Edward: Why am I doing all this? Why am I spending all my time on school work? Why am I preparing for a career? I've been placed into this universe for a finite amount of time and I'm living according to these social conventions and rules, and for what? Why should I keep going with this?

[ANGEL appears]

Angel: Ha, isn't that the question? Have you tried religion?

[DEVIL appears]

Devil: Don't fucking try religion. It's a load of bullshit.

Edward: I'm not fucking trying religion.

Angel: Jesus, it was just a suggestion.

Edward: Well, I guess if there was a religion that made sense, I would try it. I can't just do something because it feels good. I'm not doing the whole faith thing.

Angel: So you need reason, rationality, all that garbage the New Atheists came up with.

Devil: I don't think they—

Angel: Wait, I know! Be fearlessly consequential!

Devil: What?

Angel: It's an inside joke. But you could make a difference, have your name ring through the halls of history!

Edward: That does sound appealing… But like, that seems kind of egotistical. Also, make a difference how, exactly? With this reasoning, Hitler had a very fulfilling life.

Angel: Well, you wouldn't want to do that, obviously. You want people to admire you. The only way to do that is to make a difference that helps people.

Devil: Why would being remembered or admired be a virtuous purpose? Isn't this just a byproduct of brain chemistry? The need to be accepted by your community? Or maybe it's society. Societies that glorify being remembered well are able to get people to live in service of the people who remember.

Edward: Yeah, I rejected this one a few years ago.

Angel: Ok, what about dedicating your life to helping people? Morality does go higher than the desire to be liked.

Edward: I mean that was my plan, but I've recently been thinking… well… I don't know how to say this…

Devil: You don't really give a shit about people. Trust me, I feel the same way.

Angel: Good heavens! How could you say such a thing?

Edward: It's not that I don't care about other people per se. It's just like, how do I even know that other people have experiences like I do? If everyone were philosophical zombies, living in service of others would be just as arbitrary as living to service the cold dead economy. Why dedicate my life to people I can never be sure actually exist?

Angel: Do you actually think that other people aren't conscious like you?

Edward: I don't know, that's the thing!

Angel: Seriously. I know you don't actually believe in that.

Edward: No, I don't. Inductively, other people being conscious is probably a good inference to make. Why would people say they were conscious if they weren't? Where would that concept even come from if I'm the first person to have it?

Devil: Hume said that induction is flawed!

Angel: Who cares about Hume?

Edward: Well, I thought his argument was pretty convincing.

Angel: If you were forced to bet for or against the sun rising tomorrow, what would you do?

Edward: I guess bet for the sun rising?

Angel: And why?

Edward: Because the premise that you can't trust past experience at all seems so ridiculous that it must be wrong.

Devil: Argument from incredulity!

Angel: Are you seriously arguing that you can't at least reasonably infer that the sun will rise tomorrow?

Devil: I'll do you one better! How do you know that anything is true?

Edward: Excuse me?

Devil: What if you're just hallucinating everything?

Angel: That's ridiculous.

Devil: On the contrary! It's ridiculous to just assume that the picture that you're putting together in your head is representative of some external reality. But you can't know that.

Edward: You're right.

Angel: No he's not! Where would it be coming from if not reality?

Devil: Why does it have to come from anywhere? Can't I ask you the same thing, but about the realist universe? Why are things the way they are? They must be representative of something beyond. That must be representative of something else — turtles all the way down.

Angel: I've always thought there's some elegant truth underneath reality.

Devil: That would be nice, but you can't prove that. That's religion under the guise of logic.

Angel: What is so bad about religion?

Devil: Shut the fuck up.

Edward: Ok, well, I know that I am real. I think, therefore I am — Descartes. You can't deny my existence or my experience. You don't have to know that — I mean, you can't know that — but I do.

Angel: Hold on, how can I know that?

Edward: I mean you're a figment of my imagination, I think you just know.

Angel: For the sake of argument. In order for me to be right about your reality, your conviction that you're conscious has to be enough for me to believe it.

Devil: Is a parrot repeating that they're conscious evidence that they're conscious?

Angel: Like Edward said, someone had to say it first for the parrot to repeat it. Why else would they say it?

Devil: Maybe it was a mistake. A misunderstanding. A powerful one that people carried long enough to reach us, who now resonate with it. Or maybe that's how your hallucination made it. The person knows the concept because they aren't a separate consciousness — they're a part of you, who you know knows what consciousness is. You can't rule that out. [pause] Can we move on please?

Edward: So if all I know is true is my experience, then I just have to make that the best experience possible. Chase happiness.

Devil: Why happiness? What is inherently virtuous about it?

Edward: I would argue that the only thing you could say for sure is morally good is pleasure. Isn't that like, true by definition?

Devil: But why follow that definition? Why is pleasure good? Why not instead attempt to experience the widest range of qualia possible? Doesn't that also sound appealing?

Edward: It does. Well, which one do I pick?

Devil: Good and bad are only meaningful when we define a purpose. Murder is bad because, for a society that has the goal of reproducing itself, it is not effective to tolerate murder. We don't really see societies that totally condone murder because they didn't reproduce themselves. We end up with a basic system of morality that is seemingly fundamental to the universe, but it's just a facet of evolution. But life is not in itself a purpose — it just is. You can't have good and bad without purpose.

Angel: Hold on. When you're talking about the whole murder and society thing being a product of evolution, aren't you presupposing that those things exist beyond experience? Isn't that, like, the one thing you hate?

Devil: Fine, even better. If we don't presuppose a consistent external reality, we search to find “good” and “bad” and return with nothing. They're just ideas. They're not fundamental to existence.

Edward: But isn't their existence as ideas proof they are fundamental to existence?

Devil: Can't you say that about any idea? Doesn't mean it's valid.

Angel: But you're saying nothing's valid! Nothing exists, nothing's good or bad, just nothing!

Edward: Not nothing, though. I think, therefore I am.

Devil: What makes you confident that the reasoning there is valid?

Edward: Huh?

Devil: Deductive reasoning. How can you prove deductive reasoning is valid without using it? And that would be circular reasoning, which is invalid according to deductive reasoning.

Edward: How can you prove deductive reason is invalid without using it? Or how can you prove that some other system of belief is valid or invalid without using it?

Devil: So which system? From this far down, they all look the same to me. [pause] We have arrived at our destination. Nothing is true. In fact, nothing is untrue.

Angel: This is what the Bible cautions us about, Edward! The Devil takes us down dark paths. They're irresistible.

Devil: But why not follow those dark paths? Or why follow them? You can't really say.

Angel: Why can't you say?! Your conviction that there are no true convictions — isn't that a conviction too?!

Devil: Very true. Even this cannot be justified. We truly have nothing. Or do we?

Angel: You're sick.

Devil: Find my flaw! I dare you!

Edward: Wait, aren't you using deductive reasoning to come to your conclusion?

Devil: Very insightful, but that's the best part! Deductive reasoning rejects itself. Nothing can be justified, nothing is true.

Edward: Isn't that a truth?

Devil: Ok, it doesn't. Maybe everything is true! Who is to say?

Angel: This is what I've been trying to tell you, Edward! Religion, faith — not so unreasonable. You need them to have truth at all!

Edward: Ok, but you could put your faith at a million places and get different conclusions. He's right, how can we say where?

Angel: Where works?

Edward: What?

Angel: If one system underlies our world, it by nature would work.

Devil: You can't use deductive reasoning!

Angel: And yet, it works.

Devil: Who says?

Angel: You. You've been using it this whole time. You've been reifying it this whole time. Your conclusion that nothing is true comes from the fact that nothing can be justified, but that's a deductive principle. You can't escape it — no matter how hard you try. [pause] Let's explore the universe without deductive reasoning, shall we? [Opens the door to CHAOS]

Edward: Ok, so you can have a little bit of faith. As a treat. But where do we stop?

Angel: We stop here. Deductive reasoning says we go no more.

Edward: But I don't like this contradiction.

Angel: You don't have to. But the fact is — no contradictions, you get this: [CHAOS]. One contradiction, you get this. Which do you choose? Or maybe a better question is, which one do you have?

Edward: Any counter-arguments?

Devil: What do you think? [pause]

Edward: It's funny — you just can't argue against it. Because if everything means nothing, who is to say that “it's true just because” isn't fine? We go down the rabbit hole, and you can't say it's not true. You can't say it's true either, but you can't say it's not true. I can't defend myself down here, but you can't defend yourself either. But with one contradiction, we have everything we know. We have otherwise consistency in logic. We have reality.

Devil: Who is to say that reality is real?

Edward: Isn't reality by definition real?

Devil: But who is to say that is valid?

Edward: This is your problem. You're at the level of zero contradictions. Nothing. Go to one, the most basic one: you don't need to verify basic reality. Now, you have the real and the non-real. You have existence.

Angel: You know, the Daoists may have something to say about this. In the Zhuangzi, the dao is the essence of the world that could be thought of as flowing through many different holes, which would create different noises based on their shapes — these noises in the metaphor are the objects of the world. Whether they compose a hallucination or an external reality is irrelevant — at some level, they are real. The shapes of the holes are formed by the rules of the universe — physical constants, deductive reasoning, all that jazz. If there is no structure to create the holes, there is no resonance.

Devil: I'm not sure that's what the Daoists thought.

Angel: I'm not an expert on Eastern religion, ok? My thing is Jesus. I just watched a YouTube video. But it's a useful metaphor.

Devil: Hold on, but how can logic and thought constitute reality?

Edward: What is experience if not thoughts?

Devil: Touché. Spoken like a true anti-realist. But let's go with the other option, that there is an external reality. How can we say that reasoning, a tool of our brain, is innate to the universe?

Angel: Didn't we already touch this? That's the contradiction, the leap of faith of the smallest size.

Devil: No, we didn't. There's an important distinction between “reasoning is a useful tool to gain knowledge” and “reasoning is something that underlies the universe”. Can't you only really say the former? And that doesn't necessarily imply the latter.

Angel: Why not? Wouldn't those things be linked?

Devil: Perhaps there is more than just the external reality that we can perceive and learn about. Our experience might just be indirectly observing reality. Perhaps there is a larger set of rules that we can't access. A kind of hyperreality.

Edward: But who cares? Don't we only care about our own reality?

Devil: This hyperreality would certainly affect our reality, would it not? Perhaps there's a larger chaos that will soon disrupt our reasoning.

Edward: But this is just religion. We can't know anything about that.

Devil: This is what I'm saying. Isn't there ultimately a level of uncertainty to your argument?

Angel: But a universe that we are describing would resemble our own, no?

Devil: Yes. And it's unfalsifiable.

Edward: Ok, assuming there is no hyperreality, something that we have zero evidence for or reason to believe other than just pure speculation, we can say that rationality being a useful tool implies that it underlies our universe.

Devil: I don't think you're giving this possibility the credit it deserves. You're a limited biological creature; are you really making the assumption that if there is some objective reality, your sense data happens to encompass it all?

Edward: But aren't you making the assumption that there is an objective reality? I thought you were against that.

Devil: I'm not making any assumptions. I'm just trying to help you understand how it is impossible to be certain. God, humans are so arrogant. You build big cities and iPhones and Twinkies and you think that means you all know everything. You're not the only species that have impressive feats. Ants have massive supercolonies that span continents, but do you think that an ant would be able to comprehend general relativity?

Edward: I'm not saying I know everything; I just think this train of thought is useless. By definition, we can't know about hyperreality. Why bother?

Devil: I'm just saying, if you're gonna take leaps of faith in some places, why not in others? This is also relevant, is it not? You're making the assumption that an entire system of logic is valid from the bottom. I'm just raising the possibility that there is more up above.

Edward: But we're only taking a leap of faith because it allows us to even have arguments. This is why the contradiction has to apply to the universe, if it begins from nothing. If that system of logic contradicts itself in one place, it is inherently unstable. We can't have things without a contradiction because things are only real in that they interact with these rules; because if things act according to that system of logic, and if in that logic there is no rationale to affirm their existence, there needs to be something more to create them. That “something more” is the contradiction. The affirmation of reality. And the rules of reality are deductive reasoning.

Devil: Why not faith?

Angel: Oh so now you're all for faith?

Edward: Because according to the rules of faith, nothing in specific can be real. Everything can be real. Any book could be sacred. Any reality is possible. This is contradictory. But reasoning is limited, which matches our reality. I really don't think you can argue that another system can replace deduction because you need it for everything else. We are all born with it. Thing 1 is thing 1. Thing 1 is not thing 2, thing 2 is not thing 1. These are just basic truths that we use to understand reality. Identity and reality implies this basic level of reasoning. Besides, we're taking this leap. It's the smallest leap that I think you can take. And at some point, we need to just accept it and move on.

Devil: Fine.

Edward: So we're back where we started. My question remains, why do anything?

Angel: Ok, I lied. We don't stop here. You get a second contradiction: “do it just because.” That's the last thing I can offer you.

Devil: Hold on, why do you get a contradiction just for your meaning?

Angel: It's abstract, but these are dimensions, just like space and time. In one dimension of contradiction, you get reality. In two dimensions of contradiction, you have direction. Think about space, up and down mean nothing in one-dimensional space with only left and right; they only gain meaning with two. You get the good and the bad. Decision. Perhaps this is where consciousness lies.

Devil: Even if we take this religious crap of dimensions of contradictions in logic to be valid — which it isn't necessarily — you're just wrong. Again, the good and bad are just expressions of truth relative to a goal. How is that an extra dimension? Truth and goodness are the same thing, just different shapes.

Edward: I think we need to hash out consciousness to figure this one out. Or more accurately, do we have free will? Because if we do, there is something separate happening besides the determinism of the rules of logic.

Devil: I really don't see how this is related. Good and bad are relative and conditioned on a goal — you can't get away from that. Existence is not a goal in itself; it's a fact. Good and bad are facts.

Edward: I'm not talking about good and bad right now. You're right, they're just truth statements. I'm talking about, if we do have free will, it would go against the determinism that other things seem to abide by. This is yet another contradiction in the laws of nature. It's harder to think of as a proposition, but it's a similar thing.

Devil: Hold on, you're thinking classically. In the quantum world, we see randomness.

Edward: Yeah, but randomness is different than intention.

Devil: Wait, let's center ourselves. I know you're trying to come up with a theory of everything or something, but I don't get the point of this in regards to your question.

Edward: You know what, you're right. I'm getting ahead of myself. I just thought that if we go down to the real meanings of it all, I would find a purpose or a path to guide me. But it seems clear to me that a purpose isn't found here.

Devil: You see it now. There is no fundamental meaning to it all. It just is. Purpose is a human construct; it's not justifiable all the way down. You would need another wrinkle to create one, but there's no obvious point in the same way that rationality seems obvious.

Angel: Wait wait wait. You don't think that there is potentially a purpose hidden within the secrets of consciousness?

Edward: I mean, maybe if there's a creator or something.

Devil: And we all know that's bullshit.

Angel: Hey! I really don't appreciate your tone.

Edward: So what do I do? If there's no essential goal in life, there aren't good and bad things.

Devil: The freeing thing is that there's literally no wrong choice.

Angel: Hold on, you don't think that being good to other people is important?

Devil: You don't know that other people exist.

Edward: Well I might as well believe that there are other consciousnesses because if I act as if I don't, I might act immorally.

Devil: Firstly, morality is a sham. Secondly, that's just Pascal's wager reformulated. You can't know if there are other consciousnesses.

Angel: What if you can know it? Maybe we haven't figured it out yet.

Devil: I doubt it.

Edward: Ok, even if you can't prove it deductively, you can infer it inductively. We all share this notion of consciousness, like I said; that has to count for something.

Devil: How about Hume—

Angel: Fuck Hume! How about Occam's razor?! How about stop fucking thinking so much?! Hume can talk a big game but I would bet all the money in the world that he never stopped making inferences!

Devil: Wow, I didn't know you had that in you. But again, it's not certain. And you can't argue that it is.

Edward: Well, when it comes to morality, I just think, “What if I was the other person? Would I help myself?” And usually, I answer yes.

Angel: Usually? Jesus.

Devil: But you aren't the other person.

Edward: No, but I live in a society where I could be. If we all live morally, I think we all benefit. And regardless of the hard problem of consciousness, “we” means me. Besides, it feels good to be good.

Devil: But that good feeling is just brain chemistry. It's not real.

Edward: Oh, I think it's more real than almost anything, if reality is just experience. Are preferences not part of your experience? And preferences don't need to be justified to be real. I have the preference for pleasure. I have the preference for life. Why? I just do.

Devil: You just do?

Edward: In the same way I see red. I just do.

Angel: So what will you do with your life? Just do whatever?

Edward: Right now, I think I'm going to try to do it all. I might change my mind. It doesn't really matter though. There is no right or wrong answer. And at the end, when I ask myself if I lived a good or a bad life, I will answer, “I lived.”