Necessary Thing

[robvalue]

This is the thing. If you want to learn things about what is actually real, you need to use the scientific method.

Making general rules that go beyond the scope of science and just assuming they apply doesn't get you anywhere. We can speculate, as I have been doing, but until you can actually test, it's not especially useful. Since there is no way of telling how things work outside of what we can test, we can't know which speculation is correct. So even if you stumbled upon the truth, you wouldn't know you had it.

This is why I'm happy to say I don't know, and why I don't have firm beliefs about it all. Maybe there's a big-daddy-something-or-other who is the master of contingency, maybe there isn't. Makes no difference to me. Maybe our whole idea of contingency is complete bullshit, and if we could see the big picture without being trapped inside one reality, it would make more sense.

All we can do is model and test what is available, and try to increase our scope with new techniques. But philosophy alone is not an adequate tool.