An Epistemic Quest — How We Acquire Knowledge (M006)

Words: 1203 ⁘ Length: 08:05 min
⁘ Created: 2025-08-21 ⁘ Updated: 2025-10-24
An Epistemic Quest — How We Acquire Knowledge (M006)Play

Looking for knowledge? Pinning down the truth? However does that happen?

Direct perception. But defective senses and instruments. Analytical reason. But incomplete and disorderly premises. Also: Your subjective cognitive bias and distorting views. Shall we then yield and defer to the standard authority? So it was in classical academies — so too in every dogma. But if the teacher's throne has flimsy or faulty roots?

Alas. What have we left then? Is there any truth out there? In the ever-changing flux of details, truth just passes by. But there is truth in basic patterns and general principles. Patterns beyond the situation are unveiled with abstraction. In the world out there — and in the world of your consciousness. A pair that forms a singular pattern loom in the final distill.

Yet we must resign from ourselves to eliminate subject bias. Witnessing without intention or projection — enter actuality. Objectivity is not as easy as it sounds. You become obsolete. No subjective truth is ever objective. All in your bubble. If we seek the same page, a frame that brings us together, fair and equal for all — we must step beyond the subject.

#MetaLoom #Truth #Epistemology #Patterns #MetaCognition #Knowledge #Subjectivity #Objectivity #Actuality #AnandaICU

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The Quest for Trululu – An Epistemic Adventure. Okay. By "epistemic" I of course refer to the field of inquiry known as epistemology, aka. how do we know anything at all.

If we are seeking for truth, we cannot simply feel that this is true, or conclude hastily, it must be true so therefore it is true. We must be methodical, we must have a foundation for our evaluation of true and false, what is and what is not.

Classic Triad of Means for Valid Knowledge

Then to cover the classic approaches. First of all, empirical observation. You look at things, whether by your eyes or with the help of an instrument. It appears to be so, and therefore it is so. But what if your senses are defective, what if your instruments are not well calibrated? then it is not so.

Second in line, reason. This is this and that is that – and therefore it follows that such and such. But do you actually have all the considerations mapped to begin with? And do you have them in their appropriate relations, in their due hierarchies and ontologies? Do you actually iterate the logic, your pure reason, correctly? If not, then it is not so. It simply is a plausible opinion.

Beyond that, analytical reason – invariably also applied to the outcomes of our observation, if we are to make any sense of that data – is subject to our cognitive bias, to our distortions. It often happens that we hold particular strong views.

We have a bias, whether due to how our identity is rooted, or how our education conditioned us. All of that functions as a distorting lens, as a selective filter that compromises the outcomes of our analytical process. Therefore our senses and our instruments are defective, and our reason is deficient – what shall we do next?

We shall simply defer to the standard authority. Ipse dixit, he said so, and therefore let it be so. But what if he was also wrong, speaking from his high and mighty throne? Both in classical philosophy, it was so in Aristotelian world, and so it is in the world of belief and dogmatic philosophies.

So let us rise beyond the standard authority, even the divine revelation so-called, as documented or as claimed, because that too is so very subject to our biased interpretation. And what have we left? Is there a domain out there, of which a truth may be extracted?

Into the Realm of Patterns and Principles

So in the world of specific particular phenomena, in the world of ever-changing details, truth is so very fluid. However, in the realm of patterns, the primaries, the fundamental properties of things – up, down, rising, falling, contracting, expanding – these are not subject to the sort of trivial change that entirely changes the face of a particular object.

So in the realm of patterns, there is more stability. There is more coherence in what can be established. Patterns uncovered by abstraction of the dynamism of the world out there and also patterns within our consciousness.

Those two, as it happens, go hand in hand, when a sufficient level of abstraction is accomplished. The patterns are very much the same inside and outside – as above, so below, they used to say – and also as within, so without. Bridge those together – and then into your laboratory of consciousness.

Absolute Objectivity — Beyond the Subject Bias

Setting aside your subject bias, resigning from yourself, allowing the pure process of witnessing of things as they are happen. Without any projection, without any agenda. With that, you may identify the patterns as they are. And in that we have the gold standard, the direct perception without subject bias.

Objectivity is not as easy as it sounds. For objectivity to be real, the subject must step aside entirely. And as such, there is no subjective truth that is objective, right? That stands to reason very much. Your subjective ideas are ideas that hold for the time being, valid in your own finite bubble.

But beyond that, if we seek an objective truth, and if we seek a frame that brings us together to the same page, that serves to unify us, that serves to be fair, equal for all, we must step beyond the subject and evaluate the patterns of what is unto themselves.

Direct Witnessing — Non-Subjective Metacognition

So in the realm of your consciousness, in your fantastic laboratory of all existence, directly witness, perceive and recognize what is. Encounter it as it is. That is the first step toward truth. Then come to terms with it, without resistance, and you may begin to live in truth. Truth that is timeless, truth that is universal, truth that is unswayed by anyone's opinions.

So, beyond perception with finite and convoluting instruments. Beyond reason compromised by cognitive bias. Beyond reference to authorities, into a direct experience of not the particular details, but of the patterns.

Pattern observation, metacognition, and in there, to the actuality of all that is, inside and outside. There we may find truth – and those truths, may they also serve as the basis of our process of reasoning. Reason should be grounded in identified patterns, in direct witnessing.

We cannot constantly witness everything. So, some things must be added up, computed in our minds, but when the patterns themselves, the variables in our experience are valid, then they lend themselves to effortless and fairly reliable rendering of what might be and what should be, what is to be expected, and what was. Into the past we see, into the future we see, and of the present we recognize clearly what is.

Boldly then onward, breaking from the dungeon of your subject shell. In a Quest for Trululu – the truth, and the becoming of truth from all things. We'll meet on the other side when all the clutter has fallen, when hallucinations have faded. Fare well.