I want to agree with the quietist that we cannot discuss metaphysical topics without talking past each other. The range of this field is extensive: anything which is not descriptive, as Wittgenstein would have it. A fundamental question then arises: why all the babbling? Why this human relish in nonsense? Why these games?

All questions of value become noise. The issue is muddied further by our descriptions and our sciences. What lies at their root other than value? You might retort that this driving value is instinctual–value for human life. Fine. You reduce man to an animal. All that is ‘man’ in him points to a questioning of this. Then absurdists and pessimists were on the right course: the logical status of human life is an absurdity–a moment, ever vivid, ever brief, of madness.

The moment of the apple is revelatory.