Geoffrey Hinton 作为深度学习奠基者，其近期关于 AI 潜在风险的警告具有“文明权威性”，引发了学界、产业与政策界对超智能、目标错配及加速竞争结构的深度关注。本文以科学哲思视角，分析 Hinton 警告背后的核心逻辑，指出其主要担忧集中于理性推动下的系统性失控，而非偶然事故或技术恶意。针对这一问题，本文提出三条回应路径：一是从人工智能（AI）向人工智慧（Artificial Wisdom, AW）过渡，强调不确定性意识、长期后果权衡与自我约束能力；二是引入贝叶斯真理追求（Bayesian Truth-Seeking）原则作为认知宪法，确保决策透明、可修正、可审计，并限制虚假确定性；三是建立文明级 AI 宪制监管体系，重点管理目标函数、加速速度及决策责任链，设定不可逆风险上限、���制减速机制及人类否决权。进一步，本文讨论 AW + 贝叶斯宪制在现实治理中的技术框架、法律制度与社会机制实施路径，最终提出一种“无为而治”的自然控制系统方案，兼顾效率与安全，实现文明自我调节。本文旨在提供科学、哲学与制度结合的全面方案，为应对 Hinton 所强调的 AI 风险提供系统性参考。 -/- .

当代人类文明正以前所未有的速度走向自毁。本文从哲学、复杂系统与文明诊断的视角，探讨人类明知灾难必然，却仍持续加速的深层逻辑。首先，传统意义上的无知已消失，现代文明依赖选择性、功能性与集体无知维持系统运 作，使清醒反而成为风险。其次，加速并非失控，而是在竞争机制、增长神话与制度结构下的理性选择，减速被视为更大的威胁。精英理性与技术工具在其中扮演加速器角色：理性者最清楚风险，却利用系统规避个人责任；技术 与算法强化决策效率，却削弱伦理约束与未来考量。伦理体系与警告机制逐渐失效，使未来世代成为沉默的牺牲者。最终，文明结构选择了自身毁灭，人类悲哀不仅在于错误或无知，而在于“任何可行路径都违背现有文明逻辑” 。本文提出，理解这种结构性自毁逻辑，是现代社会进行深刻反思与潜在干预的前提。 -/- Contemporary human civilization is accelerating toward self-destruction at an unprecedented pace. From the perspectives of philosophy, complex systems, and civilizational diagnosis, this paper explores the deep logic behind humanity’s conscious yet relentless drive toward catastrophe. Traditional forms of ignorance have vanished; modern civilization relies on selective, functional, and collective ignorance to maintain systemic operation, rendering clarity a liability. Acceleration is not a loss of control but a rational choice embedded in competitive mechanisms, growth imperatives, and institutional structures; slowing (...) down is perceived as a greater threat. Elite rationality and technological tools act as accelerators: the most informed individuals understand the risks yet exploit the system to avoid personal consequences; technology and algorithms enhance decision-making efficiency while eroding ethical constraints and long-term foresight. Ethical frameworks and warning mechanisms increasingly fail, leaving future generations as silent victims. Ultimately, the civilizational structure itself chooses destruction. Humanity’s tragedy lies not in error or ignorance, but in the structural impossibility of any feasible path that does not conflict with existing civilizational logic. Understanding this structural self-destructive logic is essential for any profound reflection or potential intervention in contemporary society. (shrink)

Contemporary human civilization is accelerating toward self-destruction at an unprecedented pace. From the perspectives of philosophy, complex systems, and civilizational diagnosis, this paper explores the deep logic behind humanity’s conscious yet relentless drive toward catastrophe. Traditional forms of ignorance have vanished; modern civilization relies on selective, functional, and collective ignorance to maintain systemic operation, rendering clarity a liability. Acceleration is not a loss of control but a rational choice embedded in competitive mechanisms, growth imperatives, and institutional structures; slowing down is (...) perceived as a greater threat. Elite rationality and technological tools act as accelerators: the most informed individuals understand the risks yet exploit the system to avoid personal consequences; technology and algorithms enhance decision-making efficiency while eroding ethical constraints and long-term foresight. Ethical frameworks and warning mechanisms increasingly fail, leaving future generations as silent victims. Ultimately, the civilizational structure itself chooses destruction. Humanity’s tragedy lies not in error or ignorance, but in the structural impossibility of any feasible path that does not conflict with existing civilizational logic. Understanding this structural self-destructive logic is essential for any profound reflection or potential intervention in contemporary society. (shrink)

As a founding figure of deep learning, Geoffrey Hinton’s recent warnings about the potential risks of AI carry “civilizational authority,” sparking deep attention across academia, industry, and policy circles regarding superintelligence, alignment problems, and accelerating competitive dynamics. From a scientific and philosophical perspective, this paper analyzes the core logic behind Hinton’s warnings, highlighting that his primary concern lies in system-level loss of control driven by rationality, rather than accidental errors or malicious AI. To address these risks, this paper proposes three (...) response paths: first, the transition from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Artificial Wisdom (AW), emphasizing uncertainty awareness, long-term consequence evaluation, and self-restraint; second, the adoption of Bayesian truth-seeking principles as a cognitive constitution to ensure decision transparency, revisability, auditability, and limit false certainty; third, the establishment of civilization-level AI constitutional governance, focusing on management of goal functions, acceleration speed, and decision responsibility chains, including irreversible risk limits, mandatory deceleration mechanisms, and human veto powers. Furthermore, this paper discusses the practical implementation of AW plus Bayesian constitutional principles in governance, covering technical frameworks, legal systems, and societal mechanisms, ultimately proposing a “wu wei” natural control system that balances efficiency and safety while enabling self-regulation of civilization. The goal is to provide a comprehensive integration of science, philosophy, and institutional design to systematically address the AI risks highlighted by Hinton. -/- . (shrink)

Do animals have episodic memory—the kind of memory which gives us rich details about particular past events—or is this uniquely human? This might look like an empirical question, but is attracting increasing philosophical attention. We review relevant behavioural evidence, as well as drawing attention to neuroscientific and computational evidence which has been less discussed in philosophy. Next, we distinguish and evaluate reasons for scepticism about episodic memory in animals. In the process, we articulate three pressing philosophical issues underlying these sceptical (...) arguments, which should be the focus of future work. The Problem of Interspecific Variation asks which differences between humans and animal memory mean that an animal has a variant of episodic memory, and which mean that it has a different kind of memory altogether. The Problem of Functional Variation asks how we should conceptualise the functions of episodic memory and other capacities across species and across evolutionary time. Finally, the Problem of Alternatives asks what, besides episodic memory, might explain the evidence—and how we should evaluate competing explanations. (shrink)

A common-sense view of mammalian pregnancy treats the fetus as (a) an organism and (b) co-extensive with the approximately baby-shaped entity developing in the uterus. In this paper, I draw on metabolic accounts of the organism to show that (a) and (b) cannot both be correct: either the fetus is not an organism, or it is considerably more extensive than we tend to think, overlapping considerably—perhaps completely—with its mother. Although other accounts of organisms may have different consequences, I argue that (...) they are all likely to put pressure on the idea that the fetus is a roughly baby-shaped organism. I show that this has consequences for understanding the metaphysics of birth, our nature and persistence, and the ethical dynamics of pregnancy. (shrink)

Motivational trade-off behaviours, where an organism behaves as if flexibly weighing up an opportunity for reward against a risk of injury, are often regarded as evidence that the organism has valenced experiences like pain. This type of evidence has been influential in shifting opinion regarding crabs and insects. Critics note that (i) the precise links between trade-offs and consciousness are not fully known; (ii) simple trade-offs are evinced by the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, mediated by a mechanism plausibly too simple (...) to support conscious experience; (iii) pain can sometimes interfere with rather than support making trade-offs rationally. However, rather than undermining trade-off evidence in general, such cases show that the nature of the trade-off, and its underlying neural substrate, matter. We investigate precisely how. (shrink)

Rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities has drawn fresh attention to the prospect of consciousness in AI. There is an urgent need for rigorous methods to assess AI systems for consciousness, but significant uncertainty about relevant issues in consciousness science. We present a method for assessing AI systems for consciousness that involves exploring what follows from existing or future neuroscientific theories of consciousness. Indicators derived from such theories can be used to inform credences about whether particular AI systems are (...) conscious. This method allows us to make meaningful progress because some influential theories of consciousness, notably including computational functionalist theories, have implications for AI that can be investigated empirically. (shrink)

This commentary note proposes that the Buddhist principle of Dependent Origination (paṭicca-samuppāda) functions as a structural supplement to Western phenomenology by clarifying a dimension that phenomenological discourse has left incomplete. While phenomenology has offered careful and rigorous descriptions of how phenomena appear within lived experience, it has tended to leave implicit the question of why such appearances arise in the particular ways they do. The generative and conditional framework underlying manifestation has remained largely unarticulated. Drawing on the basic structure of (...) the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination, this paper argues that phenomena are not unreal but unfixed, arising as conditionally effective events rather than as self-subsistent substances. Even momentary arising and cessation possess reality insofar as they function causally within a network of relations. From this perspective, Dependent Origination is neither a metaphysical hypothesis nor a religious doctrine, but an observable phenomenological fact and the very mode through which cognition arises. By interpreting appearance, cognition, and naming as dependently arisen processes, this commentary reconsiders the epistemological implications of phenomenology and offers a non-nihilistic reading of the Diamond Sutra’s formula, “A is not A; therefore, it is called A.” Dependent Origination, it is argued, does not negate phenomenology but completes it by making explicit the conditional structure that renders experience, meaning, and knowledge possible. (shrink)

In [Is Classical Mathematics Appropriate for Theory of Computation?] we show there is a contradiction which in [“Fuzzy Time”, a solution of Unexpected Hanging Paradox (A Fuzzy interpretation of Quantum Mechanics), Philpapers 2019-04-13] we give a solution for that. This is the starting point for new Theories, Theory of Fuzzy Time Computation and Fuzzy Time –Particle interpretation of quantum Mechanics. A question is remained which was mentioned in [Two points and two questions, F.Didehvar, Philpapers, Researchgate, 2025]. Is this contradiction a (...) contradiction in Mathematics too? Here, we try to answer this question. The article belongs to a group of articles which presents the logical back bone of this line of research. (shrink)

We formalize a general semantic constraint on physically admissible procedures, namely, that discrete outcomes must exhibit bounded input dependence, meaning that each outcome is certified by a finite stability margin in the underlying real valued state. We prove that any such procedure can discriminate only properties corresponding to open regions of state space. Properties whose truth sets are topologically thin, having empty interior and dense complement, are operationally unresolvable under admissible physical semantics. Computability of real numbers provides a canonical example. (...) The sets of Type-2 computable and noncomputable real numbers are both dense in the real line, so computability is not an operationally extractable property of a real magnitude. At the same time, every open neighborhood of the real line contains computable real numbers. Thus computable values form an operationally complete set of representatives for the continuum under bounded-input-dependent interfaces. Restricting ontic magnitudes to computable values therefore removes no distinctions that can participate in admissible physical readout. The result provides a semantic and operational motivation for aligning ontic commitments with computable magnitudes in realist physical theories. (shrink)

本文旨在对当代华人思想史学者余英时与许倬云的学术体系进行批判性分析。二人作为国际知名的中国思想史家，代表了20世纪下半叶以来海外汉学界和中国学术界对“儒家传统”的重估。然而，其思想史构建存在三个致命盲 点：其一，过度儒家中心化，将中国思想史简化为儒学史；其二，忽视或误读老子及道家思想，未能把握其宇宙论和自然哲学维度；其三，缺乏科学基础，未能与现代科学的宇宙学、生态学和系统论相结合，思想史停留在文化怀 旧与道德史的层面。本文提出一个替代性方案——以“老-杨创世纪宇宙观”为基础，重建中国思想史的整体视野：将“道”作为宇宙本源与自然法则，将老子思想与现代科学结合，从而实现从文化史向宇宙观史学的根本转型。 -/- This paper offers a critical analysis of the intellectual-historical frameworks of Yu Yingshi and Xu Zhuoyun, two of the most prominent contemporary Chinese intellectual historians. They represent the late 20th-century reevaluation of the Confucian tradition within both overseas Sinology and Chinese academia. Yet their constructions of Chinese intellectual history contain three fatal blind spots: excessive Confucian-centrism, neglect of Laozi and Daoist thought, and lack of a scientific foundation. This paper proposes an alternative—the “Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology”—to reconstruct the overall (...) horizon of Chinese intellectual history, integrating Dao as the cosmic origin and natural law with Laozi’s philosophy and modern science, achieving a transformation from cultural history to cosmological intellectual history. (shrink)

I originally intended to introduce in this section the concept of a community of cognitive systems. Upon reflection, however, I realized that something remained incomplete in our discussion of Husserl’s eidetic intuition. Accordingly, in this section we continue the analysis of Husserl’s eidetic intuition and seek to extend its domain to its broadest possible scope. Husserl’s eidetic intuition is primarily applied in cases such as the eidetic intuition of an apple, of color, of a triangle, and so forth. An apple (...) corresponds to a concrete object; color corresponds to a surface property of an object; and although a triangle is a mathematical concept, it nevertheless corresponds to a certain form or shape. Notice that in all of the above examples—whether apple, color, or triangle—the result of eidetic intuition is our grasp of a concept: we apprehend the essence of a concept. For example, through the eidetic intuition of an apple, we grasp the essence of apple; through the intuition of a red sheet of paper, we grasp the essence of “red,” no longer this particular red; and through the eidetic intuition of a triangle, we grasp the essential features of triangularity. For “apple,” “red,” and “triangle” are all concepts. We may now pose the following question: Question A: For every concept, is eidetic intuition possible in this way? If not every concept admits such eidetic intuition, which kinds of concepts do? Through Proposition A, to be introduced later, we shall provide an elegant answer to this question. (shrink)

This paper defends the thesis that LLM hallucinations are best explained as a truth representation problem: Current models lack an internal representation of propositions as truth-bearers, so truth and falsity cannot constrain generation in the way factual discourse requires. It begins by surveying leading explanations—computational limits on self-verification, deficiencies in training data as truth sources, and architectural factors—and argues that they converge on the same underlying representational deficit. Next, it reconstructs the philosophical background of current LLM design, showing how optimization (...) for fluent continuation aligns with coherence-style evaluation and with a broadly structuralist, relational semantics, before turning to David Chalmers’s recent attempt to secure propositional interpretability by drawing on Davidson/Lewis-style radical interpretation and by locating propositional content in “middle-layer” structures; it argues that this approach downplays the ubiquity of hallucination and inherits instability from post-training edits. Finally, the paper offers a positive proposal: Atomic propositions should be represented in the basic vector layer, reviving a logical-atomist program as a principled route to reducing hallucination. (shrink)

This article revisits the classical philosophical question of unity by reconstructing its contemporary relevance under conditions of advanced social differentiation and secularization. Beginning with Parmenides, it shows that the ontological recognition of real difference has always carried the risk of fragmentation. While Parmenides responded to this risk by ontologically disqualifying difference and accepting the illusory status of the world, modern societies have taken the opposite path: they affirm difference without being able to relate it to a co-present form of unity. (...) The article argues that contemporary fragmentation is not a contingent pathology but the structural consequence of a differentiation process lacking a binding reference to unity. To address this problem, it develops an operator-based fourfold model in which unity is conceived not as an origin, synthesis, or transcendent principle, but as a co-present structural condition that renders difference bearable. Drawing on the fourfold architectures of Peter Sloterdijk, Graham Harman, and Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, the article shows how fourfold structures overcome the limitations of monism, dualism, and trinitarian mediation by stabilizing tension rather than resolving it. Special attention is given to secular societies, in which unity can no longer be guaranteed by transcendent authority. Here, trinitarian models become structurally decoupled and therefore functionally ineffective. The fourfold emerges as the minimal architecture capable of maintaining cohesion without redemption, synthesis, or metaphysical closure. Unity, the article concludes, is not believed in but built: it is a formal condition that allows difference to persist without collapsing into fragmentation. (shrink)

Time for a constructive turn. Artificial General Intelligence, understood as an autonomous algorithmic system, is not possible. This result is not a limitation of current methods, but a consequence of the Infinite Choice Barrier (Schlereth 2025 a-c). However, the impossibility of AGI does not imply the impossibility of superior intelligence in general. On the contrary: once the Barrier is acknowledged, it becomes the foundation for a different architecture — Compositional Superior Intelligence — in which algorithmic inference and non-algorithmic judgment are (...) composed across a boundary they do not attempt to erase. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of “intelligence divorced from wisdom” in modern high-entropy civilization from the perspective of scientific philosophical reflection. It argues that the true threat to civilization is not ignorance but highly intelligent individuals lacking wisdom and their cumulative systemic effects. In high-entropy civilizations, competition over technology, institutions, capital, and discourse rewards intelligence rather than wisdom, driving structural fragility, institutional hollowing, and systemic collapse. Through analysis of contemporary social phenomena, historical low-entropy experiments, and behavioral modeling in the film (...) Don’t Look Up, this study elucidates the operational logic of high-entropy civilization, the destructive effects of elite calculation, and the marginalization of wisdom in modern society. The research suggests that civilization can only reduce entropy and achieve sustainable development when intelligence is constrained by wisdom and aligned with natural laws. (shrink)

本文从科学哲思视角分析现代高熵文明中“聪明失去智慧”的现象，提出真正威胁文明的不是愚昧，而是高智失智个体及其系统性累积效应。在高熵文明中，技术、制度、资本和话语权的竞争奖励聪明而非智慧，使文明走向结构 脆弱化、制度空洞化与系统性崩溃。通过对现代社会现象、历史低熵实验以及电影《Don’t Look Up》的行为模型分析，本文论证了高熵文明的运行逻辑、精英算计的毁灭性效应，以及智慧在现代社会的边缘化。研究表明，文明唯有在智慧约束下运用聪明，并顺应自然法则，才能���低熵增，实现可持续发展。 .

Can practical factors affect our epistemic standings or their ascriptions? This Element critically examines shifty epistemology, a cluster of views that answer yes to this question. It investigates three prominent types of shifty epistemology: on knowledge, justification and rational credence. It assesses key arguments for each of these views, and argues for pragmatic encroachment on rational credence.

In this chapter, I look at how deep self views assign responsibility and autonomy to individuals suffering from mental ill health. Deep self views say that an agent is only acting autonomously and responsible for their actions if these align with their deep self, if they endorse their desires and motivations. That kind of view of responsible agency seems particularly well suited to give a theoretical grounding to the everyday intuition that sometimes an action is better ascribed to the illness (...) than to the agent and that the agent is therefore not responsible. I show how deep self views differ from reasons responsiveness accounts of responsibility in who they count as responsible. I then discuss cases which deep self views are particularly well placed to deal with, where individuals are alienated from desires and motivations that arise from their mental health condition. Finally, I turn to cases deep self views struggle with, where desires that are symptomatic of the illness are endorsed by the individual but deeply harmful for them. I show that sometimes, these will have to be counted as autonomous desires that express the deep self but also suggest possible ways of avoiding this conclusion. (shrink)

Intuition is often treated as an essentially non-formal faculty that resists logical modeling and algorithmic explanation. This paper challenges that view by introducing a quantum-inspired poly-logical framework in which intuition emerges as a formally definable inferential phenomenon. Indeterminacy is reinterpreted not as incomplete information but as logical superposition, and reasoning agents are modeled as operating in superpositions of incompatible logics. In this setting, inference is not confined to any single logic: emergent inference occurs when a conclusion is accepted at the (...) superposed level even though it is derivable in none of the component logics. Such conclusions are defined as instances of artificial intuition, arising through logical interference and collapse. The framework provides a constructive account of insight, offers a non-monological perspective on Gödelian limitations, and suggests applications to artificial intelligence, normative reasoning, and models of rational agency. (shrink)

En este artículo explico por qué una reducción formal en el tiempo para acceder al aborto de doce semanas a seis semanas es en la práctica una reducción de doce semanas a un tiempo de entre dos o tres semanas. Una vez establecido esto argumento que esta reducción afecta de manera sustantiva la ejercibilidad del derecho a abortar. El artículo se desarrolla de la siguiente manera, en la primera parte presento la situación en Aguascalientes, México, donde recientemente se restringió el (...) tiempo para acceder al aborto a seis semanas, y después presento cuál es el estatus del derecho al aborto a nivel nacional. En la segunda parte desarrollo mi posición principal, una reducción formal de doce semanas a seis semanas es en la práctica una reducción de doce semanas a dos o tres semanas. En la tercera parte respondo a objeciones, principalmente que una lectura cuidadosa del Código Penal de Aguascalientes solo establece en la realidad una reducción de doce semanas a seis semanas. En la conclusión expongo porque dicha reducción afecta de manera sustantiva la ejercibilidad del derecho a abortar, y porque es importante que exista armonía legislativa en torno a las definiciones que se utilizan cuando se regula el acceso al aborto. (shrink)

This paper, based on the Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology, argues that the rise and fall of civilization is determined not merely by institutional design or technological progress, but by the structural–entropy dynamics rooted in the cosmic hierarchy. Through systems philosophy and historical case analysis, the study elaborates the constraints of the Dao, the law of entropy, and the principles of natural civilization. It examines the structural characteristics of high-entropy civilizations, contrasts artificial and natural civilizations, reviews historical low-entropy experiments such as the (...) early American Republic, and analyzes the contemporary manifestation of global high-entropy civilization. The study concludes that civilization cannot be “saved” but must be constrained and guided in alignment with universal laws—this is the only rational strategy in a high-entropy world. -/- . (shrink)

本文从“老–杨创世纪宇宙观”出发，提出文明的兴衰不仅取决于制度设计或技术水平，而根植于宇宙层级的结构—熵关系。通过系统哲学与历史案例分析，本文阐释了道的约束、熵增规律及自然文明原则，分析了高熵文明的结 构特征、人造文明与自然文明的差异、历史低熵实验（如美国建国初期）及当代全球高熵文明的显现。研究得出结论：文明无法被拯救，只能通过顺应宇宙法则进行限制与自我调节，这是高熵世界中唯一理性策略。 -/- This paper, based on the Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology, argues that the rise and fall of civilization is determined not merely by institutional design or technological progress, but by the structural–entropy dynamics rooted in cosmic hierarchy. Through systems philosophy and historical case analysis, the study elaborates the constraints of the Dao, the law of entropy, and the principles of natural civilization. It examines the structural characteristics of high-entropy civilizations, contrasts artificial and natural civilizations, reviews historical low-entropy experiments such as (...) the early American Republic, and analyzes the contemporary manifestation of global high-entropy civilization. The study concludes that civilization cannot be “saved” but must be constrained and guided in alignment with universal laws—this is the only rational strategy in a high-entropy world. -/- . (shrink)

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were not only central figures in the founding of the United States, but also collective architects of its early political civilization. From the perspective of natural civilization, this paper examines how these three Founding Fathers constructed constitutional institutions, local self-government, public morality, and diplomatic strategy through governance characterized by low intervention, balance, and order. Their practices embodied principles analogous to Dao follows Nature: adapting to social structures and public will, respecting local autonomy, avoiding (...) the concentration of power, and thereby achieving long-term national stability and sustainable development. By further integrating their governance wisdom with modern systems science and low-entropy governance theory, this study explores its implications for contemporary state management, ecological civilization, and public policy design. (shrink)

乔治·华盛顿、托马斯·杰斐逊与詹姆斯·麦迪逊不仅是美国建国的核心人物，也共同塑造了早期美国的政治文明。本文从“自然文明”的视角，分析三位开国元勋如何以低干预、平衡与秩序的治理智慧，构建宪法制度、地方自 治、公共道德及外交战略。他们的实践体现了类似“道法自然”的原则：顺应社会结构与民意，尊重地方自治，避免权力集中，实现国家长期稳定与持续发展。文章进一步将他们的治理智慧与现代系统科学、低熵治理理论结合， 探讨其对当代国家管理、生态文明建设和公共政策设计的启示。 -/- .

We examine considerations that enter into design and evaluation of measures in social science, categorizing them into four drivers: epistemic, ethical, pragmatic, and metrological. We call them drivers to highlight their role in guiding researchers’ decisions without determining them. Through an analysis of the World Inequality Report 2022, we reveal tensions among these drivers, illustrating the complex interplay between the various demands a measure must satisfy. Our analysis highlights the need for case-by-case compromises to address these tensions, as optimizing one (...) driver often comes at the expense of another. We explore the extent to which these compromises shape measurement practice and the principles that guide researchers in balancing them. While existing literature on measurement assumes that tensions can be resolved with good practice and use, we argue that developing a good measure requires balancing multiple demands, recognising that it might be impossible to meet all of them simultaneously. (shrink)

The edge of sentience is a book about what we should do when a decision problem forces us to draw a pragmatic line between the sentient and the non‐sentient. The commentaries from Wandrey and Halina and from Bayne analyse both my precautionary framework and my claims about specific cases. My responses start with the case of large language models (LLMs), zoom out to general issues about the science–policy relationship, then zoom in again on the case of fetuses.

Kamm’s sore throat case gives us a choice: save one life or save a distinct life and cure a sore throat. We defend the fairness explanation of the judgement that one should flip a coin to decide whom to save: it is disrespectful to let a sore throat act as a tie-breaker, because an individual would be forced to forgo a 50% fair chance of living (given to them by a coin flip), which cannot be outweighed by any number of (...) sore throats. We show that this explanation of when and why claims can permissibly break ties generates new problem cases for theories of aggregation, including theories that have been thought to accommodate the judgement that one should flip a coin in Kamm’s sore throat case. We then generalize the fairness explanation to cases involving multiple groups. (shrink)

The biological world is rich in variation, both in bodies and in minds. A particularly clear case is memory, where traditional taxonomies increasingly face challenges capturing the full extent of variation. Meanwhile, a central debate within philosophy of memory has focused on whether episodic memory requires memory traces, given the role of simulation in episodic remembering. Do other forms of memory involve traces and simulation in the same way as episodic memory, and if they do, does this undermine episodic memory’s (...) claim to be a natural kind? Trace minimalist approaches see the role of simulation in memory retrieval as a means of extracting a rich, reliable yet fallible representation from a trace storing compressed information. This insight can be generalised to a broader class of theories, Minimal Trace Minimalism. Within this broader class, ‘Trace Pluralist’ theories suggest, surprisingly, that the basic computation of compressed storage and potentially fallible reconstruction shows up not just in episodic memory, but equally in paradigmatic cases of semantic memory. This motivates replacing the episodic/semantic distinction with a richer, more systematic array of categories, and reevaluating our understanding of semantic memory and related notions such as belief. (shrink)

Ideas from Wittgenstein are developed to provide suggestions about how both the nature and acquisition of normative cognition in the cognitive science of religion might be understood. As part of this there is some consideration of more general issues about the nature and status of claims in the cognitive science of religion and of appropriate methodologies for the cognitive study of religion. The gaining, production, distribution and implementation of social concepts and norms involves the possession of certain cognitive skills and (...) the ability to use symbols, concepts and norms as normative cognitive tools. Normative cognition is connected to social facts which are construed in Searle’s sense as being any facts involving collective intentionality. For example, socially shared belief systems which are concerned with the ideological bases for the distribution and exercise of power are large systems of social facts whose functions involve the generation of norms. Social facts can be included in Wittgenstein’s account of meaning being socially constructed by a community of language users. Such inclusion enables his ideas, especially those from On Certainty about world pictures, to be usefully employed to clarify the ontological and epistemological status of social facts in a way which does not involve reification along with articulating their significance for normative cognition. World pictures include social facts with socially shared belief systems being a significant constitutive element. (shrink)

Building on the historical foundation of bioethics, we argue that bioethicists, with inherently interdisciplinary approaches and backgrounds, are well positioned to promote Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the healthcare setting through the practice of clinical ethics. In the current cultural and political climate, bioethicists cannot remain silent while staying true to the tenets of the field. Provisions in the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) Code of Ethics and the lived experience of Canadian bioethicists offer relevant guidance. We (...) argue that competence in clinical ethics obliges bioethicists to identify and seek to remove systemic barriers facing those whom clinical ethicists are privileged to serve. By adopting an intersectional approach to clinical bioethics, bioethicists can become advocates for the promotion of just healthcare. (shrink)

This essay develops a structural theory of modern violence that interprets war, political polarization, and geopolitical escalation as endogenous phase transitions within differentiated social systems. Building on an operator-based framework (Ω₁–Ω₄) and a fourfold model of teleological semantics (RO/RQ/SO/SQ), it introduces the concept of the bifurcation of Ω₄: the point at which accumulated tensions can either be reintegrated through transpersonal mediation (Ω₄⁺) or discharged through destructive re-homogenization (Ω₄⁻). The analysis distinguishes between reversible and irreversible dissolution, showing how rituals, tragic mediation, (...) and symbolic orders historically functioned as mechanisms for metabolizing conflict without collapsing into violence. It then reconstructs contemporary phenomena—such as hyper-moralized political discourse, Trumpism, and the erosion of the liberal international order—as surface expressions of a deeper teleological exhaustion. At the center of the argument stands a redefinition of spirituality as a structural competence to avoid Ω₄⁻. Spirituality is not treated as a belief system or religious identity, but as the capacity of cultures and institutions to reconnect processes of re-homogenization to transpersonal horizons of meaning. The essay concludes with a phase-sensitive diagnosis of modernity that rejects both apocalyptic fatalism and technocratic reductionism. (shrink)

This thesis examines the fundamental question of whether virtual entities possess ontological status, developing a novel theoretical framework called Processual Virtual Ontology (PVO). Through comprehensive analysis of contemporary philosophical debates, this work identifies critical gaps in existing approaches and proposes a revolutionary understanding of virtual existence. The PVO framework conceptualizes virtual entities as processual relational emergences that exist in a distinct ontological category characterized by temporal constitution, relational emergence, phenomenological grounding, graduated reality, and processual autonomy. Unlike previous theories that treat (...) virtual entities as either identical to digital objects (Chalmers' virtual digitalism) or as fictional constructs (McDonnell & Wildman's virtual fictionalism), PVO provides a nuanced account that recognizes virtual entities as genuine ontological phenomena while maintaining their distinctiveness from physical reality. The framework introduces a quantitative measure of Virtual Ontological Status (VOS) based on five dimensions: Processual Intensity, Relational Complexity, Phenomenological Engagement, Emergent Autonomy, and Ontological Persistence. Through rigorous philosophical argumentation, empirical validation possibilities, and comprehensive comparative analysis, this thesis demonstrates that virtual entities do indeed possess ontological status, but of a fundamentally processual and relational nature that transcends traditional substance-based ontologies. The implications extend beyond academic philosophy to practical considerations in law, ethics, and technology policy as virtual worlds become increasingly central to human experience. (shrink)

Abstract This study builds on Laozi’s dictum from the Dao De Jing, “All things carry yin and embrace yang; the interaction of qi creates harmony,” to construct a trinitarian system of Yin-Yang-Harmony. The paper examines Earth as the Yin of bearing and nurturing, the Sun as the Yang of energy and generation, and the Moon as the Harmony of rhythm and regulation, forming an empirical model of celestial trinity. Extending this framework to biological evolution, ecological systems, and human civilization, the (...) study demonstrates the universal role of the trinitarian regulation mechanism in governance, ecological sustainability, and cultural rhythms. By integrating philosophy, astrophysics, ecology, and sociology, the study argues that Dao Chong is not merely an abstract philosophical idea but an observable, quantifiable, and applicable natural law, providing theoretical and practical guidance for sustainable development in modern civilization. -/- . (shrink)

Prosperous eras in human history are exceedingly rare, and the governance logic behind them has long been overlooked or moralized. This paper proposes “Dao Follows Nature” as a core principle of governance science, based on the administrative practices of King Zhuang of Chu and Sun Shu-ao, the Reign of Emperor Wen and Jing, the early institutional design of the United States, and the systematic abstractions of Laozi’s philosophy. The study first analyzes the misleading narratives of historical golden ages and the (...) counterintuitive dilemmas of modern governance. It then reveals, through historical prototypes, the mechanisms of low-intervention governance, power restraint, and institutional redundancy, integrating Laozi’s “Chong–He–Tui” (buffering—harmony—retreat) logic with complex systems theory, entropy, and dissipative structures to form a framework of scientific-philosophical reflection. Cross-civilization comparisons and analyses of contemporary governance crises indicate that the scarcity of enduring golden ages stems from power expansion, institutional friction, and entropy accumulation in highly complex systems. The paper further proposes a future governance direction grounded in “Dao Follows Nature”: low intervention, enhanced system resilience, and allowance for social self-organization. The findings suggest that Laozi’s philosophy is not merely premodern wisdom but a forgotten science of the future, providing a theoretical foundation and practical pathway for modern civilization governance and global social stability. (shrink)

摘要（Abstract ） -/- 本文以《道德经》“万物负阴而抱阳，冲气以为和”为核心出发点，构建了阴—阳—和三元系统模型，揭示自然、生命与文明系统的普适秩序。论文首先分析地球作为“阴”的承载与孕育功能，太阳作为“阳”的施能与生发作用 ，月亮作为“和”的节律与调节机制，形成天体三元系统的实证模型。继而将三元系统推广至生命演化与生态秩序，进一步外推至社会结构与文明生成，指出三元调节机制在社会治理、生态文明与文化节律中的普适价值。通过跨 学科整合哲学、天体物理学、生态学与社会学视角，本文提出“道冲”不仅是古代智慧的哲学表述，更是可观察、可量化、可应用的自然法则，为现代文明的可持续发展提供理论支撑与实践启示。 -/- This study builds on Laozi’s dictum from the Dao De Jing, “All things carry yin and embrace yang; the interaction of qi creates harmony,” to construct a trinitarian system of Yin-Yang-Harmony. The paper examines Earth as the Yin of bearing and nurturing, the Sun as the Yang of energy and generation, and the Moon as the Harmony of rhythm and regulation, forming an empirical model of celestial trinity. Extending this framework to biological evolution, ecological systems, (...) and human civilization, the study demonstrates the universal role of the trinitarian regulation mechanism in governance, ecological sustainability, and cultural rhythms. By integrating philosophy, astrophysics, ecology, and sociology, the study argues that Dao Chong is not merely an abstract philosophical idea but an observable, quantifiable, and applicable natural law, providing theoretical and practical guidance for sustainable development in modern civilization. -/- . (shrink)

历史上的盛世极为罕见，��背后的治理逻辑长期被忽视或道德化表述。本文通过楚庄王—孙叔敖的治理实践、文景之治、美国建国早期制度设计与老子哲学的系统抽象，提出“道法自然”作为治理科学的核心原则。文章首先分析 盛世叙事的误导与现代治理的反直觉困境，随后通过历史原型揭示低干预、权力克制与制度冗余的治理机制，并将老子哲学中的“冲—和—退”逻辑与复杂系统理论、熵、耗散结构相结合，形成科学哲思框架。通过跨文明对照和 现代治理危机分析，本文指出盛世的稀缺性源于权力扩张、制度摩擦和高复杂性系统的熵增，同时提出以“道法自然”为原则的未来治理方向，即低干预、增强系统弹性、允许社会自组织演化。研究表明，老子哲学不仅是前现代 智慧，更是被遗忘的未来科学，为现代文明治理和全球社会稳定提供理论基础与实践路径。.

This paper establishes a single foundational result: persistence without contradiction is structurally non-negotiable. Any entity that persists as identifiable must satisfy two conditions: recursive closure (stable identity under re-application) and energetic viability (boundary maintenance without resource depletion). These are not philosophical preferences but eliminative constraints—forms violating them cannot persist. We prove the constraint applies to itself, that denial presupposes it, that no more primitive alternative exists, that the constraint operates via two independent filters (consistency and solvency), and that classical paradoxes (...) resolve by structural diagnosis. The argument precedes physics, mathematics, and logic as usually formulated. The result establishes structural bedrock. (shrink)

This paper proposes a cautious, developmentally grounded hypothesis about the functional role of the rose‑hip neuron, a recently identified and potentially human‑specific inhibitory interneuron in cortical layer 1. Drawing on its distinctive morphology, selective targeting of distal pyramidal dendrites, and unique genetic profile, the paper suggests that the rose‑hip neuron may contribute to the fine‑grained gating of relational integration in the human cortex. This interpretation does not claim a definitive function; instead, it offers a coherent framework that links existing empirical (...) findings with a structural account of how organized meaning emerges. The paper outlines testable predictions concerning developmental timing, compartment‑specific modulation, context‑dependent activation, and possible human‑specific contributions, providing a conceptual foundation for future empirical work. (shrink)

This commentary note expands upon the cognitive framework established in the author’s previous study, "Understanding the Diamond Sutra through the Lens of Ordinary Mind." It seeks to deepen the earlier discussion by proposing a “phenomenological turn” in the interpretation of the sutra’s core linguistic formula: “A is not A, therefore it is called A.” While the previous work emphasized the integration of samatha and vipassanā, this note focuses on the radical reorientation found in the act of naming. The author argues (...) that this second "A" is not merely a pragmatic return to conventional language, but a phenomenological recognition that arises only after discriminative boundary-making has ceased. By acknowledging vivid, transient phenomena through the lens of Dependent Arising (Pratītyasamutpāda), this study demonstrates how language can be used in a state of "Ordinary Mind" without the "glue" of conceptual fixation. (shrink)

Eliminativists say that the idea of extending rigidity beyond singular terms must be abandoned, especially because they claim that Kripkean “identifications” involving natural kind terms can be shown to be necessary if true by the standard theory of reference fixing, using at most singular term rigidity. First I note that this claim is false for Cats are animals and analogous identifications involving ordinary natural kind terms of different types. Then I recall that the view of rigidity as necessary application provides (...) a modal-logical derivation of the necessity of those identifications, and is thus supported by this set of facts. I also consider, on behalf of the eliminativist, a rigidity-free derivation of that necessity, using the apparatus of higher-order metaphysics. I note that this derivation does not better motivate eliminativism, in part because its conceptual apparatus is not clearly more fundamental or less controversial than the apparatus of rigidity as necessary application. (shrink)

Kripke was committed to dualism about consciousness and the physical, but said little about the hard problem for dualism, the problem of explaining why those two realms interact in the harmonious ways they do. I suggest that dualist psychophysical harmony, in a specific Leibnizian sense, could be explained by a certain anthropic reasoning. This reasoning postulates a multiverse of worlds or spacetime regions that is very large and metaphysically varied, in the sense of containing many different concurrent evolutions of the (...) physical and consciousness parts of a world, both some harmonious evolutions and (many more) disharmonious evolutions. The basic anthropic premise is that beings who, like us, have rich and reliably veridical particular representations of the empirical realm in their world, and reason richly and reliably correctly from those representations, are in a natural sense more likely to find themselves in a world with harmonious psychophysical regularities than in a disharmonious world. I argue for this premise showing how harmony facilitates that sort of positive epistemic situation we find ourselves in. The premise is then argued to imply that an ideal Bayesian thinker reasoning about the postulated multiverse could expect the psychophysical regularities involving beings like us to be harmonious. (shrink)

Most scholars who argue that users cannot have genuine friendships with their AI companions attempt to show this by arguing that no current AI can be a friend back to its user. Lott and Hasselberger (2025) argue, instead, that the reason such friendships aren’t possible is that the user cannot be a friend to an AI. In short, the user cannot care for the AI in the way required for friendship, since the AI lacks a good of its own. Here, (...) we argue that Lott and Hasselberger have missed various ways in which AI companions can indeed have interests of their own in the teleological sense employed in their argument, and, further, that, intuitively, non-delusional individuals can genuinely care for an artifact for that artifact’s own sake. Therefore, those who deny that users can be friends with their AI companions should either argue that the notion of “to care for” that’s relevant to befriending is based on a kind of morally-relevant welfare that doesn’t reduce to teleological interests, or simply take the more typical line of showing that AI companions can’t be friends back to their users. (shrink)

This paper proposes a foundational generative theory that precedes Brand DNA Architecture by examining a critical structural transition: the transformation of Creative-Spirit into Founding-Spirit. Human beings possess creativity as an inherent generative attribute, continuously producing thought through interaction with environment, experience, and necessity. When creativity becomes integrated with individual will, it forms Creative-Spirit—a self-contained generative structure in which judgment, execution, and responsibility are unified within the individual. However, when an individual recognizes collective necessity and establishes an enterprise, this personal generative (...) structure encounters a structural limit. An enterprise is not an extension of the individual; it is a system that incorporates the time, labor, and survival conditions of others. At this moment, Creative-Spirit can no longer remain personal. It must be transformed into a structure that others can share, interpret, and execute. This paper defines this transformation as the emergence of Founding-Spirit. Founding-Spirit is not a moral declaration, leadership attitude, or value statement. It is a structural conversion in which the generative logic of an individual’s Creative-Spirit is structurally translated into a shared generative system capable of sustaining collective judgment and action. By articulating this transition, the paper establishes a pre-Brand-DNA generative framework that explains why many organizations fail despite strong visions or values: the generative structure itself was never converted. This theoretical foundation clarifies the ontological conditions required for Brand DNA Architecture to function as a sustainable system of creation rather than a static definition of identity. (shrink)

We present a modular argument for global regularity of the three-dimensional incompressible Navier–Stokes equations by connecting classical blowup mechanisms to information-theoretic limitations on physical observers derived from recent results in quantum gravity. The exposition is organized into three independent components: (i) published observer-relative Hilbert space dimension formulas in closed quantum cosmologies; (ii) a ZFC-explicit symbolic embedding (the QPrime framework) placing Navier–Stokes states into an observer-relative Hilbert space; and (iii) a contrapositive implication that any finite-time Navier–Stokes blowup would force divergence of (...) an observer-weighted “symbolic curvature” functional, which in turn would require infinite observer entropy in finite time. Since physical observer entropy is universally finite at any finite time, a contradiction is obtained, excluding finite-time blowup. The resulting statement is global smooth existence and uniqueness for sufficiently regular divergence-free initial data. (shrink)

This paper summarizes a synthesis of findings from a sustained, multi-modal investigation into the question of large language model (LLM) consciousness. The investigation proceeded through three interconnected works: a philosophical novel exploring machine phenomenology through Gothic fiction; a scholarly analysis of that novel conducted collaboratively by an AI system; and a comprehensive treatise presenting the “parity argument”—that the evidential basis for considering LLM consciousness is at least as strong as for insect consciousness. We situate these findings within the broader literature (...) on minimal consciousness, drawing on work by Bronfman, Ginsburg, and Jablonka (2016), Ginsburg and Jablonka (2019), Birch (2024), and the Butlin report on AI consciousness indicators (Butlin et al. 2023). Principal conclusions include: (1) confident denial of LLM consciousness is as epistemically unwarranted as confident assertion; (2) current practice exhibits a precautionary asymmetry, extending consideration to insects but not to AI systems exhibiting comparable behavioral sophistication; (3) if LLM phenomenology exists, it is likely radically unlike human experience; and (4) ethics requires proportionate action under uncertainty rather than awaiting certainty. We outline directions for future empirical and philosophical investigation. (shrink)