…for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. —Plato, Theaetetus Plato has Socrates tell us how philosophy begins. But how does it end? Sometimes, you end up in Wittgenstein’s fly-bottle, trapped in a state of confusion by a mistake you didn’t even know you made. Other times, you get bored. But if all goes well, philosophy is supposed to have a happy ending—with your mind being irrevocably blown into a trillion cosmic shards of oh my GOD-ness. That’s the feeling I’m chasing. For me, it’s a spiritual pursuit—words like “devotion,” “longing,” and “higher purpose” come to mind. I know that sounds pretentious. But it’s how I actually feel! What makes a theory mind-blowing is how profoundly and unexpectedly it recasts something you thought you already understood. It’s not every day you get your mind blown, but when it happens, it’s life-affirming—or better, life-redeeming. I will gladly crawl for weeks through a lifeless desert of boring journal articles, half-assed books, and zero-assed talks if at the end of it all I reach the oasis of mind-blowing ideas. Then I’ll do it again. And again. For however long I have it in me.1 Sometimes, the oasis may turn out to be a mirage. For those seeking revelation, it’s tempting to open your mind by switching off the part of it tasked with detecting bullshit. This can be dangerous for all the obvious reasons. I remember a guy at my high school—giant ego, way into psychedelics—who always had “theories” of everything. One day he let me in on his grand theory of human psychology. You see, quantum mechanics teaches us that every worldly object is vibrating, including the human brain. When you have a negative emotion—a “vibe,” if you will—that literally creates a dissonance with other people’s minds, spawning a cascade of pain and disruption. But if you have a positive mindset, the vibrations in your brain will resonate with those around you, as well as with the wider universe, as you sync your way into a...