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12:29

(In »Truth as an act – the road to the fourth singularity«)

First of all syntheism assumes that time is real in a contingent universe. This makes all predictions extremely uncertain, at least in the long-term, just like within meteorology or ecology. But there is also a built-in paralysis in the faith in some kind of generally positive or predominantly negative development. Whether the expectations tip this way or that way basically does not matter; merely the fact that the expectations tip in any direction whatsoever weakens the will to act. If the driving existentialist principle in syntheist ethics is that truth is an act – you are everything if you act, you are nothing if you do not act and are content to react – it has the consequence that if the actor is to maximise his or her opportunities for power and influence, all predictions concerning the future must start from an absolute neutral position. The future is not better or worse in any objective sense: meliorism is fundamentally mendacious, the mythology of doom likewise, the future is merely open, full stop. It is from this prediction-neutral starting point that the syntheist ethical imperatives can be formulated. The impossible is possible – if you want to be associated with truth: act!