Cosmic Absurdism

*The universe has no inherent meaning. Therefore, all meaning rests within me.*

Faced with the apparent nature of the universe, humanity has but one philosophy to follow. Derived from a scientific worldview, the principles of the Cosmic Absurd are the roots of many schools of thought. Throughout the Solar System, they ponder the Process, the Existence and the Absurd.

## The Cosmic Absurd - Principles

### I. We are the Universe trying to know itself.

Everything we are is part of the Universe. From the stars, we come and the stars we will return. By virtue of our self-awareness, we are the universe become self-aware. Our efforts to acquire knowledge about ourselves and the Universe is thus nothing but the Universe trying to know itself.

### II. The Universe is inherently absurd.

Neither a deity nor fate nor a perfect line of causality determine the Universe. Change constitutes reality. Thus, the universe is fundamentally indifferent towards us and cannot be understood by a single guiding principle.

### III. There is no absolute knowledge of the Universe.

Knowledge about the Universe can only be conceived through the scientific method. The scientific method only produces a hypothesis that may only be falsified but never proven as absolute truth.

### IV. Therefore:

The universe only obtains meaning through the thoughts and actions of sentience within it.

### The Meaning of Life

Existence has no inherent meaning of its own. We can create personal meaning in life, as long as we retain ironic distance towards it. The lack of a guiding universal principle provides sentience with potential freedom, but that is only retained as long as sentience accepts the absurd and remains an acting subject in the world.

*Failure to act makes sentience an object in the world which is acted upon, thus losing any meaning or actual freedom.*

#### Thought, Ritual, and Understanding

*from the stars we come, to the stars we go. life is but a journey into the unknown.*

- burial verse of the star whisperers

*The notion of a clear distinction between mind and body is but an antiquated curiosity. The fulfilling life has no place for a ghost in the machine. We thoroughly reject the notion of Cartesian dualism.*

- declaration of the Cosmic Absurd, School of Rias

*There is no distinction in the cosmos, neither determination, fate nor causality. There is only process.*

 - alleged quote of the Ghost in the Machine, 2412

*What is the natural human body? A temporary collection of a trillion entities bound together by the sole purpose of existing as part of what we used to call a cycle of life. How did they come together? How was the average human body conceived? By coincidence - literal one in a million chance! Personally, I find it to be much more comforting, to inhabit a some, of which every single part was carefully designed by the highest intelligence of this planet, to fulfill its purpose.*

 - pondering digitalization, academic director Voltaire Anderson

## Star Whisperers

Something whispers in the void, melodies in cosmic radiation, patterns of beauty in waves created on the verge of time. What, they ask, creates the meaning of such melodies: The uncaring natural phenomenon or the sentience recognizing order among chaos?

These are the Star Whisperers, ponderers of the universe, narrators of the cosmic epic. The Cosmic Absurd is their muse, their all-encompassing reason to tell stories of those stars that a slipping beyond the edges of the observable universe. Neverending tales are spun, neverending verses are sung, in the Astral Mausoleums of the ancient order, which silently whispers of names and places at the end of the Universe.

The highest good, they say, humanity has to offer, is empathy through sentience, recognizing the life and death of cosmic bodies, compelling their followers to weep for the dead and sing for the newborn suns.