The Open Questions

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 post 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, that better evidence or argument could still move.
UNDECIDABLE for a question closed to evidence in principle, where no possible observation could ever settle it.
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

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.
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.
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.
One or Many: one ground or many. The interaction argument and priority monism against pluralism, mapped to monotheism versus polytheism.
The Sustainer: what holds the order and forces the laws, split into the logical floor, the specific laws, and moment-to-moment sustaining.
The Traditions by Aspect: the comparative matrix, the major traditions split by school where they disagree, read across the five aspects, with the honest gaps and verse-level sources.
Genuine Disagreements: where the model stops dissolving. The real seams the traditions keep (the afterlife, which aspect is fundamental, exclusive historical claims, the diagnosis of evil), and why they are what make the model falsifiable.
The Aspect Model and Its Neighbors: how it differs from perennialism and from Hick's pluralism, and why Katz's constructivist objection supports it rather than sinking it.
What We Can and Cannot Know: the capstone. Every open question's epistemic status in one place, split into proven, open, belief, and undecidable in principle.

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 (simplicity, 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: the major traditions, split by school where the schools disagree, read across the five aspects (canvas, dreamer, miracle, sustainer, return). The at-a-glance table, what the intra-tradition splits show, the honest gaps, per-tradition notes, and verse-level sources. Held as readings, not settled fact.

Genuine Disagreements

Where the aspect model stops dissolving. Not every difference between traditions is a category error; some are real disagreements, the same question answered incompatibly. The four kinds (the afterlife, which aspect is fundamental, exclusive historical claims, the diagnosis of evil), the perennialist flattening that is refused, and why the seams are what keep the model falsifiable.