I'll have two of whatever he is having...

Eleven Axioms Walk Into a Bar (And Immediately Demand Proof That the Bartender Occupies Space-Time)

Once upon a time in a universe that absolutely, positively, no-take-backsies exists, eleven axioms walked into a bar. They did not ask for permission. They did not check the menu. They simply were, which, as any Objectivist will tell you while staring intensely into your soul (and also into their own soul via rigorous introspection), is already more than enough.

Existence went first. He ordered a whiskey neat and declared, in a voice that brooked no argument, “I am. Deal with it.” The bartender, a mild-mannered empiricist named Dave, nodded politely and poured. Identity immediately corrected him: “It’s not just whiskey. It’s this whiskey, with these specific molecules, occupying this exact volume of space-time, and if you try to call it a gin and tonic I will personally collapse into a logical singularity.” Dave, sweating lightly, labeled the glass with a tiny sticky note that said “A is A.”

Consciousness arrived late, as usual, because it had been busy observing itself observing itself. It ordered a double espresso and then spent twenty minutes debating whether the caffeine actually existed or was merely a perceptual construct. Causality, rolling its eyes so hard it nearly dislocated an attribute, muttered, “Just drink the damn coffee. Effect follows cause. Also, tip the bartender or the universe will get weird.”

Mental Focus and Volition showed up together, holding hands like the toxic power couple they are. Focus kept switching tables every thirty seconds, narrowing its selective attention to one sticky napkin while the rest of the bar swam in peripheral awareness. Volition kept insisting it could leave whenever it wanted, but somehow never did. “I’m free,” Volition announced to the room. “I choose to stay. Also, I choose to complain about the music. Also, I choose to wonder if choosing is itself a choice.” The other patrons slowly edged away.

Validity of the Senses staggered in, already half in the bag, and announced that everything was real, the bar was real, the sticky floors were real, and anyone who claimed otherwise was a dirty skeptic who should go sit in a sensory-deprivation tank until they learned some respect. It ordered nachos and then loudly described the exact texture of every chip.

Then the newcomers arrived, and the party truly began.

Introspection slipped in sideways, peering intently at its own mental processes. “I see you focusing,” it said to Mental Focus. “I also see you choosing to shift that focus. Fascinating. Let me just… observe that a little longer.” It ordered a mirror cocktail and spent the rest of the evening monitoring the monitoring.

Memory lumbered in next, carrying a giant scrapbook of every previous bar visit since fetal proprioception. “I remember the last time you ordered that whiskey,” it told Existence. “And the time before that. And the time the ball rolled because it was round. Continuity, people! Without me you’d be stuck in perpetual present-tense amnesia, forming concepts from raw sensations alone like some kind of philosophical goldfish.” It ordered the same drink it always ordered, because of course it did.

Space floated in, gesturing grandly at the arrangement of stools, the distance between tables, and the precise location of Dave relative to the cash register. “Every single one of you is somewhere,” it declared. “Relative to yourselves, relative to one another, relative to the sticky floor. Deny me and you’ll still have to place your denial somewhere—on a page, in a mind, in a particular spatial relation. Checkmate.”

Time arrived last, of course, because it always does. It ordered a flight of sequential shots and lined them up carefully. “Before, during, after,” it said. “You observe the rolling ball after the push. You remember the previous bar visit before this one. You plan your tip for later. Try denying temporal order while arranging the words of your denial in a temporal sequence. I’ll wait. I’ve got all night. Literally.”

The bar itself, of course, rested on solid metaphysical bedrock. No sand. No shifting dunes of relativism. Just good old-fashioned rock, the kind Aristotle would have approved of and Emmett Fox would have called “the Christ truth, changeless and eternal,” while Ayn Rand would have glared at him and muttered something about primacy of existence. Somewhere in the corner, a small statue of Heidegger was quietly weeping into a stein of pure phenomenological despair, still trying to figure out why the axioms refused to be “corollaries.”

A young philosophy major wandered in, wide-eyed, clutching a dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged in one hand and The Sermon on the Mount in the other. “Excuse me,” he said, “but how do I know any of this is real? And why does Peikoff keep calling some of you corollaries when you’re clearly full axioms experienced in one big gushing perceptual flow?”

All eleven axioms turned as one.

Existence pointed at the floor. Identity pointed at the pointing. Consciousness pointed at the pointing of the pointing. Causality sighed and said, “Because if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be able to ask the question, genius.” Mental Focus zeroed in on the kid’s forehead. Volition announced it was freely choosing not to answer any further—then chose to answer anyway. Validity of the Senses simply held up a nacho and said, “Bite me.” Introspection observed the entire exchange with great interest and took notes. Memory helpfully recalled every previous time someone had asked the same question. Space helpfully noted that the question was being asked here, three feet from the bar, two stools left of the weeping Heidegger statue. And Time remarked that the question had a before (the kid’s confusion), a during (this exact moment), and an after (the inevitable moment when the kid would finally get it).

The philosophy major left a changed man. Or at least a man who now tipped better, stopped quoting Derrida at parties, and understood that axioms are validated by individual perceptual induction in every waking moment—not by deduction, not by books, and certainly not by waiting for someone else to do the looking for you.

And so the axioms sat there, nursing their drinks, secure in the knowledge that no flood, no wind, no post-modern hurricane could ever knock their house down. Because it was built on rock. And the rock was real. And the real was itself. And itself was, frankly, looking pretty good under the neon lights—spatially arranged, temporally sequential, introspectively monitored, and remembered for next time.

Somewhere outside, a benevolent universe hummed contentedly, open for business, ready for anyone who bothered to focus, shift that focus, remember what they learned, locate themselves in space-time, and stop trying to steal success they hadn’t earned the consciousness for.

Dave the bartender wiped the counter, checked that A was still A, confirmed that the sticky note still occupied the same spatial coordinates it had a moment ago, and decided that, all things considered, it had been a pretty good night.

The end. (Or rather: the continuing existence of the end, which is identical with itself, observed by a focused and volitional consciousness via valid senses, under the law of causality, retained in memory, located in space, unfolding in time, and introspectively confirmed, forever and ever, amen… but not the religious kind.)