Several weeks back, I wrote a treatise on how knowledge was subjective and how each of us created our own realities.

Which begs the questions – how do I know what is real and true? How does the world function at all?

The first answer is, you absolutely cannot tell what’s real and true, unless you have a supreme being to tell you, and then you will probably argue with (him) – say on homosexuality. (I think that it is marvelously wonderful that mere specs of dust will take on the infinite and stomp their feet, insisting they are right. It provides deep insight into identity politics and culture wars. Spoiler alert - if a supreme being says homosexuality is wrong, it is wrong, period. (I personally do not think it is wrong, just making an example.))

The second answer is, it’s on the order of a minor miracle. The center should not hold – and sooner or later it does not – but then a new social lifeform appears and on we go.

This writing contemplates how it is that we navigate the world not so much to determine truth as to function, survive and prosper. You can accomplish those goals while ignoring or rejecting many truths.

But first, I want to bring up that old shibboleth, the Moon landing.

Did it, or did it not “really” occur?

If you think it did, why do you think so?

The culture thinks so? The culture used to think the world was flat, that witches were real and that you cured illness with leaches.

An expert you trust said so? In 2007, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer infamously dismissed the iPhone as a "niche toy" with no appeal to business customers due to its lack of a physical keyboard. Decades earlier in 1977, Digital Equipment Corporation founder Ken Olsen declared there was "no reason anyone would want a computer in their home"

You saw the rocket launch on TV? You also saw Alf on TV. You panicked when The War of the Worlds was on the radio. Lawyers learned a long time ago that eye-witnesses were not that reliable.

The government says so. The government continually lies with alacrity about many things.

The bottom line is that you have no firm basis to determine that the Moon landing was true. You believe it is true. That’s all you can do.

And that pretty much covers everything you see. Your life is a construction of beliefs – not truths.

Not just capitalism or socialism or pronouns, but everything you “know” is a construct.

Philosophers have dealt with this for ages.

We have discussed Plato’s wonderful allegory of the cave, in which reality is a projection of forms onto a wall. (If you are not familiar with it, run, don’t walk, to the nearest screen and Google or AI it.)

Contemporary philosophers continue to disagree as to what reality is, complicated by quantum mechanics and a lack of understanding of what consciousness is in the first place.

And everyone is totally amazed that mathematics, whatever that is, pretty well describes reality, whatever it is. Simply astounding.

The truth is out there somewhere, only the game is rigged such that we will never know it. At best, we can creep up on it. The parable of the blind men and the elephant is perfect. In my version, three blind men approach an elephant. One grabs the tail and says, “I know what an elephant is, it is a long cord with a brush on the end.” The second grabs a leg and says, “You’re crazy. It is like a tree trunk.” The third grabs the trunk and says, “You two are clearly delusional. An elephant is a flexible tube with warm air coming out.”

So, given all of this, how do we even function? How does the world, pretty much reliably, get through the day?

Part of it is Darwinian. Those who create universes too far from reality simply fail, leaving those who are close enough to propagate.

Socialism does not have to be “right” or “best” at all. It simply needs to be good enough.

Part of it is that some truths just don’t matter to everyday existence. The Moon landing is one of those. So is the flat Earth theory. May be interesting, but do not matter, at least as a first approximation. Aboriginal humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years without any of the truths of modernity.

Part of it is that incompatible truths can, more-or-less, coexist. Say Islam and Hinduism. Or capitalism and Communism. In a wonderful coincidence, every football team in America is number 1.

And there is the problem that the greater the number of truths we gather, we perversely create unsustainable universes. We will likely extinguish our species on the alter of technology. There is an argument to be made that the only sustainable homo sapiens in the long run are aboriginal.

We will leave all of that for another day. Sustainable, reasonable, or not, how do we get through the day?

It turns out to be, at bottom, Darwinian.

We create a world view, run that program in real life, and if all goes ok, then that reality is functional. We add a fact or an observation, run the new program and get hurt. Discard that fact or observation.

But we start with an operating system – a culture we swim in at birth. People before us have done the hard work of determining which plants are poisonous. We have a system that more-or-less works in the sense that some plants it identifies as poisonous may not be, but none of those identified as poisonous are not.

That’s good enough.

Then we venture into the ever-changing, evolving, creating and competing bits of culture – not so much about poisonous plants, but about ideas and thriving - come to think about it, close enough to the same thing. How does one choose between socialism and capitalism? How do we discern reality?

Wrong question.

This is not about reality, this is about subjective values.

Is economic growth important? Go for capitalism.

Are equalities of outcome fundamentally important? Go for socialism.

Do you want both, but understand that you can’t have both, only compromise? Come up with a hybrid system.

But that still begs the question of, given a situation or a “fact,” how do you determine its truthiness?

Trump says we will bomb Iran back into the Stone Age.

Talarico says Christianity and Islam are the same thing.

Mamdani says rent control is fair and proper.

Many say China will invade Taiwan.

In my world view, none of these things is true.

How do we sort through all of this?

• First, understand that whatever conclusion you come to, there is a reasonable chance you are wrong. Humility is fundamentally important. You CANNOT be certainly correct.

• Second, understand that behind every opinion and worldview there is an ultimate objective. For every “fact” try to identify the ultimate objective. Since EVERYTHING requires trade-offs, think about what is being traded-off - liberty for order; growth for equality of outcome.

• Third, cui bono? Who benefits? Why would someone say a thing; why would they say the opposite?

• Fourth, understand human nature and read history. Create an overall worldview and then see how a new fact fits in. New facts will almost always affect worldviews, some reinforcing; some requiring rethinking.

• Fifth, look around at what is going on. How does the new fact fit the context?

• Sixth, have trusted experts, about whom you always maintain skepticism, and review not only their conclusions, but also their reasoning. An expert you like is someone who has a similar worldview to yours. Don’t just take their thoughts as truth. Make yourself understand why they think that way.

• Seventh, seek out opposite views. If you are conservative, read the Guardian – not the New York Times. Every now and then, if you really want to dive into deep waters, read, say, the Nation, or the Maoist manifesto of the Democratic Socialists. Often that would be a lesson in how crazy people can be, but also that there are kernels of truth that you are ignoring. Don’t just dismiss an opposite view out of hand. Understand the argument against and identify the kernels of truth that you have to face and deal with. (Don't watch MSNow if you are conservative or Fox if you are liberal. They are worse than nothing.)​

I express opinions in this space based on a worldview that has been created by decades of reading and watching and living in my head. I do not assert correctness, only, hopefully, coherence and resilience.

I select what are to me interesting tidbits of information. Mostly they are not presented as facts so much as I think they are interesting or humorous or absurd. I want to bring them to your attention to consider for your worldview.

There are a reasonable number of you, a number of "facts" to consider and a lot of opinions to consider, so I get feedback, both expanding on my thoughts and providing pushback. I often learn a great deal from that feedback and go in to tinker with and adjust my worldview.

Let’s take China invading Taiwan.

Reader SS and I disagree on this one. I think, all things being equal and the US not precipitating a crisis, Taiwan will slowly-and-then-suddenly just be incorporated into China. SS believes China will invade – and soon.

I have no idea who is right, but SS is intelligent and thoughtful. He is not mouthing propaganda or some party line. His views are definitely credible. Following are the principal concepts I am, and he is, probably, using.

• Macro historical trends and cycles. There are times that support these kinds of actions and times that do not. SS has a war cycle theory that he has put together that indicates we are vulnerable to war. Given the Fourth Turning, I have no argument with that.

• The history of China. One of the great civilizations of history with great traditions that literally view their nation as the center of the universe. A Confusion / Buddhist heritage. A nasty bout with Europeans, particularly the British in the Opium Wars.  Subjugation and humiliation, including by Japan. A civil war in which the Communists won. The upheaval and terror of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. An incredible resurrection to become one of the dominant forces on Earth.

• The historical relationship between China and Taiwan. Taiwan is where the remnants of the losers went after their civil war. It has become a capitalistic success in its own right. It is a cultural, historical and technological prize.

• The history and psychology of Xi. A man who lived through the Cultural Revolution in the fields who has become a ruthless dictator. He has a vision for China and wants to be an historical figure. This looms large in SS’s appraisal since SS believes Xi wants integrating Taiwan to be his crowning achievement.

• Military feasibility. China dominates Taiwan militarily, just as Russia does Ukraine and the US does Iran. Absent nuclear conflict, the US cannot, as a practical matter, protect Taiwan. China provides many of the parts for US weapons. But, Taiwan is buying drones, hand over fist.

• International approbation. The world will scorn and perhaps sanction China. But given China’s economic dominance, much of this could be tokenism and short-lived.

Anyone who has an opinion who does not take all of this into account simply does not have an informed opinion.

Informed opinions turn out to be rare.

And, just because an opinion is informed doesn't mean it is right.

But, I also use Occam’s Razor as a guiding principle: when faced with competing explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest one requiring the fewest assumptions should be preferred.

• China really wants Taiwan.

• Normally, China takes the long view.

• An invasion would be costly and messy at best with a lot of unintended consequences. There are rumors that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is rigged to self-destruct in the event of an invasion.

• Every year, Taiwan and China become more interconnected on all levels.

• My conclusion is, one day without military intervention they come together.

How strongly is that opinion held? Moderately strong. I give it a 70/30.

I think SS’s strongest argument is that Xi wants this, personally. This is not primarily rational for Xi. Therefore, rational analysis may be only mildly useful.

And, that’s one of the most important conclusions in my worldview – humans are not rational and therefore facts may not matter much or at all, and human nature and individual personalities are paramount.

My current example is Graham Platner. The point of Platner is to win, principles and values be damned. As we have discussed, the primary area for contemplation is why and how can Platner be a winner in an election among “rational” voters. What are those voters using as facts and what are their values? What does that imply about the social dynamics of Maine and of the nation?

The bottom line is that we are playing games that mostly do not require precision in describing reality and that emotions will dominate. Our culture and our genes provide the substrates for worldviews against which we measure the world.

There is no correct worldview – worldviews are functional or they are not – Darwinian.

Your worldview on pronouns may seem existential, but on a larger scale, it just doesn’t matter. Among a group, one worldview is required. Among another group, that worldview is excessive and destructive. The world has existed with a limited set of pronouns for millennia. Probably not existential. Probably locally important.

Global warming is probably a better example.

In my view, it is existential.

My bottom line, simplistically, is that global warming is “real” and matters a lot. Also, that nobody cares. Also, even if you care, the cost of addressing it is humongous, therefore meaningful actions are all but impossible. (Lip service, however, is everywhere – sanctimonious virtue signaling is also characteristic of our time.)

Reality avoidance is what humans do best.

This has all gone on way too long, but I want to make one more observation.

Our lives are constructs and are not built on reality. We spend our lives avoiding reality.

Reality is judgement neutral. You live, you die, you get sick, you used to procreate. Nature includes tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, draughts. Disease is everywhere. Nature doesn’t care about capitalism, Communism or pronouns. The universe is, for all practical purposes, infinite. We are not even a spec of dust in the grand scheme of things. Reality is best described by mathematics you probably can’t begin to understand, describing relativity and quantum mechanics, which you almost definitely do not understand. (Nobody understands quantum mechanics, so don't feel badly about that one.)

You are not even close to understanding reality in any fundamental sense of the world.

We avoid all of that.

The rest of the world lives in differing degrees of difficulty – including poverty. Some of us worry about our poor, ignoring the fact that our poor are more prosperous than billions of people in the rest of the world and are more prosperous than essentially all humans that have ever lived.

When considering “reality,” it is critical to understand that we live inside an artificial construct that bears little resemblance to reality. Any reality that we create is derivative of and based on an artificial construct.

In the end, we are playing a board game according to rules we have put together, constrained by whatever the Platonic-form of reality is.

So, your task is to create a worldview that enables you to survive and prosper as best you can. You put the emotional layer on top of value-neutral reality that creates an artificial importance to what you do to contribute to your life’s meaning.

(Spoiler alert – absent a supreme being, your life has no meaning, so it is incredibly important that you find a supreme being or create meaning, which brings us full circle back to pronouns.)