Eric Kaplan

Metaphysics isn't ordinarily much of a laughing matter. But in the hands of acclaimed comedy writer and scholar Eric Kaplan, a search for the truth about old St. Nick becomes a deeply insightful, laugh-out-loud discussion of the way some things exist but may not really be there. Just like Santa and his reindeer. Even after we outgrow the jolly fellow, the essential paradox persists: There are some things we dearly believe in that are not universally acknowledged as real. In Does Santa Exist? Kaplan shows how philosophy giants Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein strove to smooth over this uncomfortable meeting of the real and unreal - and failed. From there he turns to mysticism's attempts to resolve such paradoxes, surveying Buddhism, Taoism, early Christianity, Theosophy and even the philosophers at UC Berkeley under whom he studied. Finally, this brilliant comic writer alights on - surprise! - comedy as the ultimate resolution of the fundamental paradoxes of life, using examples from The Big Bang Theory, Monty Python's cheese shop and many other pop-culture sources. Kaplan delves deeper into what all this means, from how our physical brains work to his own personal confrontations with life's biggest questions: If we're all going to die, what's the point of anything? What is a perfect moment? What can you say about God? Or Santa?

Does Santa Exist?

Nes Alme

 Logicians argue that the minimum requirement for being a successful thinker is to avoid contradiction. 

Ogether. I'm callingit a path because logic is something that we choose to make part of our lives because we want it to do something for us. It has to be that way because logic is not the sort of thing that wants things for itself. Either logic is our tool or it is somehow part of the structure of reality, but if it is part of the structure of reality, then by all accounts it is doingjust fine on it own. Logicis not irritated, sad, depressed, or disappointed in us for being il- logical or irrational. It is not your mother. Logic is just hanging out, available for us if we need it. So either logic is a construct that we design for our purposes or it is an aspect of reality that we are able to tap into for our purpose, but in either case it has a purpose. What's the purpose?

Does Santa Exist? quotes

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