| Stance | Causality | Chaos | Flow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | Everything happens for the best, in accord with the Cosmic Plan. (Except free will lets us do evil.) | The universe is random; nothing happens for any particular reason | There are no ultimate causes, and causation is nebulous, but we naturally observe patterns |
| What it denies | Pointless suffering | Interpretability | |
| What it fixates | Reasons | [Nothing] | |
| The sales pitch | There is no need to suffer, so long as you conform to the Cosmic Plan | [This is a hard sell ] God is dead. | Dance with reality |
| Emotional appeal | Can pretend there is no pointless suffering | [This may be only a theoretical possibility] | |
| Pattern of thinking | Kitsch | Despair | Realism |
| Likely next stances | Eternalism, religiosity | Nihilism, secularism | |
| Accomplishment | Pollyanna, Candide | La Nausé (Sartre) | Maximal ability to influence events, without attachment to outcome |
| How it causes suffering | Denying pointless suffering makes it hard to alleviate | [Theoretically, inability to take practical action] | |
| Obstacles to maintaining the stance | Obviousness of pointless suffering (our own and others’) | Obviousness of causality | No guarantees |
| Antidotes; counter-thoughts | Lots of stuff just happens | [Probably not necessary] | |
| Intelligent aspect | Things often do make sense | Things often are inherently uninterpretable | |
| Positive appropriation after resolution | Points toward pragmatic competence | Points toward comfort with uncertainty |
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