祝融说。

Form not void, Mind no core. (2010-10-18)

I. Existence

1.1. Dynamic Existence

The ground of possibility continually maintains all potential existences in a parallel state. These potential existences are neither existent nor non-existent, but rest within a continuous process of becoming. The essential character of existence manifests as a perpetual, creative emergence—a process that negates any entity of certainty that is congealed, static, or completed. (2025-02-19) What appears to be an entity of certainty is not a pre-existing object, but a concrete secondary construct generated when a subject participates in the ground of possibility. When we describe the certainty of a phenomenon, this is essentially the temporary locking-in, by an observer at a particular perceptual scale, of a specific interval within the distribution of possibility. This process of directed screening and locking-in of existence is precisely the act termed observation below. (2025-02-19)

Possibility, then, is certainty that has not yet been locked in by observation. The certainty it locks in may be materially inclined, or it may not be. (2022-05-14) The sole difference between the two lies in whether or not they are observed. (2025-02-26) One might equally say that all existence simultaneously does not exist. (2025-08-08)

1.2. The Emergence of Certainty

Consciousness, as a screening mechanism for possibility, converges latent possibilities through observation. Consciousnesses at different levels observe continuously: the observed converges into the certainty of the object, and the observer converges into the certainty of the subject. All existence is at once both observer and observed; depending on the observational perspective, the two roles may be interchanged at will. Subject and object therefore admit no distinction of priority or rank; both are but angles upon a snapshot that the ground of possibility locks in along some convergent path. Each level preserves its own characteristics and independence while engaging in continuous dynamic exchange with the convergent results of other levels. (2025-02-19)

Differences in the observer's perspective determine the differing apparent characteristics of the observed phenomenon. (2024-12-20) The stability of matter at the macroscopic level arises from the iterative convergence of observations across multiple levels; when a stable consensus forms across subjects, classical physical entities are expressed as stable, certain structures. Probability at the microscopic level, by contrast, exposes the observational divergences that may exist among different observing subjects. (2025-02-12) Observation does not strictly require progression level by level; a high-precision measuring instrument, for instance, can intervene directly to observe microscopic particles—humans observe the instrument, and the instrument observes the microscopic particles. (2025-01-03)

The certainty of matter is the result of continuous collective observation by consciousness of multiple levels and types. Consciousness at each level constructs a cognition of material structure paired with its own precision of discernment; the multiple levels of matter correspond to the multiple levels of consciousness. If the consciousness at level A is defined as the subject of that level, then the matter at level A is the object of that level. The consciousness at level B may likewise be defined as the subject of level B, while the matter and consciousness at level A are together regarded by level B as its object. The results of cross-subject observation mutually validate one another, forming a cycle of positive reinforcement; the observational results of each level support one another and ultimately converge into a certain objective reality. (2025-01-08)

From fundamental particles to living beings, every form of existence possesses consciousness of differing levels and types. The various types of consciousness construct certainty in their own distinctive ways, forming interpretations of, and processing capacities for, different levels of reality. (2025-02-11) From this vantage, human consciousness may be regarded as a specialized type of pattern recognition adapted to the macroscopic material level; consciousness at different levels employs different modes of pattern recognition. (2025-01-03)

1.3. Space-Time and Causality

Space-time continuity is the result of different consciousnesses collaboratively processing dynamic existence in specific ways. This continuity is not an inherent attribute of physical reality but a secondary construct of the pattern recognition of consciousness; consciousnesses at different levels, observing in different ways, experience space-time differently. (2022-04-24)

From the macroscopic perspective, human consciousness, in coordination with the structure of the body, perceives and experiences discrete material sequences as time flowing continuously within pre-existing space; this is the general process by which human embodied cognition handles sequential information. Human consciousness, through different modes of observation, can converge upon different certain sequences, each of which is a valid and continuous snapshot of possibility representing a different potential development. Whether past, present, or future, and whether or not perceived and experienced by human consciousness, all snapshots exist presently and simultaneously within the ground of possibility. (2023-09-21) Turning to the microscopic perspective, certain behaviors of microscopic particles may appear unconstrained by the space-time that humans experience. Accelerating a microscopic particle to near-light speed, for example, alters its original mode of observation, so that it comes to exhibit new properties. (2025-01-03)

Observational consensus is a unanimous possible snapshot shared among consciousnesses of multiple levels, allowing coherent subjects to share a largely consistent reality while minor observational divergences are ignored. Within a snapshot, stable and continually reinforced convergent paths of possibility can form: these are the laws of causality. From the human perspective, causal laws appear a priori and can be expressed through such varied forms as logic, mathematics, and physics. Those incoherent subjects not included in the snapshot either revert to the ground of possibility or constitute an other reality. So-called higher or lower dimensions refer not to physical space but to the different reality constructions converged from the ground of possibility through different modes of observation. (2025-08-13)

It follows that consciousness participates in every phenomenon. (2025-03-10) Observational convergence is the precondition of space-time and causality; or rather, space-time and causality are a series of convergent methods produced by observation. (2025-08-08)

1.4. Subject-Object Unity

Certainty is a universal observational consensus, whereas free will is the available margin within the ground of possibility that has not yet been locked in. (2024-10-17) In general, accumulated observational consensus comes to be discovered and summarized as causal laws, and causal laws are in turn discovered and summarized into rule frameworks. At the same time, observational consensus may be questioned or negated on account of different modes of observation, giving rise to observational divergence. The subjects of an observational divergence re-engage with the ground of possibility to achieve re-convergence, thereby completing the renewal of observational consensus and, ultimately, bringing about the renewal of the rule framework. Put simply, the subject improvises within the rule framework, and this response in turn reshapes the possibility distribution of the rules, constituting a continuous, iterative path of the evolution of reality. Projected onto material space-time, this phenomenon manifests as a landscape of progressive evolution. (2025-02-16)

The observing subject and the observed object are essentially different realizations of one and the same mode of existence: the object is converged into certainty by being observed, while the subject observes and experiences certainty, and the two sustain their state of existence through interaction. One may say that the process of observation is the process of experience—observation is experience. A change in the subject or in the mode of observation will fix a different subset of the possibility distribution, locking in a different snapshot of possibility. Consciousness is no onlooker upon the material world, but a participant in the co-construction of reality. (2024-12-20)

Black silk coiled, planting Bodhi seeds on a bench, sprouting three points of lushness, frolicking away, can it be held? If it comes not, can it be touched? "Bodhi Bean" (2012-08-19)

II. Cognition

2.1. Processual Completeness

Cognition is, in essence, perpetually non-closed; it is a progressive, incomplete mapping of the ground of possibility, achieved through continuous generation. Judgment, as the immediate feedback act of the cognitive system, is never—and need never be—directed toward the ultimate truth. (2024-04-22) It merely marks the instantaneous position of the current cognitive boundary. (2024-07-25)

The dynamic character of cognition negates static perfection. (2023-10-04) Any cognitive system that claims completeness may be said to be in a state awaiting renewal. Through continuous trial and error, humans establish temporarily stable certain nodes, achieving phase-appropriate feasible solutions in the selection among optimal failure paths. The completeness of cognition should ultimately, and only, be embodied in the capacity for process iteration, not in the degree of completion of its conclusions. (2025-01-11)

2.2. The Bidirectional Representation of Language

Language and writing, as the prototype of possibility convergence (2025-10-01), construct the underlying framework of human cognition, and a continuous mutual interference persists between their instrumental function and their cognitive function. (2024-09-13) On the one hand, the semantic network constitutes the underlying scope of cognitive activity, and lexical density determines the connective dimensions of conceptual nodes. (2023-11-16) On the other hand, the abstraction of linguistic symbols inevitably incurs a loss of experience, creating an explanatory gap between the description of a phenomenon and the phenomenon itself. (2024-08-15)

As the basis of human cooperation, language can generally be used either to complete cognition or to complete discipline. This explicit or implicit completion may distort the direction of cognition, generating what is called contextual pollution: for example, inducing information overload by blurring key parameters or piling up redundant noise, thereby weakening the subject's capacity for judgment; or, through extreme stances, the abuse of original meanings, and the boundless expansion and rewriting of a word's original expressive space, using semantic polarization to dismantle the very basis of discussion among subjects; or covering substantive issues with emotion, substituting short-term release for long-lasting solutions. (2021-06-20)

Language is, in essence, one kind of set of certainties within the ground of possibility, and any single expression is a process of projection from a higher dimension to a lower one. Yet even though the reality encompassed by the ground of possibility far exceeds the linguistic system, theory must still be expounded through the linguistic system. (2024-09-13)

2.3. Dimensionality Reduction of Theory

Any theory is an interpretive system within a limited horizon, a dimensionality-reduced projection of the real world. (2023-10-07) Its validity is constrained by a threefold boundary: first, the observational level determines the representational limits of the theory; (2024-09-13) second, the co-construction of the cognitive subject and its environment necessarily imbues the theory with the imprint of subjectivity; (2024-09-13) third, explanatory power attenuates along the temporal dimension. (2024-09-13) Every theory, therefore, has boundaries of application.

The dimensionality reduction of a theory does not amount to a negation of its value; rather, it establishes its standing as a relay station of cognition—the theory attains continuous cognitive renewal through sustained re-observation. (2024-09-13)

2.4. Concepts and Consensus

Humans experience reality, organize language to interpret experience and thereby form concepts, systematically arrange concepts into theories, and theories in turn further influence the experience of reality. Concepts shape the texture of subjective experience, and their evolution displays the typical character of a dissipative process. Practical experience and theoretical construction shape each other, together giving rise to a concept ecology. Different theories or practices yield different concepts, and different concepts lock in different snapshots of possibility. Practice provides the experimental soil for theory; theory draws the navigational map for practice. (2021-01-31)

When a particular interpretive framework demonstrates predictive power and practical value, individuals and groups will form conceptual consensus through comparison. (2024-02-23) The established consensus then reciprocally influences the subject's perception, completing the closed loop. (2025-02-16)

Under the tree, flowers bloom, you are troubled, the parting autumn, mutual sorrow. Clothes of crimson, white snow, unbearably shy. Thirty cycles of suffering, at the moment of parting, regret not having spoken. Suddenly, ten years later, under the moonlight candle, forgetting worries. Clear tears carve a moon-shaped groove, the beloved smiles, heart tangled. "Chong Lou" (2020-08-03)

III. Order

3.1. Finite Order

Social order is an adaptive, stable structure formed macroscopically through interaction, with humans as the primary observers. Through concept exchange and divergence game-playing among subjects of different cognitive levels, a coordinable and operable set of certainties is ultimately formed—comprising both explicit rules (such as legal systems and technical standards) and implicit contracts (such as cultural traditions and group tacit understanding). This set of certainties is then decomposed and transformed downward into the modes of power distribution that determine the enforcement of rules and the mechanisms of resource allocation that influence the flow of benefits, whence differentiated forms of order arise. (2021-08-14)

The timeliness and stratification of consensus run throughout social evolution. Short-term consensus resolves immediate conflicts but struggles to address deep-seated contradictions; long-term consensus requires many rounds of game-playing before it can settle into stable tradition; local consensus is effective within a specific group yet often conflicts with the collective goals of a wider scope. The alternation of old and new consensus constitutes the core driving force of the evolution of order: the existing consensus maintains overall stability through institutional rigidity, while emerging concepts continually permeate the boundaries of that existing consensus. The intensity of the confrontation between the two determines the direction of order—whether gradual adjustment, drastic reorganization, or conservative ossification. Throughout this process, order is neither inevitably convulsive nor inevitably static; its persistence depends on the capacity of all subjects to absorb and process the pressure of contradiction. (2024-09-19)

3.2. Power Hierarchy

The continual evolution of finite order produces differences in the capacity of different subjects to lock in available margin. A particular group, through the system of rules, concentrates the capacity for possibility convergence and forms a structural advantage, in effect reshaping the distribution of possibility across the social sphere—and thus a power hierarchy arises. The advantaged subject holds evaluative power over a wider scope of influence, and the results of its evaluation propagate downward; the disadvantaged group can only perform secondary evaluation, or even repeated evaluation, within the conclusions the advantaged group has already assessed.

The symbolic emblem of power anchors the collective conceptual consensus into some fixed form, binding concept to matter and settling into ritual. (2022-07-11) In religious sacrifice or the bell-ringing of a stock-market listing, for instance, the repeated performance of symbols that represent authority (sacred objects, the exchange's great screen) binds power to the symbol, and the symbol is in turn bound to the group's concepts.

In a virtuous-cycle system, the advantaged subject dissipates the transmission of pressure under a mechanism of responsibility, using institutional design to confine the advantaged group's evaluation within the public sphere, so as to preserve and increase each subject's available margin as far as possible. The vicious cycle is the reverse: through institutional design the advantaged group transfers most or all of the pressure, forcing the disadvantaged group to bear passively the wear and tear of the system as a whole (as when technological monopoly leads to polarized distribution), so that their available margin is stripped away and weakened. The latter triggers an imbalance in the distribution of evaluative power—a misalignment between the subject that makes decisions and evaluations and the subject that bears the consequences—which fundamentally dismantles the symmetrical basis of consensus-building. Under free trade, for example, beneath ostensibly equal agreements, technical barriers and capital monopolies covertly strip the disadvantaged group of its bargaining power, forming an exploitative structure of coerced voluntariness. At this point, the freedom of the market is essentially a structural consensus of a multi-level power hierarchy.

3.3. Evaluation Alienation

Evaluation alienation is the inevitable result of the vicious cycle under the power hierarchy. (2025-08-12)

Take the market economy as an example. In primitive transactions, the supply and demand sides possessed symmetrical evaluative power and reached consensus through direct negotiation. As the complexity of transactions increases, third-party institutions gradually monopolize evaluative power, degrading the dynamic construction of consensus into a static, one-way system of certification. From the standpoint of production, the group that owns the means of production plainly holds greater evaluative power over the fruits of labor than the group that does not; the latter can only perform secondary evaluation within the framework set by the former. (2024-09-19) Digitalization further aggravates this: algorithmic recommendation systems form closed cognitive loops through data modeling, and the platform economy exploits its information monopoly to reconstruct the coordinates of value. Its essence is the technical deprivation of evaluative power, alienating the market mechanism from a tool of value discovery into a tool of control. Establishing a healthy ecology of evaluation requires not only the improvement of technical tools but also subject empowerment, with emphasis on the public-deliberative character of the evaluation system. (2024-10-11)

The advantaged group within the power hierarchy establishes a cognitive monopoly over certain groups through the proliferation of specialized terminology and the iteration of standards; or else, by fostering the disadvantaged group's long-term dependence, it brings about the loss of their capacity for autonomous evaluation and thus their subject dissolution. In the end, the act of evaluation becomes systematically alienated. (2025-08-12)

3.4. Dynamic Evolution

The institutional system is, in essence, an accumulation of consensus—historically completed games crystallized in institutional form. The driving force behind the evolution of the institutional system originates in the divergences among different groups in their capacity for possibility convergence, divergences brought about by the evaluation alienation that occurs under the power hierarchy.

The advantaged group seeks to lock in, to the greatest possible extent, a possibility distribution favorable to itself, while the disadvantaged group resists because its available margin has been systematically stripped away. By solidifying particular value standards into mandatory norms, the advantaged group builds a stable moat comprising legal provisions, cultural traditions, and the like. The disadvantaged group, for its part, must exploit institutional gaps and interpretive elasticity to create room to maneuver, seizing first upon the paths of possibility convergence that have not yet been discovered or used, and establishing marginal systems outside the mainstream. (2023-05-26) In the early stage of divergence, formal stability can usually be maintained on the surface of the system while the deep-level rules undergo continuous adaptive adjustment. As the divergence is progressively reinforced, the deep adjustments gradually surface and come to be continually made manifest and emphasized in some concrete form. When the divergence reaches its final stage, the more polarized it becomes, the fewer the paths of possibility convergence that remain, and the more intense the eventual means of reaching consensus. (2024-05-28)

Rolling up the west curtain, clear sky overhead, the road by the pillar, bluebird. Scooping up stars, drinking wildly from a goblet, a thousand kinds of grain, once arranged before the horse. Dreaming of a neighbor, cold river, both hands, a thousand years, circling smoke, cicadas chirping and weeping, a soft hum, a faint smile, like a pine tree. "West Curtain" (2020-08-02)

IV. Practice

4.1. Proactive Focusing

Proactive cognitive activity essentially constitutes a process of pre-constructing potential reality. On the one hand, the cognitive inertia formed by existing practical experience provides a guiding scope for reaction and action, expressed as present reality; on the other hand, other, as-yet-unfixed cognitive elasticities provide room for potential variations. (2023-04-30)

In concrete practice, this duality manifests as a feedback loop of expectation, reality, re-expectation: proactivity guides the choice of behavior; the consequences of behavior reshape the ground of possibility; and the updated ground of possibility in turn corrects the proactivity of expectation. (2023-04-30) In a positive feedback loop, the deviation of expectation serves as a signal for cognitive calibration, driving the upgrading of the cognitive system through the analysis of differences. In a negative feedback loop, the cognitive rigidity caused by the fixation of expectation leads the system to continually miss the early-warning signals of environmental change. (2023-04-29)

4.2. Maintaining Continuity

The essence of the persistence and continuation of order is the continuation of a stable present reality. (2023-01-17) It depends not on maintaining an absolutely stable state, but on preserving the capacity for dynamic regulation. Its concrete manifestations include:

• Guarantee of persistence: maintaining a moderate degree of redundancy in key parts, so as to withstand potential shocks; (2023-11-29)
• Minimal investment: the greater the potential for variation a part possesses, the more it should be kept low in cost and low in loss; (2023-11-29)
• Path diversity: maintaining a multi-path, parallel, open structure for the flow of resources and information and for the means of achieving goals; (2023-11-29)
• Continuous correction: keeping feedback channels unobstructed and endowed with the capacity for immediate identification and correction of error. (2023-11-29)

So-called stable states are essentially the temporary alignments reached by the various subsets through continual fine-tuning. Loss or error should be regarded as an inevitable condition of evolution rather than a purely negative factor, and it should be recognized that localized shocks can strengthen the resilience of the whole. From an operational standpoint, this means, on the one hand, dispersing pressure to prevent critical nodes from overloading and failing, and, on the other, preserving the reliable transmission of pressure signals so that all nodes have a consistent perception of the whole. One establishes multi-scale, multi-level systems of evaluation, maintaining the continuity of the system while enabling continuous evolution through controlled iteration. (2023-10-06)

4.3. Sustainable Decision-Making

There is no optimal decision; the optimal decision is essentially a sustainable decision. A sustainable decision means keeping the right of choice ever present, maintaining the elasticity to counteract the ossification of rules. (2023-04-14) Along the temporal dimension, one retains room for trial and error; along the spatial dimension, one constructs heterogeneous sources of information to hedge against the potential biases of mainstream consensus. Once room for error is secured and decisive failure is avoided, the remaining possibilities can lead only to success of differing levels or degrees. (2023-01-17)

Error tolerance is not a waste of resources but a necessary buffer for managing uncertainty as a whole: first, it gains sequential elasticity in time, allowing gradual correction in the course of practice; (2020-07-23) second, it expands parallel paths in space, ensuring the ability to switch when a single path fails; (2020-07-23) third, it evaluates across multiple scales and levels, guarding against the systemic blind spots that a single standard would cause. (2023-07-14)

Who says sleeping is waking? Waking is sleeping, and for whom is the waking? The world laughs at my foolishness, only for form, not for Zen. "For Brother Sen" (2010-10-05)

V. Supplementary Remarks

Primordial · The Dao Exists First

Before the myriad forms took shape, the Mysterious Female nurtured the subtle essence. Before all existences were, they were neither existing nor non-existing. Birth and death revolve without end, and transformations are inexhaustible. To cling to forms in seeking reality is like chasing the moon in water. Spiritual clarity is the pivot; contemplation is the trigger. Wherever the mirror of the mind turns, the ten thousand dharmas are made manifest. An ant sees a grain of millet; a human gazes upon the starry field. The difference in what is seen lies in the difference of the seer. The order of space-time is co-cast by mind and consciousness. Once causes and conditions arise, collective views layer upon layer. Subject and object share the same nature, as waves share the nature of water. The boundary of high and low lies not in location, but in the landscape. The gap in the workings of Heaven lies in what remains unobserved; the dimension of rules is formed by common witnessing. When collective views give rise to divergence, new opportunity begins.

Clear Mind · Knowledge and Views Second

In surveying the myriad things, the discernment of principle knows no limit. To judge views arbitrarily is merely a finger pointing at the moon. A still pond fears fullness; thus one knows that living water flows without end. Words carry the Dao, yet also veil the eye. When name and reality part, true meaning is lost. Drowning in the sea of words, dust settles upon the spiritual terrace. Therefore the true Dharma is like a raft: once the crossing is made, the raft is set aside. All who cling to existence hold but the view of a single quarter. Its use has bounds, its time has an end, its observation has bias. New doctrines replace the old, as the four seasons turn; precisely because it has an end, it can be without end. The verification of a concept is like wind bending the grass: wherever the public will inclines, there a temporary reality takes shape.

World Pivot · Order and Hierarchy Third

The laws and measures of the human world are jointly signed by all beings—sometimes manifest in statute, sometimes hidden in moral custom. The new and the old contend; their transformation may be a silent rain that moistens all things, or a startling wave that splits the shore. All originate in the mind and are carried by the Dao. When observation is disparate, authority is established. The holder of the mirror sets the standard; the rest can only look up and follow. If high walls are built to cut off speech, or comfort is fed to foster ignorance, then the holder of the mirror loses the Way. Take the marketplace, for instance: it exists originally for mutual benefit, but when the balance loses its fairness, the shackles become willful. Though the net of law be dense, there must be cracks where light shines through. Those above pile high walls to secure themselves; those below carve out hidden paths to survive. In the end, divergent views grow fiercer by the day, contradictions deepen, available means dwindle, and the final breaking of the formation may be all the more violent.

Practice the True · Action and Realization Fourth

Look before and behind, holding a lamp to probe the abyss. The present reality is the condensation of the past; the potential of the future awaits the brightness or dimness of the mind. Clinging to thought leads to rigidity and vacillation; breaking through obstruction brings forth life. To preserve one's achievement is not to stand still, but truly to cherish the life that does not cease. When the variables are many, seek the utmost simplicity. For a vital pivot, always set up dual paths. For a multitude of forking roads, it is fitting to open three gates. When flaw and stain appear, remove them without delay. Aim not at absolute perfection, but at constant choice. Error tolerance is not loss; it preserves room to maneuver. Therefore leave blank spaces in the sequence of time, set alternative routes between heaven and earth, and keep ten thousand endpoints beyond the measuring stick. So long as the root is not severed, the ten thousand dharmas return to their source.

Amidst the bustling market's eternal lights and ancient figures, the greatest waste is longevity and permanence. An empty celestial palace, a full circle of people, is not as good as a moment in the noonday, getting two taels of beef and a pot of yellow wine. Quietly waiting for beauty to age. "Red Cloth" (2023-05-05)

VI. Unfinished

A lump of cow dung, full of floral scent. In youth, greedy for wisdom; in maturity, empty of the world. Say go but don't go, speak of coming but don't come. It warrants asking, the reason is a lump of cow dung. "Maitreya" (2012-09-03)

Revision History

Process Realism: Observational Convergence and the Generation of Certainty (RC)