Speak to Me of Insanities

Life is often a series of contradictions. On the one hand, our subjective experience of the world seems to indicate that we have choice over our actions. Yet on the other, the physical laws of the universe can be read such that, in a real sense, everything is determined-that we are merely subject to a predetermined series of causes and effects. But how can we live with this contradiction-or is it even a contradiction at all? In Speak to Me of Insanities, author Deick Conrad Williams explores the interconnected axioms of choice, determinacy, and causality, and he provides a subjective, first-person account of his own experience with this seeming contradiction. Focusing on his own observations and investigating these axioms through the spectrum of morality and human interaction, he shares his own conversations with God about the meaning of life, analyzes human behavior, sexuality, and mating rituals, and observes his own reflections on life, the self, the universe, mathematics, science, and philosophy. Although philosophy states that two truths cannot contradict one another, there are ways to see the inherent contradictions in life as being able to coexist. By looking at a synthesis of mathematics, philosophy, and even common sense, we can discover how choice, determinacy, and causality keep the universe alive and balanced.