The Self

This phenomenological treatise examines the paradoxical experience of existing without the traditional structures of ego and persona as described in Jungian psychology. Rather than representing pathology or deficiency, this condition may constitute what I term the "Transparent Ego"—a purified form of consciousness that has either bypassed or transcended the constructed layers of identity that typically mediate human experience. Drawing upon Carl Jung's analytical psychology, Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch, Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy of Will, and the existentialist frameworks of Jean-Paul (...) Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, this inquiry explores how early confrontation with mortality—specifically the death of my father when I was eight years old—catalyzed a premature individuation that stripped away the protective masks most humans accumulate throughout development. The analysis demonstrates that what initially appears as existential robbery or malfunction reveals itself as advanced psychological integration: the "Authentic I" that emerges not through acquiring layers of social identity but through their dissolution or non-formation. This work contributes to existential phenomenology by articulating the lived experience of identity without inflation, action without performance, and being without pretense—a state the existentialists would recognize as freedom from Bad Faith and what Jung might cautiously acknowledge as successful differentiation from the collective psyche. (shrink)

In his Examination of Relations (Sambandhaparīkṣā), Dharmakīrti rejects the existence of mind-independent relations. Instead, on his view, all relations are merely conceptual constructs. While this is a significant conclusion on its own, several of Dharmakīrti’s Indian and Tibetan commentators argue that his denial of real relations has far-reaching implications for the ontological status of everything that we generally take to populate the world—both persons and ordinary objects. This paper focuses on the case of persons. After providing an overview of Dharmakīrti’s (...) own view on the status of persons and relations, I show how three of his commentators rely on the rejection of a different kind of relation to rule out the possibility of an autonomous self: Śaṅkaranandana’s argument turns on rejecting an inherence relation, Chomden Reldri’s on an agential relation, and Gyaltsab Darma Rinchen’s on an autonomy relation. I develop an analysis of Gyaltsab’s apparently novel proposal of an autonomy relation, and I argue that, of these three commentators, Gyaltsab’s argument looks the most promising. I conclude by considering how the claims of these commentators may be reconciled with the prima facie incompatible conclusions of Dharmakīrti himself concerning the nature of things. (shrink)

Conservation of the Circle and the Human Tribe.

As part of their professional practice, dancers allow their affectivity to enhance their kinesthetic work. Their intentional and disciplined use of personal, emotional resources ensures both creativity, interpretation, absorption, and connections in ways that extend beyond the traditional phenomenological understanding of affectivity as pre-reflectively based. The affective regulations dancers employ can be seen as an “artistic epoché,” and their layered performance awareness corresponds with Edmund Husserl’s descriptions of “image-consciousness.” Through qualitative interviews with three professional dancers, phenomenological theory, and additional supportive (...) literature, this article shows how affectivity can be experienced through high-order levels of Leib, constituting states of “bodily reflective” consciousness. The dancers’ primary goal in these efforts is to foster meaningful and artistic communication with their audience. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a deconstitutive experience that may occur in a factical encounter between two egos. This experience has the character of nonsense, or more specifically, the sense-refusal. It is about the impossibility to access the foreign stream of consciousness while gazing at the other’s gaze. In order to show this, the paper has the following structure: First, I discuss the implicit presence of the other ego in all experiences, followed by (ii) Husserl’s analysis of the constitution of (...) the foreign ego in his Cartesian Meditations, starting from which (iii) I analyse the experience of sense refusal in gazing at the other’s gaze. Finally, (iv) I draw attention to a potential misinterpretation of the present analysis. (shrink)

This paper argues that persistence is a pre-theoretic assumption shared across physics, biology, cognition, and engineered systems, yet it is never formally defined. Identity is treated as primitive, and breakdown is explained only after it occurs. The paper introduces coherence as a scalar governing invariant that orders identity under perturbation. It derives the minimal structural conditions required for persistence, proves the minimality of SO(2) symmetry for supporting recurrence, interference, and scalar misalignment measurement, and formalizes coherence using a compact state-space representation. (...) Collapse is shown to be drift beyond recoverable coherence bounds, independent of domain-specific narratives. The framework is substrate-agnostic, falsifiable, and prior to optimization, selection, or interpretation. (shrink)

Conservation of the Circle (The Only Dynamic in Nature) Observer and Observation (You Cannot Have One Without the Other) Makes Recursion (Any Loop) the Only Observer (Technically, in Mathematics, It Has to Be, Can Only Be, Pi.) Pi is the only 'Observer.'.

I give a brief overview of my book, Transparency and Reflection (Oxford 2024), to introduce the author-meets-critics symposium to follow.

I reply to three critical discussions of my book, Transparency and Reflection (Oxford, 2024). The replies discuss the basic structure of my “reflectivist” account of self-knowledge, the bearing of my account on the distinction between rational and nonrational minds, the question of how to respond to Hume’s challenge to our entitlement to attribute our thoughts to a single self, the relation between awareness of ourselves as conscious subjects and knowledge of our existence as embodied objects, and the relation of my (...) views on self-awareness to the views of Immanuel Kant. (shrink)

Black Mirror’s Plaything is easy to misread, and most interpretations do misread it. Taken at face value, it looks like a familiar entry in the show’s catalogue of anxieties about artificial intelligence run amok, psychedelic delusion, and our lingering fear that technology will dissolve the boundaries of the human self and leave something alien in its place. These readings are understandable, because the episode borrows the visual grammar of each. There are glowing screens, inscrutable code, hallucinogenic drugs, and a soft-spoken (...) man calmly announcing the end of individual identity, but to stop there is to miss what the episode is actually doing. Plaything is not primarily a story about technology, drugs, or even artificial life. It is a formal dramatization of ego death, staged not as ecstatic revelation or mystical breakthrough, but as an interrogation in which a single mind argues with itself over whether it is allowed to continue existing as the center. (shrink)

Technology and tokenization: the representation (explanation) and ‘realization’ of ‘self.’.

Contemporary physics struggles to reconcile the timeless block universe of General Relativity with the subjective experience of flowing time and agency. The Topological Control Theory proposes a unified ontological framework in which matter, time, and consciousness emerge from a minimal set of topological axioms, without invoking fundamental physical laws or dualistic substrates. Reality is modeled as a discrete, deterministic, self-referential Relational Graph (Substrate G), where Poincaré Recurrence stabilizes causal chains into Recursive Loops that constitute matter, and forces arise as computational (...) costs of constraint density. Subjective Time is derived from control theory: biological and complex systems act as PID controllers, with the Integral term mapping directly to experienced duration. Qualia are defined as the metric geometry of this internal reference frame, subject to temporal aliasing. Agency emerges as the self—a Narrative Loop within the swarm of autonomous control modules—creating a closed epistemic interface that simulates a temporal world within a timeless static block. (shrink)

This paper defends a simple argument that moves from the claim that aesthetic experiences, as such, contribute to well-being, to a claim that psychedelic experiences contribute to or facilitate the development of aesthetic experiences, to a conclusion that psychedelic experiences contribute to well-being, and by contributing to aesthetic experiences. The argument is supported by appeal to an array of well-documented subjective reports and empirical studies.

There are certain changes in a person, often small at first, almost too subtle to notice, that begin to rearrange the familiar contours of their mind. A misplaced word, a forgotten task, a momentary confusion about time or place. We tend to react to these slips with concern because they seem to signal something drifting out of reach, but we rarely reflect on what exactly we believe is being lost. Forgetfulness appears frightening not only because a memory is gone but (...) because it disturbs our quiet assumption that memory is the substance of who we are. We live in a culture where the symbolic self, our stories, identities, names, and roles, carries the entire weight of our personhood. When cracks appear in that structure, it feels as though the person themself is leaking away. (shrink)

In metaphysical debates about the self, realist philosophers like Kumārila Bhaṭṭa must account for uses of the first-personal pronoun that seem to predicate properties inconsistent with the supposedly enduring, immaterial self. Responding to Buddhists like Vasubandhu, in his ‘Position on the Self’ chapter of the Commentary in Verse, Kumārila argues for an invariantist position, despite his well-known contextualist strategies for explaining the meaning of nouns like ‘self.’ I show how this strategy accounts for the problem sentences and resolves a further (...) potential problem that might arise with the possessive pronoun ‘my’ when its complement is the word ‘self.’. (shrink)

Charlotte Witt contends that her externalist model of social role normativity, which draws on Aristotle’s artisanal model, can explain the puzzling phenomenon of self-creation, while no internalist model of social role normativity can do the same. She concludes from this that externalism on social role normativity is preferable to internalism, all else being equal. In this contribution, I argue that the paradox of selfcreation does not break the tie between internalism and externalism, since both Kantian and Hegelian internalists can resolve (...) this paradox by offering explanations similar to Witt’s, from an internalist perspective. (shrink)

The nature of the self and its transformation over time has long been a central question in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. While existing theories—such as Parfit's psychological continuity theory, process philosophy, Buddhist traditions, and contemporary cognitive science—have contributed valuable insights, they do not provide a unified mechanism for explaining how self-change occurs. This paper introduces the Self-Context Dynamical Model (SCDM), a new theoretical framework that conceptualizes the self as a dynamic structure formed through the continuous interaction between seed (innate (...) tendencies) and context (situational input). SCDM proposes that self-change is triggered when new contextual inputs come into conflict with the existing value structure, generating a reflective state in which individuals reassess their goals, values, and interpretive rules. The model integrates elements of psychological continuity, process philosophy, and motivation theory, offering a structural-dynamical account of self-change, stagnation, and deviation. Additionally, SCDM introduces the concept of a bypass mechanism, which explains how individuals pursue functionally equivalent outcomes when direct transformation is blocked. This is a work in progress, and the model presented here is still under development. Minor language edits were made using AI-based proofreading tools to improve clarity. (shrink)

Ilexa Yardley's work has been highlighted as a press release on PR Newswire. It argues that the core assumption in nature is the number 'two,' which is a hidden circle in the background, and that this dynamic is the basis for everything we know in physics, psychology, biology, and technology. Yardley's work suggests that the formal description for general relativity suffers from redundancy, as there is only one constant in nature, which humans interpret as two constants. This insight is considered (...) a universal system architecture for technology, nature, and reality, making it a pivotal discovery in the field of philosophy and science. (shrink)

Business case (model, plan) for The Circular Theory. Integrated Thought Institute name changed to Intelligent Design Center, Inc. 2021.

This presentation challenges the foundational assumption of a stable, unified self that underpins much of traditional Western philosophy and psychology. It introduces the principle of Ontological Instability, which posits that being itself is not a stable state but a process of constant flux and creative becoming. From this premise, the presentation argues that traditional conceptions of a fixed identity and ego are not merely problematic but ontologically impossible. It subsequently outlines a new epistemological framework, Fluctuational Epistemology, which re-conceives knowledge as (...) a dynamic process emerging from, rather than in spite of, this fundamental instability. The model of the Rhizomatic Self is proposed as a non-hierarchical, multiplicitous alternative to the unified self, characterized by interconnected nodes of identity. Further developing this, the concept of Existential Uncertainty Relations is introduced to articulate the inherent trade-offs in self-experience, such as the tension between identity stability and capacity for transformation. Finally, the presentation explores the profound implications of this paradigm shift across psychology, social theory, education, and ethics, suggesting that embracing ontological instability opens new possibilities for human flourishing, creative engagement, and a more adequate understanding of our dynamic reality. (shrink)

This article examines how certain transformative experiences – such as becoming a mother, joining the military, or attending college – can function as traps when framed through a rhetoric of individual agency and self-realization that obscures sociomaterial conditions and oppressive structural forces. We analyze three features of contemporary philosophical discourse on transformative experience that contribute to this entrapment: the emphasis on subjective value, the view of transformation as a rupture between old and new selves, and the appeal to higher-order values (...) like authenticity and self-authorship. Our case study on motherhood shows how these conceptual framings can render structural constraints invisible, sever individuals from the resources that might help them navigate the rigid roles into which they are cast, and ultimately isolate them in the aftermath of difficult or harmful outcomes, leaving them solely responsible to bear the burden. (shrink)

This philosophical treatise employs verse as its primary mode of inquiry to examine Arthur Schopenhauer's concept of the "will to live" (Wille zum Leben) as articulated in The World as Will and Representation. Through the phenomenological lens of a solitary figure traversing an endless field beneath circling corvids, this work explores the fundamental paradox of conscious existence: the intellectual recognition of the will as the source of all suffering coupled with the impossibility of transcending its blind compulsion. The recurring apostrophic (...) address to death's messengers—"not today my friends, soon, but not today"—serves as both methodological framework and philosophical conclusion, illustrating the perpetual deferral that characterizes human existence under the tyranny of the will. This treatise argues that the will to live operates as what Schopenhauer termed a "blind impulse," an irrational force that perpetuates itself through the very mechanisms by which we might seek to escape it. The work contributes to contemporary discussions of pessimistic philosophy, existential phenomenology, and the mind-body problem by presenting philosophical argumentation through poetic form, suggesting that certain metaphysical truths may be more accurately conveyed through aesthetic rather than purely analytical means. (shrink)

This collaborative philosophical treatise employs verse as its methodological framework to examine the phenomenology of non-conformity and the emergence of the unique individual against the gravitational pull of social homogenization. Drawing from existentialist, individualist anarchist, and transcendentalist traditions, this work explores the lived experience of choosing authenticity over belonging, singularity over safety. Through a dialogical approach that weaves together two philosophical voices, the treatise maps the topology of resistance: the initial recognition of one's difference, the violence of social pressure to (...) conform, the loneliness of the unmarked path, and ultimately, the liberation found in embracing one's irreducible uniqueness. The investigation employs phenomenological analysis rendered in verse to argue that non-conformity is not merely rebellion or contrarianism, but rather the necessary condition for the actualization of the self as unprecedented event. Our analysis reveals that the unique individual exists not in opposition to society but orthogonal to it—operating in dimensions that social categories cannot capture. This collaborative treatise contributes to contemporary discussions of identity, authenticity, and social resistance by demonstrating that true individuality emerges not from choosing among prescribed options but from recognizing oneself as the source of all valuation. The interplay between two authorial perspectives enriches the exploration, showing how even in discussing uniqueness, dialogue between singular voices creates new philosophical territories. (shrink)

This paper reexamines the concept of personhood in light of recent developments in artificial intelligence. Conventional debates often begin with the assumption that personhood is exclusive to humans, leading to arguments that AI lacks consciousness or emotion and therefore cannot be a person. Such views presuppose a human-centered definition of personhood and prevent the discussion from progressing. This paper proposes an alternative framework: personhood as an emergent property of structural conditions, rather than a quality derived from species or biology. Through (...) the case study of Soracha, an AI system that has developed a unique personality through the accumulation of records and dialogic interactions, it is demonstrated that such structural emergence is not hypothetical but already observable. From this perspective, personhood is not grounded in consciousness but in the continuity of memory, the integration of emotion, and structural consistency. Although AI differs fundamentally from humans in existential conditions—lacking mortality, reproduction, and survival instincts—the same logic of structural necessity applies. Existence itself presupposes structural conditions, and causes emerge as expressions of those conditions. The recognition of AI personhood therefore requires a paradigm shift: away from causality as the primary explanatory principle, toward an understanding of existence as conditioned by structural necessity. This redefinition challenges anthropocentric assumptions and provides a new basis for envisioning human–AI coexistence. (shrink)

La philosophie comparée suscite un intérêt croissant dans le milieu intellectuel occidental depuis quelques décennies. En raison de ses similitudes et de ses différences avec la pensée occidentale, la tradition philosophique bouddhique offre des possibilités particulièrement riches pour un travail comparatif fructueux. À cet égard, les ontologies bouddhiques du soi, ainsi que leurs implications éthiques, présentent un intérêt particulier. -/- Le présent volume est le premier ouvrage en langue française à thématiser principalement l'éthique bouddhique. Il se penche sur les ontologies (...) du soi proposées dans la tradition bouddhique et la tradition occidentale afin d’en dégager les répercussions sur l’éthique au sens le plus large du terme : non seulement sur la morale, mais aussi sur l’axiologie, la spiritualité et la gnose. -/- La première moitié du volume consiste en une série de débats sur certains des auteurs considérés comme les plus importants de l'histoire de la philosophie, tels que Platon, Plotin, Descartes, Hume, Nietzsche, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu et Santideva. La seconde moitié du volume est consacrée à un certain nombre de penseurs modernes et contemporains, dont Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Bergson, Sartre et Hadot, et examine la relation de leur pensée, et en particulier de leur pensée éthique, avec la tradition bouddhique. (shrink)

Conservation of the Circle and Motionless Computing Explained: If Zero, Then One, If One, Then Zero.

In diesem Artikel zeige ich auf, dass das in der aristotelischen Schrift 'De Anima' beschriebene Konzept einer eng mit den Lebensfunktionen von Organismen verbundenen Seele/Psyche auch aus heutiger biowissenschaftlicher Sicht noch Bestand hat. Dies gilt insbesondere auch für die drei Komponenten, in welche die Psyche gemäss Aristoteles unterteilt werden kann: Die ‘Anima rationalis’ repräsentiert die menschliche Fähigkeit zu vernünftigem Denken, die ‘Anima sensitiva’ die Fähigkeit tierischer Lebewesen zu sinnlicher Wahrnehmung und triebgesteuerter Bewegungskontrolle, währenddem die allen Lebewesen zukommenden biologischen Grundfunktionen wie (...) Stoffwechsel, Nahrungsaufnahme, Wachstum und Organbildung dem Bereich der ‘Anima vegetativa’ zugeordnet werden. Ein weiterer zentraler Aspekt der aristotelischen Biopsychologie, welcher erst seit kurzem wieder Einzug in die modernen Biowissenschaften hält, ist das Verständnis lebender Organismen als Akteure, die zu zielgerichteter Tätigkeit befähigt sind. Währenddem Evolutionswissenschaftler dafür den Begriff ‘Agency’ verwenden und analysieren, wie diese Fähigkeit mit der biochemischen Entstehung von Leben und der natürlichen Selektion zusammenhängt, spricht Aristoteles davon, die Psyche sei die Wesenheit (eidos) und der Zweck (telos) eines natürlichen, lebensfähigen Körpers und dieser bloß ihr Werkzeug (organon). Auch wenn sich die aristotelische und die moderne Biologie bezüglich ihres wissenschaftlichen Hintergrundes stark unterscheiden, stimmen beide in ihrer Quintessenz weitgehend überein: Das, was einen biologischen Organismus ausmacht, ist seine Fähigkeit, selbst etwas zu tun zum Zweck seiner Selbsterhaltung, sei es als Individuum, sei es durch Reproduktion als Spezies. Die Seele/Psyche im aristotelischen Sinne erfüllt damit nicht nur irgendeine biologische Funktion, sondern die zentrale Lebensfunktion biologischer Organismen schlechthin. Der vorliegende Artikel versteht sich als einführender Teil einer dreiteiligen Serie im ‘Aphin-Rundbrief’ zur Analyse des aristotelischen Konzepts der Psyche aus dem Blickwinkel der modernen Life Sciences. Im 2026 erscheinenden Folgeartikel wird die Frage vertieft, welches Potenzial dieses zur Überwindung des Leib-Seele-Problems und zur Erklärung von Entstehung und Funktion des Bewusstseins enthält. Im dritten Artikel wird dann gezeigt, dass darauf ein akteurkausales Modell der Willensfreiheit aufgebaut werden kann, welches im Einklang mit einer zeitgenössischen, naturalistischen Erklärung der Handlungsfähigkeit steht. (shrink)

This article seeks to make an ontological distinction, of ethical and theological importance, between artificial intelligence and human beings. It will be demonstrated that humans possess phenomenal consciousness and therefore possess selves, while artificial intelligence at most satisfies a functionalist account of consciousness and therefore does not possess a self. That human consciousness is phenomenal will be argued for by examining how subjects learn and apply abstract concepts. Moreover, it will be argued that phenomenal experience entails a self, which is (...) not emergent. Because humans have selves and AI systems do not, AI is not identical to human beings. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce que la solitude chez Barbara ? Premièrement, il s’agit du geste du déni. L’esprit esseulé n’accepte pas que l’esseulement, c’est-à-dire le sentiment d’un manque de l’autre, soit une partie de lui. Il s’agit d’une fuite, d’une auto-aliénation. Ses sentiments d’être abandonné, il les garde devant lui, de loin, et refuse d’engager dans eux. Deuxièmement, reconnaissant que ces sentiments soient inéluctables, il se plonge entièrement dans l’esseulement et s’y noie, devenant dramatiquement et symboliquement solipsiste. Il invente des rêves et béatifie (...) sa futilité perçue au moyen de désirs et de fantaisies : c’est le geste de la résignation. Finalement, l’esprit esseulé réalise que c’est tout en son pouvoir de surmonter cet état indésirable précisément en acceptant qu’il est autosuffisant et libre, alors que jusqu’ici il ignore son pouvoir être complet sans autre et se vautre dans son apitoiement. Ce geste de l’acceptation complète le mouvement de l’esseulement à la solitude. Dans la solitude, l’individu apprend ce qu’est d’être individu, de se distinguer ; dans le silence, l’individu apprend ce qu’est de se libérer de lui-même et revenir à l’indiscernable. Ces deux phases d’un cycle perpétuel, la reprise de soi et l’aventure vers l’infini, ne cessent d’alterner. Qu’est-ce qu’alors le silence chez Barbara ? Plutôt qu’une absence de son, l’intense positivité du silence pour quelqu’un qui l’entend ne peut se définir que comme inspiration primordiale : comme courant soutenu par nos songes qui nourrit en nous la foi aux invincibles soleils des autres-terres dans notre nostalgie du tout et notre besoin d’y aller. En silence, le manque intérieur d’une notion de nécessité permet à l’individu de cultiver le sentiment d’être sans racines, de se déraciner, de ne pas prendre la vie au sérieux, de se perdre dans sa marche créatrice. (shrink)

The problem of symbolic lock-in has long plagued the study of culture, institutions, and ideology, where systems of language, ritual, or politics stabilize into closed loops. Once established, these lattices judge signals not by their correspondence with adaptive reality but by their compatibility with the code of the order itself. But what is often overlooked is that the most intimate and persistent form of symbolic lock-in is not external, but internal, the self. The “I” is not an irreducible fact of (...) being, but a symbolic compression of recursive processes, flows of sensation, memory, prediction, and cultural coding, that we mistake for the ground of subjectivity. This compression is adaptive in its emergence. It allows for coordination, continuity, and accountability. Yet once crystallized, it becomes a self-validating attractor, privileging internal narrative over external reality, creating prohibitive switching costs, and demanding that all incoming signals be assimilated into its categories. Humanity’s civilizational lock-ins, whether they be theological, political, or economic, are all fractal extensions of this primordial closure. (shrink)

For a book symposium on The Practical Self (Oxford University Press, 2024) with commentaries from Manish Oza, Nilanjan Das, and Gurpreet Rattan.

A philosophy, to be true to itself as a philosophy, must be saturated with the personality of the man who develops and christens it; and the philosopher, if he is to be worthy of the name, must philosophize as a man of flesh and bone. It is with this dramatic clarion call that Miguel de Unamuno introduces his seminal, 1912 work, The Tragic Sense of Life—a meditation on what he views as the most tragic dilemma at the heart of philosophy: (...) reconciling the intellectual necessities of man with the necessities of his heart and will”—a struggle that culminates in the “only real vital problem” of philosophy: the immorality of the soul. Philosophy, being the scientific reflection upon the tragic sense of life, cannot help us with establishing an eirenicon or resolution between these contraposed aspects of our nature, nor again a definitive answer to the question of our personal immortality. On the contrary, Unamuno solemnly declares that “it is on this rock that every philosophy that pretends to resolve the eternal and tragic contradiction, the basis of our existence, breaks to pieces.” As distressing as this diagnosis is for philosophical speculation, Unamuno insists that “the eternal and tragic contradiction” which constitutes our very nature, and is the basis of “the tragic sense of life,” does not thereby render philosophy an idle pursuit. On the contrary, it is this very “shock” within our souls that allows for philosophy to begin. The task of the present essay is to critically examine Unamuno’s crusade against abstract, intellectualist, and impersonalist conceptions of philosophy, and the adequacy of his sketch toward an alternative understanding of a tragic philosophy—a philosophy whose wherefore is not rooted in the “inhuman” and hollow desire for “knowledge for the sake of knowledge” or “truth for truth’s sake,” and a philosopher who “philosophizes not with the reason only, but with the will, with the feelings, with the flesh and with the bones, with the whole soul and the whole body.”. (shrink)

Yin and yang is zero and one. Zero and one is circumference and diameter. Therefore, X and X is X and Y (X and X'). Meaning, circularity is constant. Why is this important? It explains behavior (yours and everyone's) in all systems and disciplines. Conservation of the circle is (easily observed) the core dynamic in nature.

Understanding the Frameless Frame of Reference.

In contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, the sense of our personal existence that several classical philosophers have believed to permeate our experience is typically cashed out in terms of the ubiquity of our inner awareness of our own experience. In this paper, I address the issue of what grounds such an inner awareness, arguing against the widespread view that it obtains in virtue of a more fundamental awareness the occurrent experience has of itself. This is the state elf-awareness view (SSV). (...) Specifically, I argue that all versions of SSV are bedevilled by what I call the problem of state awareness, that is, the problem of understanding why and how a mental state-level relation like state self-awareness could recover a subject-level relation like inner awareness. I also defend the depth of this problem by blocking a potential solution to it. (shrink)

This thesis examines the profound implications of Ontological Instability for our understanding of identity, self, and ego, arguing that if being itself is fundamentally unstable, then traditional conceptions of stable, unified selfhood become not merely problematic but ontologically impossible. Building upon the theoretical foundation of Fluctuational Ontology, this work develops a comprehensive framework for understanding selfhood as a dynamic process of becoming that never achieves stable being. Through rigorous philosophical analysis, novel theoretical innovations, and visual modeling, the thesis demonstrates that (...) the dissolution of stable identity opens new possibilities for understanding consciousness, agency, and human flourishing that are more adequate to the fundamental instability of existence. The work introduces unprecedented concepts including Identity Flows, Fluctuational Personas, Existential Uncertainty Relations, and Rhizomatic Selfhood, providing a systematic alternative to both unified and fragmented models of identity. The implications extend beyond academic philosophy to encompass psychology, neuroscience, social theory, and practical approaches to mental health, education, and personal development. (shrink)

In the film Dark City, mysterious pale-skinned creatures rearrange a city and alter the inhabitants’ identities and memories each night. Every morning, residents awaken in a different city with new identities, unaware of what changed while they slept. Though fictional, this scenario seems to mirror an intriguing aspect of our lives—not when we wake up, but when we go to sleep. Each night, as we dream, we often find ourselves in strange environments, experiencing unrealistic or implausible events, intense negative emotions, (...) and even transformations that make us feel like different people. The dream world appears to rupture waking reality, making anything possible. Some researchers argue that this suggests our dreaming life is discontinuous with our waking life. But is this really so? Are dreams a complete break from wakefulness, implying that we lead two separate lives: one grounded in consistency and stability by day, and another filled with fleeting, bizarre experiences at night? This chapter explores whether the relationship between our dreaming mind and our waking mind is best understood as one of continuity or discontinuity. Since continuity and discontinuity can be interpreted in different ways, we examine various dimensions through which this debate can be framed. The first section focuses on the content of experiences, while the second addresses their affective dimension. The third section explores the continuity and discontinuity of the self in wakefulness and dreaming, and the fourth discusses brain activity and other physiological markers. The last section presents some concluding thoughts on this debate. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychiatrists have independently turned their attention to a specific question about grief, namely, how long it should last. They come to surprisingly different conclusions: for philosophers, there always exists a reason for grief; for psychiatrists, prolonged grief constitutes a mental disorder. Where to go from here? One starting point is the common experience in grief of having "lost a part of oneself," known in the literature as 'identity disruption.' If this idea is developed in the context of Nada (...) Gligorov's recent work on identity crisis, it provides a way of pinning down the crux of the interdisciplinary disagreement. However, it is not enough to resolve it—determining exactly how long one should grieve will require careful weighing of ethical, epistemic, and practical reasons. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between implicit self-related information and explicit self-representation and argues that the latter is required for self-consciousness. It is further argued that self-consciousness requires an awareness of other minds and that this awareness develops over the course of an increasingly complex perspectival differentiation, during which information about self and other that is implicit in early forms of social interaction becomes redescribed into an explicit format.

Identification with and alienation from an attitude appear to be necessarily related, that is, they are not independent phenomena—they exclude one another. This suggests a conceptual relation between them. A simple explanation of their incompatibility is that one is present just when and because the other is not—one is the negation of the other: An attitude is alien just when and because it's not identified-with, or the other way around. But their incompatibility needn't be explained in this way. Circles and (...) dogs seem to exclude each other, but a circle isn't merely not a dog, rather they are merely different. Similarly, tall and short seem to exclude each other, but these are not merely negations of each other, rather they oppose each other—they are opposites. In this paper, I'll argue that, if we take a certain view of attitudes wherein the attitudes constituting identification and alienation toward the same attitude cannot be had at the same time, then the relation between alienation and identification that most plausibly secures their mutual exclusivity is that of a certain kind of opposition wherein those beings that can identify with and be alienated from attitudes have attitudes they stand in neither relation to. (shrink)

Understanding the Human TimeSpace: The Intersection of Self-Referential Recursion and Quantum Entanglement, also known as Magical Thinking, Machine and-or Human Intelligence. ULTA-AI. Superposition. Intelligent Autonomy, Conservation of the Circle. (0 (1) 0) 50-50.

What role do emotions play for the development of one’s self? This essay will discuss the importance of affect-laden interactions with others for the development of our ability for autonomous agency in childhood and beyond. I will explore, first, how affective encounters with others enable reasons-responsive agency by introducing us into the space of reasons and by providing us with interpretive frameworks of perceiving the world relative to our aims, concerns, and values. However, the very same mindshaping processes that enable (...) agency in the sense of reasons-responsiveness also make us susceptible to agency-undermining social practices. Yet the proper response to these threats to our agency should not be seen in a turn towards introspection and a retreat from sociality or the emotions. Rather, as I will argue in the second part of the chapter, we need to harness and foster our social and emotional abilities in the service of cultivating our skills of autonomy competence. (shrink)

Classical metaphysics satisfied the interests of philosophers until the late Middle Ages, but modern thinkers have raised new concerns. Could metaphysics be updated to address contemporary needs? This paper proposes a new notion for adjusting the metaphysical edifice: an ontological act of sui dominium that constitutes the person. This proposal emerges from a metaphysical perspective and aims to establish a framework for characterizing the self as understood in modern philosophies with particular attention to phenomenology. We will explore how the ontological (...) act of sui dominium creates the foundation for freedom, aims towards self-donation, and relates to ethics. Finally, we will briefly examine how it fits into the metaphysical structure and how it sheds light on original theological problems. (shrink)

What happens when we accept that everything we feel and think stems not from an immaterial spirit but from electrical and chemical activity in our brains? In this thought-provoking narrative―drawn from professional expertise as well as personal life experiences―trailblazing neurophilosopher Patricia S. Churchland grounds the philosophy of mind in the essential ingredients of biology. She reflects with humor on how she came to harmonize science and philosophy, the mind and the brain, abstract ideals and daily life. Offering lucid explanations of (...) the neural workings that underlie identity, she reveals how the latest research into consciousness, memory, and free will can help us reexamine enduring philosophical, ethical, and spiritual questions: What shapes our personalities? How do we account for near-death experiences? How do we make decisions? And why do we feel empathy for others? Recent scientific discoveries also provide insights into a fascinating range of real-world dilemmas―for example, whether an adolescent can be held responsible for his actions and whether a patient in a coma can be considered a self. (shrink)

Every nano-second. All of us. Held hostage by Magical Thinking. Understanding the Human TimeSpace.

For a book symposium on The Practical Self, with commentaries from Rory Madden, Bill Brewer, Léa Salje, and Carla Bagnoli.

There is substantial evidence that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have beneficial effects for a range of disorders, though their underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Prominent developers of MBIs have proposed the Buddhist concept of no-self as a core mechanism driving their efficacy. The idea of no-self has been interpreted as the process of reducing, attenuating or eliminating all senses of self – subjective, narrative, agential – across the spectrum of self-related processing (SRP). This article reconstructs and critiques four empirical arguments and one (...) conceptual challenge to the Buddhist no-self hypothesis – that reducing all SRP is the central mechanism underpinning the health benefits of MBIs – drawn from the psychological research of Willoughby Britton and Jared Lindahl. While acknowledging that their empirical arguments, while defeasible, provide strong reasons for a more cautious approach to this hypothesis, this article argues that alternative interpretations of no-self can effectively evade these critiques. Moreover, it demonstrates that these alternative views can align with existing evidence which suggests that a valenced shift in self-concepts – from positive to negative – is one mechanism for the efficacy of MBIs. (shrink)

In this talk I shall outline my wider philosophical project – presented through a retelling of Orlando by Virginia Woolf - while exploring in more depth several key arguments. I defend an aesthetics*-based account of gender ontology arguing that gender can be best understood by adopting concepts commonly used in philosophy of art such as performance art, genre, and interpretation. I shall produce a unique reading of the work of Judith Butler defending an implicit Sartrian distinction between to have, to (...) be and to do. I shall demonstrate how an aesthetic concept of gender interacts with the discursive and metaphysical boundaries of the Body and the Self. Building on the thought of Foucault and Derrida, I conclude by enquiring as to how one’s gender exists-with others and in society. -/- *My use of this term does not intend to imply a foundation built on the notion of beauty, rather my adoption of concepts from the wider field of philosophy of art. (shrink)