Content/Authors/Shashank Rajesh/Drafts/Project Empyrean (3).md
Policy of Humility
Project Empyrean seeks the superior. Its members should not hold fast to their viewpoints and should always accept the possibility of being wrong, remaining open to new views which may better support the goals of this organisation.
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Invitation for Dispute
Anyone who disputes the validity of this statement of the fundamental problem of existence is welcomed to raise it in the intrest of solving the actual problem.
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Axiomatic Pragmatism
What is truth anyways? Truth is just an arbitrary concept. What we consider truth is merely a prediction, so apparently reliable that it becomes falsely elevated to an absolute value.
Forget about finding “truth”, its meaningless. Instead, let’s use “truth” as a means to the end, not as an end in itself.
Let us establish those axioms whos confidence has been reified time and time again, according to memory. Let us ensure they persist beyong death, so that we may profit off of this knowledge as a means to resolution.
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Predictions
All knowledge indirectly perceived is merely a prediction. Primarily, those which derive some value based on memory, which is then projected into the future as an expected result. Its practical, it works, but let us not make the mistake of elevating this “knowledge” to an absolute status, for those values are not directly perceived; see Plato’s Cave.
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Aggregation of Testimony
Gather and corroborate the claims of all beings available for communication. There are ascetics, contemplatives, and monks who possess supernormal capabilities of the mind.. we need to inquire from them.
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Aggregation of Testimony
There are over 8 billion humans on this Earth, and thus presumably that many active conscious experiences which can be testified. Let us gain a living testimony 8 billion times greater than my own, a great survey that has never been done before.
There are also historical testimonies of those who have passed, great wisdom lost to time. Let us discover exhaustively this wisdom which can lead to our liberation.
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Phases
Three phases with respect to knowledge, both during and post-human:
- Generation
- Preservation
- Implementation
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Solutions
In ascending order of certainty:
- Conjecture
- Hypothesis
- Theory
- Law
- Fact
- Theorem
All solutions pertain to volition and their affect on stress in the future.
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The Role of Faith
I see two extremes: skeptical and dogmatic. Having tread close to both ends, I find that the confluence of the two to be the most condusive for one intent on the truth. For truth cannot be ascertained by one who does not know, and for that man he depends on the words of others. Depending on this to a fault would make him fully dependent on the reality of those words, and rejecting them entirely would leave him in ignorance. So I travel along the middle, armed with a skeptical mind yet driven forward by faith, ready to accept whatever I may come to know along the way, free of bias.
This is how I might claim to remain well unbiased despite my qualified faith the Buddha. I will always remain dedicated to the truth, however that truth may contradict my faith.
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Hyperskeptical Analysis
Analyze these statements with hyperskepticism. Will these truths continue to hold in the future? Will the questions and answers ever change?
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Epistemic methods
Testimony
Of both humans and especially non-humans
Inference
Application of a permutation on memory
Direct perception
In the highest sense, awareness of objects
Higher knowledge
Independent of inference and infallible
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Epistemic certainty
- Which of these are true, if any?
- How can one really know
- Maximization by syncreticism
- The only way to really know is to attain it
Plan
- Analysis of claims through a multitude of epistemic lenses
- Corroboration of claims
- Comparative religion
- Research into consciousness, craving, death, supernormal abilities, afterlife, etc.
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Taking Aim, Firing Shots
To establish and maintain this freedom of the mind (arm-ball simile), one must hit the right targets (Act in accordance with the true reality of things). Blinded by the fog, we’ve got to both clear it up so as to get a better view of the target, but also take our shots in the fog to the best of our ability to maximize our chances of hitting those targets. If we waste all our time clearing the fog, yet do not achieve it by the end of our lives, we gain nothing. If we spend all our lives taking poorly aimed shots we also gain nothing. Do both.
But where to aim when there’s so much fog? Take your best best, and that best bet now is the Dhamma. Study the doctrine Kamma, see Abhidhamma. Every major religious tradition claims favorable results from good deeds anyways, good change it really is true.
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Skepticism
Time and time again have I fallen pray to faith. You drop your guard until its flaws inevitability become evident. Do not let those words on the screen deceive you, for there is no guarantee of their validity. Do not let those pre-conditioned notions of family, identity, and society invade the axiomatic foundation of your knowledge. Seek yourself, drop the dogma, remain pure of mind. Stop only after the goal has been attained, trust only in that attainment. All else is merely pragmatic.
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Steps
Verify:
Rebirth- The better life
- Karma
If there’s rebirth, then determine the extent of the better life. If the better life extends up to the Heavens, then determine its cause. If its Karma, then determine what Karma leads to it. And when that’s determined, the path is set.
These steps use the working assumption of rebirth.
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Two types of knowledge
That of path and that of destination
Three Types of knowledge
Direct, inferential (application of stable pattern), testimonial
Another two types of knowledge
Direct and indirect. Two parts to the latter: proposition and justification.
Sources
Direct and indirect discovery (know with and without prior testimony)
Method
Collection of disclosed, undisclosed, and undiscovered knowledge, then analyses of all these and classification by way of justification.
Taking safe bets
Not all propositions will be well justified, though they may turn out to be true. Conform to even low justified propositions when the consequences are minimal.
Conformance to, Maintainence and transfer of knowlege
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Hyperskeptical Postanalysis
Start practical and go off of what is reasonably conclusive. Hyperskepticism can come later.
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The Maximalist Approach
An initial effort to uncover true knowledge is envisioned in the form of informational maximalism. Through the gathering and computer analysis of all available propositional information pertinent to the problem at hand, and by its categorization and attribution according to its epistemic certaintude, it is possible to attain a best-effort delivery of knowledge by which choices of greatest certainty can be made by the total fulfilment of mundane empirical analysis.
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well then, how do we approach the truth? There is order to experience, and thus, through inference, one can ascertain to what is true and what is false even without direct apprehension. Thus, we must have a working infernce that evolves with new evidence and reasoning. The fruit of Empyrean will be a working reccomendation of what to do, and why. Similar to the W3 reccomendations. With more research and data, this reccomendation will be continuously updated in order to provide more and more probable outcomes.
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Method
Volition guided by information. We seek useful information for accurate predictions.
Related topics (AI recommended)
These approaches support the garden’s account of knowledge and its research questions. Preserving the truth provides a Buddhist discussion of belief and justification.
The claims about trusting attainment are exploratory musings on an open epistemological question.
The resolution on rebirth research makes re-emergence of personal existence a working assumption, with research directed toward its mechanisms and possible influence.
The current research strategy combines focused research with background exploration, qualifying the maximalist proposal above.
Revising recommendations serves indefinite happiness; the project’s completion has no prescribed certainty threshold.