Foreword

“A border marks an inside and an outside.” - Jean Luc Nancy

The aim of this piece is simple, identify a set of metaphysically consistent Truths that inform how we are to act in the Universe. While this appears a noble pursuit, any student of metaphysics will quickly sense the tension and perhaps impossibility of such a task. For all that metaphysics offers, it often remains silent on the subject of human behavior. With this acknowledgment of difficulty in mind, we press forward.

When reasoning about metaphysics and philosophy one often finds themselves navigating between two disparate modalities, the human and the Universal. While these two modalities are inherently linked, the hard problem of perception makes it nigh impossible to bridge between these foreign territories. The Universal appears to us a precise and ordered land, governed by a minimal set of rigorous laws. A vast and empty space that, like a blank canvas, has a rough form and dimension that we can make out, but whose content is empty and indiscernible. In contrast, the territory of the human appears a messy tapestry of chaos and confusion, filled with words, wisdom, emotion, perceived phenomenon, and incompleteness. It is a space colored by the totality of human history, and any clarity or order is a fleeting mirage in the face of language, morality, politics, and the detritus of evolution. An excess of energy where uncertainty increases with examination and any search for objective Truths is met with confusion and disappointment.

The territory of the human fits somewhere inside the vast expanse of the Universal, and this piece focuses on the border between these two foreign lands, the place where the rigor and clarity of the Universal meets the chaos and noise of the human. We cannot know the Universal, but by mapping the border between the human and the Universal we may identify the domain space of the human and the Universal laws that govern it. While this does not allow us to make statements about where in that domain space we should fall (i.e how to act), it does allow us to make metaphysically correct statements about the properties of the human domain and inform where in the domain space we place ourselves. In the all important task of deciding how to act, these metaphysically correct statements serve as a tool for cutting the noise and chaos of the human down to a minimal set of propositions in which we can believe, a set of propositions outlining what is certain. The rest is noise.

This piece builds upon the framework of A Map of the Universe (Berger and Rayl 2022), taking the findings of that paper as a guide for metaphysical correctness. This piece does not attempt to defend arguments nor prove itself. I do not hope to convince anyone of anything, I merely wish to think through the implications of what has already been posited in the Map and clarify things for myself and those who have the same insights as me. For proofs of any of the statements made below, one may refer to the full text of A Map of the Universe. With that, we set out to explore the boundary of the human and the Universal.

The Counterfactual is Nothing

Perception of the Universe is all that there is. The alternative to this is nothing, a state of not perceiving all that there is. Thus, if one finds the perceptive states presented by the Universe preferable to nothing at all, then one must live in profound gratitude. Given that a will to live is the revealed preference of those who are living, gratitude is an aesthetic which we can claim to be metaphysically consistent. Pray often and pray forcefully, for we are lucky that there exists anything at all.

On the Meaning of the Universe

At the Universal level (Reality) there is no meaning, only the Universe itself. As an observer of the Universe, one cannot perceive the Universe without necessarily compressing it via language. Language introduces inaccuracies and negates any chance of knowing the meaning of the Universe, for the meaning of the Universe is a totality which we cannot contain. Our inability to ever find inherent meaning in the Universe has strong implications for how we are to comport ourselves towards existence. It is first and foremost an acceptance of the futility of the human project. We will never be able to accomplish that which existence demands of us, understand the Universe, and no matter the degree of technological or intellectual advance the pursuit of inherent meaning is only a movement towards an unattainable limit. Given this boundary condition, we know that any claims of inherent meaning are False and that any pursuit of inherent meaning will necessarily fail. So where does this leave us? The necessary boundary between the human and the Universal leaves us to scrap for meaning within the space of the human, and as a result meaning simply becomes a function of the Global Aesthetics (preferred perceptive states) that are arbitrarily set by a given human. Given this Reality, one should think very hard about their Global Aesthetics and pursue that which is meaningful with respect to their Global Aesthetics. Equally, one should understand that this meaning is not inherent nor Universal, and thus should not lose sleep wondering if they have chosen the correct aesthetics nor take offense at competing views of meaning. One may find pockets of meaning and purpose in the territory of the human, but remember that these pockets of meaning are nothing more than a construction, and that the game that we play is not moving towards any final destination. This acceptance of futility is not a call for nihilism, to the contrary it is a call to meditate on what is meaningful and pursue this meaning to the fullest. Knowledge of how humans relate to meaning should not change how you generate or pursue meaning, but it should color how you comport yourself towards this pursuit.

Comportment Towards Determinism

“What’s happened, happened, which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the Universe, not an excuse to do nothing.”

The Universe is discrete and finite, thus it is necessarily deterministic. Given that the domain of the human is situated within the domain of the Universal, the territory of the human is necessarily deterministic as well. Having established this Reality, how should humans comport themselves towards determinism? As is the case with many of the findings in this piece, through metaphysical reasoning we may deduce a set of Truths about the Universe such as its deterministic nature, but within the domain space defined by these Truths we are left with no guidance other than to act as we see fit. At the extreme, one may choose to internalize that the Universe is deterministic and by logical extension enjoy the benefit of feeling no stress nor strife. However, we are by default capable of creating the illusion of free will through our inability to perfectly model the Universe. If one chooses to believe in free will, then one should optimize over the activities that produce the illusion of free will and experience the freedom and empowerment that this illusion offers. And with all things, one’s choice of how much to lean into determinism or the illusion of free will should be a function of Global Aesthetics. Many readers of this piece will end up somewhere between these two extremes, battling between our ability to generate the illusion of free will and the rational mind telling us that our lives must surely be deterministic. This internal discontinuity highlights an often present conflict between the human and the Universal. One may know and believe that the Universe is deterministic, yet in the realm of the human it is nearly impossible to internalize this fact into our thought and action as it is incommensurate with our biological disposition. Epochs of evolution have wired us with truths that are not metaphysically correct, causing us to forget or turn away from the Truths that we may deduce from precise, metaphysical consideration of the Universe. In examining the boundary between the human and the Universal, we often find that the laws of the Universal clash with what we have inherited from the territory of the human. The degree to which we rebel against the human in the pursuit of Universal clarity is left to the user, though I imagine most readers of this piece will find it a battle worth fighting.

Language and Compression

“From the beginning, the Universe signified the totality of what humankind can expect to know about it. What people call the progress of the human mind and, in any case, the progress of scientific knowledge, could only have been and can only ever be constituted out of processes of correcting and recutting of patterns, regrouping, defining relationships of belonging and discovering new resources, inside a totality which is closed.” - Giorgio Agamben

Perception of the Universe necessarily requires compression, and language is the tool that humans use to compress the Universe. Compression distorts the True Reality of the Universe, languages form axioms, and only within the axioms of a given language may statements be judged as True or False. Having established these weighty statements, one may discuss the implications of language and compression on the human.

Language is compression, and as a result of compression humans cannot know objective Truths. One implication of this is that humans can only hope to achieve slightly better (or perhaps just different) approximations of Reality over time. Scientific advancement may produce more accurate languages for describing the Universe and its constituent parts, but these languages will always remain inaccurate to some degree. In this sense there is no progress, only more coherent patterning, and knowledge becomes an aesthetic judgment. Science is the religion of the present, and in the future it will be supplanted by another language. Advancements in knowledge are beautiful in that they represent novel, more accurate models of the patterns that the Universe produces, however, these advancements in knowledge do not strive towards a finality and their value is merely aesthetic. An elegant, but inaccurate way to pattern the Universe. Despite knowledge being subordinated to the realm of aesthetics, it remains a worthy pursuit as aesthetics is all that we have to pursue.

The omnipresence of language and compression in the territory of the human also negates the possibility of objective truths. With this comes the destruction of hierarchies, and the destruction of hierarchies has radical implications for human comportment towards the philosophical and ethical. To begin, any statement of aesthetic superiority is rendered unfounded. Without claim to aesthetic superiority, any justification for imposing a normative or ethical belief structure upon anyone else is lost. If we are to remain metaphysically consistent, one must adopt a libertas system of political and ethical beliefs by which one’s will should not be imparted upon another. This is not to say that one should abstain from normative beliefs and preferences. To the contrary, one is called to craft a rigorous set of beliefs and tastes that is a thoughtful reflection of one’s Global Aesthetics. However, one must remain aware that this is just a reflection of some environmental, social, cultural matrix in which one is arbitrarily inculcated, and to assert an aesthetic hierarchy or impose this hierarchy upon another would be metaphysically unfounded. This boundary between the Universal and the human is one of the rare places where we may draw a direct connection between metaphysical Truth and how we ought to act if we wish to live a metaphysically consistent life.

The limits of language also inform how we should tune our comportment to Self and others. Trapped within the shortcomings of language, one will never be able to accurately capture their own internal states, let alone share them with others in a manner that is anything other than a gross approximation of Reality. Considering this, the most accurate expression we can hope for is to act, not speak. To state one’s preferences, but not to explain them. Through acting in accordance with one’s Global Aesthetics a closer approximation of true internal states may be revealed. But remember that this is all that it is, an approximation of the Truth. Even those parts of the Universe with which we are most familiar, our internal lives, are experienced via language and thus cannot be Truly known.

“I was of course aware that the novel, being composed of signs, could not be reality itself, but merely invoke reality, and that the reality it invoked would be just as abstract as the one from which I was trying to escape.” - Karl Ove Knausgård

Words in Equilibrium

“We could not reach the final object of knowledge without the dissolution of knowledge, which aims to reduce its object to the condition of subordinated and managed things. The ultimate problem of knowledge is the same as that of consumption. No one can both know and not be destroyed; no one can both consume wealth and increase it.” - Georges Bataille

The propositions posited thus far paint a dim picture of the human and our ability to make meaningful statements about the Universe. We cannot know objective truths, language is necessarily inaccurate, and hierarchies of aesthetics and action are unfounded. Further contributing to these harsh Realities is the Void, our inherent ability to iteratively negate any truth until the set of all possible truths has been destroyed. Putting together the flaws of language with the ability to iteratively negate all combinations of words and possible propositions, we arrive at the equilibrium where the relationship of humans to words and knowledge is revealed:

In the equilibrium, all words go to zero.

In the equilibrium, all knowledge goes to zero.

Nothing that is Meaningful may be said. Nothing that is True may be known. This Reality is not an excuse to do nothing, but rather a token to call on as one performs actions in the Universe. It is not a disappointing fact of life that we may not know anything, but rather a liberating one. In a paradoxical manner, the understanding that knowledge goes to zero liberates one from the burden of knowledge. Bataille accurately posited that one cannot both know and not be destroyed. The solution to this paradox is to destroy knowledge, then with the knowledge that nothing may be known one both knows and is not destroyed. Many who have attained knowledge lament the despair and destruction that come with it, desiring to return to a prior state of ignorant bliss. The correct direction for returning to this bliss is not backwards but forwards. One must undergo the painful process of acquiring knowledge in order to arrive at a place where it may be destroyed. One may then continue with only a token from this past journey, the knowledge that knowledge goes to zero. Only then may one approach knowledge without the nagging feeling that it does not mean anything, for we know that it does not and that its true value is aesthetic. In the tradition of Wittgenstein, of which all metaphysical work is but a poor replication, we must climb the ladder of knowledge before throwing it away, “My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Knowledge is a local maxima that must be surmounted, and only in surmounting knowledge may we correctly possess it. Having surmounted words and knowledge, we are then able to approach these objects with an understanding of what they are.

Words are not functional objects, words are aesthetic objects.

Knowledge is not functional, it is merely aesthetic.

Words and knowledge are aesthetic objects and should be cherished and possessed as such. When words and knowledge go to zero, all that remains is the beauty and form of these objects, and these are the properties of words and knowledge that should be valued. When it comes to words, do not weigh them as serious metaphysical objects that carry meaning, view them as beautiful objects that may imbue and elevate aesthetics. When it comes to knowledge, do not try to understand, just feel, for the aesthetic feeling of knowledge is all that is really there. While these aesthetic objects may take on great meaning and beauty in the territory of the human, they should be stripped of all meaning when tarrying in the realm of the Universal. Where one tries to mingle the profound and the banal, the disappointed man speaks. And as we know, one truly cannot speak.

The Universe Individuated

As entities that model signals generated by the Universe, the reality we perceive is entirely a function of our own modeling processes. As it pertains to perception, the Universe may be thought of as a static object and our perception of the world as what is in flux. While this particular boundary between the Universal and the human is dictated to some degree by physical and biological constraints, we are left with a large degree of autonomy to perceive Reality in the manner of our choosing. It naturally follows that we ought to utilize this autonomy to perceive reality in a manner that is commensurate with our Global Aesthetics, and it is thus the duty of the individual to adopt practices that shift perceived reality in line with Global Aesthetics. The shape of this practice is left to the individual, but it may take the form of a referent, a reminder, a specific environment, meditation, or any trigger that alters perception. In altering how we perceive the Universe, we may asymmetrically slant the hand we are dealt by the Universe in our favor. This stacking of the deck is a necessary counterbalance to the fact that from inception the Universe conspires against us in its ambivalence towards the human. We may never know Truth nor find inherent meaning, and thorough reasoning will only lead to metaphysical disappointment. In this sense, the Universe deals an unwinnable hand to anyone who dares to seek out Truth. However, in carefully observing the rules of the game the Universe presents us a trick by which one may, if not win, at least stay in the game. As if with a wink, the Universe extends a lifeline to those who have thought through these problems, for deep examination of the Universal reveals both its cruel nature but also how we may exploit its rules to play an unwinnable game. Think yourself into optimism, for it is the only antidote to Reality.

An Inconsistent Self

“I am not the same person that I was yesterday.”

The Self is not a concrete, tangible, or consistent object. It is instead a set of models representing the behavior of an agent, in short, a compressed representation of how an agent will model a given environment. The Self is not a sacred object belonging to an individual, nor is it stable over time. A representation of Self at time t is necessarily different from its representation at time t+1 as one forgets what they believe, what they have accomplished, and what they represent. One day you awake a king, the next a peasant. Humans have evolved to maintain a fairly consistent Self as a necessary feature for navigating the local environment (one can imagine that social organization, labor, and survival would be quite difficult if we embodied different representations of Self each day). However, this consistent thread of Self that we take as given is a function of our inability to model, and if we could perfectly model the Universe we would realize that the Self is no more than an unstable representation that is inconsistent between time periods. The ephemeral nature of Self gives us a strong boundary from which we can draw conclusions about the nature of the human condition. Though these conclusions are upsetting to that which we often hold in the highest regard, the Self, they also liberate us from the demanding need to maintain representation and the inevitable pain of this representation crumbling. Striving for a truly concrete and consistent Self eventually results in despair and anguish as the Self is de facto inconsistent, and attempts to cling onto a sacred sense of Self are akin to swimming against the tides of Reality. In short, do not take your Self seriously. In accepting this Reality and overcoming the Self, one unlocks the ability to choose what aspects of Self to identify with. It is upon this realization that the Self becomes a tool which may be leveraged to achieve one’s Global Aesthetics. It is then left to the individual to construct their desired Self and adopt the mantras necessary to maintain this constructed Self. But remember that this is all that it is, a representation that has been constructed to achieve an end. As is the case with knowledge, one must undergo the process of understanding and destroying the Self in order to surmount it and continue forward with the understanding that the Self is nothing more than a constructed representation.

On Aesthetics, Clarity, Beauty

In examining the boundary between the human the Universal one consistently finds that the Universe defines a set of limits that constrain the territory of the human, but within these limits the only guidance we have is to pursue that which is commensurate with our Global Aesthetics. The question then naturally arises of how one should define and think about these aesthetics.

To begin, one may object to the claim that the Universe remains silent on the subject of objective aesthetics, citing Platonic forms and the existence of art, social modes, and beauty that have transcended culture and time. The persistence of certain aesthetics may be easily reconciled as a phenomenon that exists within the territory of the human. Within the social, economic, and biological forces that give rise to aesthetics, there are a set of common threads foisted upon us by the epistemes of the era, epistemes that have been proven time and time again to be arbitrary. The Universe remains silent on aesthetics, but the history of humanity does not. This leaves us in an unsatisfactory place, as our search for Universally consistent aesthetics goes unanswered. Once again, the best we can do is to give a definition of aesthetics and define the boundaries in which we may operate.

Aesthetics is the excessive signifier. A set of Parts that cannot be captured by any given language or model without a large degree of slippage. A signifier that cannot be compressed to a direct mapping with a signified, yet exists in an uncompressed state in the mind of the operator. It is precisely in this slippage, in the uncompressed nature of an entity that aesthetics are found. Aesthetics exist, but they cannot be easily captured in language, and it is precisely this excess, this incompressible complexity that is beautiful. Natural complexity, social complexity, perceptive complexity. All around us, all the time. That which we cannot compress and collate via language, that which cuts closest to the Totality, closest to the Universal. That is beautiful.

Out of this definition falls important implications. The inability for aesthetics to be captured and compressed means that aesthetics may only be approached via intuition, a set of models that cannot be compressed. For this reason aesthetics cannot be discussed, only shown. Destined for failure is the human who attempts to explain their Global Aesthetics, for the only authentic representation of aesthetics is action. Do not speak, act. This act is the representation of Beauty, in and of itself. Beauty is an aesthetic that is fully pronounced, fully realized. An act that maximizes the excessive signifier with respect to a given aesthetic and actualizes this excessive signifier upon the substrate of Reality. In this sense, the pursuit of Beauty is precisely the act of aligning Reality with a Global Aesthetic. Thus follows that the objective is to achieve the Beautiful, to strive to achieve one’s Global Aesthetics, and given the individuated nature of the Universe, achieving this Beauty is all that matters.

Aesthetics is the only object, Beauty the only pursuit.

If Beauty is a pursuit, an act of moving in a specific direction, the question remains of what this direction should be. While no normative direction can be prescribed, we can assert that this direction ought to be well-defined. This is Clarity. A well-defined understanding of one’s Global Aesthetics, a certainty about the direction in which one should move in the pursuit of Beauty. While advice on how to achieve Clarity is beyond the scope of this work, within the framework developed in this piece we can assert the importance of Clarity and its role in actualizing Beauty.

A Metaphysically Silent Universe

Any call to the Universal is met with silence as the meaning of the Universe is nothing more than that which it is, and that which it is cannot be captured by anything other than the Universe itself. We find ourselves in a metaphysically silent Universe where any call for meaning goes unanswered and the only directive we are given to pursue is an unfounded set of Global Aesthetics. While our Global Aesthetics appear a shaky lifeboat amid a sweeping sea of tumult, it is all that we have to cling to, and in a metaphysically precarious Universe the best that we can do is cling on tightly.

Striving towards our Global Aesthetics is how we are to act in a metaphysically silent Universe. Our Global Aesthetics provide a modus operandi, a set of morals, tastes, objectives, and future states around which we may construct meaning, purpose, and stability. Our Global Aesthetics is all that we have, and we must approach and pursue it with the utmost care and rigor. One must meditate on their Global Aesthetics in order to achieve Clarity, then with Clarity in hand one may pursue Beauty. This is the call of the human. Not ordained by the Universe, for the Universe is silent, but ordained as the only pursuit that is logically commensurate with the Universe. The Universal does not tell us what to pursue, it only offers pursuit as an alternative to despair and drowning. We cannot know if it is the correct pursuit, only that it is the only pursuit. And it is with this minor hint that we must run. We must doggedly pursue our Global Aesthetics and actualize the perceptive states that we wish to experience, forming the excessive signifier that keeps us afloat. The full instantiation of life is this pursuit of Beauty, the chasing of our aesthetics with maximum rigor. It is not what we do, it is that we do, for the pursuit of Beauty is the only metaphysically commensurate action that we may impart upon the Universe.

The Ballerina’s Leap

“He constantly makes the movements of infinity, but he does this with such correctness and assurance that he constantly gets the finite out of it, and there is not a second when one has a notion of anything else. It is supposed to be the most difficult task for a dancer to leap into a definite posture in such a way that there is not a second when he is grasping after the posture, but by the leap itself he stands fixed in that posture. Perhaps no dancer can do it - that is what this knight does.” - Søren Kierkegaard

The human story is fundamentally a tragic one. The Universe demands that we study and understand it, but we are not granted the faculties necessary to do so. We are called to lead meaningful lives, but the search for inherent meaning is a fool’s errand. We are drawn to genuine connection, but all words slip into nothingness. However, like the structure and themes of a Shakespearian tragedy, we may study and understand the rules of the Universe, the nature of our tragedy. While the die is cast and a tragic ending may not be averted, we may change the way that we comport ourselves to this tragedy so as to gracefully resist its cruel nature.

The territory of the human presents us with an endless stream of chaos and noise, and just as gravity drags us to Earth, our biological disposition pulls us towards metaphysically inconsistent beliefs that amplify this confusion. However, if we are able to form and engrain a set of metaphysical Truths deep in our psyche, metaphysical Truths that may be readily referenced in the most adverse of situations, we may cut through and turn this chaos and noise into complexity and Beauty. A set of Truths engrained deeply enough to maintain conversation whilst seeing words as aesthetic objects. To pursue meaning whilst knowing its True nature. To constantly feel gratitude, knowing that the alternative is nothingness. To understand that we are inconsistent and may think ourselves into anything, all whilst nimbly controlling what we think ourselves into. To doggedly pursue our Global Aesthetics, knowing that this is our only calling in a silent Universe. So much chaos. So much noise. But correctly imbued with the clarity of the Universal, so much complexity, so much Beauty.

The observant human sets out to discover these metaphysical Truths and finds themselves living a split life, a dualistic existence in which one foot is firmly planted in the territory of the human whilst the other is firmly planted in the territory of the Universal. This is a life of paradox, as the disparate rules of both territories pull the wary observer in conflicting directions. The territory of the human tells us that we have but one life to lead and that we must write the perfect story with it, whilst simultaneously the Universe tells us that what we do does not matter, what we care about is arbitrary, and that we are no more than insignificant actors on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The territory of the human fills us with emotion, conflict, and purpose whilst the Universal wrests this all away. A constant paradox between the underlying Reality of the Universe and how one experiences it. This paradox reveals itself most clearly at the exact location where it is formed, the boundary between the human and Universal, and if anything the findings of this piece serve to reveal just this paradox. We strive to live metaphysically consistent lives in Universal clarity, but try as we might we cannot escape the fact that we are condemned to the territory of the human. Given the presence of this paradox, the ultimate question becomes of how to deftly navigate it, how to gracefully exist in both the human and the Universal.

Kierkegaard proposed the metaphor of a ballerina’s leap when describing the manner in which a knight of faith may tarry between the territory of the human and the realm of God. A movement so deft and agile that to an observer there appears no separation between when the dancer is firmly planted on the ground and when the dancer is leaping in the air. In searching for metaphysically consistent Truths, this piece proposes a method for making such a leap. A leap in which one is able to move with grace between the modalities of the human and the Universal whilst appearing to be in both states at the same time. A movement in which one appears to be in superposition, present in both the human and the Universal at the same time. The Universe presents us with a paradox in which the rules of the human conflict with the rules of the Universal. The only way to solve a paradox is with a superposition, to exist in both conflicting states at the same time. We will never be able to fully achieve this superposition, to fully live in both territories simultaneously. However, we may strive to deftly leap between the two so as to move as close to superposition as possible. This is precisely what this piece has set out to do. Discover the metaphysical Truths necessary for one to dance through life, living in harmony with both the human and the Universal. A method by which one may constantly leap to the Universal and back again without ever appearing to leave the ground. For to be a great human is to live in superposition between the human and the Universal. To be a great human is to gracefully live in paradox.

“Most people live dejectedly in worldly sorrow and joy; they are the ones who sit along the wall and do not join in the dance. The knights of infinity are dancers and possess elevation.” - Soren Kierkegaard

Propositions

Gratitude always, for the counterfactual is nothing.

Words are not functional objects, words are aesthetic objects and should be treated as such. Where one tries to mingle the profound and the banal, the disappointed man speaks.

In the equilibrium, all knowledge goes to zero. By destroying knowledge, one may both know and not be destroyed.

Think yourself into a perception of the world that you desire.

Striving towards our Global Aesthetics is Beauty, and the pursuit of Beauty is how we are to act in a metaphysically silent Universe.

To be a great human is to live in superposition between the human and the Universal. To be a great human is to gracefully live in paradox.

Afterword

Despite sacrificing scope in order to make claims that are metaphysically consistent, and despite appearing to be built on a rigorous metaphysical framework, this piece and the statements made within are but a rickety ladder placed upon a shaky scaffolding and could very well just represent another set of aesthetic judgments. Despite an intense desire to live in Universal clarity and hold oneself to the light of Truth, what has been posited in this work is ultimately a ladder that must be ascended and then thrown away, for certainly anyone who has attended to the problems discussed within will be able to cast doubt on all that has been postulated here. So with this disclaimer of hubris we press on, feeling a little better about our actions than we did yesterday, but not particularly confident in anything at all.