The Error in Regarding the Metaphysically Given as Mutable

The error in regarding the metaphysically given doesn't merely amount to an evasion of reality (as is the case with regarding the man-made as immutable), but rather to declaring an all-out war on reality.

The attempt to alter the metaphysically given is described by Ayn Rand as the fallacy of "rewriting reality." Those who commit it regard metaphysically given facts as nonabsolute and, therefore, feel free to imagine an alternative to them. In effect, they regard the universe as being merely a first draft of reality, which anyone may decide at will to rewrite.

A common example is provided by those who condemn life because man is capable of failure, frustration, pain, and who yearn instead for a world in which man knows nothing but happiness. But if the possibility of failure exists, it necessarily exists (it is inherent in the facts that achieving a value requires a specific course of action, and that man is neither omniscient nor omnipotent in regard to such action). Anyone who holds the full context--who keeps in mind the identity of man and of all the other relevant entities--would be unable even to imagine an alternative to the facts as they are; the contradictions involved in such a projection would obliterate it. The rewriters, however, do not keep identity in mind. They specialize in out-of-context pining for a heaven that is the opposite of the metaphysically given.^[1]

Another example of this error present in epistemology, is seen in those sceptics who attempt to invalidate