Luckism starts with verifiable knowledge both from personal experience and from science. There is even a secondary level of confirmation from god-worshiping religions, philosophy and historical wisdom.
At the beginning we must make it perfectly clear that the existence of proof, including scientific proof, for the truth of Luckism does not lead to it being dogmatic. On the contrary, the proofs of Luckism lead to the paradoxical understanding that there can be no absolute certainty in any field. In fact, absolute certainty about anything is a sign of incomplete understanding. Moreover, it is “certainties” which lead some fundamental belief systems to believe they have the authority to kill or control others. The proofs of Luckism lead, not to dogmatism, but to a never-ending, self-limiting search for balance and harmony between what is known and what we know cannot be known.
Everyone recognizes that unpredictability, randomness and chance are features of daily life, in both the personal sphere and the world at large. And a majority of the world population experiences chance at one time or another in the form of games of chance and gambling. What many do not recognize is that all this is a clue to the universal existence and operation of unpredictable chance all the way down to the bottom of physical reality and life.
Daily event in the world provide constant proof of the operation of the unknowable and unpredictable. Start with natural events, the behavior of the weather or its more dangerous forms such as storms, hurricanes, typhoons. Consider geological events such as earthquakes and tidal waves. Political interactions are constantly in flux as humans make unpredictable moves and countermoves. The daily news is full of reports of accidents involving either failures of machines or humans. Unpredictable eruptions of violent behavior also belong in this category.
Heisenberg, Godel and Chaitin. Their work in Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science proves that on the deepest level there are permanent unknowns, things that can never be fully understood or controlled. Biology is coming to understand that unpredictable randomness plays a dominant role in evolutionary change. Fundamental processes such as photosynthesis are dependent on unpredictable quantum behavior.
Science itself is still in the process of adjusting to the great truth that indeterminacy and unpredictability are built into the structure of nature at its deepest levels. Even though an intellectual giant like Albert Einstein famously refused to accept that “God” was throwing dice at the bottom of our physical reality he did acknowledge the magnitude of human ignorance by pointing out that the larger our circle of our knowledge the greater the circumference of darkness around it. Moreover, he is quoted as saying, “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.” We can say that veneration for the unknowable is the essence of Luckism.™
The fact is that, not only is dice being played at the bottom of everything, it is being played in a zone we cannot enter. We can only see the outcome after it has happened. This obviously precludes knowledge of “gods” and it further precludes specific communications and rules emanating from within that zone. There is only one thing we can know – that the zone or level of unknowability exists. Fortunately, that is enough to support a comprehensive and beneficial life philosophy. Stated differently, even though we cannot know and control everything, we can work within the limitations to achieve the best possible state of existence. That is where we turn to the practice of Luckism™.
PROOF FROM OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS
Luckism can be considered a further development of philosophical Daoism. In essence, that philosophy distinguished between the forces which could be perceived in the world, reduced to two fundamental interacting forces known as Yin and Yang, and an underlying force known as the Dao which was entirely unknowable even though it was the source of Yin and Yang. To the extent that philosophical Daoism recognized the power of the unknown it was a precursor of the scientific confirmation of the unknown and a philosophical model for Luckism. The central literary works of philosophical Daoism are the Tao te Ching and the —- of Chuang Tse. These works are relevant to Luckism. It is important to distinguish philosophical Daoism from magical Daoism which believes in spells, potions and spirits and has no relationship to Luckism.
To a lesser extent Luckism can derive support from those systems which worship gods. This comes, not from their belief in supernatural powers but rather from their belief in a place occupied by the gods and inaccessible to humans. To the extent that they except a zone which is permanently beyond our understanding and control they are consistent with Luckism. Luckism must part company with them when they populate the zone with supernatural beings and claim communication with them and specific instructions from them.
PROOF FROM THE INSIGHTS OF WISE PEOPLE
Here we derive support from the sayings of wise people who recognized the foolishness of trying to know and control everything. These constitute a thread of wisdom running throughout recorded history.
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. – Socrates (Greek, c. 470 -399 BCE)