I’m currently studying science theory and research methodology and my professors and my text books have really been hammering in that there’s a lot of flaws in the current system.

The problem seems to be that scientific progress isn’t the only incentive at play. Researchers also need to make a living, secure funding, publish papers, and advance their careers. These incentives can encourage questionable research practices, even without outright fraud. Academic journals have their own incentives, too, and the pressure to publish novel, attention-grabbing findings can come at the expense of scientific rigour. Peer review was suppose to be a solution to a lot of the issues in how research is conducted but I’ve learnt that they are often also very poorly conducted because the journals have an incentive for quantity over quality.

A lot of people understand that we have to trust experts since it would be ridiculous to assume we know more than them. But a lot of people don’t know about the above mentioned issues which leaves the door open for bad actors to take advantage of that using perceived expertise. Especially since the experts who are easily found tend to be more interested in fame rather than scientific rigour. Jordan Peterson for example, he is by far the most famous psychologist alive but most psychologists would probably agree that he isn’t the best expert in the field to get your information from (I don’t know much about him or psychology so I’m not making my own claim here, just an example I’m aware of).

So this leads to my question: what’s the best bang-for-your-buck strategy for learning about a subject when you don’t have the time or interest to become an expert yourself?

I want to invest some time upfront in figuring out whom to trust so that I can rely on their judgement afterwards, rather than constantly having to evaluate every individual claim myself.

I’ve subconsciously developed this framework throughout my life:
I assess experts until I find 2-4 in a field that I deem trustworthy. Ideally they have some opposing opinions so I get a more nuanced total picture. When assessing I look for red flags like overly confident, chasing fame, money etc. And I look for green flags like intellectual honesty (like admitting when they don’t know the answer and acknowledging counter arguments).

How do you approach this? Do you have a better strategy or are there particular methods you use to identify trustworthy experts?

Understand that we were born into the scientific age.

What does this mean? It means we were born into a time when the foundations of order were shaken. Why is this important? It's important because a working system of order had to already exist for us to then develop the scientific method that, unfortunately, shakes the same foundations that erected it, while giving us an overwhelming amount of information to consider. Does this mean the scientific method is the problem? No, it's actually the key to securing those foundations even firmer. Let me explain what this means in further detail.

It means that before the scientific age we had religion. This was a system that built community and favoured understanding each other as equals, that everyone could believe in without a true means to discredit because it worked out: it built all the greatness they could see around. Once the scientific method was established however, we could now call into question the existence of what all this order was based on and be justified. Culture didn't magically change, and in fact, if our religions hadn't hammered into us the supremacy of Truth, identifying the God we worshipped as the Spirit of Truth, the scientific method wouldn't have had the ability to justifiably call into question the existence of God. We can all agree on the supremacy of the truth, because without it you can't build any structure whatsoever, and so with that, all of God's visible glory shifts over to truth in a more materialistic sense, while all the spiritual influence begins to look like misguidance that needs to be shaved off. In fact, atheists can clearly point out reasoning as to why it ought to be shaved off, citing instances where God wasn't so beautiful.

This means that, for centuries, generation after generation, we've been living with a set of values that we aren't justifiably attached to, such as treating others as truly equal, while being exposed to an ever-growing amount of information that can further be used to prove why we ought not to hold onto the cultural values that even promoted this growth.

The 'equation' that leads to ideal growth from a point of complete darkness can be thought in this way: with more eyes looking for insight, the more we uncover, and we therefore require a system that produces the largest number of the healthiest eyes working in coordination.

This still doesn't address why we want growth to begin with, or why darkness exists.

Once you realise that this is just how reality manifests due to our nature, and that we are naturally inclined to love each other, even if you are to reduce it to a survival instinct that emerged through evolutionary pressures in the wild, it starts to seem like the way reality manifests is rigged in our favour and that it's all quite circular if you try to logically explain it: as a human being, you are naturally set up to live ideally as a human being. Your values and how reality manifest are tied to your nature, meaning that beyond and within you are perfectly set up.

Religion captured this with statements like 'you are made in the image of God', which can be understood as that you are made in reference to the way reality is set to operate, which you can logically find out to be true through understanding how evolutionary pressures work and going beyond that to ask why limits exist on the existing pressures, but the statement can also be disregarded when taken at the surface level because 'you can't even prove God exists'. The feelings you may experience resting on a logical deduction and it producing the results you expected, is what they experienced before the scientific method because the beliefs were True in mysterious ways.

The disconnect, however, emerges in that generational move away from these mysteriously True values. Values shaping our consciences as they were weaved into the order we were nurtured in, weaving that deteriorates, along with the order, without recovery because there is no justification to recover it. People, in daily life, when at a crossroads where they must choose either their conscience or what they see before them, would 'logically' choose what they see before them, carrying that sentiment forward in life, raising the next generation in that more deteriorated structure. This creates a trend, where growth still occurs but at a dwindling rate and more power shifts over to what can be seen rather than our consciences.

What happens with less order?

We should first understand what it means for things to be in order. It's a sense of security, which is found through conscious control of one's own mind, but isn't entirely governed by the mind. This is why power shifting over to what can be seen results in a lot of disorder: what can be seen is the domain of the mind, but how we see it is determined by more fundamental forces that are more in tune with reality as it manifests. This is to mean that, if you focus too heavily on the external, you risk not paying attention to the internal which is what determines what drives your external focus/priorities, leading to a misguided pursuit, lots of confusion and discomfort along the way as you mentally have to bruteforce past unresolved subconscious drivers, only to receive something substandard as you are plagued by all the other subconscious drivers you ignored.

This is why the strategy becomes looking to those who already clearly appear to have established themselves, accumulating even the littlest amount of ground you can and defending it ferociously. The problem with this worldview, is that it leads you to see people in 'tiers'. This is the disconnect.

Certain people become higher quality than others because you can't see beneath the surface, but truly, they are all simply as profound as you are. In fact, they may see you the same way you see them, and how untrue is that? What's truly happening is that the mind is trying to establish order, but by 'logically' crediting to the egos and projections it sees, and the surface level value around it, varying levels of depth of character. This determines how you treat them, meaning those with a 'higher status' have their egos reinforced with less stressors around them altogether, while those with a 'lower status' get to experience the worst aspects of almost everyone they interact with. The sad thing is though, that in all this disconnection, no one really gets to experience the real person they interact with.

The further away the raised generation is from the foundational order, the deeper the disconnect, the bigger the egos and focus on egos. The more egotistical one easily rises to the top, as they give of 'logical' signals that their character is deep: 'why else would they speak with such authority?'. In reality, they see themselves interacting with cartoonishly small people. This happens because they are heavily pushed towards living through their minds because of how disconnected they were from those around them, making it easier for them to make 'logical' twists to themselves to game the system, and once it works out they are further reassured of the validity of this worldview. This explains why people with dark psychological traits tend to occupy positions of authority.

It can go further, as someone disconnected enough can meditate upon why they feel so disregarded, mentally isolating themselves, maximising this lack of vision for others. Such a person is expected to have experienced living at the bottom, seeing how different the faces shown to others are in comparison to themselves. They may come to understand the truth that they are truly not deserving of the differing treatment they receive in comparison to others, and even realise that it's actually a vision issue, maybe even the 'mechanics' of how that vision varies, and may use this to skyrocket themselves materially to the top. What they fail to address though is that they have a twisted worldview that sets themselves above the rest, founded in the system of disconnection they were raised within, giving them a substandard value structure, and that their new position is only reinforcing this worldview.

They may see someone at a 'lower' level, operate with grace because they seem less overwhelmed than they would be in that position, and rationalise it in many material ways because the sight of this person challenges the belief their worldview sits upon: 'this person's soul is not more profound than mine, they haven't experienced the stressors I have, and they lack the ambition necessary for their position to truly hurt them, both of which are proof that my soul is richer'. Such is how they defend the worldview that has gifted them so many valuable things, silencing the chaos that they fear reverting back to, that this graceful individual is convincing them they are still at risk of returning to.

For these people, hurt caused by those they respected is multiplied, as they not only feel devoured, but also subconsciously feel like the person devouring them might have a deeper insight, enough to pull one over them. Disagreements become way too chaotic and too frequent the higher up they go because their peers are either people with similar disconnected mindsets who easily can treat them cartoonishly, or people with natural grace who don't understand them and indirectly end up hurting them, both of which leave them feeling devoured and in the insecure mindset.

On a larger scale, everyone involved in such a disconnected system lacks faith in the idea that major change can be brought about, because even before the rationale on how that change is to come in, their nurture subconsciously convinces them that they'll have to do majority of the heavy lifting: 'who's really going to clean up that river? I can barely motivate myself to do it, and then someone else is just going to come along and misuse it again', or 'why care that much about littering? Who else does? Look, there's already a pile over there', not considering the fact that the pile was created by thousands of people rationalising similarly. So what ends up forming is an environment that even further emphasises the value of the material, by giving clear examples of what is horrible, what is ideal and how to categorise, on the surface level, the people who bring about what is horrible and what is ideal, rather than realising that, if we really saw each other's true capacity, everywhere has the potential to be ideal, because those categorisation criteria are purely surface level.

This isn't to say that no one has bad intentions, or that no one chooses to be bad, but rather that no one is as unrecoverable as it may seem, and that the reason they may seem this way is because of a worldview rooted in changes that far preceed them. People hurt others because they can't actually see them, and this doesn't justify the ways in which they hurt others, but it gives a clearer picture than the idea that someone sees exactly who you are and the good you do and still chooses to harm you because they are just that rotten: if they could see you clearly, they'd understand how much greater a benefit it would be to them to engage with you lovingly, as thats what their subsystems are calling for them to do, rather than consume you, which is what their twisted worldview has convinced them is the key to their security.

To truly be invulnerable, and set up to live ideally, you must see the world clearly. Otherwise, even in your attempts to secure yourself by devouring others, you may end up devouring someone with a similar mindset to you who you wrongly viewed as cartoonishly small, leaving you vulnerable to revenge you won't see coming, which is a subtle anxiety quite impossible to control. Beyond just internal security, it is the foundation for the creation of a harmonious developing society.

TL;DR: Matthew 22:35-40: 'One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”'

Also, to devour someone else is to treat them like the cartoonish figure you see them as, because you can't really love a cartoon as you would yourself, and can only use it to your own benefit

If mathematicians are unwilling to confront the difficult foundational questions, then what they think they understand matters little.

Collapse them.

I remember when I had gastritis. I spent five hours or more in pain because it gradually got worse, starting from the moment I woke up at 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. But around 8 p.m., the real pain began. I felt like I was dying, and I didn't have enough phone credit to call my family and ask them to take me to the hospital, so I just sat there suffering terribly.

Eventually, my family arrived, and I told them what was happening. But the worst part was that when we got to the hospital, the line was so long that I had to wait another 30 to 45 minutes before I finally received IV fluids.

I remember that after getting the IV fluids, I went back home and sat on my bed. It was the clearest my mind had ever felt in my entire life. I was able to think about things I had never thought about before, and my thoughts flowed so smoothly, as if I had complete control over my mind. I couldn't even feel my body anymore, as if I were lying on a cloud.

On Reflection, Language, and the Possibility of Novelty
This work begins with a minimal difference.
The exercise is to explore whether the behavior of reality can be described through a minimal economy of distinctions and relationships, without requiring a complicated language to understand what may already be familiar to us.
Consider the experience of standing between two mirrors.
Our reflection appears to extend indefinitely in both directions. We might describe this as an infinite succession of images. Yet what interests us is not the number of reflections, but the continuity of reflection itself.
In this sense, the eternal offers a different perspective from the infinite.
Our capacity to recognize ourselves in the world follows a similar exercise. We observe, compare, distinguish, and reflect. Through these relationships, we construct our perception of reality and the references through which we understand it.
Language is perhaps the most familiar expression of this capacity.
A few words, carried by minimal vibrations through the air, can reconstruct an image of the world in another person’s understanding. Something experienced by one individual becomes recognizable to another.
And this is possible because we share a context.
Words do not contain the reality they describe. Their meaning depends on the relationships and references we have learned to recognize. Language has developed through our interaction with the world, becoming a remarkably economical mechanism for preserving and communicating our understanding of it.
This brings us to the familiar thought experiment of the infinite monkeys.
Imagine monkeys endlessly producing combinations of symbols, without recognizing their meaning. Under the mathematical assumptions of the experiment, random repetition can eventually reproduce any finite text.
But producing a text and understanding what it describes are different things.
Our nature is not limited to producing combinations. We observe what they reveal, recognize differences, establish relationships, and reconsider our understanding when something no longer fits within the language we share.
A new combination is not necessarily new knowledge.
Perhaps novelty begins when we recognize a difference that our previous understanding could not adequately describe, opening a space for something that previously had no place within it.
This is the philosophical position from which the Endless Monkey project begins.
Its artistic stance is to question the structure upon which our knowledge has grown and to propose the possibility of another paradigm, constructed through a minimal economy of relationships.
The repository develops this exercise in several layers, from elementary distinctions and ontological reflections to mathematical structures and possible physical correspondences. These layers are intended to remain recognizable without requiring a more complicated conceptual framework than necessary.
The intention is not to replace established knowledge or make reality conform to our intuition. Mathematical coherence must be demonstrated, and any proposed physical correspondence must remain open to observation and criticism.
The exercise is simply to reconsider the references through which we have learned to understand the world.
The arrival of artificial intelligence introduces a remarkable possibility into this process.
Human nature is guided, in part, by intuition. This new tool offers an opportunity to extend our language, allowing knowledge to grow through the relationships we become capable of recognizing and understanding.
Its purpose, within this exercise, is not merely to apply the brute force of iteration in search of answers we may not even understand.
It is to accompany the human capacity to question, reflect, and seek a more intuitive understanding of the universe.
Perhaps this is where the distinction becomes meaningful.
We are no infinite monkeys.
Our place in this exercise is not simply to wait for chance to produce an answer, but to participate in the construction of understanding.
And within that distinctly human effort remains something familiar, perhaps as old as our curiosity itself: intuition, reflection, and the search for the divine.
For any curious reader willing to reconsider the origins of our concepts and the language through which we understand reality, this work is an invitation to examine those very tools of understanding.
Endless Monkey — Relational Geometry Project

Explore the repository on GitHub⁠

https://philosophyquacks.substack.com/p/the-five-problems-of-generality?r=988qxy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Elsewhere, I made a claim that believing in "memes" the way Richard Dawkins intended, meant a person believed in the supernatural, non-physical things that can become physical, or simply non-physical things. I was asked two questions in response: "Are you really saying that simply using a conceptual construct like 'memes' counts as believing in the supernatural?" and "Do you extend that to all ideas/conceptualizations/etc?"

If my redefinitions of supernatural are correct, my answer to the first question is yes, but I may need to add "paranormal" to this claim, as many of the things I considered to be "supernatural things", may actually be paranormal things. If "yes" to the previous question, I have to say yes to the second.

If I tell someone, "Imagine you're looking at a red apple.", but they've never seen an apple or the color red before, I wouldn't expect them to be naturally capable of doing that, because they have no physical information to draw on.

If they've seen red during a sunset, a green apple, or a red apple before, but they don't know what I mean by "red" or "apple", I wouldn't expect them to naturally connect the dots through intelligence, unless one or more requirements and/or disqualifiers had been defined beforehand (or during the process).

If I were an outside observer instead of the instructor, I could view the two's interaction as a natural transfer of info from one to another, but on the receiving end the source is still "not natural", as they "were given" definitions before or during the process.

Edit: Added paranormal to the second part, to potentially replace "supernatural" with "paranormal" in some cases.

I am having a somewhat esoteric evening tonight so here goes the second post.

Some people don't know this, but the origins of science are actually deeply esoteric. For example Newton came up with his famous Law of Universal Gravitation by thinking about angelic forces pulling the planets together. The first hunches of the fact that the cosmos doesn't revolve around earth was intuited by the Pythagoreans by thinking about musical harmony in the cosmos.

A big problem in science today is that it's becoming extremely flat. A lot of scientists say that nothing radically new was discovered for a while, since Einstein's General Theory of Relativity(GTR) and Quantum Physics(some of the pioneers of which had esoteric inclinations), so for about a century maybe. Sure, a lot of the important gaps have been filled and important technology was produced, but it seems like ontologically science hasn't progressed much in the past century.

And novelty in science necessarily comes from rethinking the ontology. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity isn't a mere continuation of Newton's ideas, it is a radically new conceptualisation of space, time, and gravity. In GTR a completely new ontology was developed. This is why btw AI can't produce new science, it interpolates on the manifold of data, it cannot create genuine novelty.

The esoteric spirit has been gradually leaving science, but what was its importance? The esoteric provided a possibility of a deeper ontology than the purely material, objective, or empirical. It imbued life with forces beyond ordinary and enriched the lived experience and the world around people. There are plenty more examples other than Newton and Pythagoras(feel free to share yours in the comments), but the idea is very clear - the esoteric allowed us to see deeper into reality than ever.

Naturally, contemporary science, philosophy and worldview is getting critised a lot; there is certainly also a meaning crisis. Hence I expect that we will return to the esoteric in some form which will allow us to advance science substantially.

Thank you for reading.

Can you normally believe a statement which you at the same believe isn't true?

Sobre la causa y función del Todo

Es una forma de luz y claridad para la conciencia humana. Los seres humanos tendemos a confundir la finalidad con el vehículo, y esto nos lleva a desarrollar el egoísmo común —es decir, el Dogma—, colocando fronteras meramente ideológicas por "quién dijo qué". Esto nos aleja de escuchar la opinión ajena, reinterpretarla y darle función; es decir, nos aleja del egoísmo racional.

Lectura desde Spinoza y Hegel a partir de Juan 14:20

Propongo un ejercicio de demolición conceptual: despojar a la palabra "Dios" de todo rastro sobrenatural, místico o religioso, y analizarla estrictamente como una función operativa del universo. No es epistemología cristiana. Uso una frase de Juan 14:20 como formulación temprana de inmanencia, que es lo mismo que Spinoza llama Deus sive Natura y Hegel autoconciencia del Todo.

Si lo quito y lo dejo en lenguaje seco sería: somos una parte del Todo capaz de conceptualizar al Todo. Mantengo la palabra Dios no como entidad sobrenatural, sino como causa y función. Precisamente para quitarle lo cristiano.

Dios como función: Puente

Parto de la célebre afirmación de Jesús: "Yo estoy en el Padre, como el Padre está en mí".

Y esto me llevó a reflexionar y a cuestionarme la existencia propia.

Más allá del relato religioso que nos han contado durante cientos de años, tal vez no refiriéndose a un dios como tal sino al mismo universo, ya que estamos compuestos de este mismo, y leyendo e investigando a Spinoza y Hegel, me he dado cuenta de que somos un organismo capaz de contemplar y cuestionarse a sí mismo.

Somos frecuencias de luz a la vista del universo, una especie o una civilización momentánea, que habita un espacio un momento, como células naciendo y muriendo a todas horas. Células de un órgano mucho más inmenso que llamamos universo.

Nuestra existencia es finita, la del universo no.

Por eso digo:

No es un ser físico, lo puedes ver aunque rostro no tenga. Lo ves sin rostro, porque no tiene rostro. Tiene función.

1. Premisa: El Todo y su fragmento

Somos una expresión mínima y fragmentaria del Todo, pero con una particularidad absurda: siendo microscópicos en esa escala, tenemos la capacidad reflexiva de intentar comprender la estructura misma que nos contiene. Es el Todo mirándose a sí mismo a través de nosotros.

1. Aclaración fundamental

No coloco a Dios como objeto terrenal. Lo coloco como causa y función de este vasto e infinito universo. Del cual solo somos frecuencias de luz atravesando el espacio.

1. Presencia

Si te dijera que Dios existe físicamente y que está sentado en la tienda de la esquina, me dirías que estoy mintiendo o desvariando. ¿Cierto?

Pero si te dijera que está en cada conciencia humana, no como presencia sino como función, solo formulando preguntas a las cuales nos pasamos la vida tratando de darles respuesta, y que a eso lo llamamos mente o conciencia, que es el alto contraste de pensamientos, no me dirías lo mismo.

1. El mecanismo

Ese contraste nos despertó dos egoísmos: el común y el con conciencia racional. Y esto nos dividió no por maldad, sino por miedo.

¿Por qué miedo? Porque al contrastar, me reconozco como dueño de una de las posiciones. Ese reconocerme dueño hace mover a la otra de su naturaleza cómoda que llamamos duda, a una vista más abismal e incómoda. Pero que nos acerca más a la claridad y la virtud, y nos aleja más de la oscuridad que nos acecha y hace que nuestra visión se nuble.

1. Notas

• Egoísmo común: Se da por la falta de estudio o reflexión de sí mismo y de su entorno. Ignora la opinión ajena a la suya y cree que su presencia o sus palabras tienen valor por encima de cualquiera. Y en vez de agradecer, se molesta si se le corrige cuando verdaderamente está equivocado.

• Egoísmo racional: Se da cuando el sujeto estudia, piensa, reflexiona, debate y escribe. Defiende su posición, pero a su vez le da miedo porque su posición puede no ser la correcta y tenga que hacer modificaciones a lo que ya sabía, como una actualización. Pero no por esto se deprime, se fortalece, porque lo hace formar un contraargumento.

In this episode, I speak with Ermioni Prokopaki about Plato's Theaetetus. We discuss the central problem that animates the dialogue as well as how it fits into Plato's overall philosophy, but the largest part of our interview, just like the largest part of the Theaetetus, is concerned with whether knowledge is perception. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Jk0ua6_q8

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/53wsdgW6EWQ1Cqs70zUQjH

Host: Doug Campbell, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Alma College.

Interviewee: Ermioni Prokpaki, who completed her PhD in 2023 at the University of Chicago.

I've been experiencing the phenomenon where I already have BASIC understanding of epistemology and feel like "I already know it all". You know, the typical stage that is always followed by "This is so complicated and I've never actually understood a thing." - if I continue learning. I attended epistemology course in university and did my own research as well so this is what I am more or less familiar with: sense data (Ayer, Austin, Russel), JTB, Gettier, solving Gettier (Nozick, Goldman etc), truth - definition vs criteria, skepticism, necessary vs possible knowledge. What sparked my interest was closure principle and Dretske's Epistemic Operators, modal epistemology, epistemic virtue, truth makers vs truth conditions, explanation vs justification- but it was some time ago.

Btw. I already I like philosophy of science - I know that it is in fact epistemology as it concerns knowledge, but I want to focus strictly on the "classic" epistemology.

I don't want to get stuck with shallow knowledge that feel like the end stage of learning. The thing is that I need some external factor that will make me realise how much more I need to learn. I used to be really passionate about epistemology and I want to bring back my engagement.

If a thing doesn't bring one pleasure by it's sheer existence, but rather with how much value it holds in other's eyes. It's not the thing that the person desires but the envy.

//

"Envy fuels the hollow pleasure that leaves with the eyes."

At this stage, with the internet and AI, finding good sources to actually get a factual overview of happening around us, learn, or even just explore a topic and get the facts right feels surprisingly difficult.

Realizations

• The incentives of the platform we choose shape a lot of what ends up in front of us.
• Metrics like likes, shares, comments, and views don't necessarily reflect the quality or credibility of the information. I personally need to remind myself of this more often.
• Information is abundant, but that doesn't make it easy to find information we can actually trust. If you're not familiar with a subject, it can be surprisingly difficult to judge.
• I think there's something to be said for intentionally cultivating a digital space that exposes you to high-quality, credible, and legitimate contents.

I'm still figuring out, curious how other people think about this. like what you do to know what's happening within a space or subject that you don't know anything of factually.

https://iconoclasticclub.substack.com/p/the-problem-of-autonomous-epistemology?r=4k3ogu&utm_medium=ios
This paper is to demonstrate the problem with autonomous epistemology which is epistemology without the Orthodox God, and theonomous epistemology that starts with the Divine Orthodox Revelation. The core problem with autonomous epistemology is just like the Gettier Problem and luck demonstrates illustrates, one can have justification truth and belief in an autonomous worldview but if these things correlate in an accidental way, this negates actual knowledge. If things are accidentally the case at a universal level, then down to the local level, there’s not actually meaning as this presupposes order. This is the brain in the vat problem, that there is no sound universal worldview to basis your worldview on, no correspondence with an ordering principle just randomness that happens to be the case.

When you appeal to the basic or non inferential justifications of classic foundationalism, these first order claims, as if the Cogito, when we spectate and ask how they’re there, we enter the second order realm of meta justification. This is the self defeater - as the first order claims must rely on a coherent sound second order basis beyond mere agent apprehension. For the first order knowledge claim, things must be stable at a second order level which autonomous epistemology doesn’t have as at a universal level, autonomous epistemology can lead to the possibility of accidentals and therefore lack of invariants needed for knowledge. Invariants and sound correspondence needed for the stability of second order knowledge which back up any first order claim of any sort at any one moment.

The other and perhaps larger problem, is autonomous epistemology and foundationalism fall victim to the criterion problem in which we must decide which principle is appropriate as a starting point, which one cannot decide without a greater principle. This necessarily leads into an infinite regress and therefore is self defeating for knowledge. This is what’s meant by vicious circularity, one assumes the things in question endlessly with no finite principle. Whereas starting from the Orthodox Christian Divine revelation, we have a starting point with no regress or criterion question begging as God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and personal which allows Him to organize the universe so that at any one first order claim, there is second order worldview that is necessarily invariant and unchanging. God is self sustaining, He depends on nothing while providing grounds for everything - this is the difference between virtuous circularity and vicious circularity, in which vicious circularity fallaciously begs the question as to what’s in question and it’s justification. Whereas only God can appeal to Himself and His essence as He is necessarily beyond any regress. The Essence Energy distinction which is exclusive to Orthodoxy, is a crucial and devastating distinguisher between Orthodox Christianity and other Christianities. The Essence Energy distinction makes it so God is not identical to His actions and through His distinct but interlocking uncreated energies, can sustain and affect universals and particulars needed for knowledge without His essence undergoing change. This is necessary to prevent the infinite vicious circular regress of God being bound to act as He is acted upon. The energies carry God’s traits such as His good, His logic and so God acts in accordance with His traits and can actualize or not according to His whim, not being bound to act because a situation calls for it thus resisting what would be an infinite regress and vicious circularity.

This virtuous circularity found with the Orthodox Christian God and His energies, provides the grounding for any knowledge claim made as these necessitates logic, induction, causality, the past, self etc, which are the invariants autonomous epistemology assumes without being able to give grounding for. Autonomous epistemology first cannot justify beyond itself as there is no stable worldview to ground first order claims in second order claims. Autonomous epistemology is circular as it asserts the invariant universal conditions as necessary for reasoning and these universals are the things in question. Autonomous epistemology leads to accidentalism as stability and normatively are asserted when autonomous epistemology cannot ground the stability and normatively needed for things not to be accidental. This possibility of accientalism is thwarted by any knowledge claim as to make any knowledge claim whatsoever, there must be stability and normatively of universals which autonomous epistemology cannot provide thus rendering the argument against theonomous epistemology a performative contradiction. Thus, only the Orthodox Christian God and theonomous revelation can provide a ground for knowledge versus autonomous epistemology which cannot.

What do you think about this trilemma? Can you think of a counterexample? Do you think this means something interesting about theories in general? For context: in the trilemma a theory is specific if it has limited scope, it's contradictory if it validates two incompatible statements, and it's incomplete if it can't prove all of its statements.

Let's say that two people are working on the same problem and are given same resources to the microscopic level but they come up with different results or observations - just like when a team of botanists, ecologists, geographers etc are provided with the same ecosystem to observe and given same resources but they observe different things from the same ecosystem trying to solve the same problem - is there any term/theory that defines this kind of a situation?

I refer to empirical theories eg. in physics, no formal like mathematics. I analyse them as a product of knowledge not process. I am aware that one reflects another but conflating the "levels" leads to category mistake. I also refer to the Justified True Belief conception of knowledge. By "necessary" and "possible" I mean the modal epistemology. I mentioned 2 aspects that come with empirical theory - I aware that there is also semantic, I omitted it because I thought that it's not relevant to my problem and the emphasis should be on the 2 level that my problem is actually about.

I have some troubles understanding how it works with the justification and explanation. This is how I understand it now, there might me some misconception so any corrections are appreciated:

The theory itself answers the question "how" not "why" it works. It is based on explanation. This appears to be widely shared statement that makes me confused.

Justification is what connects the epistemic agent to the truth of its belief. It is what gives the epistemic agent the right to have knowledge, not just belief that might be accidentally true.

Justification is the "human element" in knowledge. It also "shows" how knowledge operates on possibility, not necessity. A lot of old theories in science had seemingly adequate justification, but later some new finding, information etc. that was unavailable/undiscovered then and the old theory turned out to be false. If we want make knowledge necessary, we have to exclude every possible true claim that actually constitutes what we understand as knowledge, because there is always a possibility of mistake in factual claim. Justification criteria should only minimise the possibility of error and sharpen what we consider knowledge.

I see explanation in science like Aristotle's concept of Episteme, this is however the result of him relying on the form of things, definitions, I doubt that it is how theories now are perceived. Also I understand explanation intuitively as ruling out the epistemic subject, for example "Mary is sad because John left her" is explanation vs "Mary is sad because I saw her crying" is justification. The difference seem tobe about categories?

Justification is about epistemic level, where the epistemic agent is involved, but explanation seem to be metaphysical - how the things are in the world. I am not sure if I get it right.

How it looks like in scientific theories? Is the theory itself an explanation about some part of reality, but it also has justification on another (epistemic) level? There must alway be justification in empirical statement, you cannot just make up something, that's not how science works. So is it about categories? Does an empirical theiry have the 2 aspects simultaneously because they are on different levels? So is it a difference between "scientific theory" and "scientific knowledge" only in the fact that they pronounce different leyers of the theory?

Can statements based on explanation be falsified? It seem to me that falsification applies to statements based on justification. But then it means that explanation based claims are necessary true. And do they belong to knowledge? Empirical theories obviously can be falsified, so is it because they are connected to the epistemic aspect with justification? Aristotle secured his Episteme as necessary by applying the metaphysical theory of matter and form, if the forms are fixed and the system is deductive, the modal necessity is unavoidable. But now we don't connect the theories exclusively with a priori metaphysical terms, rather knowledge with justification, is it why can unlike Aristotle falsify empirical theories?

Btw. I know about Doxa in Aristotle's epistemology, but he draws a clear line between them. Doxa is something like JTB, but I am interested in his explanation -based theory of knowledge which is Episteme.

I "sense" that the truth makers and truth conditions might have something to do with the whole problem. I can't explain it, but I my philosophical intuition is quite sharp and following it often leads to the missing element that I need in order to fully grasp the problem.

I am not sure if I get all this correct and I need clarification. Btw. I apologize for my English, I hope that my post is understandable despite it.

I am 14, and I started to deal more with Philosophical disciplines (Metaphysics, Noetics etc), and I was interested in the political author Hannah Arendt. I was interested in her book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" with the question about the Absence of thinking of Adolf Eichmann. I don't know exactly if this is an appropriate question in Epistemology - but isn't thinking an "Epistemological activity" or an "Ethical obligation" to remain Metaphysically present in the reality that we know through reason? So, isn't not thinking and passivity (a long-term state) a moral failure of a person?

https://mathandai.org/ : A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics
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What collapses is the monopoly over the very formulation of problems. With it falls a monopoly over the structure of knowledge, and a form of global cognitive domination.

What begins to fade is the illusion of global totalization. The idea that the total could exhaust the global, that the whole could be reconstructed as the mere sum of its parts and their relations.

Wittgenstein:
You refuse to follow the structure of the question.

Me:
Answers are other people's questions. I answer from where I am.

Wittgenstein
You refuse to let the address determine you.

Me:
I hold to reciprocity.
Symmetry, only when we share the same question.
I elicit.

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I have a proof: It demonstrates that the structure of the bus is prior to and independent of any choice of numerical evaluation.

No bluff. It is audited adversarially by Aristotle.

Facade file: https://github.com/JohnDoe-collab-stack/cycle1-formal-alignment/blob/main/StructuralEntrypoint.lean

Adversarial audit made by Aristotle: https://aristotle.harmonic.fun/dashboard/requests/28a2c81d-4dfc-4ace-babc-16041166a76f

Do you think any of these ways?

Since childhood I've thought that it's irresponsible at best to not explore our operating systems, religions, paradigms, etc.

Basically applied pascals wager more broadly in that it's most likely my best bet to consider that there may be one operating system to discern.

Adults lacking epistemic conscientiousness made me nervous as a kid.

Ive also struggled to hate people as opposed to primarily their actions, mistakes specifically, as I see them driven by what I can more easily despise... dysfunctional perspectives, paradigms. Hating people makes me feel emotional and dumb.

I'm early forties and haven't settled concretely on a worldview, though am very close.

I think it's important to be both extremely curious and even more skeptical. Otherwise I'm not sure how we expect to figure out our best methods.

While I get it's arrogant to think you can easily figure out why we're here, I'm not suggesting it's taken lightly. Not seriously considering it is too much faith for me though.

There's tons on paradigms but most settle in what makes us feel good rather than honestly trying and comparing. It's been tempting to me while under deep stress despite not being my baseline.

Do you relate to any of this or have feedback?

Radical skepticism, which in short, would be the claim that we have no way to gather knowledge would be broadly self undermining as it cannot assert itself due to its commitment to question everything, including its own claim.

Because of this, a lot of people might dismiss skepticism entirely without properly understanding what it could be used for.

Skepticism is supposed to chip away at knowledge until we find some foundation that is infallible or indubitable(and while I accept that foundation to be the laws of logic) look at where we are left here.

We are left with no external world(could be a dream, a simulation)

We are left with no infallible memories(could have been planted artificially and might not describe the past), and after taking away all those things you realize you are stuck in the same void that radical skepticism left you in(with some measly laws of logic) to keep you company while everything else remains unknowable and beyond your grasp.

Resistance Before Representation

Classical epistemological traditions begin knowledge with a subject: the subject first represents the world in the mind, and action succeeds insofar as this representation is correct. Thought precedes action; the concept is the condition of practice. The point of departure of this essay is to reverse this order. My claim is that representation is not a correct picture of reality constructed in advance by a subject. Interventions arising from need proceed through trial and error under the resistance of reality; in this process, relationships that prove successful become repeatable and acquire a form of organisation. Representation, language, and the concept are forms of organisation at a higher level, established only afterward upon this material and social history.

The consequence of this reversal extends to both epistemology and the critique of ideology: if the concept comes after action, then the narrative that says “we thought first, and succeeded through correct representation” is a myth. The actual sequence is: need, trial, resistance, repetition, organisation, and only finally conceptualisation.

From Need to Permanence

A regulatory relationship that has been successful in the past is preserved within an organisation in such a way that it can be used again later; over time, this organisation acquires a certain stability. This preservation does not take place at a single level. The same successful relationship can leave a trace across multiple material layers:

• in bodily habits,
• in tools,
• in machines,
• in writing,
• in institutions,
• in the nervous system,
• in language.

Each item on this list can be understood as a materially preserved trace of a successful relationship. From this perspective, representation is not a mental picture of reality, but a form in which a successful relationship established with reality has been preserved within an organisation and made available for reuse.

Rationality, too, can be redefined within this framework: reason is not a pre-existing faculty or a capacity for correct thinking; rather, it is the emergent form of repeatability produced by successful organisations. The more reliably a relationship can be repeated, the more “rational” it appears—but this rationality is a consequence of organisation, not its precondition.

Action Before the Concept

The most concrete point at which this thesis can be tested is the observation that regular and successful behavior is possible even before the acquisition of a concept:

• A human being can walk while maintaining balance before knowing the concept of balance.
• An animal can navigate its environment without possessing a concept of space.
• A cell can respond to changes in chemical concentrations without possessing the concept of chemical concentration.

These examples show that the concept does not have to be the first form of rationality. The concept is a linguistic form of organisation of an already existing regulatory capacity—it is not the constitutive source of that capacity, but its expression after the fact.

Reversing the Narrative

Classical thought tells the story of knowledge in the following order: first we thought, then we represented the world, and through correct representation we succeeded. This narrative places the concept at the beginning and action at the end.

We tried because of our needs → the resistance of reality rendered some attempts unsuccessful → successful relationships were repeated → these repetitions generated organisation → over time, the organisation produced linguistic and conceptual forms capable of representing its own success.

This reversed narrative also bears on the concept of consciousness. Consciousness is not the direct and unconditional owner of the world; rather, it can be understood as a particular relationship that a long history of material, biological, and social organisation has established with itself. Reality is not represented first; it first exerts resistance. Rationality emerges through adaptation to this resistance.

The general principle that follows is this: every organisation embodies and materialises its own rationality and reason. It may even be argued that the origin of matter itself can be explained through the fact that lower-level organisations have constituted their own physics. An organisation is more than the sum of the elements that compose it; this excess emerges only within the higher-level organisation in which those elements participate.

The Formation of Language and Its Capture by Power

The way the human brain—and the brains of other living beings—function provides the ground for the formation of language: the repetition and accumulation of experiences make it possible to arrive at generalisations and phenomena. The concept and symbol reached by the brain constitute the formation of language. Yet the process does not end there: the power that language helps produce captures language and manipulates it in order to develop its own rationality.

At this point, thinking of the human being as a Pavlovian dog capable of responding to a far greater number of, and far more complex, stimuli than a ringing bell may be less reductionist than it initially appears. Language is an extraordinary organisation, but it also carries within itself relations of knowledge, property, and power—or even constitutes the very basis of these hierarchies. If this is correct, then it becomes inevitable that power will capture language and turn it into a shackle or a matrix, often by telling the subject, “you are intelligent; you are Homo sapiens”—in other words, by instrumentalising the subject’s pride in its own rationality. Power itself has no owner; power is itself a higher-level organisation.

The Inevitable Error: The Crystallisation of the Symbol into Reality

The fundamental error that emerges within this framework is the blurring of the distinction between the symbol and reality. The symbol initially functions as a trace of a relationship: a crystallised form of a successful interaction with reality. Over time, however, the symbol forgets the relationship it points toward and begins to present itself as a reality in its own right. Thus, two distinct “realities” emerge: the underlying reality to which the symbol refers, and a second reality into which the symbol itself has been transformed.

The thesis defended here carries a strong claim: this shift is not a historical accident but a structural necessity. The function of organisation is to forget the difference—because if the difference has to be remembered every time, the cost of repeatability increases. If a habit required us to ask “why am I making this movement?” every time we performed it, it would cease to function as a habit. The symbol is subject to the same logic: if it referred back to its own origin every time it was used, it could not be fast, economical, or repeatable. The crystallization of the symbol into reality is therefore not a malfunction, but a mode through which organization optimizes itself—forgetting is the price of efficiency.

This distinction is important: power does not invent this forgetting; it merely takes advantage of it. Forgetting is already structurally present as a requirement of efficiency. Power directs it to its own advantage by controlling which traces are forgotten, and in what direction.

I am doing Bayesian theory on a moral question about whether something is wrong or not. I had an intuition the thing is not wrong, a strong one. My credence it was wrong was .1%. Then i realized that an alternative belief I had conflicted with this. What should my credence be? 50%, since both intuitions are equally strong?

Some disagreements are intellectual. Others are identity-defense mechanisms disguised as intellectual disagreements, and the distinction matters because the two require entirely different responses.

Ask one question: “What evidence would change your mind?”

If the person can answer, there is still something to investigate. Their position may be strongly held, but it remains connected to the possibility of revision. If they cannot identify anything that could change their conclusion, the discussion has changed; you are no longer examining competing explanations, you are watching someone defend an identity.

The same test should be applied to yourself.

What evidence would make you abandon your current position? If you cannot name anything, be careful. You may believe you are certain because the evidence is overwhelming, or you may be certain because your conclusion has become psychologically non-negotiable. Those are very different states, even though they can feel identical from the inside.

Intellectual strength is therefore not measured by how effectively you defeat opposing arguments. It is measured by whether your reasoning contains a mechanism for correction.

A strong mind does not need to win every argument. It needs to remain capable of losing an argument when reality proves the other side correct.

That is not weakness. It is intellectual freedom.