Thread by @blairenns

Apologies in advance for breaking the Internet but I have finally arrived at my Unified Theory of Everything. It is a story. Or stories. (thread)

1/ Stories are the substrate of the universe. As our knowledge of the mechanics of things increases and we continue to parse the units of matter previously thought to be indivisible (atom, quark, etc.) we ultimately have to conclude there is no there there.

2/ Matter under the study of physicists is like a cube of sugar in the grasp of a raccoon. As it’s washed it dissolves into nothing before our eyes. We are left only with space, fields and enigmatic dark matter and dark energy which are said to account for 96% of the universe.

3/ The indivisible unit of matter is neither indivisible nor is it matter. There is no matter, and therefore no objective external reality. There is only subjective experience—what we perceive—and those perceptions make sense only as stories that we tell ourselves and others.

4/ The quantum field is a field of story–of plot lines, of characters, of narrative possibilities. It is creative energy. There are no facts. There is no truth. There is only what you feel and what you make others feel through the stories that you weave.

5/ All of existence is subjective. Everything. It is all story, all the way down.

And I don’t know why.

6/ I have always found Feynman’s warning to ignore the “why” questions of physics frustrating. When you remove the why from physics you are left with mere mechanics. Still a noble pursuit but grounded in an assumption of objectivity and therefore fatally unwhole and irresolvable.

7/ Feynman said it’s possible the question has no meaning. But the only meaning in any question is the meaning we bring to it. Our answer to why is just another story that we weave, and that’s why physics, with its bias to objectivity, has no answer and so avoids the question.

8/ There is no one answer to why, no universal meaning to anything. Like everything else, meaning is subjective. Just a story. There is only story.

9/ Who are you? Why are you here? What is the nature of reality? What does it all mean? The answers are stories and that’s all there ever can be because that’s all there is. Stories are the basis of you, of reality, of the universe.

10/ You yourself are a story drawn from the creative field and all you can or will ever do is to draw from that field to create... stories. There is nothing else.

11/ Your stories are inspiring and tragic and pathetic and beautiful and they are all you have, all you are, all you ever will be. Embrace this. It is the only universal truth. Or it is a great story. Is there a difference? If the former exists it can only be the latter.

12/ The universe is a story brought into existence by storytellers; a creation of our making that could not exist without us.

And that, best beloved, is as true a story as any story ever told.

13/ My work here is done. Now, how do I get to the next level? A portal should be opening somewhere—ah, th...