NEOSA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to express gratitude to the epistemic thinkers who contributed to the many knowledge-based schools of thought as well as H.P. Lovecraft who gave inspiration for this paper as well as third-party sites who helped tremendously with their familiarity and technical knowledge in the process of research. Thanks to the members of Wikipedia for their ingenuity in their Epistemology encyclopedia

CONTENTS Number Page Introduction....................................................................................................53 Knowledge.....................................................................................................53 A Misguided Path .........................................................................................54 Gnosism.........................................................................................................55 Cosmicism ....................................................................................................58 Summary........................................................................................................58 [Page numbers may vary depending on the format, the numbering for the contents is designed for the google docs standard}

INTRODUCTION I would define my philosophy, Gnosism as the belief that knowledge acquisition by default is a futile and pointless endeavor. In a world ruled by absurdism with laws of abstract meaning and sentimental confusion, it seems almost arbitrary to try and piece together the meaningless of reality by feeble attempts of understanding it. The term ‘Gnosism’ comes from the Greek term gnósi (η γνώση) which means knowledge. Before I get into the major parts of this philosophy I would like to introduce a misguided view of knowledge and epistemology to give a prerequisite and better comprehension in regards to the forenamed philosophy. Chapter 1 KNOWLEDGE Knowledge can be defined as the familiarity or awareness of the situations, reality and phenomena around us. Knowledge can be deduced from facts, which is known as propositional knowledge, is synonymous with true belief and is perceived as literal truth as it informs accurate perceptions of reality. Another form of knowledge deduction comes from opinions, which is defined by guesswork and normative justification. They are not fundamental facts about reality and instead rely on the individual to make their own views and understanding on reality, whether true or not. Contrary to popular belief, knowledge can be gained outside of the mental aspect as the five senses, touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing expands the realm of knowledge using external procurement with information such as stimuli; the changes in our environments and conditions around us. But this can collide with the philosophical viewpoint of introspection, which is based around the idea that knowledge accretion involves solely mental assessment and conscious analysis rather than physical accession. Included inside introspection can be memory,

rational intuition, inference and testimony, giving outlets to discern and cognize the world around us. These 4 pillars are widely accepted amongst foundationalists, which claim that these 4 aforementioned elements can validate beliefs without having any external input while this is vehemently rejected by coherentists, who believe that coherent conscious belief in a certain truth is absolutely necessary for it to be valid. Though all of these schools of thought are branches of the wider philosophy known as epistemology. This philosophy is based around the tenants of belief, justification, knowledge and truth and is routinely symbolized in the Greek religious culture, where Hellenists worshiped Gods who respectively embodied these varying tenants. Arguably the most important of them, Athena, was regarded as the Goddess of wisdom and war while also ironically representing handicraft and peace. While this dichotomy seems to violate the core of true knowledge, in which facts cannot contradict each other, for the ancient Greeks, such a revered Goddess was simply the epitome of majesty and a figure for classical thinkers to look to in search of knowledge and virtuous counsel. Chapter 2 A MISGUIDED PATH This divine interjection in the history of epistemology is important because in the Pre-Socratarian era, the ancient Greeks managed to balance knowledge with passion, having Athena as the God of wisdom and Dionysus to represent passion and impulsive desire. However, all of this would change with the arrival of Socrates, whose Socratic method used to questioning, rationalizing and implicating lead the order and balance previous thinkers had made to be disarranged; losing passion to counteract absolute rationalism which had simply been erased due to his favored focus on physical science rather than theological doctrine. This seems to have caused an upheaval in western philosophy, especially in the enlightenment as philosophers looked towards science and reason as a replacement for God and religion. This compounded more dramatically with new inventions, scientific discoveries and shifting attitudes, leaving many to abandon religion in search of the promise that science superficially granted. This intense focus on rationalism led many into the depths of Nihilism, using self-indulgence and excess materialistic gratification to fill the void left by this mint lack of meaning. This swift departure from spiritual conformance that had been used for more millennia led philosophers into two main schools of thought, based on the belief of Epistemology; Rationalism and Empiricism. Rationalists believed that opinions, and therefore knowledge should be based on facts and reason rather than religious belief or emotional response with thinkers such as René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff being prominent figures in the rationalist realm. Empiricists believed that knowledge came from or primarily was derived from sensory experience and was coined and explored by thinkers such Francis Bacon, John Locke and David Hume. Immanuel Kant tried to bring these two schools of thoughts together in his Kanten

philosophy, based around the principles of phenomena, which constitutes to our experience and noumena, which constitutes to our reality. These lenses are methodology in which to perceive reality, with the conceded premise of any situation in phenomenal terms either being supported or contested by the actual reality (noumena). This very condensed version of a strayed history of knowledge touches some relevant philosophers and thinkers who informed the development and approaches that our modern world uses to assess, obtain and assimilate our acquired knowledge. While these philosophes at times may contradict each other, other times, occasionally refuting each other in their ideological all together, it’s important to note that all of these philosophies in one way or the other supports the position that we should learn or gain knowledge, as knowledge acquisition boosts intellectual literacy as well as logical welfare. Though there's many problems with this attitude towards the positive and beneficial nature of knowledge which I’d like to challenge in the oncoming section. Chapter 3 GNOSISM What exactly is the issue if it’s presumed learning is in itself a good thing? Isn't knowledge a forum for people to understand and to be better educated in the bewildering and puzzling world around us, a great tool to make sense of the seemingly absurd and extremely dynamic reality which we hopelessly coexist with? Well yes. I agree that we should learn and use that knowledge to create new inventions and technologies that will bolster our understanding and personal comfort in a harsh and cruel world. But what I don't agree with is the sort of ambition that is entrenched into the ideologies surrounding knowledge. They view knowledge as a sort of conquest, which you should keep on learning and conquering different fields and knowledge realms in order to be considered an intellectual or at least a reasonable, rational person, but that simply is and will never be the case. Knowledge can make us feel less relatively insignificant on the greater scale of things, make us feel that in a way we are part of the greater cosmic picture. With this magical tool we are able to feel like we have a true impact on our universe, but at the moment that is utterly whimsical. While we have laid triumphant meagerly over planet Earth with our use of more advanced consciousness and our expanded knowledge base, we have been able to beat and subdue our other biological counterparts into doing our bidding, often destroying the planet and ecosystems irreversibly in the process. But the universe as one entity or many exceedingly dissimilar often foreign entities is simply so grand and massive that no amount of invention or technology would ever manage to subjugate or take in just the vastness of the universe itself. There are estimated to be about 400 billion stars in the milky way and 1-10 trillion orbiting planets in the universe. That number could be far larger as advances in astro-

technology allows astronauts and cosmetologists to grasp the universe on an unimaginable scale. Many galaxies are hundreds if not thousands of light years away and our current interstellar transportation instruments have failed to even reach the bare minimum of light-year speed and needed capacity, therefore we could be even less relatively important than we believe. So in the universe of insignificance and unimportance, why exactly do we aim to understand it in so much depth? There is simply too much knowledge to ever be able to even try and piece together the true picture of reality not to mention planet earth itself. So many cycles and phenomena remain obscure, mysterious and unanswered, yet feeble attempts by scientists to understand the chronology and creation of our exponential universe in many cases remain fruitless. Intellectualism in itself seems to be void of any real meaning when we look at it more critically. Someone who is deemed intellectual is someone who is able to express rational thoughts and opinions without having emotions interject and interfere in their expression. Intellectualism also relates to someone who has a wide range of skills and knowledge on various different complex and intricate fields and subjects, usually relating to more technical subjects such as sciences, physics, biology and chemistry, but also much more like the arts and literature. However, as we discussed earlier, there seems to be almost an infinite amount of knowledge in our extremely large universe. This eternal nature of comprehensive universal knowledge can play into the belief of eternal recurrence when tackling the question of knowledge acquisition. But we'd have to replace a few values like matter and time. Fredrich Nietzsche’s belief in eternal recurrence, described vividly in his only novel ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’, which speaks of time, which is infinite and matter which is finite. The belief focuses on this finite and infinite nature in which the finite entities of the universe, energy and matter would have to repeat or recur forever in eternal cycles in order to catch up to time which is infinite. But by replacing time with knowledge and matter with human minds, we can look at the prospects more bleakley but with more realism. Humanity would literally have to repeat in cycles on a stupendous scale in order to ever catch up with the almost celestial amount of knowledge that the universe has to offer. In this manner, we would simply be in a loop and eternal cycles of ineffectual repetition when it comes to knowledge acquisition rather than progress and advancement, meaning that we possibly could never get the knowledge that we humans so desperately truly desire. Many other setbacks leaves knowledge acquisition as a feeble approach as well. When we look at the downfall of ancient societies like ancient Greece and classical Rome, there was a large loss of knowledge that for 900 years, would be lost in savagery and the bitter wars of the middle ages. The burning of the library of Alexandria and the cultural revolution in China lead to the loss of crucial knowledge and culture due to socialism and politics; inducing tremendous amounts of knowledge being lost, unrecoverable forever. In a world where a future world war threatens to send humanity back to the stone age or wipe us out of existence, it's extremely volatile to try and

collate knowledge for it to easily be obliterated in an instant by nukes or vengeful armies. This may be exacerbated by the fact that we are bound to repeat history forever in this cyclical formation due to the eternal recurrence of knowledge. Just our planet alone houses so much knowledge that even the most gifted of minds cannot even begin to comprehend simply the vastness of the knowledge library we have in store. No amount of rote memory or lifetimes seems long enough to delve and master the complexion of every aspect of the current world and the surrounding universe. Intellectualism at its core seems baseless as there's almost an infinite amount of knowledge for a very finite mind, and people who act as if their ample knowledge makes them superior simply because their alluding ‘enlightenment’ over their less ‘civilized peers’ are in the essence, just as foolish and naive to existence as those people who know nothing of these ‘enlightened fields’. Think of it like this. How much knowledge is there ever made and currently existing compared to knowledge any scientific, religious body or individual holds on reality? Even if one person knew all the mathematical formulae, had very deep understanding all the world's theology, critical expertise in chemistry and all the natural biologies, an outstanding comprehension of all the world's philosophies ever made, a great magnitude of insight into all physics and revelation into all the cosmic secrets hidden in the universe, you'd only know less than 1% of the worlds knowledge, even 1% could be a generous amount. The reasoning for this is that there is literally inconceivable amounts of knowledge that scientists might never even discover due to cosmic enlargement and extraterrestrial mystique. But ok, let's assume that percentage is bumped up to about 5%, you would have almost a transcendent amount of knowledge yet you’d still be poor for possibly more than 95% of the universe’s knowledge; even at that elevated, transcendent and seemingly omniscient level. Or look at the oceans. Even though we humans have a rough but close relationship to the oceans, as it accounts for 70% of the planet, with this figure still projected to grow and contribute immensely to the cultural enrichment and development of society, according to national geographic, more than 80 percent of the ocean has never been mapped, explored, or even seen by humans. This statistic may perplex people as for thousands of years, we humans have discovered, lived and even thrived off the sea and in this era of digital enhancement and global mapping, a sense of false understanding may easily come over us, yet in reality, little is known all the aquatic and marine biosphere. So in this world where there is simply an infinite amount of knowledge, it seems only pointless to acquire knowledge for ‘intellectual purposes. No one is really an intellectual when we are all poor for the universe's knowledge. No amount of libraries or great thinkers will ever unravel even the slightest of knowledge in the universe has in stall as humans may die to extinction, self-eradication or to the universe's eventual heat death before this is even slimly possible. So really, on a cosmic scale, there are no intellectuals, there is no general populous of intellectual inadequacy, but an international congregation of humans who are ill-informed and naive to the

universe’s celestial grandeur.. In reality, there exists no rigid hierarchy of great thinkers, and those revered almost religiously for their great IQs and inventions which helped millions and billions out of poverty and sickness are nothing to the majesty to the universes which in every means outshines them in their place. As Socrates once said \"I know that I know nothing.\" Chapter 4 COSMICISM Cosmicism is a philosophical belief that states that humans are particularly insignificant on a larger scheme of the universe. This belief centers around the notion that neither humans nor planet Earth is not held with exceptionality but rather is cosmically indifferent to the rest of the universe; purely a dot in a stretch of the never-ending universe. This bleak and pessimistic response to the subconscious feeling of paramountcy, where we believe that we are the center of the universe since we are the only known form of life in our galaxy seems to reimburse the rationals sentiments of the renaissance, which did not focus of impulsive emotion and desire but rather say the truth as it is. And while for now, we are the only known life in the universe, making us innately special in a sense, this rational cosmic approach towards the universe should be adopted for knowledge as well. Cosmicism humbles us to the grandeur of the universe, as at any moment we could be struck into extinction by a meteor or almost an infinite amount of anxiety-inducing additional possibilities. We are nothing in the grander scheme of things and this upsetting outlook of the universe is perfect when we adopt it for knowledge. I see the universe as a mystery that confides in being unsolved, and that we should respect with utmost importance over our human ambition. SUMMARY Gnosism is the defeatist attitude that states that knowledge acquisition is pointless in the complicated grandiose of an unapprehended universe. Knowledge comes in many forms but usually there's knowledge that relies on facts known as propositional knowledge and opinions which rely on guesswork or virtue by justification. There are many beliefs about knowledge such as introspection, foundationalism, and coherentism but all fall under the umbrella of epistemology, based on the tenants of belief, justification, knowledge and truth. The ancient Greeks' use of Gods and Goddesses to represent passion and knowledge (in wisdom) counteracted and balanced seriousness and absolutism with whimsicality and raw emotion.

The Socratarian method, used for determination and distinguishing entities and somewhat misguided renaissance thinkers. And empowered by science, many rejected religion and struggled to find a tangible replacement; disrupting the balance of passion and wisdom by favoring wisdom in their absolutist rational and empiricist mindsets. Even though knowledge may bring around social and intellectual enrichment, in the greater scheme of things the attempt to acquire knowledge like a trophy or an achievement is futile as there's an almost infinite amount of knowledge to be obtained. A sort of eternal recurrence would take place in order to fulfill the knowledge required to truly apprehend the universe. By replacing time with knowledge and the human mind with matter, the finite amount of human minds/ active bodies (religious, scientific etc) would have to work forever to reach the almost infinite amount of knowledge, leading to cycles of eternal repetition rather than epistemic progress. Knowledge can also be easily lost to warfare and politics and since we are bound to repeat history by eternal recurrence and cyclicism. So in this current reality, we see humans are so eager and optimistic towards gaining knowledge when it's volatile and can be easily lost because of an innate desire of explaining the unexplainable. Only a nihilistic approach to knowledge is truly rational in this sense. The same core beliefs of Cosmicism; galactic indifference and celestial insignificance can be used for the approach towards knowledge and humbles us to the reality of the universe at its core.

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