[UA] What Do You Beleive?

[Matthew Rowan Norwood]

> Complete and total skepticism (in the sense of being uncertain that truthful knowledge is possible, not in the sense of CSICOP) would require being skeptical of skepticism.
> 
> Of course, the belief that there could be proof means they're not really of this brand of skepticism.
> 
> Either skepticism is susceptible to its own skepticism, or it is an axiomatic system based on the belief "you can't know anything", which is just as dogmatic as any other axiomatic system.

Sure. For my part, I find the notion laughable that a bundle of neurons
could model the universe so accurately and completely as to wrap itself
around the fundamental nature of existence. Heap on top of that the
notion that we could communicate this mental model using our
hunter-gatherer-evolved system of grunts and belches and it's just about
enough to make me bust a gut.

Humans are pretty good at finding food and shelter, mating, etc. But
when we sit around the fire making grand pronouncements about God and
the Laws of Nature, we're about as profound as a bunch of ants talking
about the Cosmic Shoe.

ObUA: This, of course, is more or less a CoC atittude: humans are
inconceivably limited and irrelevant, and occasionally their entire
existence gets warped or demolished by little twitches of the Elder
Gods. UA works on a different principle in some ways, being very
humanocentric, but it should also incorporate some elements of this
ultimately ineffable reality. The Comte and the Clergy should regard
humans the way we regard ants. The Clergy see us stumbling around all
over the sidewalk, following pheremone trails, missing big stashes of
food by mere inches, being crushed by giant feet we never see coming and
couldn't understand even if we did. Sometimes, they decide to play with
us and set up little barricades to divert us toward or away from things
in our environment. They might even pick us up and move us several feet
across the sidewalk. But through it all, we are never really aware of
them any more than an ant is aware of humans: we are incapable of
conceiving of the hands that alter our world and our fate.

The kicker here, of course, is that the ants have the potential to
someday transform into people. And that's where the game starts getting
a lot more interesting for everyone involved.

-Matt Norwood

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