No more fiction for us: we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make

No more fiction for us: we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.

–Friedrich Nietzsche

I guess, like many things, Nietzsche got there first… Fiction is a very primitive form of calculation.

(Edit.) Turns out it’s a paraphrase by Danzig. And not at all conveying the original meaning.