Wednesday, November 05, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.
Descartes’ formula stood for centuries as philosophy’s bedrock, the one truth doubt couldn’t shake. Even if an evil demon deceives you about everything else, the act of thinking proves something exists to be deceived.
Then the simulation hypothesis arrived. We could all be characters in a giant computer simulation and we wouldn’t know it. Our instinct that we are even thinking is no longer solid. We might be an unimportant subroutine.
This is where most people either spiral into nihilism or retreat into unprovable faith. If we can’t know base reality, then either nothing matters or we must believe in something bigger than us without evidence. Life itself is otherwise meaningless.
But there’s a third option.
We don’t need faith for life to have meaning. We can create meaning.
We can act morally. We can improve the lives of others. We can help the helpless.
We create meaning by walking values when forces clash. Every time we choose to align with values over instinct and reflex, we are creating a more moral world. We are authoring significance that wouldn’t exist without our conscious intervention.
Meaning isn’t something you discover or prove. It’s something you create through moral action with other people.
Create meaning and you change from an isolated observer into an active creator of our world.
Descartes could not go past a world where only he exists and he cannot know anything else. But we are not passive observers of life. We are not chained in Plato’s cave, watching the shadows. We have agency to act, to create.
This inverts Descartes from cogito ergo sum to fac ut fiat. Do, and through the doing, it becomes.
When we perform actions, it doesn’t only change our world - it changes us. If we choose to tell the truth, then we are more likely to tell the truth in the future. When we go against our nature to help someone, it is easier to make that same choice the next time. Even if we are in a simulation, we are not non-playing characters - we are more like self-learning AIs that behave in a probabilistic way. And we can change our own selves.
Choosing values to override instincts is what separates us from other creations. That override, that moment when you choose value even though it costs you, is what makes you more than mere code. Not because you’re free from deterministic forces, but because you can override those forces when they misalign with values. The capacity for acting morally creates meaning. And the meaning you create through consistent choosing of values in your relationships, the trust you build through truth-telling, the dignity you honor through respect for others, are all experientially undeniable regardless of substrate.
Pascal’s Wager, Rewired
Pascal’s Wager argued that belief in God is the rational choice even without proof. The upside of belief if God exists is huge, the downside is small. And if God doesn’t exist, belief doesn’t hurt you. So choose to believe.
We are updating that wager for anyone who ever doubted whether anything matters, no God required.
You might not be able to prove base reality. But you have a choice: nihilism or a life with meaning?
There is no need for faith in this derech wager. You are choosing to make the life you are in, simulated or not, meaningful. The upside is huge. You are helping to create a better world, real or not.
There is no downside.
The feeling of making a difference is real. The shared joy of being in a relationship based on respect is real. It is something that didn’t exist before you made your decision to act morally. This is true even in a simulation.
The wager isn’t hypothetical. You’re already in it. Every day you’re choosing whether to choose values or let reflex win. The question isn’t “should I start?” It’s “given that I’m already creating or destroying meaning with every choice, will I optimize for meaning?”
If you act as if nothing matters, you are right. If you act as if only you matter, you are right. If you act as if everyone matters, you are right again. That’s how you create your world.
Fac ut fiat. Do so it becomes.
Do, and through the doing, meaning becomes real.
Be the creator of your world.
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