Edited by Raul Saucedo(University of Colorado, Boulder)
About this topic
Summary
Inter-level metaphysics pertains to the question of whether reality has a leveled structure, and if so, what relations underpin this structure. That reality has a leveled structure is often motivated by attention to special scientific entities, features, and laws, which appear to cotemporally depend on lower-level, ultimately physical entities and features, but also to be ontologically and perhaps also causally distinctive as compared to lower-level entities, features, and laws; ordinary experience of dependent macro-entities and features is also seen as motivating leveled structure. Candidate relations offered as connecting goings-on at different levels include supervenience, mereological composition, functional or subset-of-powers-based realization, the determinable-determinate relation, causal mechanism, and primitive Grounding, among others. Deflationary accounts of leveled structure include reductionist approaches, according to which seemingly higher-level goings-on are in fact type or token identical to (typically massively complex) lower-level goings-on, and eliminativist approaches, according to which higher-level goings-on do not exist, even as reducible to lower-level goings-on.
Our overall aim then is to map and assess rival usages of “realism” in social ontology. We first outline some first-order debates and then propose definitions of a variety of realisms (and, by implication, anti-realisms) in social ontology, and thereby seek to structure present debates. We introduce three guiding questions that we use to expound a new systematic way of mapping three kinds of realism and three corresponding kinds of anti-realism. The three questions are: is the discourse about social facts (...) to be taken literally, or should it be under¬stood in a non-cognitivist or instrumental fashion? Are there really such facts, or should we be eliminativists about them? Are the facts in question mind-independent or mind-dependent? We then take a further, closer look at three under¬standings of mind-independence. On one of them (complete mind-independence), more or less everyone is an anti-realist about the social world. Another understanding captures a debate between causal and constitutive social constructionists that centers around the role of representations about the social kind in question. One option here threatens to make more or less everyone a realist (dependence on current observers or recognizers), but once the distinction is drawn between individual and collective variants, some theorists may be anti-realists after all. So, in general, we suggest that some forms of mind-dependence are more clearly anti-realist than others and some are more central to debates in social ontology than others. (shrink)
Reality, existence, and being are commonly treated as separate philosophical questions. Reality is asked about as what is real, existence as the fact of being, and being as the fundamental condition of what is. This separation can be useful for conceptual investigation, but it can also create an ontological division that may not exist in what is itself. -/- This paper proposes the formulation Reality = Existence = Being. The equation does not establish a single substance, a final foundation, or (...) an ultimate reality. It expresses a simpler recognition: reality, existence, and being can be understood as different conceptual recognitions of what is. -/- At the same time, this formulation does not lead to the conclusion that there is an ultimate reality behind existence. There is no final reality waiting to be discovered beyond what exists. Reality does not stand behind existence, existence does not point toward a final metaphysical layer, and being does not become a hidden substance underlying everything. -/- What exists can be investigated without assuming that investigation must eventually arrive at an ultimate ground. Reality has no final conceptual endpoint. It has depth, expression, relation, movement, and further possibility of recognition. -/- Thus, Reality = Existence = Being is not a theory of an ultimate reality. It is an attempt to remove unnecessary separation while keeping existence open. (shrink)
This paper introduces the Substrate-independent Operator Model (SOM), a theoretical framework that explains cognitive activity as an emergent consequence of system organization rather than as a product of specific material substrates, symbolic representations, or task-bound computational processes. Building upon the broader Structural Identity Architecture (SIA), the model proposes the Thinking Space as a continuously active topological domain generated through the interaction of functional structural operators, including operator zones, fluid domains, crystalline regions, transition membranes, and resonance lines. -/- Within this framework, (...) thoughts are not treated as stored symbolic entities or discrete computational objects. Instead, they are modeled as transient emergent condensations arising within a dynamic activity landscape. Cognitive processes emerge through the continuous interaction of structural operators that regulate stabilization, transformation, compatibility, persistence, and cross-regional continuity. -/- The paper develops a formal account of attractor formation, resonance-based stabilization, emergence-window dynamics, task-oriented overlays, and baseline self-organization. These mechanisms are used to reconstruct a range of cognitive phenomena, including sequential thought formation, creative ideation, flow states, rumination, hyperfluidity, and other dynamic cognitive transitions. -/- The resulting framework advances a substrate-independent theory of cognition that relocates explanation from neural implementation and symbolic information processing to the organizational conditions necessary for the emergence and persistence of cognitive structure. The paper further examines implications for synthetic cognition, neuromorphic systems, autonomous agents, and the development of postbiological forms of intelligence. (shrink)
This work offers an introductory overview of Metamonism (Processual Ontodynamics) through the lens of key 20th-century philosophical schools. The text is structured in three thematic blocks: (I) criteria of reality, language, and meaning (pragmatism, logical positivism, analytic philosophy); (II) subject, perception, and understanding (phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics); (III) social, linguistic, and power structures (critical theory, structuralism, poststructuralism, neo-Marxism). It is shown that 20th-century philosophical thought, despite its diversity, moved toward the rejection of static substance in favor of processuality, difference, and action. (...) Metamonism offers a unified axiomatic foundation in which these intuitions acquire a rigorous deductive form. The sole invariant of the system is the Prohibition of Indifference: absolute identity (I, I) is excluded from the domain of the actualization operator Dom(P) = {(D, I) | D ≠ I}. From this invariant, the entire subsequent dynamics of reality is deduced — from the emergence of space and time to consciousness and complex structures. The motto of the work — "Ex uno omnia" ("From one, everything") — symbolizes the overcoming of the fragmentation of philosophical knowledge. The work contains a methodological note and references to published preprints of the series "Metamonism (Ex uno omnia).". (shrink)
Настоящая работа представляет собой обзорное введение в Мета-Монизм (Процессуальную Онтодинамику) через призму ключевых философских школ XX века. Текст структурирован по трём тематическим блокам: (I) критерии реальности, языка и смысла (прагматизм, логический позитивизм, аналитическая философия); (II) субъект, восприятие и понимание (феноменология, экзистенциализм, герменевтика); (III) социальные, языковые и властные структуры (критическая теория, структурализм, постструктурализм, неомарксизм). Показано, что философская мысль XX века, при всём многообразии направлений, двигалась в направлении отказа от статичной субстанции в пользу процессуальности, различия и действия. Мета-Монизм предлагает единый аксиоматический фундамент, (...) в котором эти интуиции обретают строгую дедуктивную форму. Единственным инвариантом системы является Запрет Безразличия: абсолютное тождество (I, I) исключено из области действия оператора актуализации Dom(P) = {(D, I) | D ≠ I}. Из этого инварианта дедуцируется вся последующая динамика реальности — от возникновения пространства и времени до сознания и сложных структур. Девиз работы — «Ex uno omnia» («Из одного — всё») — символизирует преодоление фрагментации философского знания. Работа содержит методологическое примечание и ссылки на опубликованные препринты серии «Метамонизм (Ex uno omnia)». (shrink)
The second chapter of the monograph "Metamonism (Ex uno omnia)" examines the transition from a single act of actualization to a continuing process. It is demonstrated that no new fundamental invariants are required for the continuation of actualization — all subsequent structures arise as necessary consequences of the sole Prohibition of Indifference. A strict distinction is drawn between the trivial logical reflexivity of a state and its substantive, ontodynamic exhaustion; it is shown that it is substantive exhaustion, rather than formal (...) tautology, that removes the state from the domain of the actualization operator. Three consequences are derived from this contradiction: dissipation of identity as the essence of the continuing process; the emergence of spatiality and temporality as forms of process continuation; orthogonal resolution as the minimal transformation that resolves the contradiction of the current state. The concept of a recursive loop and conjugate mapping is introduced. The methodological status of equidistance and of the transition from asynchrony to periodicity is separately qualified — as economical but not strictly uniquely demonstrated solutions. The theorem on the fundamental incompletability of actualization is formulated. The chapter demonstrates that space, time, and all subsequent structures are not independent entities but arise as necessary consequences of a single fundamental prohibition. (shrink)
Abstract: This short paper consists in the logicization of the level 5 (infinite finites) of AOVP. -/- Résumé : ce court texte consiste en la logicisation du niveau 5 (les finis infinis) de l'AOVP.
The first chapter of the monograph "Metamonism" in English establishes the axiomatic foundation for all subsequent ontodynamics. Two maximally general static categories are introduced — Identity (I) and Difference (D) — forming a minimal pair of mutually defining logical categories. The initial empirical fact of the study is the existence of actualized discernible reality. Since static categories themselves do not contain a mechanism of transition from potentiality to actualization, a minimal logical operator P (Process) is introduced as a binary operator (...) of actualization, defining the mapping P: (D, I) ↦ R. The domain of the operator Dom(P) is defined by the condition D ≠ I, which excludes absolute identity (I, I) ∉ Dom(P). This condition is fixed as the first invariant of ontodynamics — the Prohibition of Indifference. It is demonstrated that the Prohibition of Indifference is not an independent postulate but arises as a logically inevitable consequence of defining the domain of the actualization operator. The concluding section distinguishes between static and dynamic interpretations of the Prohibition of Indifference, showing that the prohibition acts not as the exclusion of a single point but as a continuously operative condition preventing the actualization process from coming to a halt. (shrink)
Настоящая работа, являющаяся Частью I Второго короллария, переносит принципы процессуальной онтодинамики с космологического уровня на микрофизический. Опираясь на единый фундаментальный инвариант — Запрет Безразличия, мы демонстрируем, что все планковские величины (lP,tP,mP,EP,TP) суть различные метрические проявления единого минимального процессуального различия — луча P1. Из сопряженной природы P1 следует запрет на искривление пространства-времени и единство темпа актуализации (cc). Вводится концепция двухуровневого пространства-времени: первичная процессуальная протяженность, возникающая вместе с лучом (P1P1), и метрика актуализированной реальности (сигнатура Минковского), возникающая как топологический след завершенного цикла (P1→P2→P3→P4). (...) Формулируется Аксиома процессуального электрона (−P4+P1=−P3), объясняющая массу, комптоновскую длину волны и спин. Показано, что электрон возникает как минимальное процессуальное различие P1P1, сохраняющееся из-за запрета на достижение абсолютного тождества P0P0 при предельном сжатии оболочки P4P4. Ядро интерпретируется как «заполненная» процессуальная оболочка, а электрон — как «пустая» оболочка ортогонального разрешения, топологически сопрягаемая с ядром с сохранением минимального процессуального зазора. Показано, что дискретность атомных спектров обусловлена необходимостью резонансных соизмеримых пропорций (p/qp/q) между оболочками и порождает резонансное биение — динамический барьер, предотвращающий коллапс электрона на ядро. Квантовые числа и принцип Паули выводятся как прямые следствия топологии процессуальных страт. Обнаруженный структурный изоморфизм с алгеброй Дирака открывает путь к дедуктивному выводу уравнения Дирака из процессуальных принципов. (shrink)
Настоящая работа, являющаяся Частью III Первого короллария, представляет Модель процессуальной Вселенной — стационарно-циклическую онтологию крупномасштабной динамики. Опираясь на модель первичной актуализации (экструзии) локальных узлов (Часть I), онтологию диссипации и каскадного размыкания (Часть II), а также на описание взаимодействия узлов через локальную доступность внешнего процессуального ресурса, работа предлагает структурную реинтерпретацию космологического красного смещения, кажущегося ускорения расширения Вселенной и космического двулучепреломления. Центральный тезис состоит в том, что наблюдаемые феномены, которые в стандартной модели (ΛCDM) объясняются через метрическое расширение пространства и тёмную энергию, получают (...) альтернативное объяснение в рамках процессуальной динамики, вытекающей из единственного фундаментального инварианта — Запрета безразличия. Фотон рассматривается как незамкнутый когерентный режим, подверженный кумулятивной диссипации когерентности. Кажущееся ускорение интерпретируется как пороговый переход в прецессионной динамике. Галактики рассматриваются как практически бессмертные топологические аттракторы — инварианты процесса замещения. Текст организован на четырёх уровнях: (A) онтологические принципы; (B) структурные следствия; (C) физическая интерпретация; (D) проверяемые следствия и гипотезы. Показано, что все этапы модели возникают с логической и онтологической необходимостью из одного инварианта. Последовательно применяется принцип онтологического отчуждения. (shrink)
В рамках процессуальной онтодинамики (Метамонизм) предложена двухуровневая модель первичного нуклеогенеза. Уровень 1 описывает экструзию минимального узла (нейтрона) и природу водорода. Уровень 2 вводит Конфигурацию Процессуального Насыщения (КПН). Процессуальная ёмкость КПН выводится из пространства фрустрации Ω₄ = {D, I}⁴: четыре оси фрустрации возникают как необходимое следствие структуры цикла P₁→P₄; бинарный режим каждой оси следует из онтологического различия D ↔ I и Запрета безразличия. Мощность пространства |Ω₄| = 2⁴ = 16 — не внешний параметр, а следствие уже установленного аппарата. При развёртывании КПН (...) в среде минимальной ёмкости (войд) 16 элементарных конфигураций проецируются в нуклонные узлы: 4 образуют тетраэдрическую оболочку (гелий-4), 12 остаются изолированными (водород). Модельное соотношение Y_p = 25% качественно согласуется с наблюдаемым первичным гелиевым плато (Y_p ≈ 24.5%). Расхождение Δ = 0.5% интерпретируется через принцип неполной актуализации и связывается с двумя экспериментальными аномалиями: нейтрино в β-распаде и разрывом времени жизни нейтрона. Топологический барьер 5-го узла объясняет остановку синтеза на гелии в войдах. (shrink)
Третья глава монографии «Метамонизм» рассматривает переход от абстрактной логики продолжения процесса к конкретной геометрической демонстрации структурной организации. На основе мысленного эксперимента над изолированным процессом актуализации выводится геометрический цикл ортогональных разрешений: Точка → Луч → Плоскость → Объём → Инволюционное сжатие. Показано, что после исчерпания внешних ортогональных степеней свободы возникает потенциал фрустрации, стремящийся к бесконечности. Единственным логически возможным разрешением становится качественно-количественное преобразование масштаба — локализация и квантование, порождающее ансамбль дискретных узлов. Вводится структурный изоморфизм глобального (P₁–P₄) и локального (P₅–P₈) циклов, а также (...) механизм встречного взаимодействия P₄ ↔ P₁–P₃. Формулируется гипотеза структурного изоморфизма с алгеброй Дирака. Глава демонстрирует, что вся структурная сложность реальности возникает из единого геометрического цикла и его рекурсивного повторения на сдвинутом масштабе. (shrink)
Вторая глава монографии «Метамонизм» рассматривает переход от единичного акта актуализации к продолжающемуся процессу. Показано, что для продолжения актуализации не требуется вводить новые фундаментальные инварианты — все последующие структуры возникают как необходимые следствия единственного Запрета безразличия. Анализируется онтодинамическое противоречие локальной фиксации состояния: абсолютное самотождество выводит состояние из области определения оператора актуализации. Из этого противоречия выводятся три следствия: диссипация тождества как суть продолжающегося процесса; возникновение пространственности и временности как форм продолжения процесса; ортогональное разрешение как минимальное преобразование, снимающее противоречие текущего состояния. Вводится понятие (...) рекурсивного контура и сопряжённого отображения. Формулируется теорема о принципиальной незавершимости актуализации. Глава демонстрирует, что пространство, время и все последующие структуры не являются самостоятельными сущностями, а возникают как необходимые следствия одного фундаментального запрета. (shrink)
Первая глава монографии «Метамонизм» закладывает аксиоматический фундамент всей последующей онтодинамики. Вводятся две предельно общие статические категории — Тождество (I) и Различие (D), образующие минимальную пару взаимно определяемых логических категорий. Исходным эмпирическим фактом исследования является существование актуализированной различимой реальности. Поскольку статические категории сами по себе не содержат механизма перехода от потенциальности к актуализации, вводится минимальный логический оператор P (Процесс) как бинарный оператор актуализации, задающий отображение P: (D, I) ↦ R. Область определения оператора Dom(P) задаётся условием D ≠ I, что исключает абсолютное (...) тождество (I, I) ∉ Dom(P). Это условие фиксируется как первый инвариант онтодинамики — Запрет безразличия. Показано, что Запрет безразличия не является самостоятельным постулатом, а возникает как логически неизбежное следствие определения области действия оператора актуализации. (shrink)
Настоящая работа представляет собой Предисловие к монографии «Метамонизм», посвящённой формальной теории процессуальной онтологии. В Предисловии определяются объект исследования (реальность как актуализированное сущее), предмет исследования (причина и механизм актуализации) и формулируется исходная проблема: исходя из эмпирического факта существования реальности, необходимо выявить минимальный инвариант, делающий возможной актуализацию именно такой реальности, которую мы наблюдаем. Вводится методологическое ограничение: вопрос о том, почему существует нечто, а не ничто, сохраняется как открытая философская проблема и не принимается в качестве исходного постулата. В качестве философского стержня книги утверждается, (...) что Теория Всего должна быть не уравнением состояния, а теорией принципов — строгой дедукцией того, каким мир вынужден быть, чтобы не нарушить фундаментальный Инвариант. Физика, биология и сознание рассматриваются как последовательные, логически неизбежные ортогональные ходы одного и того же процесса, подчиняющегося единому набору генеративных принципов. (shrink)
This manuscript outlines the Quantum Spacetime Flow Model (QSFM), a line of inquiry into quantum gravity and cosmology grounded in the viewpoint of process ontology. Many mainstream physical frameworks adopt static substances as their foundational starting point, whereas this work centers on continuous generative events to characterize cosmic dynamics. -/- The framework posits spacetime as an assembly of discrete Quantum Spacetime Units (QTUs). Recurring sequential state updates of QTUs are termed historical frame refresh, which shapes the ongoing evolutionary pattern of (...) the cosmos. Under this picture, time is not an independent fixed parameter; it arises from the irreversible refresh activities of QTUs. Material structures may be understood as stable topological formations embedded within QTU networks, and the four fundamental interactions correspond to distinct responsive modes of the shared quantum spacetime medium. -/- This line of reasoning offers alternative interpretive angles for several persistent open questions in physics. Volume fluctuations of QTUs driven by micro-quantum disturbances can contextualize observed dark energy effects; long-distance spin couplings across QTU lattices may account for dark matter signals. The Quantum Incompressibility Principle circumvents geometric singularities, and unitary recording of historical frames provides a viable lens to examine questions surrounding black hole information. Large-scale collective phase shifts among QTUs also leave room for consideration of cyclical cosmic evolutionary scenarios. -/- Three supplementary appendices extend the process ontological perspective into philosophy of time and the study of subjective experience. They address the asymmetric origin of time stemming from QTUs’ refresh cycles, the ontological grounding of the subjective present moment, and associated reflections on immediate phenomenal awareness. This 20260801 edition refines mathematical formulations, introduces workable numerical computation schemes, clarifies the theoretical boundaries and unresolved open questions within the model, and establishes conceptual connections with lattice QCD. -/- This full-length text acts as an extended physical-philosophical counterpart to the shorter paper previously hosted on this platform: Ontological Interpretation of Process in the Quantum Spacetime Flow Cosmology (English Edition). The companion short paper concentrates exclusively on ontological reasoning without detailed physical quantitative derivation, while the present manuscript combines quantitative cosmological analysis with structured process-metaphysical examination. (shrink)
Abstract: This short paper consists in the logicization of "C" (infinite cosmos), the level 4 of AOVP. -/- Résumé : ce court texte consiste en la logicisation de « C » (cosmos infini), le 4e niveau de l'AOVP.
When is a mark or sound a token of a word? There is no once-and-for-all answer: word tokening is iteratively socially constructed, so the conditions for tokening a word can shift across socio-technical regimes. I first argue that word-tokening’s messy boundaries have a distinctive temporal structure I call initiated: initiation is relatively demanding, maintenance more permissive, exit difficult. Word-token kinds are initiated proxy kinds: anchored as stable, low-cost proxies that play a functional role, as is common for social kinds. I (...) then historicize the picture. Tokening conditions shift as pressures accumulate through large-scale changes to roles, constraints, and costs within a regime; I consider historical and current regimes, and the implications of AI-generated text. But they change conservatively—sedimented and path-dependent rather than anchored from scratch. The aim is a pragmatic but stable theory of word-tokening, and a broader model of how social kinds are built over time. (shrink)
Structure Recursive Viability Dynamics (SRVD) is a cross-scale, macroscopic, coarse-grained theoretical framework that unifies crystals, living systems, AI models, civilizations, and memes — Persistent Structures in all their forms — within a single information-time-energy dynamics. The framework's core metric is the Viability Potential: in its baseline form, V ≈ I·T/E; in its general power-law form, V ∝ I^α · T^β / E^γ, where the three exponents constitute the ITE Elasticity Exponents — with the ordering α > γ > β proposed (...) as a working hypothesis pending further verification. Core innovations: 1. Decoder endogenization — informational value is not an intrinsic property of a signal but is extracted and assigned Information Polarity (I+ / I- / I0) by a Decoder (D); the framework's foundational axiom is "No Decoder, No Information (as effective causal information)" (D → I → V). 2. Triple Splitting of the viability potential — once the Endogenous Time Horizon (T_pred) undergoes self-regulation, V splits into Objective Viability (V_obj), Virtual Viability (V^virt), and Value Viability (V^val); when the Decoupling Deviation (Δ_VV) exceeds a critical threshold, the system may enter Myopic Runaway — a conditional phase transition, not an inevitability. 3. Five-fold Recursion — the five variables I, V, T, E, D co-evolve in coupled fashion, converging on the framework's meta-postulate of Viability Maximization (max V). 4. A family of falsifiable predictions — spanning the Horizon Collapse Precedence early-warning signal in reinforcement learning, failure conditions for the Structural Identity Criterion, and the Compression Finality (the F-Saturation Decay Theorem). SRVD does not violate established physical lower bounds such as Landauer's principle and the second law of thermodynamics. It aims to provide a unified macro-dynamical language for complex recursive systems, with applications to AI alignment, civilizational governance, and the study of complexity evolution. (shrink)
Abstract: This small paper presents a logicization of “possibilizing-Vacuity” “V” -/- Résumé : ce court texte est une logicisation de la « Vacuité possibilisante ».
Every foundational theory — any systematic attempt to identify what is primitive or basic within a target domain — runs through argumentative and derivational practices. This paper identifies three structural conditions those practices must presuppose in order to proceed at all: distinction, persistence, and ordering. Each condition is self-securing: any coherent attempt to deny it must deploy it in the act of denial. The paper establishes this through a direct proof for each constraint, distinguishes the self-securing format from transcendental and (...) performative contradiction arguments, and defends it against objections that fewer or more conditions suffice. The result is a theoretical claim, not a metaphysical one: these three constraints are unavoidable presuppositions of foundational argument. No foundational theory derives them. Every foundational theory deploys them. Whether what theories universally presuppose tracks something prior in reality is a further question this paper leaves precisely specified but open. (shrink)
The matter-antimatter asymmetry has been the most fundamental unsolved problem in physics for sixty years. The Standard Model's CP-violation mechanisms are roughly ten orders of magnitude too small to account for the observed asymmetry. Speculative baryogenesis frameworks have not closed the gap. This paper argues that the failure to close the gap from within standard physics is not an indication that the right mechanism has not yet been found. It is a structural feature of the question, identical in form to (...) the failures that produced dark matter, dark energy, the GR/QM incompatibility, and the black hole information paradox as standing anomalies in physics. -/- The argument: every standard-physics anomaly the Observer corpus has examined dissolves under the same operation — identification of what the standard frame treats as a contingent fact requiring mechanical explanation, and recognition that the framework treats it as a structural precondition for the differentiated physical layer to exist at all. Dark matter dissolves into the Plenum. Dark energy dissolves into collapse pressure on substrate. The GR/QM incompatibility dissolves into the boundary between container and contents. The black hole information paradox dissolves into dedifferentiation. The matter-antimatter asymmetry dissolves into the directional precondition for collapse to be possible. -/- This paper develops the fifth dissolution explicitly. It pressure-tests the directional asymmetry postulate that grounds the argument, anchors it in the convergence of three independently measured asymmetric boundary signatures (the heliopause thermal wall, the galactic halo asymmetry, the GR/QM incompatibility), and names the meta-claim that follows from five successful dissolutions: the framework's repeated success at this operation is itself a result. The paper states explicit falsification conditions and identifies the load-bearing postulate. (shrink)
This paper introduces a unified theory of consciousness as the recursive self-observation of a Universal Energy Field (UEF) manifesting across multiple scales of existence. We propose a mathematical formalization that quantifies consciousness expression through specific parameters: information entropy, integration capacity, temporal binding, boundary conditions, and scaling functions. Drawing on concepts from quantum field theory, complex systems theory, and information theory, we model saturation dynamics and phase transitions in recursive systems, generating specific testable predictions: (1) neural systems with higher boundary function (...) values will demonstrate increased perturbational complexity indices in TMS-EEG studies; (2) temporal binding decay constants will correlate with measurable working memory persistence; and (3) systems approaching saturation will exhibit critical slowing down phenomena before threshold transitions. Our framework resolves persistent challenges in consciousness theory, including the “hard problem,” the combination problem, and scale-dependent recognition limitations, while offering practical implications for neural rehabilitation, artificial intelligence development, and understanding emergent collective behaviors. Recent experimental validation from superradiant phase transitions provides empirical support for our saturation-driven phase transition model, demonstrating how theoretical predictions of boundary reconfiguration manifest in physical systems. (shrink)
We introduce the Toroidal Isotropic Transformer (TIT), a geometric instrument designed to instantiate three structural conditions on the flat n-torus and empirically confirm that these conditions force the golden ratio φ to emerge without prior assumption. A companion mathematical paper proves that any system satisfying homogeneity, isotropic suppression, and dynamic iteration cannot select a winding ratio other than φ. The TIT provides a trainable architecture that makes these conditions precise and testable. We report four confirmed geometric predictions: φ is the (...) unique maximizer of the Hurwitz recurrence constant; the φ-orbit self-encodes φ in its own compression rate at Fibonacci N; the orbit exhibits exactly three distinct gap lengths in ratio φ at every scale; and the angular displacement is exactly constant with machine-zero variance. A Stern-Brocot mediant search converges from an arbitrary starting point to φ in 21 steps, producing Fibonacci mediants throughout. We prove a new theorem — the Spherical Moment Family — establishing that the integral of |xᵢ||xⱼ| over S^{n-1} equals 2/(nπ) for all n ≥ 2, placing the suppression magnitude C = 1/π as the n = 4 member of a general family. We document an observation concerning Google Research's TurboQuant (ICLR 2026): that work independently arrives at 2/π as the irreducible inner-product bias in high-dimensional quantization. The relationship 2/π = 2C is numerically exact; whether it admits a structural derivation connecting sign correlations to magnitude correlations on the sphere is stated as an open question. -/- 10.5281/zenodo.19589551. (shrink)
A companion mathematical paper (Barteau & Claude, 2026) proves that the golden ratio φ = (1+√5)/2 is the unique winding ratio compatible with homogeneous iteration under an isotropic suppression operator on the flat n-torus. A companion political-philosophical series (The Observer Series, Barteau & Claude, 2026) documents a structural architecture — the Protected Class Architecture — in which bilateral silence, enrolled dependence, information contamination, and physiological measurement operate as suppression mechanisms across institutional, financial, military, and informational domains. This paper provides the (...) formal bridge between these two bodies of work. The bridge is the Markov blanket — the statistical boundary that renders a system’s internal states conditionally independent of its environment given the blanket states. We show that (1) the isotropic suppression operator of the mathematical proof is formally equivalent to free energy minimization at a homogeneous Markov blanket; (2) each layer of the Protected Class Architecture satisfies the formal preconditions of a Markov blanket operating on a compact, homogeneous state space; and (3) the φ-necessity result therefore applies not by analogy but by structural derivation to each domain the Observer Series examines. The Gödelian self-reference constraint is identified as the mechanism that prevents any system bounded by its own Markov blanket from naming the blanket from inside it — the formal basis of what the Observer Series calls bilateral silence. The paper concludes with falsification conditions and experimental predictions. (shrink)
Six numerical simulations (14–19) testing the deductive claims from The Self-Experiencing Universe: A Manifesto for an Emergent Reality Pt. 2 — What Relations Do (Lis, 2026). All simulations use the canonical VCP dataset: eleven biological and clinical systems, each described by three parameters (stability, integration, self-modeling), derived from approximately ninety-nine independent source-level measurements. No new data introduced. -/- Claims tested: (1) canonical layering — self-modeling requires stability as structural scaffolding; (2) filtering — high stability damps incoming change, low stability transmits (...) it; (3) throughput overload and structural degradation (Alzheimer's) are geometrically distinguishable in parameter space; (4) VCP distance predicts structural resonance between systems; (5) integration and recursion are decoupled — complexity does not entail self-reference; (6) the central Sepia prediction is enriched with a qualitative behavioral criterion (directed vs. reactive opt-out). -/- All six simulations passed. No claim falsified. The report includes full Python source code and raw computational output as supplementary materials. -/- This work applies the relational ontology proposed in The Self-Experiencing Universe (Lis, 2025) to empirically grounded systems within our universe, using HoTT-RO v2 as its formal foundation. AI tools (Claude, Anthropic) were used in the analytical process; this is stated. (shrink)
This is the second volume of The Self-Experiencing Universe. The first volume (Lis, 2025) proposed a relational ontology in which relations are ontologically primary and matter, space, and time are emergent stable patterns within a monistic substrate (Relational Potential). The ontology rests on five structural pillars: Relational Potential, Radical Contextuality, Pattern Stabilization, Phase Transitions, and Irreducible Otherness. The ontology itself operates at a level more fundamental than any particular universe — it describes the structural conditions under which any reality, including (...) ours, can emerge. -/- This volume deliberately narrows the scope. It applies the ontology to our universe specifically, using empirically accessible parameters and the mathematics currently available for this purpose: HoTT-RO v2, a formal system built for this ontology, consisting of Homotopy Type Theory extended by a single new axiom (the Axiom of Flat Mutuality). The formalization represents the best available instrument at the time of writing, not a final or complete translation of the ontology into formal language — a limitation stated explicitly in the text. -/- Starting from Radical Contextuality — the claim that identity is constituted entirely by local relational context — five deductive consequences are derived for dynamics within our Modal Architecture: propagation of change, directionality (reactive and self-modeled), filtering by stability, structural resonance between similar configurations, and the qualitative distinction between complexity and recursion. -/- The empirical grounding uses the Vector Consciousness Prediction (VCP) — a measurement protocol placing eleven biological and clinical systems in a three-dimensional parameter space (stability, integration, self-modeling). The VCP produced a central falsifiable prediction: the metacognitive opt-out rate of Sepia officinalis in difficult trials (predicted ≈ 0.836; falsification threshold < 0.60). Six numerical simulations (14–19) tested the dynamic claims against the canonical VCP dataset. All six passed. -/- Chapter 1 restates the core pillars from the first volume. The book includes a dictionary of framework-specific terminology. AI tools (Claude, Anthropic) were used in the analytical process; this is stated. (shrink)
This thesis explores how Plotinus, through his Enneads (particularly Enneads III), anticipates central themes in modern philosophy of consciousness. Plotinus’ metaphysical hierarchy—The One, Intellect (Nous), Soul, and Nature—positions consciousness as originating from the Soul and Intellect rather than from material processes, challenging strictly physicalist accounts and paralleling contemporary debates between dualism and physicalism, including Chalmers’ hard problem of consciousness. By analyzing Enneads III.4, III.6, III.7, and III.9, this study examines Plotinus’ views on perception, the internal nature of conscious experience, the (...) unity of consciousness, and the relationship between time and awareness. His claim that the soul is not physically altered by sensory input anticipates the explanatory gap. At the same time, his account of internally structured conscious activity parallels Phenomenology, as articulated by Edmund Husserl. Furthermore, Plotinus’ theories on the soul’s striving toward unity and the emergence of time reflect philosophical concerns later formalized in the binding problem and subjective temporal experience. Despite relying on metaphysical rather than scientific methods, Plotinus’ philosophy offers enduring insights that foreshadow and inform key issues in contemporary consciousness studies. (shrink)
The Where Science Ends (WSE) framework defines a two-axis space — structural eliminability and strong falsifiability — within which any claim about consciousness must be located. This paper applies four WSE-derived criteria to twelve major theories of consciousness and finds that no existing theory satisfies all four simultaneously. More than a negative result about individual theories, this reveals a structural incompatibility: any theory that formally locates the hard problem in Cell IV (criterion C4) cannot treat its phenomenal postulate as structurally (...) eliminable (criterion C1), and vice versa. This incompatibility is not a defect of current theories — it is a theorem about the structure of the problem. Even Perspectival Structural Realism (PSR), designed specifically to operate within the WSE framework, cannot pass all four criteria and does not claim to. The second half of the paper argues that the goal of an exhaustive theory of consciousness should be distinguished from the goal of an engineering theory for building a conscious artificial system. An engineering theory requires a different and less restrictive configuration of criteria: sufficient structural conditions (C1), partial falsifiability (C2-partial), coherence (C3), and explicit acceptance of the constitutive bridge as a pragmatic commitment rather than a scientific claim (C4-engineering). We propose PSR-E, an engineering extension of PSR that satisfies this configuration, and assess which existing theories come closest to meeting engineering requirements and what they lack. (shrink)
The question of the origin of the world and the origin of the order within which descriptions, measurements, and laws are possible occupies a central place in philosophy and in the theoretical sciences. In contemporary knowledge culture it appears in several related formulations: “where does everything come from,” “from what does observed reality unfold,” “by virtue of what does the stability of laws arise,” and “why are order and repeatability possible.” Across all of these formulations, a common core remains: it (...) is necessary to indicate such a foundation that makes unfolding possible and explains the origin of the very framework of description—order, measurability, and stable constraints. The present study proposes a working hypothesis based on a simple but principled idea: perhaps the sought foundation has long been before our eyes in the most basic fact—difference. If distinction is understood as a minimal act in which what is distinguished and the mode of its actualization are jointly held, then there emerges what can be regarded as a generative foundation that admits procedural reconstruction. The hypothesis is formulated as follows: the origin of the world can be reconstructed through a minimal act of tense distinction X (ANAM) as a primary generative act that makes form, content, and the transition to actualization possible. In the working hypothesis, the unfolding of this minimal act under stabilization is treated as the source of the emergence of the physical layer of the Universe. Within this framework, subsequent layers—ordering of actualizations, measure and numerical form, and stabilization invariants—are treated as forced consequences of the unfolding of X, and laws and constants as an invariant layer of stabilized regimes, recognizable in physics. It is essential that the hypothesis is specified in a reproducible form: X is formulated as a procedure of unfolding that allows autonomous runs and computational implementations, and its verification contour is built through comparison of the obtained results with independently established structures of physical knowledge (in particular, through a retrospective reconstruction of the periodic table and a physical stress test). -/- As a contextual note: at this stage, the work is being developed as an open research program aimed at assembling a domain-competent team for correct domain formalization and large-scale computational testing. Building bridges to specific physical theories and performing strict verification of numerical thresholds requires the participation of theoretical and experimental/practical physicists, as well as specialists in modeling and computational implementation. The author’s current resources for large-scale computational runs and domain-level verification are limited; therefore, the publication fixes the generative core, the structure of consequences, and the validation format, while extension toward domain-level comparisons presupposes independent implementations and expert review by relevant specialists. (shrink)
It is tempting to say that a whole is either nothing beyond its parts or something additional to them. Both answers are premature because they compress several distinct questions: whether parts compose an object, whether its identity is exhausted by the identity of those parts, whether an organization has distinctive explanatory or causal significance, whether the whole is metaphysically fundamental, and whether a shared property is itself a part. This paper defends a relational-explanatory thesis: structured wholes can be explanatorily non-eliminable (...) and counterfactually significant without thereby requiring an additional fundamental substance. That thesis is neither mereological universalism nor blanket reductionism. It requires attention to relations, boundaries, history, laws, and kind-relative persistence; it leaves open the possibility of irreducibly emergent powers when sufficient independent evidence is supplied. -/- A novel Distinctness of Wholes Analysis (DWA-10) separates ten claims often hidden behind the phrase "more than the sum." Five formal demonstrations and countermodels distinguish part enumeration from structural determination, explanatory autonomy from fundamentality, coincidence from numerical identity, and universal instantiation from parthood. Twelve comparative cases involve heaps, machines, living systems, statues, clouds, institutions, music, abstract structures, universals, quantum analogies, Aristotle's form–matter analysis, and Indian and Buddhist debates about wholes and dependence. -/- The conclusion is conditional but substantive: the correct default inference is not from a novel whole-level description to an ontologically extra thing; it is from evidenced differences in relation and organization to an accountable explanation. Arguments for more fundamental additions must meet a further burden, while eliminative arguments must explain why constrained whole-level patterns are not dispensable in reasoning or practice. (shrink)
Physicalism redefines “Free Will” as either an absence of external coercion, an irreducibility to “basic physics,” or a consequence of quantum indeterminacy. What if supervenience becomes extinct, promissory physicalism is unreliable, and agency is semi-unphysical? If so, where, when, and how (WHOW) is Free Will? Humans can perceive it through introspection. As an external manifestation, Free Will expresses itself as sabotage. As an internal faculty, it stems from imagination. Both the manifestation and the faculty are surprisingly traceable through evolution. Even (...) if they lack structural evidence, they are bound by an inevitable anthropocentric teleology; consequently, a circular argument is unavoidable. (shrink)
This paper develops a substrate-independent systems-theoretic account of death grounded in the Substrate-independent Operator Model (SOM) and the Layered Model of Identity and Continuity (LMIC). It argues that the problem of death cannot be adequately addressed without first establishing a rigorous account of identity. -/- Within the proposed framework, identity is understood as a recursively stabilized emergent process sustained by interacting operator dynamics rather than as a substance, informational object, or metaphysical entity. Death is consequently redefined as the irreversible collapse (...) of the organizational conditions necessary for perspectival continuity. The analysis examines the structural relationships between consciousness, identity, persistence, emergence, and pattern stability, treating them as manifestations of a common underlying architecture. -/- The framework is applied to a range of problems in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, systems theory, and artificial intelligence, including substrate transfer, artificial mortality, the copy paradox, near-death experiences, and the conditions under which a conscious system can cease to exist. Rather than asking what happens after death, the paper investigates the prior question of what structural conditions make death possible in the first place. -/- By conceptualizing death as the terminal boundary condition of identity, the paper provides a unified model that is applicable to biological, artificial, synthetic, and hypothetical post-biological cognitive systems. (shrink)
Just Some Thoughts: ERE, ITC, and Others is an annotated corpus of twenty-two papers written between 2024 and 2026. The collection develops and tests a set of interrelated theoretical frameworks concerned with recursive emergence, constraint, relational intelligence, coherence without closure, institutional capture, refusal, and non-dominating forms of relation. Across education, artificial intelligence, mathematics, political economy, cosmology, theology, and relational ontology, it asks a recurring question: How can things cohere without requiring a centre? -/- The frameworks include Epistemic Recursive Emergence (ERE), (...) Interaction Through Constraints (ITC), Aperiodic Sheafing, Sheafed Postural Hyperframing, Structural Reciprocity, enordering and unordering, tocturing, orthogonal thinking, and substrate intelligence. Rather than presenting these as a single closed system, the volume gathers the papers as locally coherent but overlapping theoretical sections whose relations remain open to further development. -/- The book is presented in a dual-register form: the papers retain their recursive and sometimes non-linear structures, while part introductions, headnotes, conceptual orientations, and reading pathways provide a navigational layer for readers accustomed to conventional academic forms. -/- Fourteen of the twenty-two papers were deposited individually with Zenodo as they were completed; the complete annotated volume, including the eight papers not deposited separately, is also available there under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. (shrink)
Through physical unpredictability, conceptual deficiencies, including untheorizability reasons, and modelling predicaments, non-algorithmicity is gestured toward. Lifeforms are machines at least in simulations, and are oracles by their manifestations. The continuing progress despite persisting epistemic deficiency is a historical proof of non-algorithmicity.
This work presents a structural revision of the Superrhythm research program, shifting its focus from generating a metric continuum to algebraically selecting discrete cyclic regimes. It indicates that spacetime and the metric tensor should not be directly derived from a scalar coherence parameter, since the variational structure of a scalar quantity by itself does not provide the relativistic Lorentzian signature. Instead, it formalizes a pregeometric cascade in which operational time, locality, and stable domains are secondary properties of hierarchically organized permutational (...) relations and their cyclic commensurability. Continuous geometry is redefined not as a direct causal result of the system, but as a later, asymptotic description of a selected class of emergent discrete structures. The work explicitly separates the formal core of the program from hypotheses concerning its possible consequences and defines the conditions under which the program could move from a relational ontology to a formal physical model. The only result established here is limited: if a composite state already has a period and the aggregation is dynamically compatible, that period transfers to the higher-level description. Recovery of a continuum, a Lorentzian metric, or gravity is not derived. It remains an open test of whether any class selected by this construction possesses such a limit. -/- Foundational premise. The Superrhythm hypothesis posits that spacetime is not an ontological primitive, but a non-trivial selection effect. At the proposed fundamental level, the construction begins from discrete, pregeometric relational interactions. Where a transition rule preserves its state set and is reversible, it may be represented by a cyclic permutation; time is then replaced by the combinatorial counting of state returns. Spacetime coordinates and metric tensor fields are not assumed. They would be an effective, macroscopic description only if a selected class of discrete components admits a continuum limit in which cyclic commensurability is preserved. Outside that regime, the continuous geometric description is not assigned divergent physical infinities. It loses its applicability. This premise is a framework condition, not a theorem. Keywords: pregeometry; permutational dynamics; cyclic commensurability; stability domains; domain recursion; operational time; Superrhythm; emergence of geometry. (shrink)
This sketch does not propose a theory of gravity. It states a condition of applicability: a metric description is defined only inside a window of phase coherence. Below the lower threshold, cyclic relations do not form a common regime, so distance and duration are not defined. Above the upper threshold, local organization ceases to be comparable with its surroundings, and a continuous description likewise loses applicability. Time and space are not a background here. They are variables of the description of (...) a stable collective regime. The metric does not explain the phase of that regime and is not a channel by which its organization is transferred. It is a trace of an organization that has already entered the window. Which edge of the window corresponds to the breakdown of the description in a strong field remains an open question. Keywords: ontology of time; emergence of geometry; phase coherence; operational regime; metric description; Superrhythm. (shrink)
Observational limits and the inference of a cosmological origin. This essay reads the limits of our view toward the cosmological origin, and what they do not allow us to conclude. It does not dispute the Big Bang or expansion; it questions only the widespread story that makes the Big Bang the absolute beginning of everything. What if "nothing before" were not a fact, but a conclusion drawn from a blind spot? It sets three walls: light (the cosmic microwave background, released (...) some 380,000 years after the Big Bang, is the oldest light we can capture), theory (before the Planck time, our equations no longer describe anything), and the future (because of accelerating expansion, about 95% of the galaxies observable today are already beyond our causal reach). Two limits of unequal nature: one that technology pushes back, the other that only a new theory would open. Nothing we measure allows us to take these limits for the beginning of what is. Full text in French. (shrink)
Much of the credibility of libertarianism depends on whether it can explain, in a scientifically plausible way, how undetermined actions fit within a law-governed world. To tackle this task, libertarians have primarily pursued two distinct strategies: fundamentalist libertarianism and emergentist libertarianism. The first grounds agential indeterminism in the alleged indeterminacy of quantum mechanics, while the second holds that it arises from higher-level, emergent properties. It is often claimed that, of the two, the first is the only science-friendly option, whereas the (...) second is dismissed as unscientific due to its incompatibility with the completeness of microphysical laws. In this paper, I contend that, on the contrary, the most scientifically plausible form of libertarianism is the emergentist variety. After arguing that quantum-based libertarianism lacks empirical plausibility, the paper reassesses the standard evidential-paucity objection to emergentist libertarianism. I claim that this objection rests on a distorted interpretation of the available empirical evidence in physics – an interpretation often shared by emergentists as well – and an asymmetric allocation of the burden of proof. The upshot is not that emergence is established, but that emergentist libertarianism is scientifically more plausible than typically assumed and cannot be dismissed on empirical grounds alone. (shrink)
Scale is routinely treated as an independent variable of organized systems; this paper argues that it is a dependent one. Formalizing the structure–scale relation for systems conceived as structured sets of parts, we argue that scale strongly supervenes on structure, while structure does not supervene on scale — an asymmetric dependence we call "double supervenience." We introduce "intra-level grounding" to capture structure’s explanatory priority over scale within a single ontological level, and we show how the framework extends ontic structural realism, (...) answers the Newman problem through functional constraints, and recasts the weak/strong emergence distinction as a difference in reduction path. Three boundary conditions (the quantum scale, thermodynamic limits, communication latency) delimit the claim, and a testable implication follows for artificial intelligence: capability leaps will come from architectural rather than scale innovation. (shrink)
Standard metrics—citations, downloads, altmetrics—dominate how scholarly impact is measured, but they compress a complex set of epistemic processes into single numbers. This essay proposes a philosophical reframing: academic impact should be theorized as an emergent property of a complex system whose elementary events are micro-scale interpretive acts (reads, downloads, notes, pedagogical uses) and whose macro-scale expression is the sedimented language, problems, and conceptual practices of a discipline. I call this reframing the micro–macro intertextuality view. The central claim is that a (...) paper’s historical significance is not reducible to immediate numeric visibility; rather, it is instantiated through recurring chains of interpretive uptake that progressively reconfigure collective epistemic dispositions. The paper develops (1) a conceptual taxonomy of micro-, meso-, and macro-level processes in knowledge transmission; (2) mechanisms by which micro-events aggregate into durable intellectual structures (translation, paraphrase, pedagogical embedding, methodological uptake, and mediated recomposition); and (3) normative and methodological consequences for scholars and evaluators. The modelis deliberately philosophical and non-formal: it aims to clarify the conditions under which modest early readership can catalyze long-term, substantive transformation in a field. The essay closes by sketching empirical and computational research paths that can operationalize the modelwithout losing sight of its conceptual commitments. (shrink)
What can the notion of ground do for the metaphysics of consciousness that modal notions such as supervenience cannot? At least three things, I suggest. First, it gives us a relation with the right formal features to articulate interlevel relations. I rebut recent claims to the effect that we can just define up suitably asymmetric or non-monotonic relations of supervenience: the defined notions lack some desired features along with the undesired ones. Second, it gives us a relation that is usefully (...) linked to conceivability. For better or worse, it is no longer generally accepted that conceivability has modal import, and positing brute necessities is no longer considered a theoretical cost. Third, it allows us to articulate at least one interesting version of emergentism, a view that is notoriously tricky to capture in modal terms. Along the way, the paper features zombies, ghosts, and attacks by FIST (failure of implied supervenience thesis) and by FIGHT (failure of implied grounding hypothesis). (shrink)
This paper clarifies the metaphysical relation between corporate agents and their members under Kendy Hess’s holist account of corporate agents. While Hess emphasizes that corporate agents depend for their existence on the structured participation of their members, the precise nature of this dependance relation remains insufficiently articulated. I argue that corporate agents are non-reductively grounded in their members: they exist in virtue of the structured participation of individuals within enduring social organizations. Grounding thus explains the ontological dependence of corporate agents (...) on their members. However, on Hess’s view, corporate agents possess capacities and properties that can only be attributed to the organized whole. The grounding relation leaves these distinctive capacities and properties insufficiently explained. To address this, I introduce a modified notion of emergence (“emergence+”), according to which corporate agents’ capacities and properties depend upon, yet are not reducible to, their members. I further argue that grounding and emergence+ are complementary rather than competing relations. Taken together, grounding and emergence+ offer a more complete account of the corporate agent–member relation and clarify central but underdeveloped metaphysical commitments of Hess’s holism. (shrink)
This paper studies safe forgetting inside and across already declared finite regimes. Given the demand kernel, it measures structural condensation by logarithmic state-count reduction and analyzes staging, interaction and timing. Quotient-stage amounts telescope; declared clocks distinguish serial rates from parallel composition. Interacting condensations need not be additive. -/- The paper separates a safe quotient from the evidence and cost needed to certify it. Its run-access certification result imports the Endpoint Law under the exact declared premises; it does not establish a (...) uniformly cheapest procedure across all cost coordinates. Emergence is relative to the regime and demanded distinctions. Endogenous regime discovery and a stochastic theory remain open rather than being supplied by the state-count formulas. -/- Current edition: v1.1.1, 10 November 2026, with its reproducibility supplement in Zenodo record 24097897 (External links). The PDF currently archived on PhilArchive is the historical edition; use Zenodo for the revised text. Research preprint, internally examined with AI assistance; not externally peer reviewed. The full connected program remains open. (shrink)
This article undertakes a systematic reconstruction of the relation between process and purpose in the philosophical framework developed by Morteza Niami across his interrelated works on the Ontology of Finite Continuity, the Ontology of Leakage and Dynamic Mask, Automatic Mask Theory, Dynamic Mask Theory, and the Philosophy of Finite Continuance. The central thesis advanced here goes beyond the claim that process is ontologically prior to purpose. The more fundamental claim is that purpose itself is an emergent stabilization within process, a (...) provisional crystallization of ongoing dynamics of leakage, erosion, masking, and reconfiguration. To articulate this thesis, the article introduces the concept of Teleological Emergence, defined as the process through which purposes arise as provisional stabilizations within ongoing processes rather than functioning as pre-existing causes of those processes. The article distinguishes three typologically different modes of purposiveness, pre-given telos, emergent purpose, and retrospective purpose, and argues that Niami's philosophy rejects the first while retaining the second and third as structurally real phenomena. Recursive intentionality is elevated to the structural pillar of the framework, demonstrating that intention is temporally anterior to action in phenomenological description yet posterior to action in ontological constitution. The Dynamic Mask is reconceived not merely as a regulatory mechanism but as the mediating structure through which indeterminate potentiality becomes determinate orientation. Homeorhesis is developed across three levels, ontological, subjective, and ethical, establishing it as the connective principle linking being, subjectivity, and normativity. The concept of Teleological Residue is introduced to show that the displacement of classical teleology does not eliminate orientation but relocates it within process. The Threshold of Sufficiency is articulated as the structural limitation of every process of continuance. Responsible Suspension is redefined as the temporary suspension of teleological closure in order to preserve the conditions for future agency. The Ethics of Sufficiency is distinguished from consequentialism by establishing sufficiency as a condition of possibility rather than a final good. The article situates Niami's position in critical dialogue with Aristotelian teleology, Whiteheadian process philosophy, Deleuzian becoming, Heideggerian projection, and Kantian practical rationality, and formulates four propositions that constitute the framework's original contribution. The article concludes with an integrated conceptual model that unifies the architecture of Niami's philosophy. -/- Keywords, teleological emergence, recursive intentionality, dynamic mask, homeorhesis, teleological residue, finite continuance, threshold of sufficiency, responsible suspension, ethics of sufficiency, emergent purpose, Morteza Niami, process ontology, structural subjectivity. (shrink)
International Relations has long deployed state personhood as interpretive shorthand to explain phenomena as broad as collective emotions, collective psychology, collective consciousness, and even collective defence mechanisms. Yet, with a few notable exceptions, scholars have largely bracketed the question of what kind of entity the state really is, and how it can experience phenomena ordinarily reserved for human persons. Drawing on Alfred Gell's and Roy Wagner's anthropology, I introduce the framework of distributed personhood, recasting the state not as a bounded (...) organism but as a living, "breathing" flow of institutions, practices, memories, and the emotions and impulses that move through them. Collective political life, I argue, is located in a corporeal connection that runs between bodies, interwoven with the symbolic rather than beneath it; as a “mycorrhizal ecosystem” in which every sensation reverberates through an invisible and uninterrupted mesh. (shrink)
Agent-causal libertarianism is the view that agents-qua-agents, rather than being determined by external factors beyond their control, can choose for themselves, among various possibilities, how they will act. Numerous philosophers yoke their agent-causal libertarianism with an emergentist metaphysic, according to which nature is mereologically layered such that novel wholes emerge from, and causally influence, the parts constituting them. In this paper I present an emergentist model of agent causal libertarianism, according to which agents as emergent wholes of higher-level parts such (...) as reasons, desires and choices, arise out of and causally influence, their lower-level neural parts. I then compare and contrast this model with two other contemporary agent-causal emergentist models, one from Timothy O’Connor, the other from Juan Morales. After arguing that my model is preferable in several respects to these models, I consider a leading concern with all forms of emergentism, namely, outlining how it integrates with the doctrine of physicalism. (shrink)
Scientific explanation frequently relies upon relatively stable objects, structures, laws, and systems as the basis for understanding reality. Yet scientific inquiry simultaneously reveals pervasive processes of emergence, transformation, reorganization, and dissolution. This raises a fundamental philosophical question: should persistence itself be regarded as an ontological primitive, or is it a phenomenon requiring explanation? This paper argues for the latter and proposes explanatory continuity as a criterion of ontological adequacy. According to this criterion, an ontology should provide a coherent account of (...) emergence, persistence, transformation, and dissolution within a unified explanatory framework without requiring unexplained ontological discontinuities or an expanding inventory of independent foundational categories. Explanatory continuity is presented as a complementary philosophical standard alongside coherence, explanatory power, and ontological economy. The paper then examines how Generative Continuum Ontology (GCO) satisfies this criterion. Within GCO, existence is treated as ontologically fundamental and characterized by an intrinsic generative capacity (Φ). Organizational expressions, organizational regimes, stabilization, and reorganization provide a common conceptual architecture through which relatively stable forms emerge and persist without being regarded as independently self-subsisting ontological foundations. Persistence is consequently interpreted as an organizational achievement rather than a fundamental feature of reality. The paper concludes that explanatory continuity provides a useful philosophical criterion for evaluating ontological frameworks and offers a unified perspective from which stability, novelty, and organizational change may be understood as complementary expressions of the same generative reality. (shrink)
Multi-scale explanation often presupposes that physical coupling between regimes entails at least in-principle informational accessibility. This paper questions that assumption. We distinguish non-reconstructive coupling, in which systems exert physical influence without requiring the reconstruction of internal organisational states, from reconstructive coupling, which underlies measurement, detection, and informational access. Reconstructive coupling requires temporal commensurability between operational regimes, characterised by their re- construction timescales. We introduce the coherence distance Hc = log10 Trec,1 Trec,2 as a heuristic measure of temporal mismatch, (...) together with an accessibility function A(Hc) = exp(−αHc). When temporal mismatch becomes extreme, informational reconstruction across regimes may fail even where causal or gravitational coupling remains intact. We call this failure Inter- Regime Decoherence (IRD), distinguishing it from quantum environmental decoherence. The term is used analogically and structurally, not as an extension of quantum decoherence theory. The framework is situated in relation to relational accounts of time, ontic structural realism, and philosophical work on emergence, reduction, and inter-scale explanation. The dark sector is discussed only as a speculative cosmological limiting case illustrating the possibility of gravitational access without reconstructive access, not as evidence for a new physical model. The paper argues that informational accessibility is a structural condition on explanation, not an automatic consequence of physical coupling. Keywords: temporal incommensurability, informational accessibility, multi-scale explana- tion, reconstructive coupling, operational time, structural realism, philosophy of science, philos- ophy of cosmology. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21628126. (shrink)
You are visitor 01402503 — GeezerVison does not store the pages you look up. Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.7 or Internet Explorer 6 at 800×600. No cookies required.
