It’s All Made Up

Turns out it’s games all the way down.

[As a reminder, all paid posts go free after one month.]

I'd like to explore how everything is basically arbitrary aside from math, scientific laws, and core morality. This is not a dystopian take. It is about what can be known versus what must be held as belief—fact versus faith.

That is not a dichotomy between the right and the wrong, the true and the false. It is a dichotomy between what we cannot deny and what we can only accept by trust. Trying to put one into the basket of the other is folly for it can never fit. And it risks self defeat both as an argument to win over the minds of others as well as a foundation for one's own faith.

Consider the analogy of listening to diehard fans of some sport that you know little about and care even less. They can explain to you the ends and outs of how it is played, what’s going on in it currently, and their thoughts/desires for what is to come. Interest much less fandom can only reach those willing to seek it out and responsive to its specific rewards. Otherwise it will pass through them like neutrinos.

Where I am heading isn’t a nihilistic approach by any means. Say what you will about this post; at least it’s an ethos.

Consider how “Yeah, but why?” is ultimately an unanswerable question.

Questioner: Why do you do [a thing that is done]?

You: Because [states a rather factual basis for the thing being done].

Questioner: Yeah, but why?

You: Because [gives support based on history or a logical progression from some establishing basis, etc.].

Questioner: Yeah, but why?

You: Because [backs up a level repeating in the same manner].

Questioner: Yeah, but why?

. . . This continues endlessly or until you ultimately reach some first-principles position that is simply a foundational assumption or truth. There is many a slip between the cup and the lip, though, when thinking we’ve backed up enough to a truth when in fact we’ve only arrived at an originating assumption. Math works back to truth (see the Peano Axioms, et al.). What football team to root for does not.

Religion

To paraphrase René Girard: “If you don’t have a real religion, you’ll end up with a more dreadful one.” Add to this David Foster Wallace: “...in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”