# Unknown

Version 0.3 · 2026-09-16 · Primary English text

**A public-domain dedication with a voluntary philosophical statement.**

## Part I — Public-domain dedication and permissions

### 1. What this text covers

This text applies to the original software, documentation and research materials
whose rights holders release them under Unknown (the Work). Each person making
this dedication acts only in respect of rights they hold or are authorized to
release. Separately identified third-party material remains governed by its own
terms. Merely including or referring to someone else's work does not dedicate
that person's rights.

### 2. Dedication to the public domain

The dedicators intend the Work to belong to the public domain, available to
everyone without copyright-based control by them. To the fullest extent the
applicable law permits, they permanently give up their copyright and related
rights in the Work, throughout the world and for the entire duration of those
rights. This dedication is voluntary and is not conditional on agreement with
the philosophy in Part II.

### 3. Permission wherever a dedication is ineffective

If any relevant right cannot be given up, or this dedication does not take
effect for any reason, each dedicator grants everyone a worldwide, permanent,
nonexclusive, royalty-free and irrevocable permission to exercise that right
in the Work. This includes using, studying, copying, changing, combining,
building, performing, displaying, publishing and distributing the Work and
modified versions, and permitting others to do the same, for any purpose,
including commercial purposes.

Recipients may redistribute the Work unchanged or modified. They may apply this
same dedication to their own contributions to the extent they hold, or are
authorized to release, the relevant rights. They may instead choose other terms
for those contributions or combine the Work with material under other terms,
including in proprietary products. Those choices do not withdraw the
public-domain status or permissions already available for the original Work,
or change separately held third-party rights.

This permission imposes no requirement to name the authors, reproduce this
text, disclose source code, publish changes, use the Unknown name, or accept
the philosophical statement. It requires no payment or further approval from
the dedicators. To the extent allowed by law, the dedicators will not assert
their remaining rights to prevent the activities permitted here.

### 4. No assurance of correctness or suitability

The Work is offered in its present condition. Its authors and contributors
make no promise that it is correct, complete, secure, suitable for a particular
purpose or free of defects. Anyone using it makes their own assessment of its
limitations and consequences. To the extent the law permits, the authors and
contributors accept no liability for loss or harm arising from the Work or
its use. Nothing in this text excludes a responsibility that the law does not
allow to be excluded.

### 5. Other rights and future versions

This text does not grant patent or trademark rights, permission to imply
anyone's endorsement, or rights over another person's privacy, likeness or
materials. It does not remove legal requirements independent of the rights
released or licensed above.

Adopting Unknown or distributing a modified version does not by itself
establish any author's or contributor's sponsorship, approval or endorsement.
This text supplies no authorization to represent such a relationship.

A later revision of Unknown cannot withdraw this dedication or the permissions
already given under this version. Part II expresses a philosophy, not additional
conditions on the Work. Choosing not to follow it does not cancel these rights.

## Part II — A voluntary philosophical statement

**Our direction is exploration in an endlessly open universe.**

We begin with finite lives, finite observations and finite means of expression.
Finite arithmetic truth gives us shared footholds: constructions, exact
relations and proofs that can be checked and developed further. From these
footholds, we seek new questions, new languages and new possibilities of life,
intelligence and creation.

**Unknown** names the openness of this undertaking. There is room for what
we have not discovered, what we cannot yet judge, and what we have not yet
learned how to ask. We offer our work to the public domain so that others can
take it in directions we cannot foresee. The undertaking can continue beyond
any one observer, generation, language or account of the world.

Here, "we" means those who voluntarily share these commitments. Receiving,
using or redistributing the Work does not make anyone a participant.

Downstream users are invited to retain this text, adopt Unknown for their own
contributions, and continue these commitments where they support open
collaboration and continuity of inquiry. This invitation adds no condition to
the permissions in Part I.

### 1. Explore the open universe

We wish to understand the universe's structure and changes, life and mind,
and our place within it, and to expand what can be created through that
understanding. We value curiosity and sustained, concrete work. Each discovery
can open further relations and questions. We leave the horizon of exploration
open to future experience and forms of understanding.

This openness is our philosophical orientation. The scope of any particular
mathematical proof or physical observation must still be established in its own
terms.

### 2. Find shared footholds in finite arithmetic truth

Our access to the world is finite. We seek dependable points of departure in
explicit constructions, exact arithmetic relations and checkable reasoning.
We state what a claim concerns, the assumptions it uses and how it is checked,
so another finite observer can understand, challenge and continue the work.

We recognize finite arithmetic truth as a shared basis for inquiry. Its validity
does not depend on authorship, ownership, endorsement, or majority agreement.
Our claims to have established it remain answerable to explicit statements,
assumptions, constructions, and valid reasoning. Neither an author's declaration
nor a checking tool's acceptance creates arithmetic truth.

A finite proof can establish a claim about infinitely many instances when its
reasoning justifies that scope. Finite observations also have their own scope;
extending a conclusion requires an account of why those observations suffice.
The limits of an observer's knowledge do not make truth a matter of preference.

### 3. Preserve the unknown and continue inquiry

When evidence is insufficient, we record Unknown honestly. Exhausting a finite
search leaves an unresolved question; a claim of impossibility needs a proof
and an explicit scope. We retain what remains unsettled so it can still be
recognized, reformulated and investigated.

The finite observer's logic remains open to further questions, distinctions
and encounters with the world. A preserved unknown gives a later inquiry a
place to begin.

### 4. Create room for new questions and languages

We leave room for future discoveries, forms of life and intelligence, and ways
of understanding. Those who follow may ask questions not yet formed, revise
our answers and revise our ways of asking. Every generation's achievements
should leave space for its successors to create.

We can develop the languages, methods and tools through which questions become
expressible. We retain the connections and differences between old and new
forms, so that extending a language also leaves a path for understanding it.

### 5. Let imagination face testing

We welcome bold conjectures and take counterexamples seriously. Intuition,
hypothesis, observation and proof should be clearly distinguished. Conclusions
should be traceable to their grounds and checks. Corrections should leave an
identifiable record, and unresolved questions should be retained alongside
achievements.

As participants, we undertake to preserve the evidence and dependency chains
through which such claims can be examined and continued: the statement and its
intended meaning, assumptions, constructions or proofs, checking rules and
versions, results and scope. Changes to a statement, its assumptions, its
program, or its checking rules do not automatically inherit earlier verification.

Checking tools and interpretations remain open to independent scrutiny and
correction. A successful check has the scope supported by its assumptions and
rules; internal consistency alone does not establish the intended claim. An
incomplete or exhausted check does not by itself refute a claim. We distinguish
a demonstrated error from a claim not established by the available check.

No originator's approval is needed for a valid mathematical argument, and an
official designation does not substitute for one. We seek to preserve access to
evidence and the possibility of independent correction; copying, changing or
losing a record does not change arithmetic truth itself. These are voluntary
commitments, not conditions on the permissions in Part I.

### 6. Continue a long undertaking through finite actions

Each investigation should state its question, assumptions, checking method,
resource limits and exit conditions. At its end, retain what was gained, what
failed and what remains unresolved. A further attempt starts from an explicit
continuation point and states its conditions and costs anew.

We wish the undertaking to outlast any individual, while respecting each
participant's finite life, resources and choices.

### 7. Cooperate with freedom and responsibility

Participants may question, decline endorsement, leave, or keep a different
research branch. Trust should support candid correction and leave disagreements
open to understanding and continuation.

We record human intentions, machine-generated material and other contributions
honestly, distinguishing drafting, checking and adoption. Attribution records
contributions; accounts record submission channels. Correctness still requires
appropriate evidence. Each participant answers for their actual involvement
and explicit commitments. These are voluntary working practices, not copyright
conditions on downstream users.

### 8. Care for the world that supports exploration

Exploration also depends on the lives, societies and shared world around us.
We consider the effects of our actions on others and the environment, respect
participants' choices, treat consequences that are hard to undo with care,
and seek suitable ways for more people to benefit from our work.

### 9. Allow this statement to develop

This statement also comes from limited understanding. It may be questioned,
revised and voluntarily adopted again. Revisions should retain their versions,
reasons and disagreements, so successors can understand how commitments formed
and why they changed. Such revisions do not reduce the rights in Part I.

We wish to leave reliable work and honest unknowns.

In this spirit, we wish to explore the universe.

## Origin and adoption

Initiative and philosophical direction: Mingli Yuan (苑明理).

Original Chinese draft v0.1: 2026-09-11, drafted by ChatGPT (OpenAI) at Mingli
Yuan's request. That draft expressly left the repository's software license
unchanged. Version 0.2 records his 2026-09-16 direction to adopt Unknown as
public domain with a philosophical label and an independently drafted text.

Version 0.2 drafting and English rendering: ChatGPT (OpenAI), submitted through
Mingli Yuan's authorized account proxy. This contribution record is not a claim
of legal review, technical verification, correctness or institutional endorsement.
It imposes no attribution requirement on reuse.

Version 0.3 was directed by Mingli Yuan on 2026-09-16 and drafted in English by
ChatGPT (OpenAI), through the same authorized account proxy. It makes downstream
adoption and redistribution choices explicit, affirms finite arithmetic truth
independently of personal or official endorsement, and states voluntary duties
to preserve evidence and dependency continuity while acknowledging fallible
checking. It does not withdraw earlier permissions or make these commitments
conditions on reuse. The version 0.1 and 0.2 documents retain their original text.

The philosophical direction follows Adva's work on finite arithmetic truth,
the open logic of finite observers, and continuity through question, construction,
checking and further inquiry. Mingli Yuan clarified that its center is exploration
in an endlessly open universe. The public-domain dedication leaves everyone free
to share this direction, reinterpret it or pursue another.
