The Truth Engine is a new kind of intellectual institution.
Its ultimate purpose is to help humanity achieve increasing agreement concerning what is True, Good, and Beautiful. It seeks agreement not through authority, coercion, or compromise, but through disciplined dialectical inquiry in which opposing viewpoints are examined cooperatively according to shared intellectual rules. Its central conviction is that genuine agreement becomes possible when every important position is represented in its strongest form and subjected to fair and rigorous criticism.
The Truth Engine is organized around three great divisions of human inquiry: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The Truth division is concerned with matters of fact and explanation, whether they arise in established disciplines or in unorthodox fields of inquiry. (Its concern is not the academic status of a subject, but the quality of the reasoning and evidence brought to bear upon it.) The Goodness division is concerned with the normative and sociopolitical realm: ethics, law, economics, public policy, government, and the institutions through which human beings seek to live well together. The Beauty division is devoted to the arts and to the creation, criticism, and appreciation of works of beauty. Together these three divisions encompass the principal domains of human thought and creation.
Within each division, every important field of inquiry will gradually develop its own body of Truth Engine materials. For each topic, these will be organized into a three-part “topic-set” consisting of (1) a periodically updated (“living”) text called the Canonical Dialectic, formatted as a simulated debate and presenting the strongest known arguments concerning the topic; (2) a Truth Engine Journal devoted to the topic and featuring articles exploring particular questions in greater depth; and (3) a continuing Game of a Trillion Worlds tournament designed to accelerate the progressive improvement of the topic's Canonical Dialectic. Together, the topic-sets for the many fields of inquiry constitute the evolving content of the Truth Engine Encyclopedia.
In addition to the Encyclopedia, the Truth Engine includes the Truth Engine Chronicle and the TriDivisional School. The Chronicle is a news publication whose articles are formatted as simulated debates. Linking to the relevant Encyclopedia topic-sets, it covers important contemporary controversies while drawing upon and contributing to the continuing development of the Encyclopedia.
The TriDivisional School is the educational branch of the Truth Engine. It teaches the methods of the Truth Engine and the Game of a Trillion Worlds, while also offering courses devoted to the Engine's many topics under the three divisions of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Its purpose is not merely to transmit existing conclusions, but to prepare participants to enter the continuing dialectical process themselves.
The purpose of this paper is a practical one. It explains how interested individuals may participate in the development of the Truth Engine during its formative years.
The Truth Engine depends upon many different kinds of participants. Not everyone need become a debater. Indeed, the long-term success of the project will require people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. Among the opportunities for participation are the following:
Every thoughtful contribution has the potential to strengthen the institution as a whole.
Anyone may submit suggestions to the Truth Engine. Valuable ideas may come from anywhere, and no formal membership is required in order to contribute.
As participation grows, however, it will become impossible for a small editorial staff to examine every suggestion in depth. For that reason, the Truth Engine will gradually organize Truth Engine Societies, one for each major field of inquiry.
The principal purpose of the Societies is to make large-scale participation possible. Members of a Society engage in the continuing discussion of that field, criticize and refine one another's proposals, and help identify the suggestions most deserving of wider consideration. Although no proposal is guaranteed acceptance, Society membership ensures that every proposal enters an ongoing process of discussion and evaluation rather than disappearing unnoticed. In this way, the Societies enable the Truth Engine to grow while preserving the quality of its deliberative process.
The Truth Engine is intended to grow gradually. As new topic-sets are created and existing ones mature, the Encyclopedia will become increasingly comprehensive, the Chronicle will address an ever wider range of contemporary controversies, and the TriDivisional School will develop courses through which participants can study the Engine's topics and learn to take part in its dialectical processes. Opportunities for participation throughout the institution will naturally expand.
Those who become involved during the formative years will help shape not only particular topic-sets but the character of the institution itself.
The Truth Engine is an ambitious undertaking. It seeks nothing less than to improve humanity's ability to reach increasing agreement concerning what is True, Good, and Beautiful. Whether that goal is ultimately achieved cannot be known today. What can be known is that institutions capable of changing the world have always begun with a small number of people willing to help build them.
If you believe that such an institution ought to exist, I invite you to help bring it into being.
© 2026 Richard Crist. All rights reserved.