As it might be put, there may exist some things that just are. Wikipedia
- Ysabell, Duchess of Sto Helit (Wikipedia)
Lady Ysabell is the adopted daughter of Death. He saved her life after her parents died in the Great Nef desert when she was a baby. Why he did so is uncertain. “He didn’t feel sorry for me, he never feels anything … He probably thought sorry for me” Ysabell says. A sixteen-year-old girl with silver hair and silver eyes, she has been sixteen for thirty-five years; no time passes in Death’s Domain. Her encounter with Rincewind is flamboyant enough to make him believe she is ‘bonkers’.
- Brute fact (Wikipedia)
In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that cannot be explained in terms of a deeper, more “fundamental” fact. There are two main ways to explain something: say what “brought it about”, or describe it at a more “fundamental” level. For example, a cat displayed on a computer screen can be explained, more “fundamentally”, in terms of certain voltages in bits of metal in the screen, which in turn can be explained, more “fundamentally”, in terms of certain subatomic particles moving in a certain manner. If one were to keep explaining the world in this way and reach a point at which no more “deeper” explanations can be given, then one would have found some facts which are brute or inexplicable, in the sense that we cannot give them an ontological explanation. As it might be put, there may exist some things that just are.