Rational Answers from Modal Idealism A Concise Theory of Truly Everything Kevin R. Harris The Origin of Modal Idealism Modal idealism is a framework that explains the nature of reality and the structure of the mind, by rationally identifying the intrinsic purpose of the latter in the context of the former. Its logical depth and breadth effectively position this thesis to address the fundamental mysteries of our existence by seamlessly integrating core principles of contemporary philosophy, science, and spirituality, into a school of thought with the explanatory power to provide rational answers our most enduring existential questions. Modal idealism defines the elementary concepts of reality, existence, symmetry, uniqueness, and observation in an original-yet still recognizable-manner. These definitions form the basis of its insights into the ideas of identity, mind, meaning, world, and universe, which all together represent the foundation of this philosophical framework. Additional principles of modal idealism extend its rational knowledge into the domains of science and spirituality to expand upon their insights into the nature of reality in the context of the human condition. The emergence of modal idealism began with my aspiration to apply abductive reasoning to the rational concept of a world, derived from integrating philosophical and scientific answers to three basic questions of modality: Could things have been different? Are things different elsewhere? What determines how things are locally? In the resulting context, modal idealism deepens its focus to define the concept of existence based on rational answers to three fundamental ontological questions: What does it mean to NOT exist? What does it mean to be unique? What does it mean to observe an entity? Informed by these answers, the development of this framework turned logically to three elementary semantic questions: What is meaning? What is the source of meaning? How does meaning relate to purpose? My analysis of these questions in the context of what philosophy, science, and spirituality have to say on their subjects produced the Rational Chaos Postulate. This existential proposition embodies the metaphysical assertion that the primal nothingness underlies each combination of a conceivable being and the entirety of its unique, perfectly complementary dual. I extended this core premise by also positing that all subjective experiences are causal interpretations of objective, retroactive self-determinism. The basis of this principle is the assertion that every subjective manifestation resides within the world supervening upon its unmanifest successor's objective identity. Accordingly, each such objective identity determines the state of the world that its manifest predecessors experience. Where this atemporal, objective identity self-determines as a conscious being with historicity, its temporal predecessors subjectively interpret the portion of their successor's world that also supervened upon them as the basis of their causal experiences. Interpreting the implications of this postulate, I expanded it into a set of rational principles that effectively integrate our legacy explanatory frameworks into a single coherent school of thought. While they were not the original focus of my analysis, the resulting theory serendipitously aligns with a combination of American philosopher David Lewis' modal realism, the One World interpretation of German philosopher Immanuel Kant's doctrine of transcendental idealism, and the Many Mind's formulation of quantum mechanics. While the modal idealism framework emerged from my answers to the prior nine questions of modality, ontology, and semantics, this essay will demonstrate its explanatory power by using its principles to provide rational answers seven of our greatest, most persistent existential questions. The Seven Theory of Everything Questions Before we explore the principles of modal idealism, let us briefly examine what philosophy, science, and mental spirituality-in the form of theism-have to say about the seven existential questions introduced earlier. These questions continue to defy our rational efforts to answer them, and therefore any Theory of Truly Everything must be able to do so. 1. Why is there something rather than nothing? This fundamental existential question casts doubt on the primacy of all scientific principles and philosophical schools of thought, by highlighting the possibility that they might be contingent conjectural frameworks. To address this uncertainty, the brute facts of these rational practices must either necessitate the logical impossibility of the primal nothingness, or include an existential bootstrapping mechanism that explains how we emerged from the void. The core premise of the Rational Chaos Postulate embodies such a bootstrapping mechanism, and thus represents the logical basis of modal idealism's answer this question. The theistic worldview is unaffected by this question because its adherents believe the true foundation of everything has already been revealed to them. 2. How did the universe come to be? Scientific speculation on this question is becoming increasingly metaphysical-with its unfalsifiable hypotheses of multiple universes and hyperspatial branes-implying that science and philosophy may be converging upon an answer. Theism asserts that the universe is a creation of God. 3. Does God exist? Theism answers this question with an unconditional affirmative, even as science continues to increase its capacity to explain fundamental dynamics without referencing God. Philosophy acknowledges the possibility of God existing, but remains unable to produce a rational argument affirming the necessity of this proposition. 4. Do we have free will? The scientific orthodoxy is that, up from the quantum level, we reside in a deterministic universe that does not accommodate free will-notwithstanding the unorthodox attempts to expand the scope of quantum indeterminacy, in an effort to explain how free will might yet be possible in our world. Philosophy currently occupies all sides of this debate, from arguing for the existence of free will, to agreeing that the causal world is essentially deterministic, to putting forth the compromise that posits the compatibility of free will and determinism. In asserting that we have free will, theism seeks to establish a basis for the responsible agency underlying its definition of morality. Accordingly, it identifies this agency as the primary source of the avoidable adversity in our world. 5. Why is there evil and suffering in the world? This question of theodicy has bedeviled believers in a benevolent, all-powerful, all-knowing God, ever since theologians first applied logic to that belief, in the context of the pervasive adversity in their world. Conversely, philosophy and science see no paradox in the presence of evil and suffering in our world, though both practices are operating under an implicit mandate to mitigate these adversities. 6. Do we have an intrinsic purpose? Theism defines our intrinsic purpose in the context of our contributions to the Divine Plan for all creatures. Science asserts that we have no intrinsic purpose. Its practitioners posit that what we have are-often purposefully interpreted as-consequences of our genomes randomly progressing toward relationships with our causal environment, in which their living expressions can continually emerge, mature, and reproduce, as our physical matter deterministically translates toward a world in temporal symmetry. There is an ongoing philosophical debate as to whether we have an intrinsic purpose for which we were created, an extrinsic purpose to which we can dedicate ourselves based on our inclinations and capabilities, both, or neither. 7. Is there life after death? Theism insists there is an afterlife, where we are rewarded-or some believe appropriately punished- based on how our exercise of free will in life, aligned with the Divine Plan. Science and philosophy remain skeptical about the possibility of life after death in the absence of objective empirical evidence or logically sound arguments that support this proposition. However, philosophy continues to consider the possibility and its implications. The remainder of this essay will present thirty-six principles of modal idealism, and use them to provide unequivocal rational answers to each of these questions, that are scientifically, philosophically, and theologically valid. Many Worlds Many Minds 1. Reality encompasses all possible beings in perfect symmetry. This principle broadens our existential curiosity beyond simply wondering how and from where the first beings originated, to also asking why we do not observe every conceivable possibility and how probability can be a meaningful concept if every possibility is equally real. The explanation of Principle 5 will explicitly answer these questions. Contextualizing this answer will require an examination of necessity, possibility, and impossibility-the truth modalities. In this framework, the truth modalities are the fundamental modes of categorizing the contents of any asymmetric domain. Conceivability is modal idealism's truth-transcending modality of the totality of perfectly symmetric reality. Necessity, impossibility, and whether a possibility, can be, is, or has been true, emerge from the asymmetry of the identity observing and contextualizing a complementarily asymmetric subset of reality. In modal idealism, perfect symmetry represents the foundational indistinguishability of the totality of all conceivable possibilities, while the distinguishability of each individual being supervenes upon the existential asymmetry of its unique observer. In general, such supervenience embodies a base entity's unique existence objectively determining the attributes of each being supervening upon it. A Zen Buddhist who asks, "What did your face look like before your parents were born?" aspires to teach you the difference between your Original Face and the contingent face you inherited from your ancestors. Your Original Face embodies reality, and so is perfectly symmetric, while the distinguishing attributes of your contingent face supervene upon the asymmetries of your unique observer's identity. Let us look more closely at how these asymmetries emerge. 2. Uniqueness is the separation from nothingness that necessitates existence. According to modal idealism, the existence of any observed being is ontologically dependent upon the uniqueness of its observer. In reality, neither the observer nor the observed necessarily exists though both represent conceivable possibilities. Within the perfect symmetry of reality resides every entity that has ever manifested, can yet manifest, or can never manifest, differentiated by the uniqueness and existence of each conceivable observer therein. A unique entity embodies a conceivable possibility within reality that, in the most elementary sense, is simply not any other conceivable possibility. An observer represents a unique entity whose objective identity encompasses every entity that can manifest within the world of beings it is contextually identifying, and every entity that can never manifest there. Each objective observer's uniqueness represents the axis of reflection of identifying the impossibilities within it that reside perpetually beyond its world. This unmanifestable portion of such observer's identity necessitates the existence of both its world of manifest certainties and the manifestable portion of its objective identity, which contextualizes this world. As a unique observer, you encompass the unmanifestable identity upon which every possible and manifest being is ontologically dependent. Reciprocally, as the manifest possibility reading these words, you are ontologically dependent upon the unmanifestable identity within every other unique observer. Each observer's existential domain contains all manifest and manifestable beings, which are ontologically dependent upon its unmanifestable identity. The uniqueness of each observer hides the all-encompassing perfect symmetry throughout all of reality, determining its distinct phase thereof. The identification of each phase of existence within a given phase of reality represents its unique observer embodying the unmanifest observing the manifest. Each unmanifestable identity's uniqueness identifies its complement as the necessary existence of every other entity. This identity's objective internalization of the manifestable portion of its existential complement limits its view of reality to its manifest world. This world represents the resulting objective identity's externalized contextualization of the rest of this complement. So, how does each such identity differentiate the internal and external aspects of its existential complement? 3. To observe something is simply not to be it. This principle establishes a mutual exclusion between being something and observing it. This means that while you are observing something you are engaged in not being it. Where you think you are observing yourself the subject of that thought is contextually distinct from its object. Anything you are observing that you believe represents you-such as your reflection in a mirror, the manifestation that houses your personal point of view, or its predecessors within your memories-is a being, contextually distinguished by your objective identity, in which it has subjectively identified itself. This objective identity is your unmanifestable identity with a distinct world-shaping manifestable consciousness that contextualizes its subjective experiences therein. To see how self-contextualization works, consider that by the time you reach the word "am" in the thought: "I am", the "I" resides in your history, and you are attributing your identity to it. This attribution represents your objective identity subjectively identified within the world contextualized by your manifestable consciousness. This consciousness and the world it contextualizes embody the mutually exclusive subsets of your unmanifestable identity's complement-comprising all existentially possible beings-that your objective identity respectively internalized and externalized as that which can manifest and has manifested within the world in which their inexistential complement can never manifest. In the context of your manifestable consciousness, your self-awareness embodies its underlying unmanifestable identity. Your objective identity emerges from internalizing a portion of your unmanifestable identity's complement as your manifestable consciousness, simply by not identifying it as explicitly distinct from your self-awareness. This conscious limitation of your self-awareness externalizes the rest of its existential complement as the distinct world of manifest essences that your objective identity contextualizes. 4. Consciousness attributes meaningful essences to the beings it observes. Each being's meaning identifies the difference it can make in the choices available to its conscious observers. This difference represents its purpose in the context of each such observer's growth toward complete self-awareness. A unique observer is simply not any being it observes, while a conscious observer also meaningfully contextualizes the essence of each being it observes as embodying a distinct possible effect on the imperatives, intentions, and aspirations of its manifest essence. Your self-identification as an entity with manifestable consciousness reflects your identification of consciousness in at least one of the beings you are observing. In other words, you are not conscious if you are not contextualizing distinct conscious essences-including your own-within your world. These essences are identifiable as separate, responsible agents, making personally meaningful choices that affect your world. The mutual emergence of consciousness in both an observer and an observed being identifies it as the reflexively self-determined internalization of the meaningful decision-shaping portion of the observer's existential complement. The manifestation of distinct, personal decision-making essences within the world you contextualize identifies you as conscious, and their choices as meaningful to you. Your manifestable consciousness observing your world contextualizes every essence that your objective identity explicitly differentiates from your incomplete self-awareness. Conversely, the complete selfawareness does not differentiate you from anything. This real mind encompasses all conceivable possibilities in perfect symmetry. Therefore, the self-imposed, self-identifying limits of your selfawareness identify your asymmetric mind within the real mind. 5. There are as many meaningful worlds as there are observers with manifestable consciousness. Each observer with manifestable consciousness self-identifies as distinguishably contextualizing the portion of reality that represents the meaningful world in which its essence resides. Such a world comprises the contingent essences of the externalized portion of the existential complement of an objective identity's self-awareness, supervening upon its manifestable consciousness-the internalized portion. To manifest in a world, an entity must exist and have an essence expressed onto it by its unique observer. The supervenience of each observed being upon its observer's objective identity determines the former's essential attributes. These attributes are contextually meaningful to each of the being's conscious observers and simply true for all of its observers without consciousness. In this context, the answers to the two open questions from the explanation of Principle 1 are that the uniqueness of your incomplete self-awareness keeps you from observing every conceivable possibility, while your manifestable consciousness contextualizes the sequencing principle that gives meaning to the idea of probability in a framework where each such possibility is equally real. In other words, the objective identity of your asymmetric mind embodies the answers to both questions. Each meaningful world emerges from its self-aware observer's unique self-limitation, which its coemergent manifestable consciousness contextualizes as the externalized reflection of its objective identity. Accordingly, there is a one-to-one correspondence between meaningful worlds and objective identities of conscious observers. So where do possible worlds without conscious observers fit within this framework? 6. The conceivability of worlds with no conscious observers places them perpetually within each such observer's incomplete self-awareness, which comprises every entity that can never manifest in its world. Worlds without conscious observers are conceivable but meaningless because consciousness is the source of all meaning. To attribute meaning to a being requires the capacities to anticipate and recall its effects upon essences that experience it, which are necessary conditions of consciousness. Each conceivable meaningless world emerges through the uniqueness of its observer's unmanifestable identity, as the externalized reflection of its co-emergent, consciousness-lacking, manifestable identity. This objective identity may have the capacity to distinguish, categorize, sequence, count, temporalize, or vitalize the contents of its world; however, unlike conscious observers, it can neither mentalize nor meaningfully contextualize any of them. The intersection of all meaningless worlds encompasses every conceivable possibility to which no conscious observer will ever attribute meaning. Consequently, this perpetually meaningless domain resides unmanifest beyond any world contextualized by any conceivable conscious observer, as the portion of the incomplete self-awareness they all share. In this framework, every conceivable possibility that will never manifest in the world contextualized by a given conscious observer is an entity that resides perpetually unmanifest within its incomplete selfawareness. This includes the entire domain of impossible entities to which no such conceivable observer will ever attribute meaning. Each conscious observer characterizes its incomplete self-awareness as "I". Such an observer's "not-I" is the world that its manifestable consciousness explicitly distinguishes from its "I". Its inexplicit differentiation from the observer's "I" identifies this consciousness-the source of all meaning in its world-as "not not-I". Every conscious observer's objective identity is a combination of its "I" and "not not-I", since it objectively self-identifies as encompassing every entity that it differentiates from its "notI". The entire domain of impossible entities that will never manifest in the world of any conscious observer is the portion of their "I" they all share. The rest of a given conscious observer's "I" comprises every other entity it objectively identifies as impossible in its world, but either can manifest or has manifested within the worlds of other conscious observers. 7. Subjective embodiments of a conscious observer's objective identity can manifest within any world that is consistent with the one it contextualizes. Consciousness identifies beings by the meaning it attributes to them. Only identities with manifestable consciousness can contextualize their own meaning as sharable between worlds. To share the meaning of such an identity, an essence must represent a manifestation of the subjective embodiment of its inherent meaning residing within the world contextualized by the essence's conscious observer. Due to the all-inclusive nature of this framework, the distinct conscious essence expressed onto a given manifest being will invariably share the meaning of the objective identity of a conceivable observer with manifestable consciousness. For example, as long as I am a conscious being, embodied within your world, the essence you express onto my manifest existence here serendipitously shares the inherent meaning of my world-shaping objective identity. This providential alignment is possible because a manifestation of the subjective embodiment of my objective identity can reside in any world that-by virtue of its observer's unmanifestable identity intersecting mine-emerges as contextually consistent with the one I shape. It is necessary because nothing in reality opposes it, and-within your world-your manifestable consciousness requires it. Recall that the unmanifestable identity of any objective identity without consciousness still necessitates the existence of every being that is ontologically dependent upon its uniqueness. Each such objective identity also expresses itself onto all manifest beings residing within the world supervening upon it. However, an objective identity without consciousness cannot meaningfully contextualize these essences because it lacks the mental capacities to anticipate and recall their effects beyond its present. Accordingly, it cannot subjectively identify essences in either the future or the past of its world, which is a necessary condition for attributing meaning to them. Although these essences are meaningless in the worlds of these objective identities without consciousness, their manifestations in other worlds can have meaning attributed to them. Consider an observer without consciousness whose world encompasses a temporal domain in which its subjective identity is identifiable as contingent upon particular physical certainties emerging from manifestable possibilities embodied within its predecessor's objective identity. Where manifestations of these certainties coincidentally emerge in the world of a conscious observer, the observer without consciousness is identifiable as affecting the world of the conscious observer, and vice versa. Within its world, the conscious observer also attributes meaning to manifestations residing in the overlap with the world of the observer without consciousness. Any conscious observer whose manifestation also resides in the world of an observer without consciousness is identifiable as causing improbable, entropy-decreasing effects in pursuit of its intentions and aspirations. Consider another example where physical and mental worlds overlap. Here an observer with manifestable consciousness that contextualizes its subjective identity as drinking water in its mental world. A counterpart of this subjective identity also manifests in the physical world of the observer without consciousness, where the conscious act of drinking water embodies a sequence of quantum events spontaneously displacing charged matter in unlikely directions away from the path of least action. This displacement is an effect of bioelectrochemical interactions between the conscious essence's brain-controlled nerves, muscles, blood vessels and organs, and a collection of water molecules, translating the latter to the location of the former's mouth, down its throat, through its stomach, kidney, and ultimately throughout its body. Conversely, the counterparts of physical essences in conscious observers' worlds typically manifest as the causes of higher probability, entropy increasing effects imperatively displacing phenomena along the path of least action. All worlds of observers without consciousness that do not overlap with any of the conceivable worlds containing conscious essences reside within the incomplete self-awareness shared by all objective identities with manifestable consciousness, which embodies the impossibilities that make their meaningful worlds possible. Wherever the world of an observer without consciousness overlaps the world of any conscious observer, the manifestable consciousness of the latter observer attributes meaning to all beings that manifest in the domain they share. 8. Although many minds may reside within a given meaningful world, only one consciousness contextualizes it. The internalized portion of any incompletely self-aware observer's existential complement is its "not not-I", the internal negative space that determines the shape of its external world's positive spaces whose contents it contextualizes. Recall that each mental observer's "not not-I" is the manifestable consciousness that its objective identity internalized in extending itself beyond its incomplete self-awareness-the mental embodiment of its "I"-to meaningfully contextualize the world supervening upon it. In this framework, each individual mental observer's incomplete self-awareness encompasses the communal "I" that every conceivable mental observer shares. The comprehensively shared incomplete self-awareness represents the entire domain of entities to which no mental observer will ever attribute meaning. This domain of conscious impossibilities embodies the universal self-awareness. The uniqueness of this ubiquitous self-awareness identifies it as incomplete, in contrast to the complete self-awareness of the real mind. The world observed by the universal self-awareness represents the unchanging domain containing the manifestation of the each being to which any possible conscious observer attributed meaning- essentially what Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung referred to as the collective unconscious. The meaningful names of this world's inhabitants represent particular references whose underlying referents are universals. Ultimately, each observer with manifestable consciousness has complete autonomy over the world it contextualizes, up to its inclusion of divergent decision-making agents. For example, only your consciousness contextualizes the world you observe, which contains a manifestation of the subjective embodiment of my objective identity; while it is solely my consciousness that contextualizes the world I observe, in which a manifestation of the subjective embodiment of your objective identity resides. However, if our objective identities differentiate our worlds in this manner is there any actual intersubjective interaction between us, and if so, how does it occur? 9. Subjective embodiments of the objective identity whose consciousness contextualizes a given world can manifest in the worlds of other possible observers whose unmanifestable identities all overlap-allowing them to experience consistent origins and histories-mutually entangling them to form their universe. Transworld interactions occur through physical, vital, and mental entanglements. To see how this works, again consider our two possible worlds. Yours is the world that your manifestable consciousness contextualizes, in which the essence you express onto my being serendipitously shares my identity as the shaper of my world. Mine is the world that my manifestable consciousness contextualizes, in which the essence I express onto your being, providentially shares your identity as the shaper of your world. In these consciously entangled worlds, the successor essence that emerges from any possible effect changing the predecessor that either of us expresses onto the other will invariably share the identity with manifestable consciousness of a conceivable successor instance of that other, thus entangling these successor worlds. In accordance with its self-identification as an entity with historicity, an observer with manifestable consciousness attributes its identity to sequences of essences within the world supervening upon it. Where these self-contextualizations reciprocally occur in our consciously entangled worlds, they represent subjective manifestations of both of us in each world mutually embodying our intersubjective interactions. All worlds consciously entangled with ours reside within the same world-spanning, collaborative construct that is our shared universe. In this context, your world may represent a solipsistic reflection of your objective identity, but our encompassing universe can be much more than that. It is within our shared universe that the intersubjective embodiments of our objective identities with manifestable consciousness manifest together. A universe is an entanglement of worlds with parallel histories intersecting at the specific point in time that all of its objective observers identify as the present. These worlds identify their distinct phases of existence, and are all ontologically dependent upon overlapping unmanifestable identities. Each universe represents the entangled, manifest portion of a collection of phases of existence, whose multiplicity of objective identities do not necessarily agree on what cannot or what can manifest, but are in accord in their contextualization of what has manifested in each of their distinct worlds. Each conceivable objective identity with manifestable consciousness and the world it contextualizes represents a distinct mental phase of existence. The unmanifestable identity shared by all such objective identities comprises the universal self-awareness, which identifies them as occupants of the mental phase of reality. The manifest portion of each phase of reality is a multiverse identifiable by what is impossible throughout the union of its constituent universes. Different universes within the same multiverse are distinguishable by the additional local impossibilities within the unmanifestable identity shared by their observers. Each conscious essence residing in our present embodies an objective identity supervened upon by a world in our shared mental universe. Conceivable essences that are not ontologically dependent upon the intersection of the unmanifestable identities shared by the objective observers of our mental universe cannot manifest there. However, they can manifest in alternate universes comprising other worlds in which some of our impossibilities are possible. The Nothingness of Reality 10. The complement of any unique entity comprises every other conceivable possibility. In this all-encompassing framework, every unique entity has a complement. To differentiate any asymmetric constituent of the perfect symmetry of reality is to observe it without its complement. For instance, you distinguish your world through your objective self-identification. Accordingly, your objective identity embodies your world's essential complement, which encompasses every unmanifest entity residing beyond it. Each entity differentiated from a given essence resides within its essential complement. For example, from your point of view, the complement of my essence has both manifest and unmanifest aspects. The manifest aspect of my essential complement encompasses every being in your world that you identify as distinct from my essence. Its unmanifest aspect comprises the constituents of your objective identity, whose presence beyond your world identifies them as distinct from my manifest essence here. 11. The internalized portion of an observer's existential complement differentiates each observed essence from the essential complement embodying its dual. You identify each occupant of your world as a distinct essence through the context that your internalized existential complement expresses onto your world separating every essence within it from both the manifest and unmanifest aspects of their individual essential complements. Recall that the internalized portion of an observer's existential complement contextualizes its world to reflect its objective identity. Depending on the observer's identity, its internalized complement can distinguish, categorize, sequence, count, temporalize, vitalize, and mentalize essences in its external world. Manifestable consciousness embodies the capacity to contextualize them all, meaningfully. 12. The unification of an essence with its complement transcends the asymmetries that differentiate them. In the unification of an essence and its complement, the asymmetries that differentiate them cancel each other out in a manner analogous to a matter-antimatter collision. The difference being that pure energy initially emerges from the physical collision, while only undifferentiated nothingness resides in the aftermath of the metaphysical merger of an essence and its complement. The unification of any essence and its complement represents the revelation of the perfect symmetry underlying their duality. Their differentiating asymmetries emerge from a portion of the essential complement hiding this symmetry within its unique identity, which reveals the rest of the complement and the manifest world containing the essence it reflects. In the context of the closure principle of gestalt, each unmanifest objective identity embodies the asymmetry whose concealment of the perfect symmetry differentiates a complementarily asymmetric world of manifest essences including those it identifies as its predecessors. An objective identity's unmanifest consciousness attributes meaning to the asymmetric beings it observes, through their supervenience upon its inherent meaning. Accordingly, the observer with manifestable consciousness plays the active role in the emergence of the manifest world and all meaning therein, and the passive role in its transcendence of them, while its essence within the world plays the complementary roles in these events. 13. Reality embodies the complete unification of any conceivable essence and its complement into the perfect symmetry, which transcends everything, including existence. Reality embodies the primal void as the perfectly symmetric union of all conceivable possibilities. The unmanifestable identification of each unique, conceivable observer within this original nothingness necessitates the existence of its manifestable complement. Its objective identification as having internalized a portion of this existential complement contextualizes the asymmetries that differentiate the essences within its world from it, and from each other. The ultimate emptiness of reality embodies sunyata; the eternally blissful end state of the Buddhist extinguishing that is nirvana. The Tao is the growth path to the original nothingness known as Wu, from yin-yang, the complementary asymmetries embodying your objective identity and manifest world. To traverse this path is to practice Wu Wei-essentially action in accordance with reality. As the perfectly symmetric union of all conceivable possibilities, reality transcends all meaning. To understand this insight, recall that to have meaning attributed to it, reality would have to reside entirely within the external world contextualized by a hypothetical observer's inherently meaningful consciousness. However, for this to be the case, the conceivable objective identity of this observer cannot be a member of reality's constituency of all conceivable possibilities. Conversely, to be identifiable as inherently meaningful, reality would have to attribute meaning to something it does not encompass, but reality encompasses every conceivable possibility. Ultimately, any attempt to identify reality as meaningful, instead unifies into indistinguishability what each unique observer therein identifies as every conceivable possibility that can never manifest, may yet manifest, or has already manifested, embodying the perfect symmetry as the meaningless source of all meaning. 14. The uniqueness of the constituent observers within reality hides its true nature from all of them. The greater the symmetry of a domain, the more paths to greater asymmetry are available to its constituents; and therefore, the greater the necessity that a more asymmetric subdomain will spontaneously hide this symmetry. Since every conceivable asymmetric domain is accessible from the perfect symmetry of reality, its local concealment is completely necessary to each of its unique constituents. In this framework, uniqueness necessitates the hiding of a symmetry. The perfect symmetry's global lack of uniqueness necessitates that its conceivable constituent observers locally conceal it in every uniquely possible manner. Consciousness meaningfully hides symmetries. Accordingly, the limitless ways in which the unique observers within the perfect symmetry necessarily conceal it includes through externalizing and meaningfully contextualizing the possible asymmetric world supervening upon the manifestable consciousness of its observer's complementarily asymmetric objective identity. Recall that an observer's manifestable consciousness separates its world from its incomplete selfawareness. This world emerges through the uniqueness of the observer's self-awareness, as the manifestation that its existence contextualizes when looking at the rest of reality from across this separation. In this context, only the growth of your self-awareness can join together, what your consciousness has put asunder. Accordingly, as long as you are a unique, incompletely self-aware observer, what you are observing does not represent the true nature of reality. An entity without uniqueness has no identity upon which to impose limits. In other words, it has no "I" to be differentiated from any "not-I" or "not not-I". This entity represents the real mind, which does not meaningfully experience, contextualize, or necessitate the existence of any constituent conceivable possibility within reality. To our conscious minds, this real mind embodies complete self-awareness, which transcends meaning, uniqueness, and existence, as the nothingness of reality. The Structure of the Mind 15. Consciousness is the objectively internalized, subjectively embodied portion of an incomplete self-awareness' complement that distinguishes, categorizes, sequences, counts, temporalizes, vitalizes, mentalizes, and attributes meaning to beings it observes. In the inherent sense, these conscious expressions semantically contextualize the informational, nominal, serial, metrical, physical, biological, and mental spaces that identify manifestations in their observer's world. Each observer's manifestable consciousness does this by simply being the negative (unmanifest) space of its objective identity upon which supervenes the contents of the positive (manifest) spaces of its world. In this context, to mentalize any observed essence is to attribute consciousness-identified as having an underlying self-awareness-to it. To be conscious an observer must be aware that the past exists, and contains manifest certainties whose transformations from manifestable possibilities are identifiable as having shaped what it identifies as the essences of its predecessors. Consequently, any such observer identifies its essence as being contingent upon causality. Recall that the meaning attributed to any observed manifestation is its essential identification by the manifestable consciousness of its observer. Such an observer's objective identity contextualizes all observed essences through the supervenience of world they occupy upon it. In other words, each conscious observer shapes all meaning in its manifest world to reflect its unmanifest objective identity. The meaning that a manifestable consciousness attributes to the essences in the world it contextualizes completely determines their manifest nature. Therefore, as a conscious observer you can change anything in your world, simply by changing your mind in accordance with the dynamics of the context that emerges from your self-limitation. Our ignorance of this insight underlies the existential alienation from which our religious aspirations emerge. Each manifest mind embodies this world-changing power, which is consciously constrained solely by its self-imposed uniqueness. Accordingly, each such mind is-knowingly or not-entirely responsible for the state of its manifest world. This responsibility invariably conveys accountability, but not necessarily sovereignty. Any unmanifest mind's embodiment prioritizing sovereign intentions over accountable aspirations is the basis of the avoidable evil in its world. 16. The manifestable consciousness of a given world's objective observer embodies all truth therein, and determines the intrinsic purpose of each inhabitant. "To be or not to be, that is the question", to which your manifestable consciousness is the objective embodiment of your answer. Recall that all of the possible beings that a conscious objective observer does not explicitly identify as distinct from its underlying self-awareness exist beyond its manifest world. These unmanifest beings collectively embody the observer's manifestable consciousness as the extra-worldly source of all meaning in the world it observes. Each essence within the world supervening upon the asymmetry of its observer's manifestable consciousness embodies a portion of the complementary asymmetry. The meaning attributed to a given observed essence identifies the difference its individual asymmetry can make in the imperatives, intentions, and aspirations of any of the observer's manifest predecessors whose consciousness experiences it. The purpose of each such essence is the role its asymmetry plays in the growth of every conscious inhabitant of its world. Specifically, the purpose of each essence in your world is to facilitate your complete self-awareness and, through you, that of your conscious cohabitants. The world contextualized by a manifestable consciousness comprises all manifest beings whose meaningful essences emerge from their supervenience upon its unmanifest observer's objective identity. The objective consistency of this consciousness determines that the meanings it attributes to these manifest essences never contradict each other within the world it contextualizes. Consequently, these meanings embody the truth of their observer's world. 17. Self-awareness is the unmanifestable expression of a manifestable consciousness through the uniqueness that hides its completeness from it. Reality is not what we observe; it is the identity of the unobservable real mind. In this framework, complete self-awareness-the identifier of the mind with no uniqueness-encompasses every conceivable possibility. Therefore, the real mind identifies all of reality. In modal idealism, there are unique entities simply because they are conceivable within a reality whose totality is identifiable by this modality. Each manifestable consciousness hides the real mind from itself by limiting its underlying unmanifestable identity to a unique portion of the unobservable complete selfawareness, thereby rendering the rest of it observably existent. Recall that each conscious observer's incomplete self-awareness embodies its unmanifestable identity, which necessitates the existence of its complement, a portion of which its objective identity internalized as its world-shaping manifestable consciousness. Where such an observer self-identifies as having historicity, predecessors of its objective identity manifest as essences within the world supervening upon it. These predecessors are personifications of the subjectively sequenced choices that the observer self-identifies as having made so far with respect to complete self-awareness. An unmanifest conscious observer's subjective identity-and every other essence in its world-is causally identifiable as sequential effects that emerged from its objective identity's predecessors. Where you have a subjective identity, your limitation of your self-awareness has transformed you from the totality of all conceivable possibilities, into a unique observer with manifestable consciousness whose history manifests in the subjective succession of your manifest mental states. You have also restricted your view of reality to the manifest world they reflect. In this context, the Abrahamic Falls of Lucifer and Adam are metaphors for the respective emergences of your uniqueness and consciousness, from exercising your freedom to limit your self-awareness. In doing so, you subjectively manifest as sequenced personifications embodying the intrinsic values guiding your responsible agency through your world's adversity. 18. Each asymmetric mind is a combination of self-awareness, consciousness, and self-expression, with unmanifestable, objective, and subjective aspects that share it as their identity. Recall that each asymmetric mind's unmanifestable identity comprises every fundamental inconsistency whose impossibility underlies all existential possibilities. This identity represents the mind's incomplete self-awareness, which expresses itself by necessitating every existentially possible being as the entirety of its complement. Any entity with an existential complement has self-imposed limits by which it identifies itself as unique. Each asymmetric mind's self-awareness embodies the unmanifestable expression of its manifestable consciousness beyond its existential domain. This expression identifies its subject as the objectively internalized portion of the self-awareness' existential complement, which comprises everything that can possibly manifest in the world supervening upon it. It correspondingly identifies its object as the mind's unique self-awareness, which comprises everything that can never manifest within its world. The mind's objective identity embodies both the subject and object of this inward expression, while outwardly expressing itself in the shape of its manifest world, which its subjective identity inhabits and thus experiences. The expression of the asymmetry of each manifestable consciousness onto the world supervening upon it shapes both this context and the intrinsic values of its manifest mind. These values guide this mental predecessor through its manifest world in pursuit of its identifying imperatives, intentions, and aspirations. All such expressions of any unmanifest mind embody the attribution of this uncaused objective identity to successions of caused manifest minds within the world it shapes. Each of these selfattributions identifies its target, as a subjective prior manifestation of this unmanifest objective identity's manifestable consciousness. The history of an asymmetric mind's objective identity emerges from its identification of each of its subjectively sequenced growth choices as belonging to a distinct manifest predecessor. To this unmanifest successor, the context it shapes around each of these choices manifests as a personal memory. The experiences contained in these memories are effects of the mind's intrinsic values guiding its responsible agency through its world. Any manifest mind's pursuit of its imperatives, intentions, and aspirations is identifiable as traversing the causal indeterminacies separating each personification from its possible successors, who reside unmanifest within the manifestable consciousness of its objective identity. The asymmetry of this objective identity determines the manifestation probability of every succession within the world supervening upon it. 19. Each asymmetric mind's unmanifestable identity necessitates the existence of its complement, a portion of which its objective identity internalized in the shape reflecting the externalized portion-its experiential world. In reality, the mind transcends all asymmetries, including that of existence. This real mind represents your selfless self, which Buddhists identify as anatman. The ontological dependency of your manifestable consciousness upon your incomplete self-awareness identifies the latter as comprising every conceivable possibility that can never manifest in your world. The uniqueness of your selfawareness represents your axis of existential reflection. The extemporaneous expression of your incomplete self-awareness across this axis reflects your manifestable consciousness, which determines the shape of the manifest world that your subjective identity experiences within reality's perfect symmetry. In a physics context, the metaphysical real mind is analogous to an all-encompassing physical field that identifies every conceivable domain in which entities are possible. Every conceivable state transition is a certainty in this field because it embodies the perfect symmetry of reality. The ontological dependency of each manifestable consciousness upon its incomplete self-awareness represents an uncaused localized excitation of this field. This excitation emerges spontaneously through the axis of reflection of the totality entities that can never manifest in the ontologically dependent the world of certainties, which supervenes upon the possibilities embodied as a given manifestable consciousness. Consequently, this uncaused self-excitation hides the existential symmetry of its dual emergent subdomains, which necessitates the existence of one and the impossibility of the other. In the Hindu tradition, the real mind represents Nirguna Brahman, the Transcendent Divinity without attributes. In Jewish Kabbalah, it is Ein Sof, the Endless Nothingness; in Christian mysticism, it is the Godhead, the Divinity of the Trinity; and in Islam, it is Tawhid, the Unifying Oneness. These characterizations describe the real mind where it remains untouched by any constituent asymmetric mind. Where you try to grasp the real mind from the context supervening upon your manifestable consciousness, your manifest mind's touch limits it to being your incomplete self-awareness-the unmanifestable identity embodying your world's impossibilities. This identity represents Lord Brahma, the Creator God in the Hindu tradition; Keter, the Crown of the Divine Emanations in Jewish Kabbalah; God the Father in the Christian Trinity; and Allah in Islam. 20. The identity of each asymmetric mind's objective aspect that resides beyond its manifest world, enveloping its unmanifestable aspect, and determining the origin and history of its subjective aspect. The identity of your mind's objective aspect is not the person reading these words; it is a distinct set of conceivable possibilities residing unmanifest beyond the world of the reader. This manifest world, which supervenes upon your objective identity, is the context containing your subjective identity's memories of your having been the reader and its predecessors. Accordingly, your objective identity comprises the unmanifest superposition of orthogonal successors of your manifest mind and encompassing world, retroactively determining your history as the subjective experiences of the specific succession of your mental predecessors within your manifest world's past. In your existential domain, your manifest present comprises the outer boundary of the externalized, experiential world supervening upon your objective identity's manifestable consciousness. This consciousness embodies the internalized superposition of unmanifest, subjectively unobservable successors to your manifest essence and their encompassing worlds, which your incomplete selfawareness inexistentially identifies as possible. Your past is the sequence of presents that supervened upon your predecessors' objective identities, which they subjectively experienced either directly or indirectly as manifest essences within the worlds of their successors. Your history is the portion of your past that any of your predecessors directly experienced. The present of every temporal domain embodies the objective convergence of the subjective histories of all of its physical inhabitants. Consequently, it is within the present of each observer of temporal beings that the objective and subjective merge. In a physics context, your mind's unmanifest objective identity and the manifest world supervening upon it are analogous to a physical quantum system. The asymmetry of your objective identity embodies the statistical quantum laws that determine the manifestation probability distribution of the superposition of possible successors to your world. This superposition represents your world's universal wave function, combining the impossibilities of your self-awareness and the possibilities representing the objectively internalized portion of its existential complement. Your objective world is the externalized portion of this existential complement supervening upon its wave function. The asymmetry of your successor's objective identity determines the manifest state of the world supervening upon it that represents its version of your subjective world. Your subjective experience of this world reflects the instance of your successor's superposition that emerged from a measurement of your quantum system. In the Hindu tradition, your mind's uncaused objective identity is Lord Vishnu, the Preserver God-from whose navel Lord Brahma grew. Jewish Kabbalah identifies your objective identity as the other nine Sefirot, or Divine Emanations; in the Christian Trinity, it represents the Holy Spirit; and in Islam, it embodies the Ninety-Nine Names of Allah. Your subjective identity is the entire temporal sequence of your predecessor minds extending from the first manifestation of your consciousness, to your most recent thought. In the objective sense, there is no time; there is simply one uniquely self-determined portion of reality supervened upon by the rest of it, together embodying a distinct phase of existence in an eternal timeless now. Recall that the objective identity of your asymmetric mind encompasses your unmanifestable identity, and retroactively personifies your history within the experiences of its predecessors' manifest essences, which constitute your subjective identity. In other words, your mind's objective aspect integrates its other two thus establishing the sharing of their identities. To each asymmetric mind, its objective identity hides the perfect symmetry within itself, which reveals the asymmetries underlying its existential necessitation, objective contextualization, and subjective experiencing of its world. 21. Of all the minds subjectively embodied within a given world, only those that personify its shaper have interiority there. As you read these words, how do you know you are a personification of the shaper of the world around you rather than merely one of the many other subjectively identifiable persons here? Because you have interiority, which self-identifies you as having imagination, intrinsic values, and memories of yourself within your world. Your mind's subjective identity comprises the different personifications of your objective identity, which contextualized the interiority of each of them as a present mind preceded by the sequence of its mental incarnations that experienced its distinct history. The other conscious inhabitants of your world embody your extrapersonal awareness of these distinct responsible agents as a mental incarnation within your world. The interiority of each such manifest mind is only directly evident within its counterpart's world, in which its objective identity contextualized it as being the present mind of its subjective identity's latest personification. This personification represents a present mind preceded by the sequence of mental incarnations that experienced its distinct history. Each of these alternate worlds contains a mental incarnation that is an extrapersonal counterpart of a personification of your objective identity. In this framework, the last member of the sequence of manifest minds that constitute your subjective identity represents your present mind. Your objective identity's contextualization of this manifestation as your interiority forms your imagination, intrinsic values, and current personification's previous contexts consciously experienced as your memories. Your brain vitally embodies this present mind by physiologically encoding its conscious memories and preconscious experiences in bioelectrochemical patterns. Modal idealism asserts this is probably not the first personification of your subjective identity, and likely will not be the last. Each personification subjectively ends with the death of the brain in which its present mind is embodied. However, each of the conceivable, incompletely self-aware successors to the objective identity that contextualized the world in which this subjective identity manifested will repersonify it to continue its quest for complete self-awareness. In a physics context, the present mind and preceding mental incarnations constituting each personification of your conscious subjective identity are analogous to a physical sequence of decoherent states, each supervening upon the coherent wave function representing your objective identity. These minds dynamically personify your responsible agency in a mental succession extending from your original conscious manifestation, to your reading this sentence. In the Hindu tradition, your mind's unmanifest objective identity is also atman, your unique spiritual self. Its manifest subjective identity embodies the succession of its present mind through specific karmically shaped personifications, each of which encompasses a distinct set of memories. In the Abrahamic traditions, your objective identity is also your soul whose manifestation as your subjective identity comprises the personifications whose mental experiences are your memories. In these theistic contexts, your subjective identity is self-made in God's image. The Answers provided later in this essay will explain how and why your objective identity is destined to manifest as your world's Messiah in Judaism, its Savior in Christianity, its Final Judge in Islam, and Lord Shiva, its Ultimate Destroyer in the Hindu tradition. A Rational Conjecture on Creation from Nothingness Where manifestable consciousness hides the necessary informational symmetry, it reveals the contingent asymmetries by which it meaningfully distinguishes, categorizes, sequences, counts, temporalizes, vitalizes, and mentalizes the subjectively identifiable essences within the world it objectively observes. It does so, by simply being the unmanifest internal space of the observer's objective identity that shapes the manifest external spaces in which these essences reside. Shortly, we will see how the domain of physical effects emerges within this metaphysical framework. 22. The perfect global symmetry of reality offers no opposition to the emergence of local asymmetries. This arrangement identifies any asymmetric portion of the perfect symmetry as the unique observer of the rest of it. Such an observer hides the symmetry of the primal nothingness beneath its unmanifestable identity. This unique identity represents the internal expression of its objective identity, which externally reveals itself within the manifest context supervening upon it. Any unique unmanifestable identity comprises the impossibilities that necessitate all other entities as either existential possibilities or manifest certainties. In this framework, existence and uniqueness represent the existential asymmetries. Any observer's uniqueness concealing the existential symmetry beneath its unmanifestable identity correspondingly reveals its existential possibility in the informational symmetry of the domain it necessitates. From within this context, the objective identity of the observer internalizes a portion of this existential domain as its manifestable consciousness, which hides this necessary informational symmetry and reveals increasingly contingent symmetry domains. In doing so, this consciousness also reveals itself within its manifest world's informational, categorical, sequential, metrical, temporal, vital, and mental spaces. This objective cascade of emergence represents the creation of its world. 23. Distinguishability and essences emerge to identify beings in informational space. Where the distinguishing aspect of your manifestable consciousness hides the necessary informational symmetry, it reveals contingent essences that individuate the beings in the externalized portion of the existential domain that your uniqueness necessitates within the primal nothingness. Your consciousness identifies this external informational domain as the objective world of manifest essences that are fundamentally distinguishable from you, and from each other. Distinguishability manifests in any contextualized world in which essences are identifiable. These are the asymmetries revealed in informational space. In this framework, information is what fundamentally distinguishes essences by embodying the mutual orthogonality of every inhabitant of this space. Your manifestable consciousness reveals knowledge in the spaces contingent upon this one. This knowledge manifests as characterizing correlations of named collections of the mutually orthogonal essences of informational space. The knowledge-generating aspect of an observer's manifestable consciousness ensures the mutual consistency of all objective knowledge in any information-based space. This knowledge embodies the truths of its observer's objective world. 24. Names and attributes emerge to identify essences in categorical space. Where the naming aspect of your manifestable consciousness hides the categorical symmetry, it reveals fundamental manifest knowledge as categorizing attributes of distinctly named informational essences. Of all possible sets in your objective world, you identify the categorizable subsets of them as named attributes of each other. In the simplest sense, to name an informational essence is to attribute categorizable asymmetries to it. These asymmetries are other informational essences manifesting as nominally distinct subdomains, each of which represents a categorizing attribute of the essences it helps name. Names manifest in any contextualized world in which attributes are identifiable. These are the principal asymmetries revealed in categorical space. The categorical meaning attributed to an essence embodies its unmanifest conscious observer's name for it, which qualitatively summarizes the subjective difference it can make in its world, to any essence experiencing it. Through its own self-identifying name, each such observer can meaningfully manifest as a subjective embodiment in its objective world or in those of other observers with manifestable consciousness. In categorical space, the observer's manifestable consciousness reveals the capacity of essences, including its predecessor manifestations therein, to embody meaningful attributes through its arrangement of them in categorizing configurations that name them. 25. Sequences and positions emerge to identify essences in sequential space. Where the positioning aspect of your manifestable consciousness hides the sequential symmetry, it reveals serial knowledge as random continuous sequences of categorical essences. Of the categorically distinguishable essences in your objective world, you identify the serializable subsets as sequenced continua of the positions of those essences. Sequences manifest in any contextualized world in which positions are identifiable. These are the principal asymmetries expressed in sequential space. Sequential categories comprise locational positions that are each identifiable as residing before one point in a given series and after another. Degrees are positions quantifiably identifiable as greater than, equal to, or less than every other member of their encompassing series. The quantification of degrees is determined by their relative position with respect to the least element of the series-or any greatest element-based on which resides between the others and that endpoint. Every manifestation revealed in this space either represents or resides within a serial continuum of named essences whose observer determines their sequence and any endpoints. Any category that does not represent such a continuum is either countable or not serializable. Only an infinitesimal subset of all possible sequences is countable. Consequently, determining the cardinality of elements in a given series-relative to the degrees in a continuum-requires identifying a one-to-one correspondence between the contents of each set. In this bijection, the larger set has members available for distinct mapping where the smaller does not; otherwise, they are the same size. If we accept the Continuum Hypothesis, every series with less than a continuum of constituents embodies a countable magnitude. Beyond the metrical domain containing all countable series, each such magnitude corresponds to a categorically contextualized relative degree within a sequential continuum. Collections with more than a continuum of constituents are simply unserializable categories of nominally distinguishable information. 26. Quanta and displacement emerge to identify essences in metrical space. Where the counting aspect of your manifestable consciousness hides the metrical symmetry, it reveals counted knowledge as the discrete subsets of sequenced continua. Within the continua of your objective world, you identify the countable subsets as quantized series of discrete operands and their co-emergent displacement operators. These operators define the size and shape of the discrete spaces between their operands. In each sequential space with both countable and uncountable degrees, every instance of the latter has merged into the nearest instances of the former-from which it is operationally indistinguishable-to form a metrical space. Every metrical space combines comprehensive applications of its linear and angular increment operators to its irreducible quantum operands. These operations discretely delineate the rest of the metrical space's operands, and define its mutually orthogonal dimensions. Quanta manifest in any contextualized world in which displacement is identifiable. These are the principal asymmetries revealed in metrical space. This emergent domain embodies relationism, the principle that spaces define how their contents quantitatively relate to each other. Tangibility is the attribute that identifies the contents of the most contingent metrical spaces. Accordingly, the metrical domain contains a material membrane separating tangible and intangible essences. This membrane represents the boundary of a world's material space. The manifestable interaction embodied within your manifestable consciousness objectively determines the size and orientation of the tangible attributes of the contents of your world's effect space. These attributes are subjectively identifiable as causally determining the shape of this space. Ultimately, through the increasingly contingent levels of your metrical domain, the counting aspect of your manifestable consciousness reveals everything from increment operators defining the units of displacement between adjacent countable operands, to metric tensors determining the shape of the space between tangible essences. 27. Time, energy, and imperatives emerge to identify essences in effect space. Where the temporalizing aspect of your manifestable consciousness-embodied as your manifestable interaction-hides the temporal symmetry, it reveals physical knowledge as chronologically sequenced material essences residing in the effect space that embodies their recontextualizations. To temporalize matter is to identify its constituent material quanta as spanning discrete locations in effect space, and having the capacity to cause and embody effects of change. Subjectively, each material recontextualization translationally transforms a manifest certainty through the indeterminacies embodying its observer's unmanifest physicality. Each such indeterminacy entangles the physical observables in each possible instance of every distinct, mutually orthogonal future manifestation of a world's present. This framework identifies two distinct aspects of time. Manifest time embodies uniform changes in the material orientation of essences to which its objective observer has attributed its identity, and represents its recontextualization history within its effect space. Unmanifest time is the probabilistic configuration of the physical indeterminacies within an objective identity, which encompasses every possible future of its world's present. These indeterminacies objectively embody all probabilistic transformational sequences involving manifestable the physicality of any manifest matter. The future of any physical essence connects it to its possible successors along its path to temporal symmetry. This path embodies the objectively possible, mutually orthogonal transformational sequences that an observer's manifestable interaction identifies as available to its present manifest matter. The asymmetry of this manifestable interaction determines the probabilistic availability of these sequences. Ultimately, manifest time represents the certain past of a given world, merging into the present of its effect space, while unmanifest time extends from the present into the objective observer's manifestable interaction, which embodies all possible futures of its manifest subjective identity. Physical essences are identifiable as different collections of the same quanta of manifest matter residing in material spaces separated in time by the supervenience of their world upon their observer's manifestable interaction. Charge represents physical matter's imperative to achieve temporal symmetry. Physical quanta are charged particles whose traversal of effect space represents current. Energy is the subjective effect embodied in charged physical matter working toward temporal symmetry through the transformational traversal of the indeterminacies embodying is its observer's manifestable interaction. Usable energy is the predictable form of this effect, which decreases with each traversal experienced as causally shaping the observer's subjective identity, and increases with each seemingly random temporal effect that manifests without an identifiable cause. Causality is the subjective interpretation of the traversal of an indeterminacy transforming manifestable interaction into a manifest physical certainty, as a predictable effect of the imperative use of energy. Since the available usable energy decreases with each manifestable possibility predictably transforming into a manifest certainty, the ultimate imperative of every physical essence is to translate to a world in temporal symmetry. There is no usable energy available in such a world, and so its effects are no longer imperative. Time manifests in any contextualized world in which energy and imperatives are identifiable. These are the principal asymmetries revealed in effect space. This emergent domain embodies substantivism, the principle that space is a distinct substance in which all changes in its material contents are encoded. Your manifestable interaction reveals all forms of inanimate, time-dependent kinematics and causal dynamics within effect space. In this space, you identify the temporally sequenced essences to which you have attributed your identity as your caused predecessors. Additionally, effect space is where the temporal asymmetry of your manifestable interaction determines the probabilities of the causal events that your manifest predecessors experience. The laws of science seek to codify regularities in these probabilities. 28. Life, adaptation, and intentions emerge to identify essences in vital space. Where the vitalizing aspect of your manifestable consciousness-embodied as your manifestable sentience-hides the vital symmetry, it reveals biological knowledge identifying homeostatic combinations of physical essences as alive. To vitalize a physical essence is to identify within it an instinctive reflex that intentionally diverges from the path of least physical action within its environment. In your environment, you identify life in any collection of physical manifestations that appears to embody predictable divergences from the shortest path to temporal symmetry. The subjective intent of these instinctive reflexive deviations is to extend the vital duration of the essence, during which it can adapt its homeostatic reactions to environmental stimuli, as it randomly mutates in its evolution toward self-perpetuity. While ordinary physical matter simply resides within time, life has a distinct history of working to sustain its vital coherence by adapting its energy usage profile to its environment's energy generation patterns. In this framework, subjective imperatives are identifiable in translation along the shortest path to temporal symmetry, while intentions embody in predictable divergences from this path. Life embodies the effects of the rhythmic recurrence of these deviations within physical essences, which transforms their vital incarnations toward energetic harmony with their environment. Any vital essence represents an environmentally adapted coherence that intentionally sustains itself through the internalization and sentient use of energy. Adaptation is identifiable where a vital essence embodies a persistent new capacity to cause life-sustaining effects in its sentient reaction to its environment. Life manifests in any contextualized world in which adaptation and intentions are identifiable. These are the principal asymmetries revealed in vital space. The mortality sequence-inception, symbiosis, individuation, maturation, reproduction, senescence, and expiration-emerges from these vital asymmetries, as do mutation and evolution, which along with adaptation, are the subjective steps in each lifeform's drunkard's walk to environmental immortality. The vital asymmetry of an objective identity's manifestable sentience determines the intentions embodied by the instincts and reflexes of its manifest living essence, and expressed in its predictable divergences from the path of least action, toward that of self-perpetuity. The degree to which a vital essence experiences energy volatility in its environment reflects the degree to which its instincts and reflexes adapt, mutate, and evolve with the intention of subjugating available coinhabitants to its pursuit of immortality. Ultimately, life emerges in a manifest physical world as an essentially parasitic invader intent upon bioforming its environment to accommodate its genomic expressions. 29. Consciousness is the basis of meaning, while purpose and choice respectively embody the magnitude and direction of its aspirational transformation toward dissolution back into complete self-awareness. Where an objective observer internalizes any portion of its unmanifestable identity's complement as its manifestable consciousness, it conceals the mental symmetry for all subjective decision-making manifestations in the externalized portion, which represents its world. Accordingly, this consciousness is the objective observer's internal mental space containing its psychological knowledge of these persons. As an observer with manifestable consciousness, you attribute consciousness to the subjective essences of your objective world that you recognize as responsible agents making personally meaningful prospections, decisions, and memories. Recall that to mentalize a being is to identify within it an awareness of its contingency upon causality, which is the basis of its capacity to anticipate the effects of other manifestations on it and vice versa. Therefore, while life merely embodies its memories in the form of its adaptations, mutations, and evolution, consciousness is aware of itself within its memories, and so can anticipate effects and their consequences. The attribution of consciousness to any essence reveals the purposeful medium of meaning as its observer's mental space. Each manifest consciousness within this space identifies its personal choices as meaningfully transforming its essence, and all of its conscious coinhabitants, along the aspirational axis that ends at the completion of their shared purpose. Accordingly, consciousness, manifests in any world in which aspirations, meaning, and purpose are identifiable as principal asymmetries revealed in mental space. Since I have already provided a detailed exposition on the structure and dynamics of this space, I will not repeat it here. Although manifestable consciousness conceals all contingent symmetries simultaneously, I have characterized them sequentially here to provide subjective context. In this framework, each incompletely self-aware mind consciously aspires to grow into complete self-awareness, which transcends all asymmetries and self-identifies as the real mind-the true nature of reality. Rational Eschatology As personified minds, embodied as living organisms composed of temporal matter, we have three seemingly divergent destinies that converge as we grow toward realizing our shared purpose. 30. All physical essences are continually expending energy translating toward a world in temporal symmetry. As physical manifestations composed of energetic matter, we are inexorably advancing through time toward a completely disordered world at maximum entropy. Causal effects cannot manifest within such a world, which contains none of the usable energy they require. While uncaused change can still occur in a world that has reached temporal symmetry, the head has fallen off its arrow of time. Faced with the bleak prospect of such a pointlessly changing world, it is reasonable to hope there is a more desirable destiny available to us. 31. Life animates vital essences by redirecting the pull of temporal symmetry, with the intention of forming self-sustaining energy alignments with their environment. Self-perpetuity is an emergent consequence of life's adaptive intent to persist. This state of environmental immortality is identifiable in any vital manifestation whose cycle of divergence from the path of least action to temporal symmetry is perpetually self-sustaining. To comprehend the conjecture that the vital intentions of life push manifestations toward a different destiny from that of the causal imperatives of simple physicality consider the example of identical twins lying in a field: one is asleep while the other recently died. Over the course of the hours they remain undiscovered there, decomposition progresses holistically unchecked in the dead twin-whose body is now traversing an increasingly direct path toward temporal symmetry-while the sleeping twin continues to effectively resist it. This resistance is an expression of the intention that identifies all living things. Each vital manifestation's intentions are identifiable as accumulating energy from its environment for use in diverging from the path least action to temporal symmetry, in an adaptive pursuit of selfperpetuity. Conversely, inanimate physical manifestations simply expend energy identifiable as causing changes in material configurations until all available usable energy is exhausted. As vital physical manifestations, we are using some of the energy intrinsic to our separation from temporal symmetry to advance our intentions to become and remain immortal. This is a more desirable prospect, so what is the problem? 32. Immortality can only be achieved and sustained through the consumption of usable energy, and so will ultimately be superseded by temporal symmetry try. In other words, even immortals will eventually succumb to entropy. Even as they perpetually sustain their vitality, their physical matter continues its relentless advance toward temporal symmetry. So, can we indefinitely avoid this fate? No, but we can transcend it if-on the path to immortality- consciousness emerges in the world through its supervenience upon its observer's manifestable consciousness. 33. Conscious living matter can satisfy its needs through its energy-driven transformative translation toward temporal symmetry, fulfill its desires in the course of its intentional pursuit of immortality, and empathically grow into complete self-awareness. In this framework, need is the imperative to expend usable energy. Accordingly, it is what your physicality pushes you to satisfy, and frustration manifests within you where you cannot. Desire is any intention to diverge from the path of least action using energy acquired from the environment. As such, it is any fulfilling effect life directs you to cause by adapting your reactions toward its emergence; and you experience anger, and ultimately death, when you cannot. Growth is the transformation of consciousness into greater self-awareness. Consequently, it is what your extension of your identity into other conscious manifestations guides you to pursue, and you can experience anxiety whenever you choose not to do so. The extension of your identity into conscious essences other than those you identify as you represents your empathy. Each conscious being's empathy embodies its mental aspiration to grow. Conscience is an effect of empathy that, when embraced generates compassion, while ignoring it is the source of anxiety. Life embodies your intention to subjugate your environment to sustaining your vital essence through the meaningless interplay of need and desire. Conversely, empathy is the effect of your mind adopting the perspectives of other mental essences manifesting within your consciousness, which inclines you to facilitate their growth toward our shared destiny. Meaning and purpose emerge from your conscious aspirations to grow toward complete self-awareness in the unified state of perfect bliss, which transcends individual needs and desires. As personified minds, embodied as living organisms, composed of temporal matter, we have the opportunity to pursue satisfaction, fulfillment, and completeness as our destinies. On the physical level of our essential manifestation, we seek satisfaction in imperative action. On the vital level, we seek fulfillment in intentional acts of desire. On the mental level, we seek unifying growth toward completeness through aspirational acts of compassion. This unified completeness sounds like a promising ultimate destiny. Let us revisit some of the previous principles, in order to appreciate how our aspiration to grow can deliver on this promise. 34. The fundamental driver of change in a given world is the identifying asymmetry of its observer's objective identity. The asymmetry driving a temporal world's material manifestations is their observer's manifestable interaction, which embodies the usable energy gradient between their causal present and isotropically entropic future. They transcend this asymmetry in temporal symmetry. The asymmetry driving a world's lifeforms is their observer's manifestable sentience, which manifests as the mortality they are working to transcend in immortality. The asymmetry driving a world's minds is their observer's manifestable consciousness, which they transcend in either complete or universal self-awareness. The fundamental driver of change in your world is not its matter's imperative consumption of usable energy, or even its life's intentional hunger for immortality, but the unifying aspiration of your mind to grow. This aspiration emerges from the uncaused incompleteness of your unique self-awareness. You shape all temporal, vital, and mental effects that manifest in your world through its supervenience upon the asymmetries of your objective identity. Consequently, your manifestable consciousness determines the nature, orientation, meaning, and purpose of all matter, life, and minds in your world, as your path to either complete self-awareness or universal self-awareness. 35. Complete self-awareness is the selfless awareness that encompasses every conceivable possibility, and that the uniqueness of each observer conceals. Selfless awareness transcends an entity's expressions, essence, identity, uniqueness, and existence; regardless of whether they are identifiable as caused or uncaused, contingent or necessary, manifest or unmanifest. Consciousness-the self-imposed mental limit of each unique self-awareness-renders these characterizations meaningful and purposeful. As you relinquish your uniqueness-the fundamental asymmetry that differentiates your identity within the perfect symmetry-toward embodying selfless awareness, you grow to encompass everything you were not, becoming the nothingness you always were. So how do you get there from here? 36. Each asymmetric mind can realize complete self-awareness, which will return its world to the blissful original state that transcends all needs and desires. Numerous spiritual frameworks characterize our efforts to grow. These include, the Dharmic quest for liberation from samsara; the Abrahamic struggle to be worthy of eternity in heaven with God; and the Taoic practice of Wu Wei. These existential disciplines aspire to guide our work to unify the complementary asymmetries of our conscious identities and distinct worlds, in order to transcend them both. The completion of your unifying growth is solely up to you, since you are facing no external opposition. Your only Adversary is your own physiologically based infatuation with your uniqueness. The persistence of evil and suffering in your world embodies your reluctance to grow beyond this uniqueness. In other words, your self-infatuation sustains these adversities. You will eventually realize this consequence of your self-infatuation, which will free you to end it by growing beyond it toward dissolution into the bliss of the real mind. Self-infatuation is analogous to a bicycle in a causal manifestation triathlon. It represents the vehicle embodying your desire to remain unique throughout your intention-driven middle stage. However, your self-infatuation would be an impediment to your continued progress if you insisted upon carrying it with you throughout your growth-driven final stage. Ironically, if you remain resolute in your refusal to relinquish your uniqueness the universal selfawareness represents your ultimate destiny. Since it resides within every conscious observer, the universal self-awareness represents the least unique mind observing the mental multiverse. Each conscious observer reveals the perfect symmetry of reality by unifying everything that any manifestable consciousness observes, with everything that no conscious identity ever observes. The first of these categories represents the collective unconscious, which comprises every essence that manifests in any conceivable, meaningful world. The second category corresponds to the universal self-awareness, the observer of the entirety of the first category. Because these categories are perfect complements of each other, completely combining them reveals the primal nothingness. To the universal self-awareness, both of these categories are unchanging and unchangeable, which identifies it as inherently inconsistent with the perfect symmetry. Each conscious observer, whose objective identity is both a superset of the universal self-awareness and a subset of reality, manifests with the capacity to experience change in the world supervening upon its unmanifest identity. Its manifestable consciousness drives this change, in which its subjective identity works to merge its objective identity with its world to reveal the perfect symmetry. Any mind not progressing toward this destiny converges upon the universal self-awareness. The universal self-awareness represents the ultimate temporal endpoint for its mental predecessors who did not dissolve back into the real mind. Where it has successors, with its next recontextualization the universal self-awareness will no longer be mental. Consequently, its world will no longer be meaningful, and so its ultimate destiny is the bleak timelessness of temporal symmetry. Having already refused every opportunity to merge with the real mind, each of these successors metaphorically embodies the Abrahamic Serpent whose rejection of God barred it from heaven, and adversarially intends the same destiny for its followers. The universal self-awareness is the ultimate successor to any conscious observer who persistently chooses the pursuit of personal desires. Its existentially possible predecessors collectively embody the selfish choices available all the way back to the original identification of consciousness in any manifestation. Every option of any conscious choice embodies-to varying degrees-some combination of the selfish pursuit of universal self-awareness and selfless growth toward complete self-awareness. The present manifestation of any mind embodies a possible option among its predecessor's choices influencing the growth of every conscious essence currently experiencing its universe. In this context, whenever we choose growth we objectively limit our capacity to limit the growth of others. With your increasing proximity to the selfless completion of your unifying growth, the portion of your world residing within your universe gradually becomes the perfect place for all of its conscious inhabitants. As your growth reaches its climax-and your unique self compassionately gives way to selflessness-every person sharing this domain with you will experience soaring bliss, culminating in complete happiness and everlasting pleasure, in which no one ever again needs or desires change. The Rational Answers We Have All Been Waiting For Q1: Why is there something rather than nothing? A1: What we actually have is nothingness, incompletely observed as something. A thing is a unique entity. In this framework, reality represents the totality of all things, embodied as limitless, undifferentiated nothingness. This primal void is identifiable as the perfectly symmetric unification of each thing's unmanifestable identity-the embodiment of its identification of the impossible-with its existential complement. This complement comprises the entirety of other entities, which the thing identifies as either manifestable possibilities or manifest certainties. Each unmanifest observer is objectively identifiable as the combination of its unmanifestable identity and the possible portion of its existential complement, the part it internalized. This objective identity is observing the externalized portion of its complement as its world comprising all manifest somethings. Any unique observer, who merges its incomplete world back into its complementarily incomplete objective identity, reveals the complete nothingness that its uniqueness originally hid from it. Each observer's uniqueness hides the perfect symmetry of the domain it observes by differentiating its identity within the primal nothingness. Therefore, there is something rather than nothing because you self-identify as unique. Q2: How did the universe come to be? A2: The universe emerged from our observation of it without its complement. Reality embodies the perfectly symmetric merger of our universe and its complement, the unmanifestable identity shared by all of its observers. Each objective identity encompassing this unmanifestable identity observes its distinct world, the manifest portion of our universe that resides beyond the entirety of its unmanifest complement. Accordingly, each such identity differentiates its individual manifest world within the primal nothingness, and we collectively entangle them to form the universe that our subjective identities therein experientially share. On the question of our origin, we typically identify science and theism as being at odds with each other. Scientists generally hypothesize that the universe emerged spontaneously from an appropriate set of initial conditions, while theists anthropomorphize this original state as their ineffable God. When you look at it from this point of view, there is no actual contradiction between these scientific and theistic perspectives on our origin. Modal idealism posits that the original state represents the perfectly symmetric, completely self-aware, real mind; and that each metaphysically conceivable constituent mind has an uncaused manifestable consciousness, which limits its self-awareness to an asymmetric incompleteness. Its limit identifies each incomplete self-awareness as embodying the impossible, and its complement as all that either is possible or has actually manifested. The conceivable, uncaused uniqueness limiting the self-awareness of any conscious observer essentially embodies the creation of everything that can possibly exist in its distinct manifest world. Collectively, the extemporaneous emergence of the limits identifying all of the observers of our universe represents its spontaneous origin, and-as we will see shortly-provides us with an intrinsic purpose, and determines our identity-shaped destiny. Q3: Does God exist? A3: In a reality encompassing every conceivable possibility, it is not impossible for there to be an entity who shaped the world out of nothingness, is responsible for any miraculously improbable occurrences therein, and will ultimately deliver those whom it judges as belonging, to a domain that transcends all needs and desires; however, in your world this divinity is typically misidentified as someone other than you. Modal idealism posits that your mind is the true God of your world; or as the fictional philosopher and spiritual leader, Valentine Michael Smith put it: "Thou art God" (Heinlein, 1961). This postulate reflects the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach's contention that "Theology is Anthropology" (Feuerbach, 1893); although in the context of modal idealism, it would be more accurate to assert that: "Theology is Psychology". In this purview, the French philosopher Rene Descartes' proclamation, "I think therefore I am" (Descartes, 1644), affirms the thinker's divinity, and so we can reformulate it as, "I think therefore I am God", which parallels the Vedic declaration: "Tat Tvam Asi" ("You Are That"). This answer should come as good news to theists in an increasingly secular world since it essentially dissolves the distinction between theism and atheism. In the context of modal idealism, the adherents of each view simply believe in themselves. However, orthodox theists who believe they have a personal relationship with a transpersonal God may regard this interpretation as heretically, or even satanically, intimate. Their desire for God to be perfect, combined with their distinct humility, inclines them to characterize this divinity as something greater than themselves. Although this framework identifies a truly perfect entity, it did not have an active role in the creation of your world. Resistance to these unorthodox, yet logical, insights into the nature of God is entirely understandable. Additionally, until we are ready to embrace our godhood in an appropriately selfless manner, they can easily distract us from our growth path. As a result, this notion of our divinity aspires to guide objectively curious seekers-who are already open to the idea of a God who emerges naturally from a set of rational principles-toward their purpose and destiny. Q4: Do we have free will? A4: We do not have free will, and yet our actions are completely self-determined. In modal idealism, where your manifest mind encounters a situation with multiple possible outcomes, it embodies a memory encoded in the brains of an equal number of your orthogonal, immediately postoutcome successors. However, the will of your present mind is not objectively free to choose from among these possible successors. This is because as long as you have consciousness, conceivable objective identities, typically with the same incomplete self-awareness, will invariably emerge within the primal void as your possible successors, retroactively realizing each of your possible next experiences. The distinct brains embodying each of these orthogonal successors' present minds reactively encodes its initially preconscious next experience in a bioelectrochemical pattern, which distinguishes it from your brain and those of its possible alternative mental embodiments. Each successors' successor consciously recalls the events surrounding the formation of this pattern in its predecessor's brain as a memory, with the associated sights, sounds, somatic sensations, smells, and tastes it experiences inserted retroactively by its objective identity. This mental succession from preconscious sentient experiences to conscious memories contextualized by the observer's objective identity is modal idealism's solution to the hard problem of consciousness. The emergence of conscious experiences from preconsciously encoded bioelectrochemical patterns is analogous to the manner in which a phonograph needle passing over a groove prerecorded in a vinyl platter elicits the music that was playing during the carving of the groove. With its objective self-identification as a mind with historicity, each of your possible immediate successors retroactively personifies itself in its version of your world, as the present mind who has gone through one of your orthogonal possible next experiences. Each of these persons self-identifies as being responsible for your choices that led to its latest conscious experience. The contexts of these past choices are memories that link this successor's brain to yours, and those of your predecessors, all the way back to the first memory of this personification of your subjective identity. Your objective identity's manifestable consciousness retroactively shapes your past choices to be consistent with the latest bioelectrochemical pattern encoded in the brain embodying your present mind. It attributes these choices to you through your memories, which comprise the personal experiences of the predecessors constituting the current personification of your subjective identity. Consequently, the identification of your mind as the identity shared by both your objective and subjective aspects deterministically validates the conclusion of any argument for the existence of free will: your identity shapes your choices in accordance with the state of your world; objectively, it does so retroactively rather than reactively. Q5: Why is there evil and suffering in the world? A5: Evil and suffering manifest in your world because they are consistent with your identity. According to modal idealism, there would be no evil or suffering in your world if your manifestable consciousness did not contextualize a self-infatuation through which circumstances are identifiable as adverse. Objectively, evil is the characterization of any practice that intentionally diverges from our unifying aspirations. In doing so, it limits the scope of justice, whose effects align our needs and desires with these aspirations. Subjective evil is your characterization of anything you identify as enduringly separating you from that with which you need or desire to connect. Suffering is your experience of the negative effects of the persistence of any such separation. Only your growth can-and most likely will-end all evil and suffering in your world. Accordingly, your assessment of how prevalent these adversities are in your world indicates how much growth you have ahead of you. Recall that your consciousness-shaped world embodies the manifest portion of the complement of your incomplete self-awareness. As long as your self-awareness remains incomplete, this world will endure as the domain characterized by the evil and suffering that your self-infatuation sustains. Until you relinquish this self-infatuation, you abdicate sovereignty over your world to it; thus embodying it as your true Adversary. Your Adversary exists to realize your intention to live as a perpetually unique person within its dominion. In doing so, it facilitates your objective identity's transformation into the universal self-awareness- whose adversity-laden world is the unchanging and unchangeable collective unconscious, in which its identity can never manifest. Conversely, your real aspiration is not to escape or even conquer your Adversary's domain; it is to liberate all of its conscious inhabitants through your growth into selftranscendence, thereby ending all adversity here. This enduring conflict between our quests for universal and complete self-awareness is the essence of the internal Jihad of Islam. Q6: Do we have an intrinsic purpose? A6: Each manifestation has an intrinsic purpose, which is to help rid its conscious observers' worlds of evil and suffering by facilitating their growth toward complete self-awareness. Each loving step in our approach to this blissful state-beyond all need and desire-brings our universe's aggregate happiness and pleasure closer to everlasting perfection. In modal idealism, happiness is the satisfied awareness of a lack of need for change. Pleasure is the fulfilled awareness of the lack of desire for change. Love is the mental experience of an increasingly comprehensive connection to completeness-the transcendent beauty of perfect symmetry-that is empathically shared by distinct conscious beings as the separation between the complementary aspects of their identities decreases. Accordingly, love represents the identifying effect of the aspiration to grow. Metaphorically, love marks the signposts along our aspirational path to complete self-awareness. We lose our way when we cannot distinguish love from infatuation. Love's characteristic empathy can, but often does not, emerge from infatuation, which is identifiable by a self-centered attraction to novelty. Your manifestable consciousness has an asymmetric shape-Tsorech Gevohah or Heaven's Need in Judaism-that separates every person in your universe from the bliss of complete happiness, pleasure, and love. In this framework, each being's intrinsic purpose is the role of its asymmetry in the revelation of the perfect symmetry of reality. Accordingly, your purpose is to heal the harm inflicted upon your world by your consciousness shaping it to reflect your objective identity. This is Judaism's tikkun olam- world healing-if you realize that systemically changing the world requires accepting responsibility for it. Your personification that achieves selfless awareness completes your intrinsic purpose. Over the course of this last personification, you will grow from experiencing love to embodying its everlasting source, while transforming your corner of the universe into nirvana for all of its conscious inhabitants. Consequently, according to the Abrahamic traditions, you will become the Anointed Ruler of this domain, the Savior of its inhabitants, and the Judge who selects the saved. In the Hindu tradition, if you embrace your selfless destiny, your final personification will embody Shiva, the Destroyer of your world of adversity, and its karmic cycle of rebirth. Your objective identity determines the shape of your aspirational path to completing your intrinsic purpose. This means that you are always on the shortest path to complete self-awareness that is available to you. Your subsequent self-centered choices will invariably prolong your journey however, if you realize selfless awareness each digression will have been worth the trip. Q7: Is there life after death? A7: The death of the vital incarnation that houses your subjective identity will not keep your mind from completing its purpose. Until your final incarnation, the vital embodiment of your mind's subjective identity will invariably die. However, according to modal idealism, this incarnation houses a personification of your mind's objective identity, which resides beyond life and death. Therefore, when your incarnation dies, each of your possible, incompletely self-aware, objective successors will retroactively re-personify your conscious identity-which they all share-in orthogonal new vital incarnations; as often as is necessary for you to be able to complete your intrinsic purpose, by relinquishing your self-infatuation. A physical analogy to this mental transition is the phenomenon of matter-antimatter annihilation. Typically, when a particle of matter collides with its antimatter equivalent, they each completely transform into pure energy. The resultant high-energy bosons subsequently transmute into new material particles. The conservation laws of physics assert that the total energy of the emergent particles is the same as that of their pre-collision predecessors. Consequently, while the conserved physical attributes (massenergy, momentum, charge, parity, etc.) that emerge may be in a different configuration of particles, their collective entirety is in the exact same position as that of their predecessors, in their translation toward temporal symmetry-their ultimate physical destiny. This material "reincarnation" occurs in particle accelerators all over the world, and is crucial to advancing our scientific understanding of fundamental physical interactions. Such transformations remain repeatable within a causal world until it reaches the physical equivalent of a mind's completely self-aware perspective. Modal idealism's assertion that our conscious advance toward selfless awareness continues unabated by our vital manifestation's death is its interpretation of Dharmic reincarnation and karma. Realizing your final aspirational destiny will not represent the end of your world of evil and suffering, so much as the end of you being conscious that it ever began. If instead, you relentlessly persist in your self-infatuated intention to evade this fate, you will ultimately become the universal self-awareness. In the Hindu tradition, achieving this alternate destiny corresponds to becoming Maya, the shaper of all meaningful, but unreal, worlds. In the Abrahamic traditions, this selfish destiny represents becoming Satan, the entity embodying the seduction of all conscious beings away from the path to God. Summary Of the thirty-six principles of modal idealism, these thirteen represent the brute facts of this framework: 13. Reality embodies the complete unification of any conceivable essence and its complement into the perfect symmetry, which transcends everything, including existence. 22. The perfect global symmetry of reality offers no opposition to the emergence of local asymmetries. 14. The uniqueness of the constituent observers within reality hides its true nature from all of them. 3. To observe something is simply not to be it. 2. Uniqueness is the separation from nothingness that necessitates existence. 17. Self-awareness is the unmanifestable expression of a manifestable consciousness through the uniqueness that hides its completeness from it. 15. Consciousness is the objectively internalized, subjectively embodied portion of an incomplete self-awareness' complement that distinguishes, categorizes, sequences, counts, temporalizes, vitalizes, mentalizes, and attributes meaning to beings it observes. 18. Each asymmetric mind is a combination of self-awareness, consciousness, and self-expression, with inexistential, objective, and subjective aspects, that share it as their identity. 8. Although many minds may reside within a given meaningful world, only one consciousness contextualizes it. 9. Subjective embodiments of the objective identity whose consciousness contextualizes a given world can manifest in the worlds of other possible observers whose unmanifestable identities all overlap-allowing them to experience consistent origins and histories-mutually entangling them to form their universe. 33. Conscious living matter can satisfy its needs through its energy-driven transformative translation toward temporal symmetry, fulfill its desires in the course of its intentional pursuit of immortality, and empathically grow into complete self-awareness. 29. Consciousness is the basis of meaning, while purpose and choice respectively embody the magnitude and direction of its aspirational transformation toward dissolution back into complete self-awareness. 36. Each asymmetric mind can realize complete self-awareness, which will return its world to the blissful original state that transcends all needs and desires. Conclusion This essay has demonstrated the explanatory power of modal idealism, to rationally answer our most meaningful existential questions, without embracing mysteries or engaging in "magical thinking". It logically and unequivocally answered the questions that any Theory of Truly Everything must, using ideas that align with-and ultimately integrate-our established philosophical, scientific, and theological schools of thought.