely as information but as the basis for regulating the entire organism.

The classical model of regulation is homeostasis: the system reacts to a deviation from a set point and returns parameters to their specified values. A more accurate model is allostasis, proposed by Peter Sterling: the brain does not wait for a deviation but predicts the body's needs and prepares resources in advance, before they are required⁵⁹. Heart rate accelerates before physical exertion begins, not after. Cortisol rises before waking, not in response to it.

Lisa Feldman Barrett has offered a metaphor that makes this process vivid: the brain maintains a "body budget"⁶⁰. It tracks expenditures (stress, activity, cognition, thermoregulation) and deposits (sleep, food, rest). When expenditures chronically exceed deposits, the result is allostatic overload: a state of chronic resource deficit.

The neurobiological substrate of this process has been mapped. Studies using 7-Tesla fMRI have identified an allostatic–interoceptive network: the anterior cingulate cortex, the insular cortex, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus — structures simultaneously involved in bodily regulation and emotional states⁶¹. A review in Biological Psychiatry shows that disruptions to allostatic–interoceptive processes are present in depression, anxiety disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases — this is not a mechanism specific to any single diagnosis but a transdiagnostic one⁶².

The practical implication is this: sleep, nutrition, and physical activity are not "healthy lifestyle" in the colloquial sense. They are literally inputs that affect the allostatic budget. Chronic sleep deprivation depletes the budget. Chronic stress without recovery leads to overload. States that seem "psychological" — apathy, irritability, a sense of meaninglessness — may have a bodily basis. A tired, hungry, sleep-deprived person perceives the world differently — not metaphorically but literally: their brain generates different predictions on the basis of a depleted budget.

5.4. The Construction of Emotions

The classical understanding of emotions — that fear, joy, and anger are innate programs with fixed patterns (a characteristic facial expression, a specific physiology, a dedicated brain signature) — does not withstand empirical scrutiny in its strict form. Meta-analyses show that the same emotion can be accompanied by different physiological patterns, and the same pattern can accompany different emotions⁶³.

The theory of constructed emotion, proposed by Lisa Feldman Barrett, offers an alternative: emotions are not detected by the brain as ready-made entities but are constructed from three components — interoceptive signals (what is happening in the body), conceptual categories (how culture and experience have taught the person to label it), and situational context⁶⁴. A racing heart can become "fear" on a dark street, "excitement" before a performance, or "infatuation" on a date. The bodily signal is the same — the experience differs.

The theory is contested. Critics — Jaak Panksepp and Mark Solms foremost among them — point to basic emotional systems in animals that function without conceptual categories: rats display patterns analogous to fear and playfulness without neocortical involvement⁶⁵. The debate continues, and the truth likely incorporates elements of both approaches: there exist basic affective states (pleasant/unpleasant, arousal/calm) that are then differentiated through concepts into finer emotional categories.

But even if the full version of the constructed emotion theory is disputed, one of its conclusions is robust: interpretation influences experience. Emotional granularity — the ability to distinguish fine shades of one's states — is associated with better emotional regulation⁶⁶. A person who can tell "sadness" apart from "disappointment" and from "fatigue" addresses the problem more precisely. This is not a semantic game — research shows that people with higher granularity resort less often to destructive regulatory strategies and exhibit lower stress reactivity.

5.5. The Reward System

The notion that dopamine is the "pleasure hormone" is one of the most persistent misconceptions in popular neuroscience. The work of Wolfram Schultz, beginning in the 1990s, revealed something more interesting: dopamine neurons encode not pleasure as such but reward prediction error — the difference between the expected and the received reward⁶⁷.

The mechanism works as follows. If the reward exceeds expectations, a burst of dopaminergic activity occurs. If the reward matches expectations, the dopamine signal remains at baseline. If the reward falls short of expectations, activity drops below baseline. Human fMRI studies confirm this model: dopamine signals in the striatum correlate with the unexpectedness of the reward, not with its absolute magnitude⁶⁸.

Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan added a critical distinction: wanting (motivation, drive — linked to dopamine) and liking (pleasure proper — linked to the opioid system) are separate neural systems⁶⁹. It is possible to intensely want something that brings no pleasure. Addiction operates precisely through this gap: a substance artificially triggers the dopamine signal, the system learns to expect an enormous reward, and intense wanting forms that is not accompanied by proportionate liking.

For Instrumental Nihilism, this mechanism explains hedonic adaptation — the phenomenon described in Part I. When a reward becomes predictable, the dopamine signal zeros out. A salary raise produces a burst at the moment of the announcement; within a month, the new salary has become the expected norm and ceases to generate a positive signal. This is not "ingratitude" and not a personality defect — it is a basic operating principle of a reward system that evolution tuned for seeking the new, not for resting in the achieved.

5.6. The Neurobiology of Decisions

In 1983, Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment whose results are still debated. Subjects were asked to flex a finger at an arbitrary moment and to note on a clock face when they "decided" to do so. Brain activity (EEG) was measured simultaneously. The result: brain activity associated with movement preparation (the readiness potential) began approximately 550 milliseconds before the action, while the conscious decision was registered only 200 milliseconds before it⁷⁰.

Subsequent fMRI experiments strengthened this finding. Chun Siong Soon and colleagues showed that, based on activity patterns in the frontopolar and parietal cortex, a decision could be predicted with roughly 60% accuracy 7–10 seconds before the subject became aware of it⁷¹. This exceeds chance level (50%) but falls far short of determinism — suggesting the complexity of the process rather than simple predetermination.

Interpretations of these data vary. Libet himself did not consider his experiments a refutation of free will: he spoke of a "free veto" — consciousness may not initiate action, but it can halt it in the final 100–150 milliseconds. A more conservative reading: the experiments show that awareness lags behind neural preparation⁷². This does not prove that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but it places the intuitive model of "I decide — the brain executes" under serious pressure.

The practical significance for Instrumental Nihilism: the focus shifts from "willpower" to creating conditions. If decisions are formed before they are consciously recognized, it is more effective to influence them by changing context, habits, and environment — the inputs the brain integrates as it shapes decisions — than through a volitional effort at the moment of choice.

5.7. The Default Mode Network and Rumination

The default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain structures most active during rest and self-referential thinking: reflection about the self, recollection of the past, planning for the future, modeling other people's perspectives. Its principal nodes are the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the inferior parietal lobule⁷³.

The DMN is not a "default network" in the sense of idling. It is an active process that consumes a substantial share of the brain's energy. Its function is the maintenance of the self-model, narrative identity, and social simulation. The problem begins when this process becomes dysfunctional.

Rumination — repetitive, unproductive thinking about problems and negative experiences — is consistently linked to DMN activity. A meta-analysis by Hamilton and colleagues found elevated functional connectivity between the DMN and the subgenual prefrontal cortex in people with major depressive disorder, with the degree of connectivity correlating with levels of rumination⁷⁴. Chow and colleagues refined the mechanism: individuals at high risk of depression show heightened DMN activation (specifically in the inferior parietal lobule) after receiving negative information about themselves, but not after positive information. The correlation between activation of this region following criticism and the level of rumination was r = 0.48⁷⁵.

Meditation is one of the most studied practices that reduce DMN activity. Brewer and colleagues showed that experienced meditators exhibit decreased activity in the DMN's key nodes (the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex) both during meditation and at rest⁷⁶. This is not merely "relaxation" — it is a measurable change in the operating pattern of the network responsible for self-referential thought.

For Instrumental Nihilism, the connection is direct. The question of the meaning of life is self-referential by nature. Under certain conditions — a negative affective background, the absence of external tasks, a depleted allostatic budget — the DMN can amplify rumination around this question, transforming it from an intellectual one into a tormenting one. Practices that reduce DMN activity — meditation, external focus, physical exercise — interrupt this cycle not because they "distract" but because they change the operating mode of the relevant neural networks.

5.8. Evolutionary Mismatch

Part II described the general logic of mismatch: a brain shaped for one environment operating in another. What needs to be specified here is the scientific status of that argument and its place in the model.

Evolutionary psychology as a discipline has methodological limitations: hypotheses about ancestral environments are difficult to test directly⁷⁷. But specific mismatches are well documented. The obesity epidemic is linked to an availability of calories to which the brain is not adapted⁷⁸. Chronic stress from non-lethal threats — deadlines, social evaluation, the news feed — activates the same HPA-axis systems as acute stress from a predator, but without the resolution that fighting or fleeing once provided⁷⁹. These are not speculative analogies — they are measurable physiological responses triggered by stimuli for which the system was never designed.

From this follows a counterintuitive conclusion: "following nature" in the modern world is not a solution but part of the problem. The brain says "eat sugar" in an environment where sugar is unlimited. The brain says "monitor threats" in an environment where the news feed delivers threats without pause. The brain says "compare yourself with those around you" in an environment where "those around you" are millions of people on social media. Understanding the mismatch makes it possible to design the environment with an awareness of how the brain responds — rather than relying on intuitions shaped for a different reality.

5.9. Neuroplasticity and Its Limits

The claim that states are amenable to change requires a neurobiological basis. That basis is neuroplasticity: the brain's capacity to alter its structure and function in response to experience.

Synaptic plasticity — the strengthening of connections through use and their weakening without it — has been described at the molecular level (long-term potentiation and depression). But plasticity also manifests at the macro level. Studies of London taxi drivers showed enlargement of the posterior hippocampus (a region associated with spatial navigation) proportional to years on the job⁸⁰. Structural differences have been found in bilinguals in areas associated with language switching⁸¹. Treatment for depression — both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic — is accompanied by measurable changes in the activity and connectivity of brain networks⁸².

But plasticity has limits, and an honest account requires stating them. It requires attention: unfocused repetition is less effective than deliberate practice. It requires sleep: memory consolidation and the reorganization of connections occur predominantly during slow-wave sleep⁸³. It requires time: structural changes take weeks and months. And it depends on age: critical periods of heightened plasticity exist, and though plasticity persists throughout life, it diminishes with age.

For the practice of Instrumental Nihilism, this means: change is possible but not instantaneous. The expectation of rapid results is itself a prediction error that leads to disappointment. Understanding the actual timescales of neuroplasticity sets realistic expectations and prevents premature abandonment of practices that require cumulative effect.

5.10. The Empirics of Meaning

The sense of meaningfulness in life is not only a philosophical category but also a subject of empirical psychology with developed measurement instruments.

Frank Martela and Michael Steger identified three dimensions of meaningfulness: coherence (the sense that life is comprehensible and has a logic), purpose (the sense of direction and the presence of significant goals), and significance (the sense that life has value)⁸⁴. These components are related but distinct: one can have goals yet not understand one's life; one can understand it yet not feel its significance. Each component is a separate point of application for effort.

A surprising empirical finding: meaningfulness is the norm, not the exception. A meta-analysis by Heintzelman and King, covering data from 27,635 participants, found that of 122 mean scores on meaningfulness scales, only 10 fell below the midpoint⁸⁵. People with serious diagnoses, cancer, addictions — on average they report levels of meaningfulness above the midpoint. This does not mean that problems with meaning do not exist. It means that an acute loss of meaning is not the default state but the result of specific conditions.

Research shows consistent correlations between meaningfulness and the quality of social bonds⁸⁶, the sense of connection between past, present, and future⁸⁷, and teleological beliefs — the feeling that life is moving in some direction⁸⁸. Correlations do not prove causation, but they point to directions: social bonds, narrative coherence, a sense of directedness — inputs associated with the experience of meaningfulness.

5.11. Integration

Each of the theories described illuminates one part of the mechanism. Together, they form a coherent, multilayered model.

At the base level, the brain is a predictive system, continuously generating expectations about the external world and the internal state of the body. A mismatch between prediction and reality — a prediction error — triggers either model updating or action.

One level up is the bodily foundation. Predictions about the body constitute the allostatic budget: the brain tracks the organism's resources, and a chronic deficit (sleep deprivation, stress, exhaustion) alters the baseline parameters of the entire system. Interoceptive signals from the body become the raw material from which emotions and states are constructed.

One level higher still is the construction of experience. Emotions and states arise from interoceptive signals, conceptual categories, and context. "A sense of meaninglessness" is not the detection of an objective fact about the world but a construct that emerges from a particular combination of bodily states, habitual interpretations, and situation.

Brain activity patterns add dynamics. The DMN maintains self-referential thought and, under certain conditions, can amplify rumination. The reward system directs attention toward the unexpected and the potentially valuable, but it does not generate sustained satisfaction — by design, it is tuned for seeking, not for rest.

All of these systems are products of evolutionary selection in an environment that differs from the present one. The mismatch creates systematic distortions: excessive reaction to non-lethal threats, pursuit of rewards that yield no lasting satisfaction, rumination on problems that cannot be solved by thinking.

And finally — plasticity. Despite all limitations, the system is capable of change. New inputs — environment, practices, information — gradually alter predictions, activity patterns, even the structure of connections.

From this model follows the practical logic of Instrumental Nihilism. Bodily inputs come first: sleep, nutrition, and movement affect the allostatic budget and, through it, every subsequent level. Interpretations influence experience: the same bodily signals are constructed into different states depending on the conceptual frame. The environment shapes predictions: the information surround, social contacts, physical space — all of these are inputs the brain integrates. Rumination is interrupted by mode-switching: meditation, external focus, physical activity alter the DMN's operating pattern. Change requires time: neuroplasticity is real but not instantaneous. And meaningfulness is a construct that can be investigated and whose conditions of emergence can be cultivated.

This is not proof of the "truth" of Instrumental Nihilism — the position makes no claim to metaphysical truth. It is a justification of its practices: an explanation of why working with inputs, states, and interpretations can be effective. Theories may be refined and revised. But the overall picture — the brain as a predictive system, states as constructs, change through inputs — is robust enough to build a method on.

The next part describes that method.

Part VI. The Model

6.1. From Theory to Tool

Parts I–V built the argument. The architecture of the brain generates chronic dissatisfaction in an environment it was not designed for. External solutions are necessary but insufficient. The only point of direct access is one's own states. The scientific foundation shows why those states are amenable to change: the brain is a predictive system, states are constructs, change happens through inputs.

But all of this remains theory without a model. A model is not a truth and not a discovery. It is a tool: a way of organizing knowledge so that it generates predictions and actions. The map is not the territory, but without a map navigation is impossible. A good model enables prediction: if X is changed, then Y will change with a certain probability. A bad model yields false predictions. The absence of a model is also a model — just an implicit one and, as a rule, a poor one⁸⁹.

The model of Instrumental Nihilism rests on the scientific findings described in Part V. Not because science provides definitive answers — it does not. But because scientific models are testable, correctable, and perform better than the alternatives. At the same time, a gap exists between scientific description and human life. Science answers the question "how does this work?" but does not say how to relate to the likelihood that free will in its intuitive sense does not exist, what to do with the question of meaning, which states are preferable, or why. That gap is filled by philosophy. Instrumental Nihilism is an attempt at such filling: take the scientific data and extract practical consequences from them.

6.2. The Person as a System

The central construct of the model: a person is a system that processes inputs according to its structure and produces outputs.

Structure is everything that determines how the system operates: genetics, developmental history, accumulated experience, the current state of neural connections, the microbiome, the hormonal profile. Structure is the product of gene–environment interaction across the entire lifespan⁹⁰. It changes — the neuroplasticity described in section 5.9 confirms this — but slowly, and not equally in all directions.

Inputs are everything that enters the system from outside. Physical: food, sleep, movement, substances, temperature, light. Informational: what a person sees, reads, hears, and thinks about. Social: interactions with other people, their reactions, position within a group. Environmental: where one is located and what surrounds one.

Outputs are what the system produces: behavior (actions, words, decisions) and internal states (mood, energy, a sense of meaningfulness or emptiness).

Consciousness, in this model, is not a commander issuing orders. It is a process that gains access to a portion of the system's states and labels them: this is good, this is bad, I want, I fear. The feeling of authorship and control is part of this process, not its source. The Libet and Soon experiments described in section 5.6 show that awareness of a decision lags behind neural preparation. This does not negate consciousness as a phenomenon — but it changes its status from governor to observer and, at best, corrector⁹¹.

This description may seem reductive. But reduction is not devaluation. To describe falling in love through oxytocin, dopamine, and vasopressin⁹² is not to say that love does not matter. It is to understand the mechanism through which it arises — and which inputs affect it.

6.3. Rethinking Familiar Concepts

If the model is accepted, several familiar concepts require revision.

Meaning. Objective existential meaning as an external entity waiting to be discovered most likely does not exist. But the subjective sense of meaningfulness does. It is a state that the system produces under certain inputs — engagement, connection, competence, directedness (section 5.10). It is real as an experience, even though it does not point to an external object. Martela and Steger showed that meaningfulness is measurable and decomposable into components⁸⁴. This makes it not less valuable but more amenable to deliberate work.

Freedom. Freedom as uncaused choice, breaking the chain of cause and effect, does not exist. Decisions are formed before they are consciously recognized. But freedom as the space of available inputs does exist. A person cannot "decide" to be happy by an act of will. But they can change their environment, their practices, their informational surroundings — and thereby alter the inputs from which the system constructs its states. Daniel Dennett called this compatibilism: freedom compatible with determinism is not an illusion but the only kind of freedom that has ever existed⁹³.

Values. There are no objective values existing independently of evaluating systems. Value is a label that the system produces. What gets labeled "good" or "bad" is determined by evolution and personal history. This does not devalue experience. Pain is real as pain. Pleasure is real as pleasure. They do not point to an observer-independent reality — they describe states of the system. But the states of the system are the only thing a person deals with directly, and in that sense they are more real than any metaphysical construction.

Judgments. From the foregoing, a conclusion follows that deserves separate attention. Most categories perceived as objective — "right" and "wrong," "fair" and "unfair," "good person" and "bad person" — are labels produced by systems. Different systems label differently. For one person, devoting a life to a career is right; for another, to family; for a third, to serving an idea. There is no external arbiter to determine whose labeling is true. This is not relativism in the sense of "all viewpoints are equally valid" — the consequences of actions remain real, and some labelings predict consequences better than others. It is a statement of fact: judgments are produced by systems, not discovered in reality. The assertion "I am a failure" is not a fact about the world but a label the system assigns to its current state according to certain criteria. Understanding this does not eliminate the experience, but it removes the surplus metaphysical weight.

6.4. What the System Requires

The system comes with an evolutionary inheritance. Millions of years of selection have left it with certain requirements. Ignoring them is like ignoring the technical specifications of a machine and being surprised by breakdowns. At the physical level, the requirements are well studied.

Sleep. Seven to nine hours for most adults. A single night of sleep deprivation impairs cognitive function to a degree comparable with alcohol intoxication: reaction time, working memory, and judgment all suffer to a similar extent⁹⁴. Chronic sleep deficit is associated with depression, metabolic disruption, and cardiovascular disease. During sleep, not only is memory consolidated⁸³, but metabolic waste is cleared via the glymphatic system⁹⁵.

Movement. A body shaped for 15–20 kilometers of walking per day and periodic bouts of intense exertion has been placed in an environment where a person sits for 8–12 hours. A sedentary lifestyle is an evolutionary anomaly. Physical activity regulates dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, lowers cortisol, and enhances neuroplasticity through the expression of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor)⁹⁶. Meta-analyses show that regular physical activity is comparable in efficacy to antidepressants for mild to moderate depression⁹⁷.

Nutrition. The system is calibrated for intermittent rather than continuous food intake, for variety, adequate protein, and sufficient micronutrients. Specific deficiencies produce specific consequences: low omega-3 fatty acids are associated with neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment⁹⁸, vitamin D deficiency correlates with depressive states⁹⁹, and magnesium deficiency with elevated anxiety¹⁰⁰.

Light. Circadian rhythms, regulated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, require bright light in the morning (to suppress melatonin and initiate the daytime cycle) and darkness in the evening (for its synthesis). Modern life inverts this: dim light indoors during the day and bright screens at night. The result is chronic circadian disruption, linked to disturbances in sleep, mood, and metabolism¹⁰¹.

At the social level, the requirements are no less stringent, though less obvious. Homo sapiens is an obligately social species. The brain contains systems that track group membership and position within the group. Social isolation activates neural systems that partially overlap with those for physical pain — not metaphorically but literally: the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex responds to social rejection in the same way it responds to physical discomfort¹⁰². Chronic loneliness elevates inflammatory markers, cortisol levels, and mortality risk by a magnitude comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day¹⁰³.

Physical contact is a distinct category of social input. Touch releases oxytocin and reduces cortisol¹⁰⁴. Touch deprivation in infants leads to developmental impairments — as shown by studies of children in Romanian orphanages¹⁰⁵. In adults, tactile deprivation is associated with heightened anxiety and impaired emotional regulation.

At the cognitive level, the system has three primary requirements that overlap with Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory⁵²:

Novelty: the dopamine system rewards the exploration of the new, and a complete absence of novelty leads to boredom, while an excess (endless scrolling) exploits the system without delivering real satisfaction — the brain loses the ability to build accurate predictions.

Competence: progress in a skill is rewarded, and the state of flow arises at the balance point between the difficulty of a task and current ability¹⁰⁶.

Autonomy: the sense of control over one's own actions is one of the basic conditions of well-being, and its systematic absence leads to learned helplessness — a state in which a person, having repeatedly encountered uncontrollable situations, stops trying to change anything even when the opportunity arises¹⁰⁷.

6.5. The Method

Everything said above is a description of the system. But Instrumental Nihilism is not merely a description. It is a method for working with the system. The method consists of five operations, performed iteratively.

The first operation is identifying the state. What am I experiencing? What is the appraisal? This requires a skill of interoceptive attention that many people have not developed. A person may feel that "something is off" without distinguishing what exactly: fatigue, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, hunger. Emotional granularity — the ability to differentiate fine shades of one's states — is not an innate trait but a skill that develops with practice (section 5.4)⁶⁶. The more precisely the state is identified, the more precisely the cause can be addressed.

The second operation is auditing the inputs. What inputs are acting on the system? Physical: how much sleep, what nutrition, whether there is movement, what substances are entering the system. Informational: what am I reading and watching, what thoughts are circulating, what occupies attention. Social: with whom and how am I interacting, is there a sense of belonging and physical contact. Environmental: where am I, what surrounds me, what is the light, what is the noise level. This audit is not a one-time exercise but a habit of systematic observation.

The third operation is formulating a hypothesis. Which inputs might be linked to the observed state? This requires either knowledge (what does the science say about the effect of a given factor?) or a willingness to experiment (change X, observe what happens to Y). The scientific literature provides general patterns. Individual calibration is the task of experiment.

The fourth operation is changing an input. Change what is available for change. Not everything is available — but within the available range there is variety. The criterion for selection is not "what is right in an absolute sense" but "what is more likely to shift the state in the desired direction." One input at a time, so that the change can be attributed.

The fifth operation is observation and adjustment. Did the state change? In which direction? Was the hypothesis confirmed? If not — a different hypothesis, a different input. This is an iterative process, not a one-off action. The scientific method, applied to one's own life¹⁰⁸.

6.6. The Logic in Practice

The method is abstract until it is shown how it works in concrete situations.

Chronic anxiety is one of the states where the model is especially useful. The traditional approach looks for a "cause" in biography, relationships, or trauma. This can be valuable, but it often leads to endless analysis that itself becomes a form of rumination. The approach through the model starts elsewhere: anxiety is a state of the system, produced under certain inputs and given a certain structure. Structure is hard to change. Inputs are easier to change.

Caffeine raises anxiety in a significant proportion of people through the blockade of adenosine receptors and the amplification of noradrenergic activity¹⁰⁹. Sleep deprivation increases amygdala reactivity to negative stimuli¹¹⁰. Magnesium deficiency is linked to heightened anxiety¹⁰⁰. Lack of physical activity deprives the system of a regulatory mechanism that lowers cortisol⁹⁶. The news feed contains predominantly threats, exploiting a hyperactive danger-detection system. Rumination, sustained by the DMN, reproduces the anxious state in a loop⁷⁴. Each of these inputs is a point for experiment. Drop caffeine for two weeks. Restrict news consumption to a fixed window. Add daily walking. Something will work; something will not. What works becomes the basis for refining the model and reinforcing the effective input.

The same method applies beyond problem-solving. A person learning a new skill — a language, an instrument, programming — habitually relies on "motivation" and "willpower." The model puts these concepts under scrutiny. The brain builds skills through repetition with feedback. Neuroplasticity is maximal with sufficient sleep (consolidation), moderate stress (attention without suppression), and immediate feedback (error correction)⁸³. Rather than "forcing oneself to practice" — an effort that consumes resources and quickly depletes them — it is more effective to design the environment: remove barriers, anchor the practice to existing habits, ensure visible progress, add a social component. This is not "tricking the brain" or a life hack — it is working with how the system actually operates¹¹¹. A learning plateau is a normal phase, and knowing this fact changes the interpretation: instead of "I'm stuck" — "I'm on a plateau; structural changes take time." A change in interpretation changes the experience (section 5.4).

6.7. The Model's Boundaries

The model does not solve all problems, and honesty requires explicitly stating its boundaries.

It does not guarantee results. Understanding the mechanism does not mean the ability to control it. Some states are resistant to input changes — they are determined by structure that is minimally plastic. Some inputs are unavailable for modification. The organism's resources are not always sufficient to achieve the desired shift.

It does not replace professional help. In cases of severe depression, psychotic states, or persistent perceptual disturbances, the model is insufficient. Specialists are needed, and possibly medication. Antidepressants, anxiolytics, and mood stabilizers are interventions at the neurochemical level, altering system parameters where changing inputs alone does not produce an adequate effect¹¹². Seeking help is not a sign of weakness but the repair of a mechanism that requires it.

It does not answer ethical questions. The model describes how the system works. It does not say which states of other people should be taken into account, or why. Ethics is a separate discipline, and Instrumental Nihilism does not claim to replace it (section 4.4).

It does not provide ready-made answers. Which specific inputs affect the states of a specific person is an empirical question. Science provides statistical regularities, population-level data. Individual variation — genetic, epigenetic, biographical — means that each person must calibrate the model to themselves. This is not a deficiency of the model but its defining feature.

And finally, it can be uncomfortable. Accepting that objective meaning probably does not exist, that free will in its intuitive sense does not exist, that control over the world does not exist — this can intensify discomfort before it reduces it. Nietzsche described this as a necessary stage: the destruction of old values is painful, but it precedes the creation of new ones⁴⁸. The emotional residue from recognizing these things is not an error but part of the process. It is processed the way any experience of loss is processed: not through rationalization, but through living through it.

6.8. Why This Works

Despite all its limitations, the model offers something that neither pure science, nor traditional philosophies, nor practices without a theoretical frame can provide.

Honesty without despair. Most positions either deny the findings of science (meaning exists, freedom exists, everything is under control) or collapse into paralysis upon accepting them (nothing exists, everything is meaningless, why bother). The model accepts the findings and builds a position from which action is possible. Camus arrived at a similar conclusion: the recognition of the absurd is not an end but a starting point⁴⁹.

A bridge between theory and practice. Scientific theories describe the mechanism but do not say what to do. Practical methods — meditation, exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy — work, but often without a unifying frame that explains why they work and how to choose among them. The model connects the description of the mechanism to practical application. One might call it a foundation for biohacking in its fullest sense — not in the sense of trendy supplements, but in the sense of systematic work with inputs based on an understanding of the system.

Resilience to disappointment. A position that promises nothing does not disappoint. If the expectation is "I will experiment and observe" rather than "I will find the answer and become happy," then the absence of rapid results does not destroy the position. This is a self-referential property of the model: it includes within itself the explanation of why rapid results are unlikely (neuroplasticity takes time), thereby protecting the practitioner against premature abandonment.

Openness to revision. The model rests on scientific data. If the data change, the model changes. This is not a weakness but a structural advantage. A system capable of self-correction is more adaptive than one that insists on its own rightness.

Part VII. A Place in the Tradition

7.1. Not from Scratch

Instrumental Nihilism makes no claim to originality. Nearly every one of its elements can be found in other philosophical traditions — sometimes formulated more precisely, sometimes developed more deeply. The value of the position lies not in the novelty of any single idea but in their synthesis: to take the working elements from different traditions, connect them with contemporary science of the brain and behavior, and assemble them into a practical system free of metaphysical baggage.

For this synthesis to be honest, it is necessary to show where the elements come from, what has been borrowed and what rejected — and why.

7.2. Stoicism

The nearest parallel is the Stoic dichotomy of control. Epictetus states it in the opening lines of the Enchiridion: "Of things some are in our power, and others are not"¹¹³. Instrumental Nihilism reproduces this idea almost verbatim: the distinction between what can be managed (inputs) and what cannot (structural processes, external circumstances) is a central element of the model.

Stoic practices — negative visualization, the evening review, working with judgments — are compatible with the model and can be used without modification. Cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the most empirically supported forms of psychotherapy, directly inherits the Stoic tradition of working with interpretations¹¹⁴.

The divergence lies in metaphysics. Stoicism posits the logos — a rational order pervading the universe. "Living according to nature," for the Stoics, means following this cosmic reason. Everything happens by design, and the task of a human being is to accept the design, even when it is incomprehensible.

Instrumental Nihilism posits no order of any kind. Nature is not a guide to action but a description of a mechanism that, in the modern environment, often works against well-being (Part II). "Living according to nature" in the literal sense is a recipe for problems: nature says eat sugar, avoid effort, and fear strangers. The Stoic says: accept what happens, because it is rational. The Instrumental Nihilist says: accept what cannot be changed, because resisting it is a waste of resources, and focus on what can be changed.

7.3. Buddhism

The Buddhist diagnosis of suffering is strikingly close to the predictive brain model. The First Noble Truth — dukkha, suffering — describes the chronic dissatisfaction that arises from the gap between what is desired and what is actual. In the model's terms: attachment is a prediction that does not come true; suffering is a chronic prediction error¹¹⁵.

The Buddhist practice of mindfulness (sati) — observing states without judgment or reaction — is functionally equivalent to what the model describes as identifying the state and auditing inputs. Neuroscientific studies of meditation (section 5.7) confirm its efficacy: reduced DMN activity, improved emotional regulation, altered patterns of self-referential information processing⁷⁶.

The divergences lie at two points. First: Buddhism includes metaphysical elements (karma, rebirth, nirvana as liberation from the cycle of samsara) that Instrumental Nihilism does not accept. Second, and more substantively: Buddhism aims at the cessation of attachments — or, in subtler interpretations, a fundamental transformation of one's relationship to desire. Instrumental Nihilism has no such aim. It works with desires as givens of the mechanism — not seeking to eliminate them but to understand which desires lead to which states, and on that basis to choose inputs.

Buddhism presupposes the possibility of radical transformation — enlightenment. Instrumental Nihilism is more modest: the aim is a shift in probabilities, not liberation.

7.4. Existentialism and Absurdism

Sartre's existentialism shares with Instrumental Nihilism a starting point: the absence of predetermined meaning. "Existence precedes essence" — a person first finds themselves in the world and only then defines themselves through choices¹¹⁶.

But Sartre posits radical freedom: a person is absolutely free and absolutely responsible. This requires libertarian free will — the capacity to make choices not determined by prior causes. Neuroscience does not support such freedom (section 5.6). If decisions are formed before they are consciously recognized, then "creating meaning" as an act of pure will is impossible. One can observe the system producing a sense of meaningfulness under certain inputs. One cannot "decide" to create meaning by an effort of consciousness.

Camus's absurdism is the closest relative of Instrumental Nihilism. The recognition that objective meaning is absent, the refusal of suicide as an answer, the continuation of life without external justification, honesty as a value — all of this is shared⁴⁹. Camus remains, however, at the level of a stance: acknowledgment of the absurd, revolt, il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux — one must imagine Sisyphus happy. This is an answer to the question "why live?" but not to the question "how, specifically, to live well?". How does one imagine Sisyphus happy? Which inputs produce that state? Instrumental Nihilism is an attempt to extend absurdism in a practical direction: from stance to method.

7.5. Epicurus

The Epicurean tradition is closer to Instrumental Nihilism than it might initially appear. Epicurus distinguished necessary from superfluous pleasures, valued ataraxia (tranquility) above acute gratification, and considered friendship the most important source of well-being¹¹⁷. This is not naive hedonism of the "maximize pleasure" variety — it is a system that accounts for long-term consequences, the difference between types of pleasure, and the role of social bonds.

Reward neuroscience explains why Epicurean distinctions work. Hedonic adaptation (section 5.5) is the reason intense pleasures do not produce lasting well-being. The wanting/liking separation⁶⁹ is the reason the desired does not always bring enjoyment. Social needs (section 6.4) are the reason Epicurus was right to place friendship above wealth.

The divergence lies in the scale of ambition. Epicurus proposed a way of life. Instrumental Nihilism proposes a method: not a specific set of practices but a way of selecting and calibrating them to an individual system.

7.6. Nietzsche

Nietzsche is the diagnostician who described the problem with a precision unsurpassed in a century and a half. "The death of God" is not an atheist slogan but the statement of a cultural fact: the foundations on which values rested have been lost, and nothing has come to replace them⁴⁸. Nihilism, for Nietzsche, is not a position but a condition in which civilization finds itself after the loss of its foundations.

His solution is the Übermensch, the overman, who creates values from within through the "will to power." Amor fati — love of fate, the acceptance of everything that happens not with resignation but with affirmation.

Instrumental Nihilism accepts the Nietzschean diagnosis but not the prescription. "Creating values" requires a strong conception of freedom and creative will — precisely what the model calls into question. There is no "creation of values" — there is observation of what the system already labels as valuable, and work with the conditions under which that labeling arises. Nietzsche is heroic and demanding. Instrumental Nihilism is quotidian and pragmatic. It is a philosophy not for overmen but for ordinary people who need a working map.

7.7. Synthesis

If the borrowings are reduced to a formula: the dichotomy of control from the Stoics, mindfulness from the Buddhists, the recognition of the absurd from Camus, attention to pleasure and friendship from Epicurus, the diagnosis of lost foundations from Nietzsche, the scientific basis from contemporary naturalism.

The contribution of Instrumental Nihilism lies in operationalization. Each of the listed traditions either carries metaphysical baggage (the logos, karma, radical freedom, the will to power) or remains at the level of a stance without a practical method. Instrumental Nihilism strips away the metaphysics and adds the method: observation, hypothesis, experiment, adjustment — the scientific approach, applied to one's own life.

This does not make it better than its sources. For some, Stoicism with the logos works better — and that is fine. For others, Buddhism with nirvana, or religion with God, or existentialism with radical freedom. Instrumental Nihilism is for those who need a model without metaphysics. Who are prepared to accept a mechanistic description without despair. Who want a practical method, not only a philosophical stance.

Conclusion

This essay began with a question: why do people living under the most favorable conditions in the history of the species report, en masse, dissatisfaction, anxiety, and a loss of meaning?

The answer proposed here consists of several levels. The architecture of the brain was shaped for an environment that no longer exists. Evolutionary systems — stress, reward, social comparison — generate chronic dissatisfaction amid abundance. External solutions — political, economic, institutional — are necessary but insufficient, because social processes self-organize according to a logic that is indifferent to individual well-being. From this follows a position: accept the irresolvability of the question of objective meaning and reformulate the task — from "what is the meaning?" to "how does experience work, and what influences it?". The scientific foundation — the predictive brain, allostasis, the construction of emotions, the reward system, neuroplasticity — establishes why working with inputs can be effective. The model translates this into a method: identify the state, audit the inputs, hypothesize, experiment, adjust.

None of the parts is definitive. The scientific data may be revised. The model may prove imprecise. The method may not work for a given person. Instrumental Nihilism accepts this uncertainty not as a weakness but as a structural feature. A system capable of self-correction is more adaptive than one that insists on its own rightness.

We live in an era when, for the first time in history, a substantial portion of humanity commands the resources for something more than survival. The old maps — religious, ideological, cultural — were drawn for other conditions. The new ones are still being made. Instrumental Nihilism is one such attempt. Not the only one. Not claiming completeness. But sufficient to begin.

Maksim Bolgarin

February 2026

maxbolgarin.com

m@maxbolgarin.com

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67. Schultz W., Dayan P. & Montague P.R., "A Neural Substrate of Prediction and Reward," Science 275, no. 5306 (1997): 1593–1599. Review: Schultz W., "Dopamine Reward Prediction Error Signalling: A Two-Component Response," Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17, no. 3 (2016): 183–195.

68. Niv Y., "Reinforcement Learning in the Brain," Journal of Mathematical Psychology 53, no. 3 (2009): 139–154. Human data: O'Doherty J.P. et al., "Temporal Difference Models and Reward-Related Learning in the Human Brain," Neuron 38, no. 2 (2003): 329–337.

69. Berridge K.C. & Robinson T.E., "Liking, Wanting, and the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction," American Psychologist 71, no. 8 (2016): 670–679. Original distinction: Berridge K.C., "Measuring Hedonic Impact in Animals and Infants: Microstructure of Affective Taste Reactivity Patterns," Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 24, no. 2 (2000): 173–198.

70. Libet B., Gleason C.A., Wright E.W. & Pearl D.K., "Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential)," Brain 106, no. 3 (1983): 623–642.

71. Soon C.S., Brass M., Heinze H.-J. & Haynes J.-D., "Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain," Nature Neuroscience 11, no. 5 (2008): 543–545.

72. Overview of the free will debate and the Libet experiments: Schurger A., Sitt J.D. & Dehaene S., "An Accumulator Model for Spontaneous Neural Activity Prior to Self-Initiated Movement," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 42 (2012): E2904–E2913. Schurger and colleagues proposed an alternative interpretation: the readiness potential may reflect stochastic fluctuations rather than deterministic preparation.

73. Raichle M.E. et al., "A Default Mode of Brain Function," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, no. 2 (2001): 676–682. Functional review: Buckner R.L., Andrews-Hanna J.R. & Schacter D.L., "The Brain's Default Network: Anatomy, Function, and Relevance to Disease," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1124 (2008): 1–38.

74. Hamilton J.P. et al., "Default-Mode and Task-Positive Network Activity in Major Depressive Disorder: Implications for Adaptive and Maladaptive Rumination," Biological Psychiatry 70, no. 4 (2011): 327–333. Meta-analysis: Kaiser R.H. et al., "Large-Scale Network Dysfunction in Major Depressive Disorder," JAMA Psychiatry 72, no. 6 (2015): 603–611.

75. Chou T. et al., "Default Mode Network and Rumination in Individuals at Risk for Depression," Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 18, no. 1 (2023): nsad032.

76. Brewer J.A. et al., "Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 50 (2011): 20254–20259.

77. Overview of evolutionary mismatch: Gluckman P.D. & Hanson M.A., Mismatch: Why Our World No Longer Fits Our Bodies (Oxford University Press, 2006). Li and colleagues formalized the concept of mismatch as the gap between the adapted environment and the modern one: Li N.P., van Vugt M. & Colarelli S.M., "The Evolutionary Mismatch Hypothesis: Implications for Psychological Science," Current Directions in Psychological Science 27, no. 1 (2018): 38–44.

78. The link between the obesity epidemic and evolutionary mismatch: Lieberman D., The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease (Pantheon, 2013). The concept of "mismatch diseases": conditions arising because the body is not adapted to modern conditions.

79. Chronic stress and the HPA axis: Sapolsky R.M., Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, 3rd ed. (Henry Holt, 2004). Sapolsky shows that the stress system, evolutionarily tuned to acute physical threats, is chronically activated in the modern environment by psychosocial stressors — with cumulative damage to health.

80. Maguire E.A. et al., "Navigation-Related Structural Change in the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97, no. 8 (2000): 4398–4403.

81. Mechelli A. et al., "Structural Plasticity in the Bilingual Brain," Nature 431, no. 7010 (2004): 757.

82. Brain changes during depression treatment: Dunlop B.W. & Rajendra J.K., "Convergent Functional Changes from Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy for Major Depressive Disorder," Journal of Affective Disorders 353 (2024): 258–267. Review: Linden D.E., "How Psychotherapy Changes the Brain — The Contribution of Functional Neuroimaging," Molecular Psychiatry 11, no. 6 (2006): 528–538.

83. Memory consolidation during sleep: Diekelmann S. & Born J., "The Memory Function of Sleep," Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11, no. 2 (2010): 114–126.

84. Martela F. & Steger M.F., "The Three Meanings of Meaning in Life: Distinguishing Coherence, Purpose, and Significance," Journal of Positive Psychology 11, no. 5 (2016): 531–545. Update: Martela F. & Steger M.F., "The Role of Significance Relative to the Other Dimensions of Meaning in Life," Scientific Reports 13 (2023): 3598.

85. Heintzelman S.J. & King L.A., "Life Is Pretty Meaningful," American Psychologist 69, no. 6 (2014): 561–574.

86. Hicks J.A. & King L.A., "Positive Mood and Social Relatedness as Information about Meaning in Life," Journal of Positive Psychology 4, no. 6 (2009): 471–482.

87. George L.S. & Park C.L., "Meaning in Life as Comprehension, Purpose, and Mattering: Toward Integration and New Research Questions," Review of General Psychology 20, no. 3 (2016): 205–220.

88. Heine S.J. et al., "Meaning in Life and the Allure of Teleological Thinking," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2024). Teleological beliefs — the feeling that life is moving toward something — correlate with meaningfulness, even controlling for religiosity.

89. The map-territory metaphor originates with Alfred Korzybski: Korzybski A., Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (Institute of General Semantics, 1933). In the philosophy of science, the role of models as tools rather than truths is discussed in: Box G.E.P., "Science and Statistics," Journal of the American Statistical Association 71, no. 356 (1976): 791–799 — the famous "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

90. Gene–environment interaction in the formation of neural structure: Meaney M.J., "Epigenetics and the Biological Definition of Gene × Environment Interactions," Child Development 81, no. 1 (2010): 41–79. Meaney showed that maternal behavior in rats alters the epigenetic marks on genes regulating the stress response — demonstrating how the environment literally rewrites gene expression.

91. On the status of consciousness as observer and corrector rather than initiator: Dehaene S., Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts (Viking, 2014). Dehaene proposes the "global workspace" model, in which consciousness is not the cause of neural activity but the result of broadcast integration of information across specialized modules.

92. Neurochemistry of attachment and romantic love: Young L.J. & Wang Z., "The Neurobiology of Pair Bonding," Nature Neuroscience 7, no. 10 (2004): 1048–1054. Fisher H.E. et al., "Reward, Addiction, and Emotion Regulation Systems Associated with Rejection in Love," Journal of Neurophysiology 104, no. 1 (2010): 51–60.

93. Dennett D.C., Freedom Evolves (Viking, 2003). Dennett develops the compatibilist position: freedom compatible with determinism is not a weakened version of "real" freedom but the only kind that has ever existed and has practical significance.

94. The effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive function, comparable to alcohol intoxication: Williamson A.M. & Feyer A.-M., "Moderate Sleep Deprivation Produces Impairments in Cognitive and Motor Performance Equivalent to Legally Prescribed Levels of Alcohol Intoxication," Occupational and Environmental Medicine 57, no. 10 (2000): 649–655.

95. The glymphatic system and clearance of metabolic waste during sleep: Xie L. et al., "Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain," Science 342, no. 6156 (2013): 373–377. The study showed that the brain's interstitial space expands by ~60% during sleep, facilitating the removal of waste products including beta-amyloid.

96. BDNF and physical activity: Cotman C.W. & Berchtold N.C., "Exercise: A Behavioral Intervention to Enhance Brain Health and Plasticity," Trends in Neurosciences 25, no. 6 (2002): 295–301. Update: Szuhany K.L., Bugatti M. & Otto M.W., "A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of Exercise on Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor," Journal of Psychiatric Research 60 (2015): 56–64.

97. Physical activity and depression: Schuch F.B. et al., "Exercise as a Treatment for Depression: A Meta-Analysis Adjusting for Publication Bias," Journal of Psychiatric Research 77 (2016): 42–51. Meta-analysis of 25 RCTs: significant antidepressant effect comparable to pharmacotherapy for mild to moderate depression. Update: Singh B. et al., "Effectiveness of Physical Activity Interventions for Improving Depression, Anxiety, and Distress: An Overview of Systematic Reviews," British Journal of Sports Medicine 57, no. 18 (2023): 1203–1209.

98. Omega-3 and neuroinflammation: Bazinet R.P. & Layé S., "Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Their Metabolites in Brain Function and Disease," Nature Reviews Neuroscience 15, no. 12 (2014): 771–785.

99. Vitamin D and depressive states: Anglin R.E. et al., "Vitamin D Deficiency and Depression in Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," British Journal of Psychiatry 202, no. 2 (2013): 100–107.

100. Magnesium and anxiety: Boyle N.B., Lawton C. & Dye L., "The Effects of Magnesium Supplementation on Subjective Anxiety and Stress — A Systematic Review," Nutrients 9, no. 5 (2017): 429.

101. Circadian rhythms and artificial lighting: Cho Y. et al., "Effects of Artificial Light at Night on Human Health: A Literature Review," Chronobiology International 32, no. 9 (2015): 1294–1310. Walker M., Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (Scribner, 2017), chs. 2–3.

102. Social rejection and neural correlates of pain: Eisenberger N.I., Lieberman M.D. & Williams K.D., "Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion," Science 302, no. 5643 (2003): 290–292.

103. Loneliness and mortality: Holt-Lunstad J., Smith T.B. & Layton J.B., "Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review," PLoS Medicine 7, no. 7 (2010): e1000316. Meta-analysis of 148 studies (308,849 participants): individuals with stronger social ties have a 50% greater likelihood of survival.

104. Oxytocin and physical contact: Uvnäs-Moberg K., Handlin L. & Petersson M., "Self-Soothing Behaviors with Particular Reference to Oxytocin Release Induced by Non-Noxious Sensory Stimulation," Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2015): 1529.

105. Touch deprivation and development: Nelson C.A. et al., "Cognitive Recovery in Socially Deprived Young Children: The Bucharest Early Intervention Project," Science 318, no. 5858 (2007): 1937–1940. The Bucharest Early Intervention Project is the most extensive randomized study of the effects of institutional deprivation on child development.

106. Flow: Csikszentmihalyi M., Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper & Row, 1990). Neurobiological basis: Ulrich M., Keller J., Hoenig K., Waller C. & Grön G., "Neural Correlates of Experimentally Induced Flow Experiences," NeuroImage 86 (2014): 194–202.

107. Learned helplessness: Seligman M.E.P. & Maier S.F., "Failure to Escape Traumatic Shock," Journal of Experimental Psychology 74, no. 1 (1967): 1–9. Reappraisal: Maier S.F. & Seligman M.E.P., "Learned Helplessness at Fifty: Insights from Neuroscience," Psychological Review 123, no. 4 (2016): 349–367. In the updated model, passivity is the default state and control is a learned skill — which changes the practical implications.

108. The idea of applying the scientific method to one's own life: Roberts S., "Self-Experimentation as a Source of New Ideas: Ten Examples about Sleep, Mood, Health, and Weight," Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27, no. 2 (2004): 227–262.

109. Caffeine and anxiety: Nehlig A., "Is Caffeine a Cognitive Enhancer?" Journal of Alzheimer's Disease 20, suppl. 1 (2010): S85–S94. Mechanistic review: blockade of A1 and A2A adenosine receptors, amplification of noradrenergic and dopaminergic activity. Link between caffeine and anxiety: Lara D.R., "Caffeine, Mental Health, and Psychiatric Disorders," Journal of Alzheimer's Disease 20, suppl. 1 (2010): S239–S248.

110. Sleep deprivation and amygdala reactivity: Yoo S.-S., Gujar N., Hu P., Jolesz F.A. & Walker M.P., "The Human Emotional Brain Without Sleep — A Prefrontal Amygdala Disconnect," Current Biology 17, no. 20 (2007): R877–R878. A single night of sleep deprivation increases amygdala reactivity to negative images by ~60% and weakens its functional connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex.

111. Environment design for habit formation: Wood W. & Neal D.T., "Healthy Through Habit: Interventions for Initiating & Maintaining Health Behavior Change," Behavioral Science & Policy 2, no. 1 (2016): 71–83. Theoretical framework: Wood W., Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).

112. Neurochemical interventions for depression: Cipriani A. et al., "Comparative Efficacy and Acceptability of 21 Antidepressant Drugs for the Acute Treatment of Adults with Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis," Lancet 391, no. 10128 (2018): 1357–1366. Meta-analysis of 522 RCTs (116,477 participants) — the most comprehensive comparison of antidepressants.

113. Epictetus, Enchiridion [c. 125 CE], trans. E. Carter, §1. Modern analysis of the Stoic dichotomy of control: Robertson D., How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (St. Martin's Press, 2019).

114. The link between Stoicism and CBT: Beck A.T., "Cognitive Therapy: Nature and Relation to Behavior Therapy," Behavior Therapy 1, no. 2 (1970): 184–200. Beck explicitly references the Stoic tradition. Review: Robertson D., The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy (Routledge, 2010).

115. Parallels between the Buddhist concept of suffering and the predictive brain: Van den Brink E. & Koster F., Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living (Routledge, 2015). Formal analysis: Lutz A., Jha A.P., Dunne J.D. & Saron C.D., "Investigating the Phenomenological Matrix of Mindfulness-Related Practices from a Neurocognitive Perspective," American Psychologist 70, no. 7 (2015): 632–658.

116. Sartre J.-P., L'existentialisme est un humanisme [1946] / Existentialism Is a Humanism, trans. C. Macomber (Yale University Press, 2007).

117. Epicurean ethics: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus [c. 300 BCE]. Modern analysis: Warren J., The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism (Cambridge University Press, 2009). On the connection between Epicurean ideas and contemporary well-being psychology: McMahon D.M., Happiness: A History (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006).