There’s not much else to say.

A few days ago I defined that which could not be defined, and that was bad enough. But now she’s going to kill me.

You may disagree. “Everything” is defined in the dictionary, after all. But there is a problem: words in the dictionary are all defined in terms of other words in the dictionary. If you want to know what “everything” is, you’ll first need to know what “the” and “a” are, which in turn depend on other words in the dictionary, and so on. Eventually you’ll get back to “everything.” That’s the infinite curiosity loop.

Of course, this is hardly a problem. We all know what the word “everything” means without looking it up in the dictionary. We learned it from experience. As long all the words we want to look up are defined in terms of some basic words we know from experience, we won’t be stuck in the infinite curiosity loop. Those basic words are curiosity halters.

Is she free?

“All words enter the language through the senses,” he said. “We attach the words to our physical experience.”

“Not always,” she said. “There is no way to learn the word wamoblobby through the senses.”

“Well you got me there,” he said.

They then proceeded to wamoblobby for a while, but of course it is impossible for me to explain what that means using words that you’ve learned through sensory experience. But they were glammowacky jibbermim for real.

The last one on the list was “I hope he doesn’t read all of them.” Checks out so far.

He then flickered out of existence as quickly as he had flickered in.

“I have stuff to worry about,” he said.

He then furrowed his eyebrows.

“Shit,” he said. “Fucking shit.”

This went on for a while. And then:

“Oh no,” he said. “Oh no!”

“What?” I said.

“Shit!” he said.

He was really into it.

She just sat there staring at the wall. I’d seen this before. I knew she would respond eventually.

3 hours later, she said something.

“I’m making intellectual progress,” she said. “This is far more effective than actual work.”

“Then why did you quit now?” I said.

“Segfault,” she said.

I was tempted to make fun of her for not actually getting anything done, but then again I had just been standing there waiting for her to respond for 3 hours. I wouldn’t want to sound like a hypocrite.

“Did you save?” I said.

No use. She was already paralyzed by thought again.

Fig. 1: Logic

Fig. 2: Super Logic

I just get so frustrated when I try to explain the difference to people, so I created this visual guide. As you can see, super logic is the superior choice, if you have enough room.

Anyway, she joined the fun eventually. That broke the tension.

So what is outside the universe?

Monsters. Hungry monsters who eat little children who ask too many questions.

“I conclude that your religion is faulty,” he said.

She concluded that too, but she concluded that her conclusion was false.

“So you believe in it too?” she said.