A conviction framework is a set of values, beliefs, and the associated infrastructure that supports them. These frameworks all serve the same end, and so share several properties:
Their subject. What does the conviction aim to explain? This can be further subdivided into the experiential and extraexperiential.
Their authority. Who is the final authority on the conviction? This is the person or set of people and institutions who are recognized as the heads of the conviction.
Their end goal. What is the end goal of the conviction? This is what I receive by adhering to this conviction.
There are two types of conviction frameworks: demiselfist, and triselfist.
Demiselfist conviction frameworks start with the same premise: I am one of the countless other people temporarily experiencing a larger universe that pre-existed my birth and will endure after my death. Two broad examples of demiselfist conviction frameworks are the secular scientific and religious faith.
Both have fundamental tenets supported by institutions where they are learned and practiced. They both have authorities who manage, direct, and guide the faithful. Their subject differs, but they share a lot of fundamental suppositions. The subject of the scientific is the larger, generalized world of sensational phenomena. The subject of the religious is our relationship with God while we live on earth.
In the scientific conviction framework, the authority is a consortium of academic, corporate, and governmental institutions. In the religious conviction framework, the places of worship and religious schools form the institutions, and a similar authority is present in the form of a priestly class.
The end goals of the two differ. The scientific is ostensibly aimed to understand the nature of the material world, but also to make scientific and technological progress. The religious will vary, but generally, it focuses on the spiritual and after-life. The goal is to know in order to know more.
The triselfist conviction framework differs in each of these areas. While the subject of demiselfist convictions is the wider world of people, the subject of triselfist conviction is my own direct experience. In triself, I am not concerned with the extraexperiential. In demiself, I defer to some authority, but in triself, I am the absolute authority by virtue of the fact that I am the experiencer of the experienced.
And in demiself, the end goal is often more knowing, or to live a certain way so as to be rewarded in the afterlife. But in triself, the goal is to know in order to be. I see a direct path between knowing and being. Triselfist conviction shares one thing with religion: the focus on the afterlife. But in triselfism, life and personhood are an illness and my goal is my recovery to godhood.
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