Thinking Is a Living Process
Three days ago, I wrote about Provisional Absolutism, a structured way of engaging with ideas by treating them as absolutely true for a time in order to test their validity. At the time, the framework felt complete—it described a way to fully commit to an idea, observe how it holds up, and then refine or discard it based on experience.
But real thinking doesn’t stop at articulation. The moment an idea is tested in the real world, it begins to evolve.
This post isn’t a correction—it’s a natural development. Wearing the framework of Provisional Absolutism over the past few days has revealed new dimensions, deeper connections, and areas where the concept can be sharpened. The process itself demands iteration—because all meaningful thinking is alive, adaptive, and subject to ongoing refinement.
Here’s how my understanding has expanded through lived experience.
Quick Recap: What Is Provisional Absolutism?
Provisional Absolutism is a pattern-testing approach built on three key steps:
- Wear the pattern – Fully commit to a belief, method, or perspective, treating it as absolute.
- Observe how it holds up – Apply it in real-world decisions, creative work, moral dilemmas, and intellectual debates.
- Refine or discard – If the pattern holds, it strengthens. If it fails, its failure reveals revision paths.
Unlike blind faith, this method demands real-world validation. Unlike perpetual doubt, it enables genuine commitment—not as an endpoint, but as a means of discovery.
Why Revisit It?
In applying Provisional Absolutism over the past few days, I’ve seen firsthand how patterns interact—not as isolated tests, but as woven structures. In particular, my experiences with faith, creativity, and contradiction have reinforced key refinements:
- Faith as an Active Test – People often think of faith as something held or abandoned. But faith can be provisionally absolute, tested in the world rather than simply believed. Many people already engage in this without realizing it—adopting a framework (a religious teaching, a philosophical principle) to see if it holds.
- Contradictions Are Not Conflicts – Civilization flourishes because humans hold paradoxes in tension. Provisional Absolutism isn’t about resolving contradictions but wearing them both and seeing what emerges.
These insights led me to refine a few key aspects.
Refinements & Clarifications
1. Provisional Absolutism Was Never Meant to Be Linear
Some have interpreted my first post as suggesting that Provisional Absolutism is a single-track experiment—choose a stance, test it, move on. That is not how I think.
Provisional Absolutism is not a strict methodology—it’s a way of wearing patterns. And patterns do not exist in isolation. They collide, overlap, and inform one another. No single test is independent of the rest of the weave.
Example: Testing Stoicism as a provisionally absolute pattern doesn’t mean dismissing Romanticism. Instead, both can be worn at once, revealing where their seams reinforce or fray. The insights gained are not about choosing one over the other—they emerge in how they interact.
2. A Pattern’s Validity Is Context-Dependent
Originally, I described Provisional Absolutism as “acting as if” a belief is absolute. But that doesn’t mean any belief is valid in all contexts. Some patterns hold up in one environment but fail in another.
Example: Testing radical self-reliance might be invaluable in personal discipline but disastrous in a communal setting. The failure isn’t a flaw in the method—it’s a clue about where the pattern belongs.
3. Time-Bounding Patterns Helps Prevent Overfitting
Wearing a pattern too long risks mistaking it for fundamental truth. A useful tool can become an unexamined default. Adding explicit time or context limits ensures the pattern is tested, not absorbed uncritically.
Example: “For this creative project, I will follow the constraints of classical composition.” The temporary boundary allows the pattern to be tested without assuming it must define all future work.
4. Failure Is Not the End of a Pattern—It’s a Reveal
When a pattern breaks down, it doesn’t simply mean “discard it.” It means look at where and why it failed. Every unraveling thread reveals another layer of structure underneath.
Example: If a provisional commitment to a belief fails in practice, that failure is itself a new pattern—one that may suggest a refinement, an exception, or a completely different framework.
Why Contradictions Are the Key to Growth
Most people assume that contradictory beliefs are a problem to be solved—that we must choose between them. I’ve always seen contradictions as essential to discovery.
Science progresses by disproving its own foundations. Artists refine their work by pushing against their own rules. Provisional Absolutism gives contradictions a structured way to interact, rather than forcing an early resolution.
This is why I believe in testing multiple contradictory patterns at once. They don’t cancel each other out—they illuminate what each one misses.
Next Steps: Refining the Weave
- Refining How Contradictions Interact – I’ll continue deliberately testing opposing patterns in parallel to see what emerges from the friction.
- Expanding Context-Awareness – Mapping where different patterns succeed and fail in specific domains.
- Developing Language to Capture These Nuances – “Provisional Absolutism” may need refinements in terminology, such as Pattern Testing, Weaving Frameworks, or Context-Bound Absolutism.
If this resonates with you, try it for yourself: Pick a pattern, wear it completely, and watch what happens when it collides with another.
Final Thoughts
Three days of lived experience have reinforced that Provisional Absolutism is not a rigid tool—it’s a way of interacting with the structure of ideas themselves.
By treating beliefs and frameworks as provisionally absolute, we allow them to demonstrate their own strengths and limits. No single test produces a final answer—each one reveals the next layer.
The process itself is the goal.
If you try this, let me know what you discover. The best ideas aren’t just thought through—they’re worn.
Transparency Note: This post was structured and edited with the assistance of a Large Language Model (LLM). However, every idea, argument, and insight originates from my own thinking. The LLM is used solely to refine communication—never to generate artistic or literary works. (For more, see my Transparency Policy.)
