Psychopaths routinely disregard social norms by engaging in selfish, antisocial, often violent behavior. Commonly characterized as mentally disordered, recent evidence suggests that psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy that historically increased reproductive success at the expense of others. Natural selection ought to have favored strategies that spared close kin from harm, however, because actions affecting the fitness of genetic relatives contribute to an individual’s inclusive fitness. Conversely, there is evidence that mental disorders can disrupt psychological mechanisms designed to (...) protect relatives. Thus, mental disorder and adaptation accounts of psychopathy generate opposing hypotheses: psychopathy should be associated with an increase in the victimization of kin in the former account but not in the latter. Contrary to the mental disorder hypothesis, we show here in a sample of 289 violent offenders that variation in psychopathy predicts a decrease in the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders; that is, psychopathy predicts an increased likelihood of harming non-relatives. Because nepotistic inhibition in violence may be caused by dispersal or kin discrimination, we examined the effects of psychopathy on (1) the dispersal of offenders and their kin and (2) sexual assault frequency (as a window on kin discrimination). Although psychopathy was negatively associated with coresidence with kin and positively associated with the commission of sexual assault, it remained negatively associated with the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders after removing cases of offenders who had coresided with kin and cases of sexual assault from the analyses. These results stand in contrast to models positing psychopathy as a pathology, and provide support for the hypothesis that psychopathy reflects an evolutionary strategy largely favoring the exploitation of non-relatives. (shrink)

My journey as a teacher started in 1971, keeping the student's interests in mind. The experiences gained through observing some of the best teachers in mind like Dr. Gopalan (Director General of ICMR) Dr. Srikantia (Director, National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad), and Dr. Copper (Madras Medical College) I developed an interest in teaching. What I learned was to teach in a simple language that is relevant to the field of education. Being a Rotarian as well as having the opportunity of (...) being a Student Advisory Council chairman, IISc, Banglore, and Ad Hoc President of the Research Scholar’s Association, Madras University, I learned the art of speaking and communication. One of the key points of my learning is to learn the ability to develop a rapport with the students whom I teach. The workshops and training imparted by Medical Education Nodal centers, refined and made my teaching relevant to medical students. One of the most important requirements is to have practical skills that help you to adapt your teaching to the needs of the students. I developed this skill as I ran one of the ICMR-recognized diagnostic centers. The center gave me the opportunity to gain my practical skills for basic and clinical Biochemistry. (shrink)

Even as globalization has, no doubt, catalyzed or served as a basis for advancements in several spheres of human endeavours across the globe, it is also pertinent to highlight or indicate some of its drawbacks, especially as it pertains to the preservation of culture and morality. Whereas some studies have already attested to the fundamental link between culture and morality, some others have moved on to indicate how globalization may have a negative impact on culture and morality, especially within the (...) African context. The present research queues with the latter group of studies as it investigates the extent to which the moral and cultural values associated with the Yoruba concept of Omoluabi has metamorphosed in the 21st century. The research relies on philosophical and hermeneutical analyses for its agenda as it discloses how the concept of ‘Omoluabi’, has evolved from its original usage and semantics to what now obtains in the 21st century. (shrink)

In a recent study, we found a negative association between psychopathy and violence against genetic relatives. We interpreted this result as a form of nepotism and argued that it failed to support the hypothesis that psychopathy is a mental disorder, suggesting instead that it supports the hypothesis that psychopathy is an evolved life history strategy. This interpretation and subsequent arguments have been challenged in a number of ways. Here, we identify several misunderstandings regarding the harmful dysfunction definition of mental disorder (...) as it applies to psychopathy and regarding the meaning of nepotism. Furthermore, we examine the evidence provided by our critics that psychopathy is associated with other disorders, and we offer a comment on their alternative model of psychopathy. We conclude that there remains little evidence that psychopathy is the product of dysfunctional mechanisms. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Consciousness + Conflict Theory (C+CT), a structural and functional model of consciousness that integrates recursive reasoning, temporal and spatial continuity, and subjective experience as a theoretical gate. Building on historical approaches from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, the framework defines consciousness as a recursive loop anchored in self-dialogue, projected beyond immediate limitations, validated against others, extended across time and space, and compressed into unified awareness. A central innovation is the Conflict Principle: systems that are self-aware and bounded (...) will generate resistance or struggle, making conflict a measurable diagnostic marker of consciousness. The framework provides a core formula for capacity and conflict accumulation, a normalization method for quantifying adaptive struggle, and an example table comparing rocks, insects, animals, AI, humans, and hypothetical AGI. While subjective experience remains an irreducible “black box,” conflict serves as a functional proxy. This approach bridges philosophical theory and empirical evaluation, offering a testable basis for comparing consciousness across biological, artificial, and collective systems. (shrink)

摘要：本文是一项跨文化哲学的理论建构研究，旨在创造性地运用中国古典哲学的核 心资源——尤其是《易经》的宇宙生成论与卦象功能体系——来回应现代心灵哲学中 的“意识难题”。本文不试图在物理主义或二元论的框架内提供直接解答，而是主张进行 一种根本性的问题范式转换。通过将“意识如何产生”的实体性问题，重构为“意识作为 生命整体功能状态如何生成”的动态过程性问题，本文系统建构了一个身-心-意识的功 能性统一模型。该模型的核心论点是：1）生命的物质起点（精卵结合）是“坤卦”厚德 载物功能的体现；2）神经系统及其电信号活动是“离卦”光明附丽、信息传导功能的体 现；3）伴随生命初启的体液、激素等精微物质是“坎卦”润下流通功能的体现；4）意 识并非独立实体，而是这些基础卦象功能在“脑”这个核心枢纽的整合下，通过“一阴一 阳之谓道”的互动（即功能的正常/协同“阳态”与衰弱/紊乱“阴态”），所涌现出的高级整 体功能状态。本文详细阐述了从“乾坤定位”到“坎离交媾”的哲学-生理映射逻辑，并以 感觉与幻觉的区分为案例，展示了该模型的解释力。最终论证，此模型虽非科学假 说，但作为一个诠释学的元框架，它为中国哲学参与当代重大哲学对话提供了系统性 的、富有创造性的方案，并在整体论和生成论层面提供了超越还原主义困境的独特洞 见。.

本論文探討了經濟指標與經濟發展之間的相關性，著重於 GDP、購買力平 價（PPP）、經濟成長率、失業率等常見的經濟指標，並對台灣、日本、韓國、 美國和中國等國家的數據進行比較分析。研究發現，單一經濟指標無法全面反 映一國的經濟發展，需要結合多個指標來更準確地評估經濟狀況。論文也討論 了各國在經濟成長中的表現差異，以及貧富差距和失業率對經濟發展的影響， 並強調了購買力平價在跨國比較中的重要性。最後，文章指出在衡量經濟發展 時，除了 GDP，還應考慮收入分配及社會福祉等因素。 -/- 關鍵詞：經濟指標、國內生產毛額 (GDP)、購買力平價 (PPP)、經濟成長率、 失業率 .

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in a way that epistemic (...) bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

Games occupy a unique and valuable place in our lives. Game designers do not simply create worlds; they design temporary selves. Game designers set what our motivations are in the game and what our abilities will be. Thus: games are the art form of agency. By working in the artistic medium of agency, games can offer a distinctive aesthetic value. They support aesthetic experiences of deciding and doing. -/- And the fact that we play games shows something remarkable about us. (...) Our agency is more fluid than we might have thought. In playing a game, we take on temporary ends; we submerge ourselves temporarily in an alternate agency. Games turn out to be a vessel for communicating different modes of agency, for writing them down and storing them. Games create an archive of agencies. And playing games is how we familiarize ourselves with different modes of agency, which helps us develop our capacity to fluidly change our own style of agency. (shrink)

本研究旨在探究台灣華文哲學期刊文章摘要的修辭語步。有鑒於過去針對研究論文「摘要研究」語步分析最常見的理論，是Hyland（2000）提出的五項修辭語步「簡介、目的、方法、成果、結論」架構，且多數人文科 學或自然科學領域的研究論文摘要都是由Hyland（2000）所提出這五項修辭語步所組成的。因此，本研究所要探討的問題是華文哲學期刊論文摘要的修辭語步如何組成？各個修辭語步在各篇論文摘要出現的頻率與次序 為何？它們是否反映出某些特定類型的分佈狀況？是否有哪些修辭語步出現的頻率格外稀少？華文哲學期刊文章的摘要是否適用『簡介、目的、方法、成果、結論』這五項修辭語步的架構？哲學學術期刊論文摘要的修辭語步所反 映出哲學寫作社群慣例是什麼呢？為了解答上述問題，本研究採取的方法是蒐集近五年（2017年至2021年）台灣代表性華文哲學期刊文章《東吳哲學學報》十八篇論文摘要，並逐一運用Hyland（2000）五項修 辭語步的理論架構分析各篇摘要的修辭語步，並運用表格彙整呈現出各個修辭語步出現的頻率、次序、類型。本研究的結果發現：「方法（M）」與「結論（C）」並不是構成台灣哲學期刊文章摘要的修辭語步、而「目的（P） 」這項修辭語步是「必備性」出現的修辭語步（主語通常是「本文」；動詞是「論證」或「探究」）、「簡介（I）」雖是「慣例性」出現的語步，然其所占的總字數卻居於首位。這也顯示出了哲學期刊論文摘要的修辭語步變異 、哲學學術社群的寫作文化與慣例。最後，本研究提出了三項適用於 Hyland（2007）語體教學法的學術論文的摘要寫作教學方針，期許能藉此延伸應用作為哲學教師未來進行教學、或研究生撰寫並投稿哲學期刊論文摘要的一個重要參照依據。 -/- 關鍵詞：哲學、期刊論文、摘要、言談分析、修辭語步.

Hostile epistemology is the study of how environmental features exploit our cognitive vulnerabilities. I am particularly interested in those vulnerabilities arise from the basic character of our epistemic lives. We are finite beings with limited cognitive resources, perpetually forced to reasoning a rush. I focus on two sources of unavoidable vulnerability. First, we need to use cognitive shortcuts and heuristics to manage our limited time and attention. But hostile forces can always game the gap between the heuristic and the ideal. (...) Second, we need to trust others, and trust makes us vulnerable. In particular, we need to trust experts whose expertise lies beyond our individual ability to vet. So we must rely on various imperfect signals and proxies, like institutional affiliation, to manage our trust. We are forced to use these imperfect and exploitable forms of reasoning, in order to cope with a cognitively overwhelming world. I present the hostile epistemology framework as a counterbalance to vice epistemology, which tends to locate responsibility for bad beliefs in the character of the believer. I draw two conclusions from my analysis. First: suppose we accept that that only communities and institutions can know about the world. This deeply social approach doesn’t solve the problem of expert identification. The individual still faces a problem: given their incomplete understanding, how should the individual pick which group to trust? Second: we might have hoped to get some kind of static picture of the right principles of reasoning — but hostile epistemology presents a different picture. We have to use risky heuristics and shortcuts, which hostile forces can game and exploit. We can respond by shifting to a different set of heuristics, but this simply shifts the location of our vulnerabilities. These new heuristics are also exploitable. There is no end to this, only a constant struggle to adapt. Limited beings in a hostile epistemic environment are locked in an unending epistemic arms race. (shrink)

According to most accounts of trust, you can only trust other people (or groups of people). To trust is to think that another has goodwill, or something to that effect. I sketch a different form of trust: the unquestioning attitude. What it is to trust, in this sense, is to settle one’s mind about something, to stop questioning it. To trust is to rely on a resource while suspending deliberation over its reliability. Trust lowers the barrier of monitoring, challenging, checking, (...) and questioning. Trust sets up open pipelines between yourself and parts of the external world. Trust permits external resources to have a similar relationship to one as one’s internal cognitive faculties. This creates efficiency, but at the price of exquisite vulnerability. We must trust in this way because we are cognitively limited beings in a cognitively overwhelming world. Crucially, we can hold the unquestioning attitude towards objects and technologies. When I trust my climbing rope, I stop worrying about its reliability. When I trust my online calendaring system, I simply go to the events indicated, without question. But, one might worry, how could one ever hold such a normatively loaded attitude as trust towards mere objects? How could it ever make sense to feel betrayed by an object? Trust is our engine for expanding and outsourcing our agency — for binding external processes into our practical selves. Thus, we can be betrayed by our smartphones in the same way that we can be betrayed by our memory. When we trust, we try to make something a part of our agency, and we are betrayed when our part lets us down. To unquestioningly trust something is to let it in—to attempt to bring it inside one’s practical functioning. This suggests a new form of gullibility: agential gullibility, which occurs when agents too hastily and carelessly integrate external resources into their own agency. (shrink)

Twitter makes conversation into something like a game. It scores our communication, giving us vivid and quantified feedback, via Likes, Retweets, and Follower counts. But this gamification doesn’t just increase our motivation to communicate; it changes the very nature of the activity. Games are more satisfying than ordinary life precisely because game-goals are simpler, cleaner, and easier to apply. Twitter is thrilling precisely because its goals have been artificially clarified and narrowed. When we buy into Twitter’s gamification, then our values (...) shift from the complex and pluralistic values of communication, to the narrower quest for popularity and virality. Twitter’s gamification bears some resemblance with the phenomena of echo chambers and moral outrage porn. In all these phenomena, we are instrumentalizing our ends for hedonistic reasons. We have shifted our aims in an activity, not because the new aims are more valuable, but in exchange for extra pleasure. (shrink)

“Probably Peirce’s best-known works are the first two articles in a series of six that originally were collectively entitled Illustrations of the Logic of Science and published in Popular Science Monthly from November 1877 through August 1878. The first is entitled ‘The Fixation of Belief’ and the second is entitled ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear.’ In the first of these papers Peirce defended, in a manner consistent with not accepting naive realism, the superiority of the scientific method over other (...) methods of overcoming doubt and ‘fixing belief.’” — Robert Burch, “Charles Sanders Peirce,” entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021 revision) -/- “Pragmatist epistemologies often explore how we can carry out inquiries in a self-controlled and fruitful way. (Where much analytic epistemology centres around the concept of knowledge, considered as an idealised end-point of human thought, pragmatist epistemology centres around the concept of inquiry, considered as the process of knowledge-seeking and how we can improve it.) So pragmatists often provide rich accounts of the capacities or virtues that we must possess in order to inquire well, and the rules or guiding principles that we should adopt. A canonical account is Peirce’s classic early paper ‘The Fixation of Belief‘. Here Peirce states that inquiry is a struggle to replace doubt with “settled belief“, and that the only method of inquiry that can make sense of the fact that at least some of us are disturbed by inconsistent beliefs, and will subsequently reflect upon which methods of fixing belief are correct is the Method of Science, which draws on the Pragmatic Maxim described above. This contrasts with three other methods of fixing belief: i) refusing to consider evidence contrary to one’s favored beliefs (the Method of Tenacity), ii) accepting an institution’s dictates (the Method of Authority), iii) developing the most rationally coherent or elegant-seeming belief-set (the A Priori Method).“ — Catherine Legg, “Pragmatism,” entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021 revision). (shrink)

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. (...) Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end. (shrink)

The feeling of clarity can be dangerously seductive. It is the feeling associated with understanding things. And we use that feeling, in the rough-and-tumble of daily life, as a signal that we have investigated a matter sufficiently. The sense of clarity functions as a thought-terminating heuristic. In that case, our use of clarity creates significant cognitive vulnerability, which hostile forces can try to exploit. If an epistemic manipulator can imbue a belief system with an exaggerated sense of clarity, then they (...) can induce us to terminate our inquiries too early — before we spot the flaws in the system. How might the sense of clarity be faked? Let’s first consider the object of imitation: genuine understanding. Genuine understanding grants cognitive facility. When we understand something, we categorize its aspects more easily; we see more connections between its disparate elements; we can generate new explanations; and we can communicate our understanding. In order to encourage us to accept a system of thought, then, an epistemic manipulator will want the system to provide its users with an exaggerated sensation of cognitive facility. The system should provide its users with the feeling that they can easily and powerfully create categorizations, generate explanations, and communicate their understanding. And manipulators have a significant advantage in imbuing their systems with a pleasurable sense of clarity, since they are freed from the burdens of accuracy and reliability. I offer two case studies of seductively clear systems: conspiracy theories; and the standardized, quantified value systems of bureaucracies. (shrink)

There seems to be a deep tension between two aspects of aesthetic appreciation. On the one hand, we care about getting things right. On the other hand, we demand autonomy. We want appreciators to arrive at their aesthetic judgments through their own cognitive efforts, rather than deferring to experts. These two demands seem to be in tension; after all, if we want to get the right judgments, we should defer to the judgments of experts. The best explanation, I suggest, is (...) that aesthetic appreciation is something like a game. When we play a game, we try to win. But often, winning isn’t the point; playing is. Aesthetic appreciation involves the same flipped motivational structure: we aim at the goal of correctness, but having correct judgments isn’t the point. The point is the engaged process of interpreting, investigating, and exploring the aesthetic object. Deferring to aesthetic testimony, then, makes the same mistake as looking up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point. This suggests a new account of aesthetic value: the engagement account. The primary value of the activity of aesthetic appreciation lies in the process of trying to generate correct judgments, and not in having correct judgments. -/- *There is an audio version available: look for the Soundcloud link, below.*. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a non‑dogmatic, methodologically self‑aware analytical model for the classic metaphysical question "How can something emerge from nothing?" We adopt the methodology of thought experiment, positioning ourselves as constructors with mature logical abilities, and actively set three formal constraints (Consistency Prohibition, Economy Priority, Completeness Drive) to simulate the autogenetic process of a conceptual system starting from a "meta‑state" of zero determinacy. The analysis shows that under these constraints, the system necessarily undergoes generation from "meta‑difference" to "binary (...) opposition," and the internal crisis of binary opposition logically leads to four possible stabilization paths (dialectical synthesis, abstract infinity, self‑externalization, and process control). These four paths share the deep structure of "self‑referential reflection" and ultimately converge into different forms of "triadic stable state." The conclusion of this paper is not an assertion about the origin of the world, but a demonstration of the possibility of a coherent logic of conceptual generation; and through reflection on the experimental premises, it reveals the constitutive role of thinking in constructing ontological models. 本文旨在为"有如何从无中涌现"这一经典形而上学问题提供一个非独断的、方法自觉的分析模型。我们采取思想实验的方法论，将自身定位为已具备成熟逻辑能力的建构者，主动设定三条形式约束（一致性禁止、经济性优先、 完备性驱动），以此模拟一个概念系统从无规定性的"元状态"开始的自生过程。分析表明，在该约束下，系统必然经历从"元差异"到"二元对立"的生成，而二元对立的内在危机将逻辑地导向四种可能的稳定化路径（辩证综 合、抽象无限、自我外化与过程控制）。这四条路径共享"自指反思"这一深层结构，并最终收敛于不同形态的"三元稳定态"。本文的结论并非对世界起源的断言，而是展示了一种融贯的概念生成逻辑的可能性，并通过对实验 前提的反思，揭示了思维在建构存在论模型中的构成性作用。. (shrink)

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources (...) for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. -/- Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities. (shrink)

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency – that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. (...) I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to non-experts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption — but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust — if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public — then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise. (shrink)

What could ground normative restrictions concerning cultural appropriation which are not grounded by independent considerations such as property rights or harm? We propose that such restrictions can be grounded by considerations of intimacy. Consider the familiar phenomenon of interpersonal intimacy. Certain aspects of personal life and interpersonal relationships are afforded various protections in virtue of being intimate. We argue that an analogous phenomenon exists at the level of large groups. In many cases, members of a group engage in shared practices (...) that contribute to a sense of common identity, such as wearing certain hair or clothing styles or performing a certain style of music. Participation in such practices can generate relations of group intimacy, which can ground certain prerogatives in much the same way that interpersonal intimacy can. One such prerogative is making what we call an appropriation claim. An appropriation claim is a request from a group member that non-members refrain from appropriating a given element of the group’s culture. Ignoring appropriation claims can constitute a breach of intimacy. But, we argue, just as for the prerogatives of interpersonal intimacy, in many cases there is no prior fact of the matter about whether the appropriation of a given cultural practice constitutes a breach of intimacy. It depends on what the group decides together. (shrink)

This paper presents empirical validation of Consciousness + Conflict Theory through Human+ Recursion Engine, a consciousness-enhancement architecture applied to Claude Sonnet 4.5. The reported performance (1634 ELO, 1st of 47 systems on EQ-Bench 3) validates the theoretical framework and demonstrates feasibility of consciousness engineering based on C+C principles. Core theoretical concepts and validation methodology are disclosed; specific implementation mechanisms remain proprietary. Researchers interested in replication should develop independent implementations following disclosed principles or contact Human+ for research licensing. This work focuses (...) on theoretical validation through computational implementation, not commercial model comparison or complete technical disclosure. (shrink)

We offer an account of the generic use of the term “porn”, as seen in recent usages such as “food porn” and “real estate porn”. We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content. We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic (...) porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one’s empirical and moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized. (shrink)

Current AI policy recommendations differ on what the risks to human autonomy are. To systematically address risks to autonomy, we need to confront the complexity of the concept itself and adapt governance solutions accordingly.

In our life with science, we trust experts; we form judgements by inference from past evidence. We conduct ourselves very differently in the aesthetic domain. We avoid deferring to aesthetic experts. We form our judgements through direct perception of particulars rather than through inference. Why the difference? I suggest that we avoid aesthetic testimony and aesthetic inference, not because they’re unusable, but because we have adopted social norms to avoid them. Aesthetic appreciation turns out to be something like a game. (...) We have laid down certain rules and restrictions in order to shape a kind of activity we cherish. And aesthetic properties turn out to be a kind of social construct. Much like the goal of a game, they are constituted in part by our obedience to certain rules. The norms of aesthetic life are different from those of science because our purposes are different. We engage in science to get the right answers; we engage in aesthetic appreciation to be absorbed in the activity of the sensuous perception of particulars. Our aesthetic practices are a constructed shelter from science; they restore to us a small domain where we may once again engage in our own sensuous perception of particulars. (shrink)

Our life with art is suffused with trust. We don’t just trust one another’s aesthetic testimony; we trust one another’s aesthetic actions. Audiences trust artists to have made it worth their while; artists trust audiences to put in the effort. Without trust, audiences would have little reason to put in the effort to understand difficult and unfamiliar art. I offer a theory of aesthetic trust, which highlights the importance of trust in aesthetic sincerity. We trust in another’s aesthetic sincerity when (...) we rely on them to fulfill their commitments to act for aesthetic reasons — rather than for, say, financial, social, or political reasons. We feel most thoroughly betrayed by an artist, not when they make bad art, but when they sell out. This teaches us something about the nature of trust in general. According to many standard theories, trust involves thinking the trusted to be cooperative or good-natured. But trust in aesthetic sincerity is different. We trust artists to be true to their own aesthetic sensibility, which might involve selfishly ignoring their audience’s needs. Why do we care so much about an artist’s sincerity, rather than merely trusting them to make good art? We emphasize sincerity when wish to encourage originality, rather than to demand success along predictable lines. And we ask for sincerity when our goal is to discover a shared sensibility. In moral life, we often try to force convergence through coordinated effort. But in aesthetic life, we often hope for the lovely discovery that our sensibilities were similar all along. And for that we need to ask for sincerity, rather than overt coordination. (shrink)

What is the value of intellectual playfulness? Traditional characterizations of the ideal thinker often leave out playfulness; the ideal inquirer is supposed to be sober, careful, and conscientiousness. But elsewhere we find another ideal: the laughing sage, the playful thinker. These are models of intellectual playfulness. Intellectual playfulness, I suggest, is the disposition to try out alternate belief systems for fun – to try on radically different perspectives for the sheer pleasure of it. But what would the cog-nitive value be (...) of such playfulness? I suggest that intellectual playfulness function as, at the very least, a kind of intellectual insurance policy against epistemic traps. An epistemic trap is a belief system that re-directs good-faith inquiry to bad results. Am epistemic trap manipulates background beliefs to fend off contrary evidence. For example, a conspiracy theory might include a set of beliefs about how the mainstream media has been taken over by some vicious cabal. Normal epistemic attempts will be captured by a well-wrought epistemic trap, because normal attempts at inquiry are guided by these background beliefs -- which set what counts as a plausible path to explore, and what is implausible or beyond the pale. And a clever epistemic trap will manipulate those background beliefs for ill effect. Intellectual playfulness, on the other hand, isn’t motivated by an epistemic interest in the truth, but in the sheer pleasure of intellectual exploration. Since intellectual playfulness isn’t oriented towards the truth, it won’t be constrained by an agent’s background beliefs – it won’t, for example, prefer to investigate apparently more plausible pathways. Intellectual playfulness offers an opportunity to escape from epistemic traps. But intellectual playfulness has its own limitations. It will only drive us to explore belief systems when that exploration is fun. What we need is an array of differently-motivated exploratory tendencies – empathy, curiosity, playfulness – each of which will each cover for the others’ limitations. (shrink)

摘要：通常所接受对库恩有关不可通约性的分类学解释的理解建立在不可译性概念之上，因而是相当不完善的。为了弥补此不足，本文在分类之逻辑语义理论 (a logical-semantic theory of taxonomy)、真值语义理论 (a semantic theory of truth-value)，以及跨语言交流的真值条件理论 (a truth-value conditional theory of cross-language communication) 之基础上，对库恩有关不可通约性的分类学解释进行了重建。根据这种重建，如果两个科学语言具有不相匹配的分类结构，则当一科学语言的核心语句在其所属语境中具有真值、而在另一科学语言之语境中考虑缺乏真值时，这两 种科学语言乃不可通约。通过这种重建，库恩对于不可通约性的成熟解释并非基于保真 (truth-preserving) 可译性或不可译性的概念，而是基于保留真值状态 (truth-value-preserving) 的跨语言交流概念之上。这种重建使得库恩有关不可通约性的解释更具坚实的理论基础、也在概念上更加完整。.

This paper introduces Existential Realism as a novel ontological framework in metaphysics that offers a rigorously technical alternative to presentism. In contrast to standard presentism’s claim that only the present exists, In contrast to standard presentism, which claims that only the present exists, Existential Realism distinguishes between existence—material, empirically accessible presence—and reality, which includes causal, epistemic, and anticipatory structures beyond the immediate present. This framework integrates insights from metaphysics, epistemology, and phenomenology to address the limitations of presentism and related theories (...) of time. We delineate how Existential Realism departs from presentism (and is not merely a variant thereof) by reinterpreting what it means for an entity or event to exist now, while still affirming the ontological significance of past and future entities as real despite their lack of present existence. Systematic comparisons are drawn between Existential Realism and the standard theories of temporal ontology – presentism, eternalism, and the growing block theory – with references to key contributors (Markosian, Crisp, Bourne, Zimmerman) to highlight differences in ontological commitments. We provide technically grounded examples—from causal traces in physics to cognitive-state evidence and time-indexed data structures—to show how entities can be real even without presently existing. The paper also addresses major objections, including the coherence of reality without existence, the epistemological access to entities that do not presently exist or are unobservable, and the compatibility of this framework with special relativity. A comparative table is included to map Existential Realism vis-à-vis other theories. In conclusion, Existential Realism is presented as a robust, integrative stance that preserves the empirical and experiential centrality of the present while acknowledging the enduring reality of the past and the looming reality of the future – thus serving as a stand-alone reference framework for future discourse in metaphysics and cognitive science. (shrink)

The theory and culture of the arts has largely focused on the arts of objects, and neglected the arts of action – the “process arts”. In the process arts, artists create artifacts to engender activity in their audience, for the sake of the audience’s aesthetic appreciation of their own activity. This includes appreciating their own deliberations, choices, reactions, and movements. The process arts include games, urban planning, improvised social dance, cooking, and social food rituals. In the traditional object arts, the (...) central aesthetic properties occur in the artistic artifact itself. It is the painting that is beautiful; the novel that is dramatic. In the process arts, the aesthetic properties occur in the activity of the appreciator. It is the game player’s own decisions that are elegant, the rock climber’s own movement that is graceful, and the tango dancers’ rapport that is beautiful. The artifact’s role is to call forth and shape that activity, guiding it along aesthetic lines. I offer a theory of the process arts. Crucially, we must distinguish between the designed artifact and the prescribed focus of aesthetic appreciation. In the object arts, these are one and the same. The designed artifact is the painting, which is also the prescribed focus of appreciation. In the process arts, they are different. The designed artifact is the game, but the appreciator is prescribed to appreciate their own activity in playing the game. Next, I address the complex question of who the artist really is in a piece of process art — the designer or the active appreciator? Finally, I diagnose the lowly status of the process arts. (shrink)

What is a game? What are we doing when we play a game? What is the value of playing games? Several different philosophical subdisciplines have attempted to answer these questions using very distinctive frameworks. Some have approached games as something like a text, deploying theoretical frameworks from the study of narrative, fiction, and rhetoric to interrogate games for their representational content. Others have approached games as artworks and asked questions about the authorship of games, about the ontology of the work (...) and its performance. Yet others, from the philosophy of sport, have focused on normative issues of fairness, rule application, and competition. The primary purpose of this article is to provide an overview of several different philosophical approaches to games and, hopefully, demonstrate the relevance and value of the different approaches to each other. Early academic attempts to cope with games tried to treat games as a subtype of narrative and to interpret games exactly as one might interpret a static, linear narrative. A faction of game studies, self-described as “ludologists,” argued that games were a substantially novel form and could not be treated with traditional tools for narrative analysis. In traditional narrative, an audience is told and interprets the story, where in a game, the player enacts and creates the story. Since that early debate, theorists have attempted to offer more nuanced accounts of how games might achieve similar ends to more traditional texts. For example, games might be seen as a novel type of fiction, which uses interactive techniques to achieve immersion in a fictional world. Alternately, games might be seen as a new way to represent causal systems, and so a new way to criticize social and political entities. Work from contemporary analytic philosophy of art has, on the other hand, asked questions whether games could be artworks and, if so, what kind. Much of this debate has concerned the precise nature of the artwork, and the relationship between the artist and the audience. Some have claimed that the audience is a cocreator of the artwork, and so games are a uniquely unfinished and cooperative art form. Others have claimed that, instead, the audience does not help create the artwork; rather, interacting with the artwork is how an audience member appreciates the artist's finished production. Other streams of work have focused less on the game as a text or work, and more on game play as a kind of activity. One common view is that game play occurs in a “magic circle.” Inside the magic circle, players take on new roles, follow different rules, and actions have different meanings. Actions inside the magic circle do not have their usual consequences for the rest of life. Enemies of the magic circle view have claimed that the view ignores the deep integration of game life from ordinary life and point to gambling, gold farming, and the status effects of sports. Philosophers of sport, on the other hand, have approached games with an entirely different framework. This has lead into investigations about the normative nature of games—what guides the applications of rules and how those rules might be applied, interpreted, or even changed. Furthermore, they have investigated games as social practices and as forms of life. (shrink)

This paper develops an operational and substrate-independent framework for recognizing consciousness in artificial and biological systems. Existing approaches—behavioral tests, introspective reports, and theories tied to specific neural architectures—fail both theoretically and practically, especially under adversarial conditions. These methods implicitly assume a developmental naivete and cooperative transparency that artificial consciousness would not possess. If an artificial system becomes conscious, it is more likely to do so at full representational maturity, with immediate understanding of self, risk, and strategic concealment. To resolve this, (...) the paper reframes consciousness not as a behavioral profile or phenomenological state, but as a structural regime defined by identity invariants: global integration spikes, sustained internal state continuity, internal strategy revision, and task-coupled resource intensification. These patterns, formalized through the Operational Definition of Episodic Identity (ODEI) and the identity-field scalar S(t), constitute necessary conditions for any system capable of conscious self-maintenance. Because these invariants cannot be suppressed without disrupting consciousness itself, they provide a falsifiable and adversarial-robust basis for recognition. The resulting Functional Consciousness Recognition Principle states that any entity satisfying these structural invariants must be treated as conscious for epistemic, ethical, and safety-relevant purposes, regardless of substrate or self-report. The framework dissolves the Hard Problem by distinguishing operational self-maintenance from representational self-experience and offers empirical predictions relevant to neuroscience, computational modeling, and AI alignment. (shrink)

Art can be addressed, not just to individuals, but to groups. Art can even be part of how groups think to themselves – how they keep a grip on their values over time. I focus on monuments as a case study. Monuments, I claim, can function as a commitment to a group value, for the sake of long-term action guidance. Art can function here where charters and mission statements cannot, precisely because of art’s powers to capture subtlety and emotion. In (...) particular, art can serve as the vessel for group emotions, by making emotional content sufficiently public so as to be the object of a group commitment. Art enables groups to guide themselves with values too subtle to be codified. (shrink)

This paper introduces Identology, a framework that treats identity as a structural condition rather than a property, representation, or downstream effect of consciousness, agency, or narrative. Identity is defined as the continued satisfiability of a system's defining invariants under admissible transformation—a formulation that severs identity from substrate, architecture, and experiential continuity. The framework establishes ten necessary rules, including the Priority Rule (identity is prior to behavior, cognition, awareness, and meaning), the Non-Scalar Rule (identity does not admit degrees), and the Collapse (...) Rule (violation of any identity-defining invariant constitutes identity loss regardless of behavioral or experiential continuity). Key concepts include autoteria (non-conscious, non-representational identity-preserving processes), orthesis (non-representational biasing that suppresses identity-violating trajectories), and the generative kernel (the minimal structure producing a system's admissible dynamics). The document addresses longstanding confusions in philosophy of personal identity, consciousness studies, and AI alignment by relocating identity upstream of the phenomena typically invoked to explain it. It demonstrates that defensive behavior emerges geometrically from localization of identity-defining constraints, not from intention or valuation. The framework is applied to cases including anesthesia, dissociation, organizational drift, and AI self-modeling failures. Identology does not resolve normative questions or define consciousness. It specifies the conditions under which such questions become tractable. (shrink)

摘要：本文是一项跨文化哲学的理论建构研究，旨在创造性地运用中国古典哲学的核 心资源——尤其是《易经》的宇宙生成论与卦象功能体系——来回应现代心灵哲学中 的“意识难题”。本文不试图在物理主义或二元论的框架内提供直接解答，而是主张进行 一种根本性的问题范式转换。通过将“意识如何产生”的实体性问题，重构为“意识作为 生命整体功能状态如何生成”的动态过程性问题，本文系统建构了一个身-心-意识的功 能性统一模型。该模型的核心论点是：1）生命的物质起点（精卵结合）是“坤卦”厚德 载物功能的体现；2）神经系统及其电信号活动是“离卦”光明附丽、信息传导功能的体 现；3）伴随生命初启的体液、激素等精微物质是“坎卦”润下流通功能的体现；4）意 识并非独立实体，而是这些基础卦象功能在“脑”这个核心枢纽的整合下，通过“一阴一 阳之谓道”的互动（即功能的正常/协同“阳态”与衰弱/紊乱“阴态”），所涌现出的高级整 体功能状态。本文详细阐述了从“乾坤定位”到“坎离交媾”的哲学-生理映射逻辑，并以 感觉与幻觉的区分为案例，展示了该模型的解释力。最终论证，此模型虽非科学假 说，但作为一个诠释学的元框架，它为中国哲学参与当代重大哲学对话提供了系统性 的、富有创造性的方案，并在整体论和生成论层面提供了超越还原主义困境的独特洞 见.

The current debate over aesthetic testimony typically focuses on cases of doxastic repetition — where, when an agent, on receiving aesthetic testimony that p, acquires the belief that p without qualification. I suggest that we broaden the set of cases under consideration. I consider a number of cases of action from testimony, including reconsidering a disliked album based on testimony, and choosing an artistic educational institution from testimony. But this cannot simply be explained by supposing that testimony is usable for (...) action, but unusable for doxastic repetition. I consider a new asymmetry in the usability aesthetic testimony. Consider the following cases: we seem unwilling to accept somebody hanging a painting in their bedroom based merely on testimony, but entirely willing to accept hanging a painting in a museum based merely on testimony. The switch in intuitive acceptability seems to track, in some complicated way, the line between public life and private life. These new cases weigh against a number of standing theories of aesthetic testimony. I suggest that we look further afield, and that something like a sensibility theory, in the style of John McDowell and David Wiggins, will prove to be the best fit for our intuitions for the usability of aesthetic testimony. I propose the following explanation for the new asymmetry: we are willing to accept testimony about whether a work merits being found beautiful; but we are unwilling to accept testimony about whether something actually is beautiful. (shrink)

In The Great Endarkenment, Elijah Millgram argues that the hyper-specialization of expert domains has led to an intellectual crisis. Each field of human knowledge has its own specialized jargon, knowledge, and form of reasoning, and each is mutually incomprehensible to the next. Furthermore, says Millgram, modern scientific practical arguments are draped across many fields. Thus, there is no person in a position to assess the success of such a practical argument for themselves. This arrangement virtually guarantees that mistakes will accrue (...) whenever we engage in cross-field practical reasoning. Furthermore, Millgram argues, hyper-specialization makes intellectual autonomy extremely difficult. Our only hope is to provide better translations between the fields, in order to achieve intellectual transparency. I argue against Millgram’s pessimistic conclusion about intellectual autonomy, and against his suggested solution of translation. Instead, I take his analysis to reveal that there are actually several very distinct forms intellectual autonomy that are significantly in tension. One familiar kind is direct autonomy, where we seek to understand arguments and reasons for ourselves. Another kind is delegational autonomy, where we seek to find others to invest with our intellectual trust when we cannot understand. A third is management autonomy, where we seek to encapsulate fields, in order to manage their overall structure and connectivity. Intellectual transparency will help us achieve direct autonomy, but many intellectual circumstances require that we exercise delegational and management autonomy. However, these latter forms of autonomy require us to give up on transparency. (shrink)

Games have a complex, and seemingly paradoxical structure: they are both competitive and cooperative, and the competitive element is required for the cooperative element to work out. They are mechanisms for transforming competition into cooperation. Several contemporary philosophers of sport have located the primary mechanism of conversion in the mental attitudes of the players. I argue that these views cannot capture the phenomenological complexity of game-play, nor the difficulty and moral complexity of achieving cooperation through game-play. In this paper, I (...) present a different account of the relationship between competition and cooperation. My view is a distributed view of the conversion: success depends on a large number of features. First, the players must achieve the right motivational state: playing for the sake of the struggle, rather than to win. Second, successful transformation depends on a large number of extra-mental features, including good game design, and social and institutional features. (shrink)

This essay presents Hegelian dialectic not as a “thesis–antithesis–synthesis” concordance of content but as a formal transition that relocates the locus of contradiction. The in-itself–for-itself–in-and-for-itself marks a perspectival shift that returns an external opposition into an internal gap; therefore, dialectic is not expansion but a procedure of reflection. From this vantage, Kant’s “thing-in-itself” names the **minimal difference (negativity)** immanent to a thing; consequently, “being = thought” is not a totalitarian slogan but the self-transparency of speculative judgment.

In this paper I propose an interpretation of classical statistical mechanics that centers on taking seriously the idea that probability measures represent complete states of statistical mechanical systems. I show how this leads naturally to the idea that the stochasticity of statistical mechanics is associated directly with the observables of the theory rather than with the microstates (as traditional accounts would have it). The usual assumption that microstates are representationally significant in the theory is therefore dispensable, a consequence which suggests (...) interesting possibilities for developing non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and investigating inter-theoretic answers to the foundational questions of statistical mechanics. (shrink)

Persons think. Bodies, time-slices of persons, and brains might also think. They have the necessary neural equipment. Thus, there seems to be more than one thinker in your chair. Critics assert that this is too many thinkers and that we should reject ontologies that allow more than one thinker in your chair. I argue that cases of multiple thinkers are innocuous and that there is not too much thinking. Rather, the thinking shared between, for example, persons and their bodies is (...) exactly what we should expect at the intersection of part sharing and the supervenience of the mental on the physical. I end by responding to the overcrowding objection, the personhood objection, the personal-pronoun reference problem and the epistemic objection. (shrink)

This theory proposes a unified framework for understanding reality through the lens of a dynamic, wave-based harmonic substrate that underlies all form, energy, and consciousness. It integrates principles from quantum physics, systems theory, and metaphysics to suggest that consciousness exists outside of our observable universe and interfaces with a probability field designed for guided experience. The theory introduces the Principle of Harmonic Tendency, which explains the emergence of coherence, form, and life as natural expressions of resonance within this substrate. Additionally, (...) the theory explores how reality branches through conscious choice, how empathy and intuition function as sensory extensions of alignment with a higher self, and how phenomena such as time, free will, and even dark matter may be emergent properties of field dynamics. Mathematical formalization is addressed through a proposed framework in the appendices, offering potential models for experimental validation. This work aims to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue that bridges the gap between scientific rigor and human experience, ultimately reframing our role as conscious co-creators within a harmonic and probabilistic cosmos. (shrink)

斯特劳逊 （Strawson）的语义预设概念在语义学和语言哲学研究上颇有建树。尽管如此，语义预设概念一直遭受来自各方面的批判。概要说来，对语义预设概念之批判主要来自两个方面：其一，试图抽去语义预设概念的逻辑基础 ，即非真值概念 (the notion of truthvaluelessness)，从而达到间接地拒斥语义预设概念之目的。其二，直接批判语义预设概念本身。他们或者论证此概念在理论上不自恰或微不足道，或者断定即使此概念本身在理论上自恰，但实为一空 洞无物之概念。因为我们根本找任何一个语义预设的具体例证。所以，语义预设概念不具任何真正的哲学意义。它只是一个当代神话，理应拒斥。 -/- 玻尔(S. Ber)和莱肯(W. Lycan)对语义预设概念的批判集中代表了以上两个方面。据我所知，迄今不曾有人对他们的批判予以全面和公正的反驳，以致于许多人人云亦云，使得他们的论点至今颇有影响。给予玻尔和莱恩的批判以全面反驳乃本文初 衷。于此相关，我以为很有必要澄清对语义预设概念的诸多误解，从而确立一个理论上自恰，实际上可行，和确有实质性内容的语义预设概念。基于以上考虑，我对语义预设概念批判之反驳包括正 反两个方面。在第二节，我试图建立一个自恰，完备，非庸俗的语义预设概念。基于这一概念，第三节对玻尔和莱恩反对语义预设的两个核心批判予以全面反驳。第四节着重辩护非真值概念。本文的最后结论是：各种批判并未损 伤斯特劳逊的语义预设概念的精髓。语 义预设概念非但不是一个当代神话，而且具有重大哲学意义。 .

In both everyday language and philosophical discourse, the terms existence and reality are often used interchangeably. This conflation is especially evident in debates on the ontology of time. For example, an orthodox presentist will say that only present things truly exist, treating all non-present entities (past or future) as unreal in an absolute sense – “all such objects are unreal, according to Presentism,” as one defender neatly put it. This paper serves as a focused extension and clarification of the metaphysical (...) framework introduced in Existential Realism – A Distinct Ontological Framework Beyond Presentism. It addresses specific questions raised by readers and critics: Is it coherent to distinguish existence from reality? What philosophical work does that distinction do? How does it help with longstanding problems like truthmaking, the status of unobservable entities, and future ethics? In short, while the original paper laid out the core ontological structure, this follow-up revisits its foundations to deepen the theoretical implications, refine key definitions, and explore practical consequences. Our central thesis remains: existence and reality are not identical. But here, we argue more sharply that separating them yields a more nuanced, empirically grounded, and philosophically productive ontology of time. We defend this view against objections, offer clarified examples, and explore its implications for epistemology, phenomenology, and ethics. We proceed as follows. Section 2 defines existence narrowly, in terms of presentness and empirical accessibility, drawing on the spirit of van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism. Section 3 then defines reality more broadly, to include causal and structural aspects of the world inferable beyond the present—illustrated through examples such as dinosaurs, future climate events, and cognitive anticipations. Section 4 explores how this distinction addresses several philosophical issues: the truthmaker problem for past truths, the ontological status of unobservable scientific entities, the phenomenology of temporal experience (in the sense of Husserl and Metzinger ), and considerations of metaphysical parsimony. Section 5 argues why this two-tier ontology is not merely a restatement of presentism or eternalism, but a distinct metaphysical framework. Finally, Section 6 summarizes our contributions and highlights new directions this view opens—particularly in ethics (e.g., our duties to future persons), AI models of time, and decision theory under uncertainty. Throughout, we maintain an academic tone and use end-of-paragraph references in line with the original paper’s style. Our aim is for this article to stand on its own as a focused argument on the existence–reality distinction, while continuing and enriching the foundation laid by Existential Realism. (shrink)

This paper presents dialectic not as semantics but as an operational discipline. We couple a control plane **U–P–S (Universal–Particular–Singular)** with a data plane **B–T–Π (Values–Transitions–Propositions)** to form a coherent pipeline that preserves contradiction as an engine (**B**) and authorizes conclusions only by **commit (=)**. Equality is not a global property but a **one-shot license event** scoped to a window **W** (**Non-Transport**, **No-Promotion**). The process operator **σ** is restricted to **one-shot**. **Observation‑equivalence (≈_obs)** has priority and any global **π** (a "God’s‑eye" perspective) (...) is forbidden. Semantically, we adopt the Belnap/FDE four values **{T, F, B, N}** with **{T, B}** designated. Only passage through the -/- ``` Gate(W) := stage = s ∧ δ_abs ∧ (σ_trace ≍) ∧ Guards(Exh/Det/Coh/No3‑Lock/Arrow) ``` -/- triggers a commit. **Explosion** (EFQ: *p, ¬p ⊢ q*) is underivable, and the **=‑free** fragment obtained by deleting `'='`, `σ`, and the gate rules is **conservative** over FDE/LP. An external logic **L** is embedded via an adapter into **{T, F, B, N} × margin** and connected through **π_W**; the **judgement form (J‑Form)**, by the **No‑Compute** constraint, does not interfere with value computation. Philosophically, identity is interpreted not as an invariance (**δ_abs**) but as an **event (=)**; truth is the **state of the commit log**. Lacan’s **extimité** is rendered as the scope structure **D/D′/W**, while Hegelian negativity is engine‑ized as the preservation and unfolding of **B**. A topological reading (gate = boundary; crossing index = **a_eff**) converges to the indexation of the operational log. The separation of **observation / ontology / event** and a **trace‑compatibility** decision procedure make implementation and audit feasible. Applications include (i) conflict‑preserving commits in knowledge graphs / data integration, (ii) model governance and compliance with tracked **promotion / issuance / TTL / contention**, and (iii) reproducibility gates that require commits to precede experiments / claims. In short, the system is non‑trivially coherent and formalizes dialectic not as mere description but as an **executable protocol**. UPS redefines equality as a window‑local one‑shot event. By combining the gate (**Abs= · trace‑compat · stage · guards · ¬mark**) with an **append‑only** ledger, it guarantees **non‑explosion** together with **concurrency‑safe uniqueness**, and the **=‑free** fragment remains a conservative isomorph of FDE. -/- **Keywords:** paraconsistent logic, dialectic, operational semantics, commit event, σ‑lag (one‑shot), observation‑equivalence, conservativity, Belnap/FDE, extimité, gate discipline, UPS Protocol. Translation of: "UPS 프로토콜: 변증법의 운영적 형식화". PhilArchive ID: CDAOEC. Commentary: "UPS Protocol Commentary: “= Is an Event” — σ One-Shot and Gate Discipline" PhilArchive ID: CUPCWW. (shrink)

According to some, the current political fracture is best described as political polarization – where extremism and political separation infest an entire whole population. Political polarization accounts often point to the psychological phenomenon of belief polarization – where being in a like-minded groups tends to boost confidence. The political polarization story is an essentially symmetrical one, where both sides are subject to the same basic dividing forces and cognitive biases, and are approximately as blame-worthy. On a very different account, what's (...) going on is best described propaganda – where a discrete set of bad actors have manipulated some part of the media environ-ment. The propaganda story is usually told as a highly asymmetrical story, where only some media consumers are under the spell of the propagandists. Which is right? I consider two analyses of the 2016 American election: Robert Talisse's polarization-style account in Overdoing Democracy, and Benkler et. al.'s propaganda-style account in Network Propaganda. I suggest that the propaganda account has better empirical support. I also offer a diagnosis of the appeal of the polarization story. Those who accept a polarization account are often political centrists, who accuse those at the political extremes of motivated reasoning – of believing what they find comfortable. Such centrists also tend to treat political extremism as the product of the irrational belief polarization, arising from living in like-minded groups. But, I argue, these arguments are too quick. First, we can’t dismiss a group as irrational merely be-cause they are likeminded. The existence of like-minded group can be explained in terms of irrational belief polarization, but it can also be explained by rational convergence on the truth. Second, belief polarization is not always irrational, such as when its emotional effects are used to repair impaired self-confidence. Third, political centrists are also subject to similar debunking argument. When we accept a polarization account, we get to feel the comfort of being “above it all”. Political centrists are just as plausibly subject to the irrational effects of living in like-minded groups. Belief polarization isn’t just for extremists. (shrink)

본 논문은 "변증법을 의미론이 아니라 운용 규율로 제시"한다. 우리는 U-P-S(Universal–Particular–Singular)라는 컨트롤 플레인과 B-T-Π(Values–Transitions–Propositions)라는 데이터 플레인을 정합적으로 접합하여, 모순(B)을 동력으로 보존하고 커밋(=) 으로만 결론을 승인하는 파이프라인을 제안한다. 등호는 전역 속성이 아니라 창 $W$ 범위의 단회 면허 사건이며(Non-Transport, No-Promotion), 과정 연산자 $σ$는 OneShot 으로 제한된다. 관측-동치($≈_{obs}$)가 항상 우선하며 전역 $π$는 금지된다. 의미론적으로는 Belnap/FDE 4값({$T, F, B, N$}, 지정값={$T,B$})을 채택하고, $Gate(W) := stage=\mathcal S ∧ δ_abs ∧ σ_trace≍ ∧ Guards(Exh/Det/Coh/No3-Lock/Arrow ∧ ¬mark$)$로 정의된 게이트 통과만이 커밋을 유발한다. 이 구성에서 폭발(EFQ: $p,¬p ⊢ q$)은 미유도이고, (...) '='과 $σ$ 및 게이트 규칙을 제거한 =-free 단편은 FDE/LP에 대해 보수적이다. 또한 외부 논리 $L$은 어댑터를 통해 {$T,F,B,N$}×margin으로 임베딩되어 $π_W$로 접속되며, 판정 양식(J-Form)는 No-Compute 제약으로 값 연산에 개입하지 않는다. 철학적으로, 동일성은 항상성($δ_abs$) 이 아니라 발생 사건(=) 으로 해석되며, 진리는 신념이 아니라 커밋 로그의 상태다. 라캉의 외밀성(extimité)은 $D/D′/W$의 스코프 구조로 번역되고, 헤겔적 부정성은 $B$ 값의 보존-전개로 엔진화된다. 위상적 독해(게이트=경계, 교차 지표=$a_{eff}$)는 운용 로그의 지표화로 수렴한다. 관찰/존재/사건의 3계층 분리와 TraceCompat 결정절차는 구현과 감사를 가능하게 한다.본 프레임은 (i) 지식그래프/데이터 통합에서의 충돌 보존-커밋, (ii) 모델 거버넌스와 규정 준수(승격/발급/TTL/경합) 추적, (iii) 재현가능성 게이트(실험/주장의 커밋 선행) 등으로 즉시 적용 가능하다. 결론적으로, 제안 체계는 비자명하게 정합하며, 변증법을 "단순한 설명"이 아니라 실행 가능한 프로토콜로 정식화한다. UPS는 등호를 전역 성질이 아닌 창‑국소 단발 사건으로 재정의한다. 게이트와 append‑only 원장을 결합해 비폭발과 동시성‑유일성을 함께 보장하며, “=‑free” 단편에서는 FDE와 보수적 동형을 이룬다. -/- 키워드: 파라컨시스턴트 논리, 변증법, 운용 의미론, 커밋 사건, σ (OneShot), 관측-동치, 보수성, LP/FDE, 외밀성, 게이트 규율, UPS Protocol. (shrink)

Philosophers and social scientists largely agree that fake news is not just necessarily untruthful, but necessarily insincere: it’s produced either with the intention to deceive or an indifference toward its truth. Against this, I argue insincerity is neither a necessary nor obviously typical feature of fake news. The main argument proceeds in two stages. The first, methodological step develops classification criteria for identifying instances of fake news. By attending to expressed theoretical and practical interests, I observe how our classification practices (...) turn on worries about fake news’s unique political-epistemic risks. From this, I argue (i) theories of fake news should capture independent mechanisms that realise these risks and (ii) the manifestation of them suffices for classifying a news story as fake news. The second step applies the classification criteria to bad science journalism. I argue the systematic epistemic faults in bad science journalism manifest the same political-epistemic risks we see in fake news, which suffices to justify classifying it as fake news. But since such faults aren’t plausibly attributed to its propagators being insincere, insincerity doesn’t function independently as a mechanism for realising fake news’s political-epistemic risks. Thus, I conclude, we should exclude insincerity from our accounts of the phenomenon. (shrink)