Utility versus Futility

Among the many interlocking principles that I find useful in discussing metaphysics is the one I call, “Utility versus Futility.”

It’s really quite simple. If two metaphysical proposals (or theories) are equally supportable by evidence and logic, then the one to prefer should be the one with more practicality, more usefulness.

For example, let us consider whether the universe follows coherent natural laws, or instead, whether everything happens purely at random, in which case, the universe could at any moment revert to incomprehensible chaos. (This second has actually been seriously proposed, and goes under such names as “Last Thursdayism,” which says that the entire universe came into being, fully formed including with our memories, only last Thursday—or a moment ago—and can vanish at any instant.)

Both proposals can be argued with logic and evidence, but only the first proposal has any practical merit, for example, as in planning for NEXT Thursday.

This principle is useful in such topics of discussion as, do we have NO free will? Are we incapable of knowing anything at all? Are we illusions, or figments of a computer’s imagination, or dreams by extraterrestrial aliens?

One cannot entirely disprove such notions, but if one accepts them, will his life be improved? Can falsehood lead only, in the end, to catastrophe and suffering? If so, then is it not incumbent to seek truth?

Less directly connected, are cases in which the principle of utility applies in varying degrees. For example: are we transient physical (or even mental) phenomena, or are we eternal sovereign beings? Are we pawns of the gods, or are we the creatures of a loving deity? Are we happenstance coincidences, or deliberately formed?

Each of us must decide for himself which path, from among the innumerable many, to choose, and none of us has such vast and infallible wisdom as to reliably make the best choice.

I therefore find it more useful to rely on revealed wisdom, such as in the Bible, rather than to think myself capable of working out the answers on my own.

In the end, we must each reap as we sow.