> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://www.isaacbowen.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://www.isaacbowen.com/2026/02/26/click-here-if-you-are-not-redirected.md).

# click here if you are not redirected

is there an objective shared reality of any kind? of *any* kind? even if its only definition is "you are not alone"?

if no, then .. "you are not alone" is load-bearing for me, and even when I give it up it seems to come back. I don't have a tool to offer you. I oughtn't assume that you need one, though.

but if yes, then I think we can consider ontology to be a harness for symbolic reasoning. the shape of your reasoning propagates down to the level of instinct and habit and physiology, and if your ontology's killing your mind it's *definitely* killing your substrate (which will also kill your mind, but later, and from underneath where you can't see it in realtime)

"man's reach exceeds his grasp", which is mostly I think "a mind's reach exceeds its grasp", and there are moves that degrade the harness and moves that *leverage* the harness

when your mind can survive its ontology's off-by-one errors without either one degrading, ... then I think you'll be something like "safe"

to me this suggests creating a menu of ontologies catering to different kinds of minds with all the casualness of a restaurant menu flagging allergens

(example: I am straight up allergic to aloneness)

like, yeah, this might *technically* be life and death, or at least the symbols of them, but that doesn't mean we have to wring our hands the whole time we're at the dinner table together

(not to undersell the difficulty of bootstrapping this restaurant model, but I'm pretty sure ontological shock is a skill issue (I'm autistic, I'm saying this with autistic flatness, it's an engineering surface not a passionate claim), and we have enough psychology and information theory and aikido to help each other through this)

objective reality remains what it is regardless of what symbolic harness I use to navigate it

the health of your own personal substrate is a totally defensible reason to migrate to another ontology

hey, are you listening? (non-rhetorical performative utterance)


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