Foundations for a Fantasy‑Free View of Life
James Quillian, Economist, Political Analyst, Natural Law

Natural law begins by understanding and internalizing what we don’t know. We will never know these things, and that fact itself is part of the law we live under.

Why are we here? Plain and simple, we just don’t know. Explanations abound. Some are religious, some are scientific, some are poetic. Still, no one knows.

We don’t know the origin of life. Some say God. Some say that life began when dead chemicals miraculously combined in such a way that life generated itself. The theories are many. The facts are few. We just don’t know.

We don’t know what life is. We can describe how to stay alive, how to measure vital signs, how to repair a body. We can write textbooks about biology and medicine. Still, we don’t know what life is. We just don’t know.

We don’t know what death is either. All we really know is that what we call “life” ceases at that point. Since we don’t know what either life or death actually is, we don’t know which is better. It seems like life is better, but that is a feeling, not knowledge.

We all have the will to live. We feel it strongly. We act on it every day. Yet we don’t know its source. We don’t know why we cling to life, only that we do.

We don’t know what consciousness is. Is it something outside of living things that we tap into, or is it contained entirely within the body? We can talk about brains, nerves, and signals, but the simple truth remains:
we just don’t know.

We know that there are no experts on God. We also know there are no experts on there not being a God. On this question, everyone stands on the same ground—no one knows.

Finally, no matter what we are doing or thinking, no matter what kind of expert we are, there is always more that we don’t know than what we do know. That imbalance never goes away. It is built into the human condition.

“To understand that there is no security is far more than to agree with the theory that all things change…
The principal thing is to understand that there is no safety or security.” — Alan Watts

Natural law starts right here: with the honest admission that our knowledge is small and our ignorance is vast.
Once we stop pretending otherwise, we can begin to see how the world actually works. This is the first step in
a longer journey—one that will take us from the unknowns we must accept to the lies of life we no longer have
to fall for.