The Open Questions
The map's open cells, origin, the nature of the ground, one or many, what holds the laws, read through the aspect model that lets the traditions point at different parts of one structure. Every claim held as a calibrated option with a defeater, nothing asserted past the one certainty.
This section is where the Unification Map runs past what is settled. The synonymy thesis works cleanly where an adapter exists to prove it. Here it is pointed at the questions no adapter can close, the oldest ones: whether there was an origin, what the ground is, whether it is one or many, and what holds the order together. These are also the questions the religions answer, so the two projects are one.
The organizing tool is the aspect model: the great terms of the traditions, read by their attributes, point at different parts of one structure rather than at one contested thing, which is how apparently contradictory traditions can each be describing something real. The readable introduction is the essay How the Religions Could All Be Right.
The honesty contract
This is the most speculative section of the Library, so the discipline is strictest here. The single certainty is that experience is occurring (see Foundations). Everything past it is a credence carried with a defeater, tagged for what it is:
- ESTABLISHED for the settled physics or the settled history.
- FRAMING for an organizing lens.
- OPEN for a real question with no closed answer.
- CONTESTED for a claim asserted but not supported by controlled evidence.
Scripture is treated as a lossy source, worn by translation, so its readings are held as options, never as matter-of-fact meaning. Living traditions are represented by their own strongest voices, not caricatured. Where a term sorts to no aspect cleanly, that is left as an open cell rather than forced.
The documents
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The Aspect Model: the aspects defined by their attributes, the mechanism by which apparent contradictions dissolve, the internal precedents in the traditions, and the discipline that keeps the model falsifiable.
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The Origin: did it begin or has it always been. The necessity argument and the no-boundary and cyclic models, against the low-entropy past, the BGV theorem, and the traversal problem; the aspect resolution; and the arising as possibly undecidable in principle.
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The Nature of the Ground: still or in motion, aware or blind. Idealism, physicalism, neutral monism, and the no-ground view, with the certainty-is-awareness foothold.
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One or Many: one ground or many. The interaction argument and priority monism against pluralism, mapped to monotheism versus polytheism.
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The Sustainer: what holds the order and forces the laws, split into the logical floor, the specific laws, and moment-to-moment sustaining.
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The Traditions by Aspect: the comparative matrix, eight major traditions read across the five aspects, with the honest gaps and per-tradition sources.
Documents
The Aspect Model
Shared vocabulary is not shared reference. Read by their attributes, the great terms of the traditions sort into distinct aspects of one structure (canvas, dreamer, miracle, sustainer, return), which is why apparently contradictory traditions can each be right about a different part. The aspects, the dissolution mechanism, the internal precedents, the discipline, and sources.
The Origin
Did it begin or has it always been? Each horn at full strength (the from-nothing necessity argument and the no-boundary and cyclic models; against the low-entropy past, the BGV theorem, and the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite), then the aspect resolution: eternal is true of the canvas, the miracle of the manifestation. What survives is the arising itself, possibly undecidable in principle. Sources and calibrated weights.
The Nature of the Ground
If there is a ground under the manifest world, what is it like: still or in motion, aware or blind? The certainty that experiencing is occurring gives an aware, still ground a foothold a blind vibrating one never had, but a foothold is not a proof. Idealism, physicalism, neutral monism, and the no-ground view, with the meditative evidence held as defeasible, and calibrated weights.
One or Many
The certainty gives one experiencing, never one universal ground and never a ban on many. The pull toward one (parsimony, and the interaction argument that any relation needs a shared ground) against pluralism, mapped to the monotheism-versus-polytheism question. Monism the better bet, not a proof; an undecidable sealed-off plurality left open. Sources and weights.
The Sustainer
What holds reality together and forces the laws? Three sub-questions with three confidence levels: the logical holding (non-contradiction, self-enforcing, free); the specific laws (open: Humean regularity, DTA governing laws, dispositions, mathematical necessity, or a sustaining mind); and moment-to-moment sustaining (free if the ground is necessary, else a director). The sustainer aspect, sources, and weights.
The Traditions by Aspect
The comparative matrix: eight major traditions read across the five aspects (canvas, dreamer, miracle, sustainer, return). The at-a-glance table, the honest gaps where a tradition has no clean answer, per-tradition notes with terms, and sources. Held as readings, not settled fact.