Nothing is true and everything is
permitted. A meaningless video game quote right? Well actually it’s attributed
to a 12th century muslim missionary. But beyond that
it’s been used in many places. But lets look at the statement itself.
Seven short words, and yet through the magic of linguistics, they convey so
much wisdom. To explore, we’re going to have to break this down a little bit.
First we’ll
start with the first part, nothing true. Well this can’t possibly be true can
it? I mean Hitler was evil, It’s 4:42PM EST here in ohio, and this chair is
blue. I know these things to be true, and likely you know a similar set of
things, though the details may vary. But
lets look at them individually. Was Hitler evil? I think pretty much everyone
reading this save for the random neo nazi (hi bob), can agree with that. Well,
what is evil? Something that is immoral…. What’s that mean? Well Miriam webster
defines it as:
“Violating Moral Principles; Not conforming to the patterns
of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of
personal and social ethics”
Hmm…
That’s a lot of vauge conditionals. Personal ethics? Those are different for
each person, and not everyone has every situation clearly and neatly defined ethics.
What does it even mean to conform? To do what everyone or the majority is
doing? Well no two other people are ever doing EXACTLY the same thing. In
hitlers case he lived in a society that elected him…. Not by a majority of the
people, but a plurality. So he was conforming to the largest group…. How is he
then evil? Are we holding him to western American standards? Modern standards? The
answer is we’re holding him to OUR standards. Well that hardly seems rational
when he was a world away. What even gives us any authority to do that? Force? That
just means we can kick more ass. No we decided to judge him based on our own
standards of our own volition and decided what was right. Nothing ever actually
made it so. There exists no mechanism by which nature determines who is right
in an ideological debate.
Still
the vagueness of what is evil and not is just one example. Surely It’s still
4:42. NOPE, as of the time I’m writing this it’s 5:09… but it was 4:42 when I was
writing it above right? Well more like 4:42 and some number of seconds. But we
could measure that right? Well the smaller and smaller time frames you get you
start needing more advanced clocks… to a point that you can’t be exactly sure.
But it was still between 4:42 and 4:43 right? According to my clock yes. Is my
clock accurate? Maybe. And that’s if I remember correctly, if it didn’t change
between the time I looked at the writing and the clock. But assuming we had an
ultra advanced perfect clock, instantaneous ability to measure we could be
right about the time right? If time doesn’t follow the laws of quantum
mechanics, maybe.
Okay the
chair has to be blue, you know what color you’re looking at right? What is
color, is the chair really there? Color
is a construct interpreted by your brain. Are you sure the blue you see is the
same blue everyone else sees? Are you sure the chair is there? Well no no it
isn’t. at least not exactly where you perceive
it to be. According to the quantum nature of matter, actually pinning down
where something is, isn’t as dry cut as you might believe. Things don’t really ….
Exist in any one place, they can be measured to be in a place but they’re more
waves than things. You don’t measure a wave as being the crest do you? No it
has a size as immeasurable as that might be but it’s bigger than just the tip.
Matters the same way, where you perceive something to be is likely the crest. The
statistical average of where that something is located.
Nothing
is true is true though making nothing is true false right? (kudos if you
followed that sentence). Correct. 1+1=2 ….kind of. See even a concept as simple
as the number 1 has an elaborate logical underpinning. 1+1=2 is true because we
DEFINE it to be true.
Still, I
think hitler was evil, because I believe it to be so. 4:42 was a good enough
estimate when I wrote it (now 5:22), and there was never any chair. The chair
was a thought experiment. Approximations, guesstimates, that’s all we have to
work with, and sometimes they help. But nothing is EVER completely 100%
undeniably true. The universe simply does NOT work on such a pedantic binary
system. Perceptions, self definitions, these things matter. The great wisdom of
the phrase tells us to not accept things at face value, to look deeper and in
the end, determine what is true for ourselves. But only after internal
reflection upon listening to the evidence. Sure Hitler was an evil guy, I believe
this, because he was not working for the greater good of all. That is my own definition of what is right
and wrong. Yours can be different, hell MINE is vague and open to
interpretation from day to day about what constitutes greater good. Hell the
definition itself is self referencing.
So what
about the other half, everything is permitted. I can’t go and rob a convenience
store can i? that’s not permitted? Have you tried? I guarantee you if you tried
you could have some chance of actually doing it. Nothing is true, remember. That
applies to the almighty power of laws. They are simply words on paper. They
mean nothing unless we make them mean something.
Say there’s
a law: you can’t sell ice cream on Saturday. Absurd but no cop is going to
enforce it. Is it illegal to do so? The law says it is but people keep doing
it. Well the law has no power, does that make it cease to exist? It’s still on
the books. What if I shoplift some small bauble from a store? And no one finds
out? It’s certainly normally enforced, but I get away with it. Is it illegal then? If so why
am I getting away? Even if I don’t the act still happened.
Sad fact
is that laws have no power. The laws of the universe, may be unbreakable but
the laws of man are transmutable, fleeting, changing and weak. They exist no
where but in our minds, and to each of us they have a different interpretation.
So in
conclusion, what the phrase simply teaches us, is to open our minds, and be not
bound to anything. We are free, but that freedom comes at the cost of
responsibility and consequences. So go live your life, live free but understand
that you simultaneously know nothing and everything. That you have to make
decisions based on incomplete information, and that’s okay because you will never have all the answers, and because of that, you should listen even to your worst enemy, because everyone else may have some knowledge you do not, as no one is omniscient , but you can decide only for yourself.
