This paper applies Semantic Flow Dynamics to the comparative epistemology of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, treating religion not as a belief system but as an information flow system. A five-stage cognitive topology is established — xin (信, pre-cognitive orientation), the domain within the cognitive limit, the cognitive limit itself, the domain beyond the limit, and death — anchored in structural facts of cognition rather than theological premises. All three religions acknowledge a domain beyond human reason and claim to have transported knowledge from it; the differences lie in their strategies for handling the resulting information flow. Three dynamical paths are identified. Christianity's open channel and unlocked signal produce continuous variation, schism, and competitive elimination (the Gu-King path). Islam's closed channel and extreme signal lock-in suppress variation and channel evolution into interpretation (the lock-in path). Buddhism's absence of a central channel and lack of signal lock-in produce pure market competition without heresy adjudication (the self-organizing path). A deeper distinction is the direction of semantic reflux: Christianity and Islam externalize semantics back into signal containers (doctrine, law, institutions), enabling fast expansion but creating dependence on those containers; Buddhism internalizes semantics into behavior and lifestyle, expanding slowly but with extreme resilience. This paper is the generative case from which Semantic Flow Dynamics was constructed. It demonstrates the framework's explanatory power but cannot serve as its validation. Independent validation must come from phenomena not considered during the framework's construction.
黃正宇 (Thu,) studied this question.