Dostoevsky allegedly wrote:"If God does not exist, everything is permitted."
This assumes that if there is a god, said god must be an authoritarian god. But what if god was anti-authoritarian, or an anarchist?
Also, I don't think it follows that if there is no god, we have chaos. God or no god, there are always rules to break.
minime wrote:The provenance of the axiom is problematic, first and last. It seems that the original saying is more accurately translated as 'nothing is absolute reality', and retranslated by William Burroughs (not the most reliable narrator after lunch). There is an equivocation (likely not deliberate) on the word 'true'. It is not 'true' in the logical sense, not subject to syllogistic logic. More about moral relativism.
I still think logic can be applied. And if logic is not permitted to be used in this case, I'll apply it anyway, defying the authority that says it isn't allowed. Logic without a permit.
If nothing is absolute reality, the statement "nothing is absolute reality" is not an absolute reality. Therefore there may be an absolute reality. May be in the sense of "it is a possibility," not "I will allow it."
I didn't bringing the provenance of the phrase into it purposefully. We have no way of knowing if the old man of the mountain ever said anything like it. But since you did, I'll question what "reliability" means for a narrator. I'd say for a narrator, reliability is not a matter of truth, but being internally consistent. Judging from this perspective, I think Burroughs is a more reliable narrator post-lunch. Cities of the Red Night, Western Lands, Port of Saints are more reliable texts.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.