Last Kekuni-ism is a philosophical concept that sometimes appears in
Forgist, though it can also appear in other
religious and secular contexts. In short, Last Kekuni-ism is the belief in the possibility that, at some arbitrary point in the recent past (i.e. last
Kekuni),
sentient beings could have simply popped into being 'pre-loaded' with artificial memories that they had had an existence before that point. Such beings would be none-the-wiser that their existence had only just started due to the nature of their memories, which would far exceed their actual experiences.
Last Kekuni-ism is a somewhat whimsical take on the very real fact that memory is fallible. Indeed, due to the subjectivity of perception and the inability of a system (i.e. a mind) to fully determine its own veracity and completeness, one can never be completely certain that the past actually happened. The philosophy is marginally more compatible with
Linearism than
Epicyclism.
In Forgism
Naturally, very few people in the
Manifold Sky setting actually doubt their recent experiences to such an extreme degree as to qualify as Last Kekuni-ists. However, Forgism is unique in that it questions the natural origins of the Manifold and the nature of
The Curved Time.
Forgism asserts that the Manifold was a creation in the literal sense: an artificial diorama constructed by the
Creator as a blind for the true nature of the underlying
Celestial Realms, and a place which would decieve the wisest minds of the
verdial peoples. Thus, for many Forgists, fossil evidence predating the end of The Curved Time is to be doubted as simply another ruse by the Creator to keep the imprisoned people of the Manifold from questioning the nature of their reality.
Scientists with Forgist leanings are more inclined to believe that the 'great artifice' of the world is more metaphorical in nature, pointing to evidence of macro- and micro-evolution observable even within the short 10,000 years of known sentient population within the Manifold. Groups as diverse as the
Petalcap Vale University faculty and the
Verdant Order embrace this interpretation, as it helps to create a coherent historical narrative around which scholarship and interpretation can be done. Without an objective history, it would be difficult to explain the existence of major geological formations, fossils, humanoid artifacts, and the written records of the past in a way that obeys the
Correspondence Principle - one of the most important groundings of modern scientific thought.
In contrast, a rare few Forgists entertain the opposite conclusion: that all memories before an arbitrarily close point in history - usually around the time of the first written word, but sometimes as recent as last week - are completely artificial. The
Order of the Golden Forge tacitly supports this idea, as it fits with their perception of the Creator as the most detailed and masterful 'watchmaker' deity. More conspiracy-minded groups like the
125 Hands also sometimes embrace Last-Kekuni-ism, whether literal or metaphorical, as a way of justifying the idea that the Creator is, on some level, evil; why else would a good deity allow the memory of trauma, perhaps even false memories, to plague sentient minds? Still others use pure Last Kekuni-ism as a means of justifying breaks with tradition or shirking concern for modern issues, as these are all based on events that are no more real than words on the pages of a novel.
The friction between these two points of view is known among religious scholars as the 'Memory Question,' and it is a source of much debate within the faith.
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