Neither Order Nor Chaos Is Really There

The doctrine's sharper philosophical claim goes beyond simply rehabilitating disorder as a value equal to order. The Principia Discordia argues that both the Aneristic Principle and the Eristic Principle are patterns the mind projects onto a reality that, in itself, holds neither, a position with real affinities to strands of Zen Buddhist and Taoist thought about the mind's pattern-making tendency, though Discordianism arrived at it independently through its own satirical method rather than through study of those traditions.

Practically, the doctrine asks a Discordian to hold every claim of order and every claim of disorder with equal suspicion, including Discordianism's own claims, which is why the tradition is comfortable being read as parody by outsiders and, on some readings, by its own founders. Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill both declined across their lives to settle whether Discordianism was a joke that became a genuine philosophy or a genuine philosophy conducted as a joke, treating the refusal to choose as itself the most Discordian possible answer.