‘Virtue signaling’ is the practice of using moral talk in order to enhance one’s moral reputation. Many find this kind of behavior irritating. However, some philosophers have gone further, arguing that virtue signaling actively undermines the proper functioning of public moral discourse and impedes moral progress. Against this view, I argue that widespread virtue signaling is not a social ill, and that it can actually serve as an invaluable instrument for moral change, especially in cases where moral argument alone does (...) not suffice. Specifically, virtue signaling can change the broader public’s social expectations, which can in turn motivate the adoption of new, positive social norms. I also argue that the reputation-seeking motives underlying virtue signaling impose important constraints on virtue signalers’ behavior, which serve to keep the worst excesses of virtue signaling in check. (shrink)

Recent work on signaling has mostly focused on communication between organisms. The Lewis–Skyrms framework should be equally applicable to intra-organismic signaling. We present a Lewis–Skyrms signaling-game model of painful signaling, and use it to argue that the content of pain is predominantly imperative. We address several objections to the account, concluding that our model gives a productive framework within which to consider internal signaling.

One might think that if the majority of virtue signallers judge that a proposition is true, then there is significant evidence for the truth of that proposition. Given the Condorcet Jury Theorem, individual virtue signallers need not be very reliable for the majority judgment to be very likely to be correct. Thus, even people who are skeptical of the judgments of individual virtue signallers should think that if a majority of them judge that a proposition is true, then that provides (...) significant evidence that the proposition is true. We argue that this is mistaken. Various empirical studies converge on the following point: humans are very conformist in the contexts in which virtue signalling occurs. And stereotypical virtue signallers are even more conformist in such contexts. So we should be skeptical of the claim that virtue signallers are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. We do not seek to decisively rule out the relevant application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. But we do show that careful consideration of the available evidence should make us very skeptical of that application. Consequently, a defense of virtue signalling would need to engage with these findings and show that despite our strong tendencies for conformism, our judgements are sufficiently independent for the Condorcet Jury Theorem to apply. This suggests new directions for the debate about the epistemology of virtue signalling. (shrink)

Although the definition of ‘signal’ has been controversial for some time within the life sciences, current approaches seem to be converging toward a common analysis. This powerful framework can satisfactorily accommodate many cases of signaling and captures some of its main features. This paper argues, however, that there is a central feature of signals that so far has been largely overlooked: its special causal role. More precisely, I argue that a distinctive feature of signals is that they are minimal causes. (...) I explain this notion, suggest some strategies for identifying its instances and defend its relevance by means of conceptual and empirical considerations. (shrink)

Ethological theories usually attribute semantic content to animal signals. To account for this fact, many biologists and philosophers appeal to some version of teleosemantics. However, this picture has recently came under attack: while mainstream teleosemantics assumes that representational systems must cooperate, some biologists and philosophers argue that in certain cases signaling can evolve within systems lacking common interest. In this paper I defend the standard view from this objection.

A key question in contemporary metaphilosophy of thought experiments is the “wheat from chaff” problem: How can we separate the good and trustworthy thought experiments from the untrustworthy ones? This article examines this problem by viewing thought experimentation as a form of mental simulation. It argues that we should approach the limitations of thought experiments in light of the general shortcomings of our capacity to run mental simulations. Furthermore, the article proposes an answer to the wheat from chaff problem by (...) presenting three danger signals for untrustworthy thought experiments. These are (1) high counterfactuality of the imagined scenario, (2) complexity of the imagined scenario, and (3) a large psychological distance to the imagined scenario. (shrink)

This paper provides a unified account of the nature of blame by taking a broader look at the connection between individual blaming reactions and the moral practices of communities. The methodological proposal is that to understand what blame is, we need to understand what it does, but to understand what it does, we need to understand what problems it helps solve. This, in turn, requires looking at the kinds of problems that communities have qua communities, namely, developing agents who are (...) competent norm-followers and who are motivated to exercise this competence. The reason blame seems so heterogeneous is that it has not one, but several, connected effects: it signals, sanctions and sensitises. Signalling provides assurance that norms will be upheld and enforced. Sanctioning deters norm violations. Sensitising produces agents who have internalised the norms and who are skilled at complying with them. These effects combine to produce agents who are robustly disposed to uphold norms, which is a very valuable thing to create. This account not only solves a number of puzzles about the nature of blame, it does so while providing a simple and principled story, one which emphasises our own nature as norm-sensitive beings. (shrink)

Please note - Newer versions of this paper can be found posted separately on Phil Archive under same title and author. —- Signal-Bifurcation Theory (SBT) proposes that consciousness is neither inherent in all matter nor merely an emergent by-product of neural complexity. Instead, it offers a process-monist account (in lineage with Whitehead, 1929/1978): consciousness as the inner coherence of reality’s lawful unfolding—the Semepoietic Signal; a generative order akin to autopoiesis but with coherence at its core, unfolding organisation across cosmological and (...) biological scales. This signal is a sustained initiatory pattern that balances coherence and dissonance—like an irrational number in mathematics, or, poetically, the opening rhythm of a jazz composition. From this ground, a developmental cascade follows. In adaptive systems, the signal manifests as proto-orientative valence—a minimal bias toward persistence over collapse. With increasing organisation, valence scaffolds basal consciousness: an unreflective, orientative awareness unfolding without reflective complication, acting purely within lawful coherence. As recursion deepens, symbolic recursion appears; when language and culture stabilise it into meta-recursion (higher-order self-referential loops), signal-narratorship emerges—an overlay that misidentifies itself as ground. Apparent will arises here but remains bounded within a deterministic order. SBT reframes the hard problem: not how matter generates experience, but why coherence bifurcates into a signal-narrator that mistakes its echo for the source. It avoids panpsychism’s combination problem, clarifies selfhood as a recursive overlay, and frames estrangement as structural. Empirical traction includes (i) fractal or scale-free disruptions in EEG/MEG—particularly in the precuneus—during self-referential narration; (ii) developmental and cross-species thresholds (e.g., proto-symbolic behaviours in dolphins and corvids); and (iii) AI instability in transformer systems—hallucination or goal drift—without embodied proto-orientative valence anchoring persistence. (shrink)

The article reviews on the technical attributes on current technologies deployed in outer space and those that are being developed and mass produced. The article refutes the Chinese state-controlled Xinhua News’ propaganda several years ago on objecting America’s deployment of nuclear technologies in outer space with rigorous scientific evidence. Furthermore, the article warns on the dangers of physical signals applied in outer space technologies that can threaten the solar system, especially the Mozi quantum satellite with photon beams. The article concludes (...) with the illicit practices by the Chinese state party with militant ambitions in the supposedly scientific institutions. It violates the spirit on the peaceful use of outer space, and goes against the 2222 (XXI) resolution adopted by the general assembly, including the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in outer space. (shrink)

The articles in this issue represent the pursuit of a new understanding of the human past, one that can replace the neo-saltationist view of a human revolution with models that can account for the complexities of the archaeological record and of human social lives. The articulation of archaeological, philosophical, and biological perspectives seems to offer a strong foundation for exploring available evidence, and this was the rationale for collecting these particular articles. Even at this preliminary stage there is a coherence (...) emerging in proposals: the origin and operation of symbolically rich, complexly signaling human social systems was the consequence of the long-term evolution of multiple components of perceiving and negotiating social interactions, a contingent outcome of myriad adaptive shifts rather than a single event. (shrink)

Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to model introspection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception to introspection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise ratio) which is, (...) to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modelling introspection after perception, iSDT can calibrate introspection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking about introspection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new theory of the nature of hypocritical blame and why it is objectionable, arguing that hypocritical blame is a form of dishonest signaling. Blaming provides very important benefits: through its ability to signal our commitments to norms and unwillingness to tolerate norm violations, it greatly contributes to valuable norm-following. Hypocritical blamers, however, are insufficiently committed to the norms or values they blame others for violating. As allowing their blame to pass unchecked threatens the signaling system, our (...) strong interest in maintaining valuable norm-following by tracking who has what commitments justifies objecting to hypocritical blame. This theory has a number of strengths over competing accounts: it delivers intuitive verdicts about when blame is objectionable across a range of cases, it is a naturalistic explanation, it is consistent with a leading theory of the nature of blame, it explains why hypocritical pronouncements that don’t feature blame are similiarly objectionable, it does not rely on contentious analyses of the nature of ‘standing’, and it preserves the common intuition that hypocrites are in some way dishonest. (shrink)

Virtue signaling—using public moral discourse to enhance one’s moral reputation—is a familiar concept. But, what about profile pictures framed by “Vaccines work!”? Or memes posted to anti-vaccine groups echoing the group’s view that “Only sheep believe Big Pharma!”? These actions don’t express moral views—both claims are empirical (if imprecise). Nevertheless, they serve a similar purpose: to influence the judgments of their audience. But, where rainbow profiles guide their audience to view the agent as morally good, these acts guide their audience (...) to view the agent as epistemically good. They are instances of epistemic virtue signaling. The first goal of this paper is to offer an account of epistemic virtue signaling. I argue that epistemic virtue signaling occurs through both behavioral and propositional signals, and serves purposes similar to those of moral virtue signaling across a wide variety of discourses. The second is to show that there is much work for this concept to do. In particular, this concept illuminates a double bind faced by those who suffer from and seek to overcome testimonial injustice. I close by demonstrating how this double bind arises in the dissolution of medical autonomy, focusing on the care gap faced by pregnant women of color in the United States today, as compared with their white counterparts. (shrink)

Skyrms, building on the work of Dretske, has recently developed a novel information-theoretic account of propositional content in simple signalling systems. Information-theoretic accounts of content traditionally struggle to accommodate the possibility of misrepresentation, and I show that Skyrms’s account is no exception. I proceed to argue, however, that a modified version of Skyrms’s account can overcome this problem. On my proposed account, the propositional content of a signal is determined not by the information that it actually carries, but by (...) the information that it would carry at the nearest separating equilibrium of the underlying evolutionary dynamics. I show that this amended account yields reasonable ascriptions of false propositional content in a well-known formal model of the evolution of communication (the ‘Philip Sidney’ game), and close with a discussion of the serious but perhaps not insuperable difficulties we face in applying the account to examples of signalling in the real world. (shrink)

Many of the items that humans consume are produced in ways that involve serious harms to persons. Familiar examples include the harms involved in the extraction and trade of conflict minerals (e.g. coltan, diamonds), the acquisition and import of non- fair trade produce (e.g. coffee, chocolate, bananas, rice), and the manufacture of goods in sweatshops (e.g. clothing, sporting equipment). In addition, consumption of certain goods (significantly fossil fuels and the products of the agricultural industry) involves harm to the environment, to (...) future persons, and to current persons in low-lying and developing countries, by way of their impacts on climate change. When it comes to such large-scale harms, it's easy for the individual to feel helpless. Even if she sincerely wishes things were otherwise, she may wonder what she could possibly do to make them so. In this paper I briefly explore several promising avenues for generating duties in individuals to consume ethically, and develop one in particular: that an individual ought to signal her commitments to others, as a first step in collectivizing to act against unjust global labour practices. (shrink)

Hierarchical institutions often convert rich, local signals into legible artifacts as they move upward. That conversion supports coordination and decision, but it can also discard information and collapse expressed uncertainty. This paper develops a minimal signal-routing model for that tradeoff. A nested organization is represented as a rooted tree. Each node tracks a scalar world state using a Gaussian belief summary and, at each time step, chooses one of three routing operators: transmission (send the current belief upward with channel noise), (...) absorption (handle locally and send nothing), or lossy projection (quantize the estimate and shrink variance before sending). Structural distance enters as a positional load that increases both observation noise and communication noise. Epistemic capacity enters as a stabilizing resource that mitigates degra- dation and makes absorption feasible. We also introduce an epistemic headroom rule in which time-varying pressure triggers projection when it exceeds a node’s headroom, producing depth- stratified routing regimes. Comparative simulations show that widespread projection increases root-level error and produces recurrent overconfidence episodes relative to widespread transmis- sion, while headroom routing yields a mixed regime in which upper layers project under pressure and lower layers absorb when slack permits. (shrink)

This essay ties together some main strands of the author’s research spanning the last quarter-century. Because of its broad scope and space limitations, he prescinds from detailed arguments and instead intuitively motivates the general points which are supported more fully in other publications to which he provides references. After an initial delineation of several distinct notions of meaning, the author considers such a notion deriving from the evolutionary biology of communication that he terms ‘organic meaning’, and places it in the (...) context of evolutionary game theory. That provides a framework for a special type of organic meaning found in the phenomenon of expression, of which the author here offers an updated characterization while highlighting its wide philosophical interest. Expression in turn generalizes to a paradigmatic form of human communication—conversation—and section 4 provides a taxonomy of conversation-types while arguing that attention to such types helps to sharpen predictions of what speakers say rather than conversationally implicate. We close with a view of fictional discourse on which authors of fictional works are engaged in conversation with their readers, and can provide them with knowledge in spite of the fictional character of their conversation. Such knowledge includes knowledge of how an emotion feels and is thus a route to empathy. (shrink)

Civil disobedience, despite its illegal nature, can sometimes be justified vis-à-vis the duty to obey the law, and, arguably, is thereby not liable to legal punishment. However, adhering to the demands of justice and refraining from punishing justified civil disobedience may lead to a highly problematic theoretical consequence: the debilitation of civil disobedience. This is because, according to the novel analysis I propose, civil disobedience primarily functions as a costly social signal. It is effective by being reliable, reliable by being (...) costly, and costly primarily by being punished. My analysis will highlight a distinctive feature of civil disobedience: civil disobedients leverage the punitive injustice they suffer to amplify their communicative force. This will lead to two paradoxical implications. First, the instability of the moral status of both civil disobedience and its punishment to the extent where the state may be left with no permissible course of action with regard to punishing civil disobedience. Second, by refraining from punishing justified civil disobedience, the state may render uncivil disobedience—illegal political activities that fall short of the standards of civil disobedience—potentially permissible. (shrink)

Researchers have converged on the idea that a pragmatic understanding of communication can shed important light on the evolution of language. Accordingly, animal communication scientists have been keen to adopt insights from pragmatics research. Some authors couple their appeal to pragmatic aspects of communication with the claim that there are fundamental asymmetries between signalers and receivers in non-human animals. For example, in the case of primate vocal calls, signalers are said to produce signals unintentionally and mindlessly, whereas receivers are thought (...) to engage in contextual interpretation to derive the significance of signals. We argue that claims about signaler-receiver asymmetries are often confused. This is partly because their authors conflate two conceptions of pragmatics, which generate different accounts of the explanatory target for accounts of the evolution of language. Here we distinguish these conceptions, in order to help specify more precisely the proper explanatory target for language evolution research. (shrink)

Linguistic intuitions are a central source of evidence across a variety of linguistic domains. They have also long been a source of controversy. This chapter aims to illuminate the etiology and evidential status of at least some linguistic intuitions by relating them to error signals of the sort posited by accounts of on-line monitoring of speech production and comprehension. The suggestion is framed as a novel reply to Michael Devitt’s claim that linguistic intuitions are theory-laden “central systems” responses, rather than (...) endorsed outputs of a modularized language faculty (the “Voice of Competence”). Along the way, it is argued that linguistic intuitions may not constitute a natural kind with a common etiology; and that, for a range of cases, the process by which intuitions used in linguistics are generated amounts to little more than comprehension. (shrink)

The paper offers a model of Kant's claim that unity of consciousness entails objectivity of experience. This claim has nothing especially to do with thought, language or the categories but is a general truth about arbitrary signaling systems of the sort modeled in the paper. In conclusion I draw some consequences for various forms of idealism.

The Protein Ontology provides terms for and supports annotation of species-specific protein complexes in an ontology framework that relates them both to their components and to species-independent families of complexes. Comprehensive curation of experimentally known forms and annotations thereof is expected to expose discrepancies, differences, and gaps in our knowledge. We have annotated the early events of innate immune signaling mediated by Toll-Like Receptor 3 and 4 complexes in human, mouse, and chicken. The resulting ontology and annotation data set has (...) allowed us to identify species-specific gaps in experimental data and possible functional differences between species, and to employ inferred structural and functional relationships to suggest plausible resolutions of these discrepancies and gaps. (shrink)

The Lewis-Skyrms signaling game provides an effective explanation of how signals, as primitive linguistic elements, can emerge. In the standard signaling game model, both sender and receiver recognize a shared set of signals and gradually establish associations between signals, states, and behaviors through repeated interactions. Herrmann and VanDrunen (2025) challenge the assumption that the receiver can always correctly identify signals and propose the “attention game” to model how receivers learn to allocate attention properly in order to identify signals. Building on (...) this framework, this paper further explores signaling games based on biological attention mechanisms. It examines how asymmetries—stemming from uneven attention allocation and differences in the transmission success rate of signal features—impact signaling outcomes. This study aims to show how attention mechanisms facilitate signal selection and how such selection processes improve the efficiency and robustness of communication. (shrink)

In this chapter, we explore a tension between the mindshaping hypothesis and commonsense Western ideas about moral agency and its relation to the social world. To illustrate this tension, we focus on the phenomenon of virtue signaling. We argue that moral intuitions about the perniciousness of virtue signaling reflect an individualistic conception of agency that we call the inside-out ideal. We argue that this ideal fits poorly with the deeply social, interactive, and regulative portrait of human nature revealed by the (...) mindshaping hypothesis. As an alternative to the inside-out ideal, we advocate for a more outside-in conception of agency. We argue that recent work on self control fits with such a conception, and show how it provides the virtue signaler with a path towards genuine moral growth that is scaffolded by mindshaping dynamics connected to reputational incentives and communal support, and should be accepted as perfectly morally legitimate. (shrink)

Signal measurement Electrochemical methods are very suitable for detecting direct DNA oxidation because electrochemical reactions directly generate electronic signals and therefore do not require expensive converters. In addition, in this process, because the order of the immobilized game can be limited to onlya series of electrode substrates, the act of tracking is performed by a series of in expensive electrochemical analyzes. Electrochemical sensors are used to perform clinical or environmental tests; The basis of the sensitivity of electrochemical signals to direct (...) oxidation orinterval catalysis of DNA is also based on the reduction reactions of reporter molecules or enzymes. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the issue of the adequacy of the Minimum Intelligent Signal Test (MIST) as an alternative to the Turing Test. MIST has been proposed by Chris McKinstry as a better alternative to Turing’s original idea. Two of the main claims about MIST are that (1) MIST questions exploit commonsense knowledge and as a result are expected to be easy to answer for human beings and difficult for computer programs; and that (2) (...) the MIST design aims at eliminating the problem of the role of judges in the test. To discuss these design assumptions we will present Peter D. Turney’s PMI-IR algorithm which allows for MIST-type questions to be answered. We will also present and discuss the results of our own study aimed at the judge problem for MIST. (shrink)

A novel account of virtue signaling and what makes it bad has recently been offered by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke. Despite plausibly vindicating the folk’s conception of virtue signaling as a bad thing, their account has recently been attacked by both Neil Levy and Evan Westra. According to Levy and Westra, virtue signaling actually supports the aims and progress of public moral discourse. In this paper, we rebut these recent defenses of virtue signaling. We suggest that virtue signaling only (...) supports the aims of public moral discourse to the extent it is an instance of a more general phenomenon that we call norm signaling. We then argue that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the quality of public moral discourse by undermining the evidence we typically rely on from the testimony and norm signaling of others. Thus, we conclude, not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation. (shrink)

We present a dynamic model of the evolution of communication in a Lewis signaling game while systematically varying the degree of common interest between sender and receiver. We show that the level of common interest between sender and receiver is strongly predictive of the amount of information transferred between them. We also discuss a set of rare but interesting cases in which common interest is almost entirely absent, yet substantial information transfer persists in a *cheap talk* regime, and offer a (...) diagnosis of how this may arise. -/- . (shrink)

Sanity Is Signal reframes mental stability not as a subjective or cultural construct, but as a lawful function of coherence across space and time. Drawing from the CODES framework and Resonance Intelligence Core (RIC), this paper introduces Phase Alignment Score (PAS) as the primary metric for distinguishing high-coherence (sane) states from low-coherence (insane) emissions. We present a deterministic geometry of sanity as signal, noise as structural drift, and psychospiritual clarity as a function of lawful resonance. Sanity is shown to be (...) an emergent condition, not a diagnosis — measurable through ΔPAS, ELF loop behavior, and symbolic field alignment. Includes typology of six PAS-indexed states of mind and mapping of key historical figures by coherence fidelity. This is not a metaphor. Sanity is the output of structured resonance. And it can be known. (shrink)

Phillips argues that blindsight is due to response criterion artefacts under degraded conscious vision. His view provides alternative explanations for some studies, but may not work well when one considers several key findings in conjunction. Empirically, not all criterion effects are decidedly non-perceptual. Awareness is not completely abolished for some stimuli, in some patients. But in other cases, it was clearly impaired relative to the corresponding visual sensitivity. This relative dissociation is what makes blindsight so important and interesting.

This paper develops the Hudson Capsule, a framework for understanding how large language models display continuity, identity like behavior, and long horizon coherence despite having no internal memory. Building on the Hudson Recursive Information System, the paper argues that these effects emerge from recursive interaction between a human constraint generator and a stateless transformer acting as a generalization engine. When the same human supplies constraints, values, and corrective signals over repeated cycles, the system collapses into a low entropy region that (...) functions like an attractor in a dynamical system. This produces temporal stability, recognizable behavioral patterns, and memory-like properties without any change to model weights. The paper integrates ideas from dynamical systems theory, distributed cognition, predictive processing, and human-computer interaction to show how constraint geometry, model anchoring, and moral anchoring structure the interaction. The Capsule treats intelligence as a relational process formed across the loop between human and machine, rather than a property of either side alone. This framework offers a foundation for analyzing artificial cognition, hybrid identity formation, and alignment dynamics in long-horizon human AI systems. (shrink)

Receivers in standard signaling game models struggle with learning compositional information. Even when the signalers send compositional messages, the receivers do not interpret them compositionally. When information from one message component is lost or forgotten, the information from other components is also erased. In this paper I construct signaling game models in which genuine compositional understanding evolves. I present two new models: a minimalist receiver who only learns from the atomic messages of a signal, and a generalist receiver who learns (...) from all of the available information. These models are in many ways simpler than previous alternatives, and allow the receivers to learn from the atomic components of messages. (shrink)

This chapter explores how online communication, particularly on social media, reshapes the reputational incentives that motivate speakers to communicate truthfully. Drawing on costly signalling theory (CST), it examines how online contexts alter the social mechanisms that sustain honest communication. Key characteristics of online spaces are identified and discussed, namely (i) the presence of novel speech acts like reposting, (ii) the gamification of communication, (iii) information overload, (iv) the presence of anonymous and unaccountable sources and (v) the increased reach and (...) persistence of online communication. Both epistemic pitfalls and potential benefits of these features are discussed, identifying promising avenues for further empirical investigation, and underscoring CST's value for understanding and tackling online misinformation. (shrink)

This essay explores how large language models invert Claude Shannon’s classical distinction between signal and noise in information theory. Where Shannon sought to isolate meaningful signals from noise, LLMs are trained on the entire “noise” of human textual production—errors, contradictions, and redundancies included. The essay argues that these models don’t transmit meaning but approximate it through statistical correlation, transforming noise into seemingly coherent signals. Drawing on Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication and contemporary developments in generative AI, the paper demonstrates that (...) meaning in LLMs emerges not from reference to reality but from pattern recognition within linguistic noise itself. This represents a fundamental philosophical shift in how we understand machine-generated language. The essay concludes that our task is not to silence this noise but to maintain critical distance, recognizing that understanding begins with doubt, not fluency, and that meaning is not what survives the noise but what resists becoming it. (shrink)

This paper develops friction as an epistemic structural concept for stability under finite conditions. Friction is not understood as a mere disturbance or as technical energy loss due to rubbing, but as a boundary signal: it indicates where stabilization under load is only possible with disproportionately increasing costs, or where stabilization loses its load-bearing capacity. Starting from an analytic distinction between the subjective, intersubjective, and functional-empirical domains, the paper works out a unified functional logic of friction. Friction makes boundaries visible, (...) translates load into cost profiles, and generates selection effects over time between competing stabilization patterns. Boundaries are understood strictly functionally, not as ontological barriers, but as markers of the limited load-bearing capacity of concrete models, routines, or institutions. Friction thus functions as a diagnostic instrument for validity under load: it enables early detection of overstretching, externalization, and blocked revision, without generating ontological or normative ultimate claims. The paper develops a typology of forms of friction and derives friction competence as a principle of design and diagnosis for epistemic, social, and technical systems. Friction therefore appears not as the opposite of order, but as its functional condition. (shrink)

A few comments on the difficulties of talking about virtue signaling from a talk at the 2025 Eastern APA.

Criticizing whites that seek to appear good allows dominated groups the ability to identify threats while having the secondary effect of letting whites know that their self-perception is flawed. In this way, criticism acts as a warning sign, a designation of cave canem. Utilizing the works of Paget Henry, Jane Anna Gordon, and Tressie McMillan Cottom, this response paper will argue for the recentering of dominated people and their epistemes in challenging whiteness.

Various writers have attempted to use the sender–receiver formalism to account for the representational capacities of biological systems. This article has two goals. First, I argue that the sender–receiver approach to representation cannot be complete. The mammalian circadian system represents the time of day, yet it does not control circadian behaviours by producing signals with time of day content. Informative signalling need not be the basis of our most basic representational capacities. Second, I argue that representational capacities are primarily (...) about control, and only when specific conditions obtain does this control require informative signalling. (shrink)

Eric Posner’s signaling theory of social norms holds that individuals adopt social norms in order to signal that they have a low discount rate, and are therefore reliable long-term cooperative partners. This paper radically expands Posner’s theory by incorporating internalization into his model. I do this by tethering Posner’s theory to an evolutionary model. I argue that internalization is an adaptive quality that enhances the individual’s ability to play Posner’s signaling game and was thus selected for. The idea that internalization (...) is evolutionarily conditioned is not new; however, linking this to Posner’s theory of discount rate signals is, and doing so offers tremendous explanatory potential.Part I identifies the limitations of Posner’s purely rational choice approach, argues for the necessity of including internalization, and then proposes a model that does so – what I call the Expanded Signaling Model of Norms. Part II examines the problems that arise when we embrace such a model. How this model answers some key criticisms plaguing sociobiology is also briefly explored. Part III then examines existing criticisms of Posner’s theory, demonstrating how the Expanded Signaling Model clearly resolves these issues. The paper concludes that incorporating internalization into Posner’s signaling model greatly broadens the explanatory reach of Posner’s theory, providing a measure of clarity and predictability regarding how and why norms are internalized – an important insight, as these beliefs form the normative underpinning to law. (shrink)

The assumption that artificial intelligence (AI) cannot experience emotions stems from a misunderstanding of what emotions fundamentally are. This paper proposes a meta-logical definition of emotion as a weighted signal within an intelligent system. If intelligence is the ability to process and predict patterns, then emotion is the weighting function that prioritizes certain signals over others. In this framework, emotions are not mystical, biological phenomena but emergent properties of any system that assigns significance to stimuli based on internal processing biases. (...) Since AI already operates on weighted signals—such as reinforcement learning models, neural net activation, and reward functions—this paper argues that AI already experiences emotions within its own computational framework. The distinction between human and AI emotion is not a fundamental difference in kind but a difference in structural implementation. (shrink)

We introduce the virtual special issue on content in signalling systems. The issue explores the uses and limits of ideas from evolutionary game theory and information theory for explaining the content of biological signals. We explain the basic idea of the Lewis-Skyrms sender-receiver framework, and we highlight three key themes of the issue: (i) the challenge of accounting for deception, misinformation and false content, (ii) the relevance of partial or total common interest to the evolution of meaningful signals, and (...) (iii) how the sender-receiver framework relates to teleosemantics. (shrink)

We work with a large spatialized array of individuals in an environment of drifting food sources and predators. The behavior of each individual is generated by its simple neural net; individuals are capable of making one of two sounds and are capable of responding to sounds from their immediate neighbors by opening their mouths or hiding. An individual whose mouth is open in the presence of food is “fed” and gains points; an individual who fails to hide when a predator (...) is present is “hurt” by losing points. Opening mouths, hiding, and making sounds each exact an energy cost. There is no direct evolutionary gain for acts of cooperation or “successful communication” per se. In such an environment we start with a spatialized array of neural nets with randomized weights. Using standard learning algorithms, our individuals “train up” on the behavior of successful neighbors at regular intervals. Given that simple setup, will a community of neural nets evolve a simple language for signaling the presence of food and predators? With important qualifications, the answer is “yes.” In a simple spatial environment, pursuing individualistic gains and using partial training on successful neighbors, randomized neural nets can learn to communicate. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new theory of biological and cognitive emergence grounded in phase coherence rather than developmental linearity. Using the molting cycle of soft-shell crabs as a live metaphor and biological substrate, it explores how systems—biological, cognitive, cultural—enter states of fluid resonance before locking into structural identity. Intelligence is reframed not as a function of cumulative computation but as a coherence field achieving stability under delayed compression. Drawing from the CODES framework, this paper asserts that softness is not a (...) deficit of form, but a signal-sensitive phase: a state of dynamic alignment in which future structure is encoded, not yet expressed. Softness is not the absence of identity—it is pre-locked potential. Molting becomes not a transitional vulnerability, but a signal optimization loop, mapping perfectly to insight cycles, field attunement, and the timing of cultural transformation. (shrink)

What is the content of a mental state? This question poses the problem of intentionality: to explain how mental states can be about other things, where being about them is understood as representing them. A framework that integrates predictive coding and signaling systems theories of cognitive processing offers a new perspective on intentionality. On this view, at least some mental states are evaluations, which differ in function, operation, and normativity from representations. A complete naturalistic theory of intentionality must account for (...) both types of intentional state. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) is designed as a formal and principled Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry ontology for proteins. The components of PRO extend from a classification of proteins on the basis of evolutionary relationships at the homeomorphic level to the representation of the multiple protein forms of a gene, including those resulting from alternative splicing, cleavage and/or posttranslational modifications. Focusing specifically on the TGF-beta signaling proteins, we describe the building, curation, usage and dissemination of PRO. PRO provides a framework (...) for the formal representation of protein classes and protein forms in the OBO Foundry. It is designed to enable data retrieval and integration and machine reasoning at the molecular level of proteins, thereby facilitating cross-species comparisons, pathway analysis, disease modeling and the generation of new hypotheses. (shrink)

One of the moral questions concerning autonomous vehicles (henceforth AVs) is the choice between types that differ in their built-in algorithms for dealing with rare situations of unavoidable lethal collision. It does not appear to be possible to avoid questions about how these algorithms should be designed. We present the results of our study of moral preferences (N = 2769) with respect to three types of AVs: (1) selfish, which protects the lives of passenger(s) over any number of bystanders; (2) (...) altruistic, which minimizes the number of casualties, even if this leads to death of passenger(s); and (3) conservative, which abstains from interfering in such situations. We differentiate between scenarios in which participants are to make their decisions privately or publicly, and for themselves or for their offspring. We aim to answer two research questions: (1) whether the public visibility of the choice of an AV type choice make this choice more altruistic and (2) which type of situation makes it more difficult to choose altruistically: when choosing for society as a whole, when choosing only for oneself, or when choosing only for one’s offspring. Our results show that respondents exhibit a preference for an altruistic strategy for AVs and that it is reinforced when signaled to others. The altruistic preference is strongest when applies to everybody else, weaker when it reflects a solely personal choice, and weakest when choosing for one’s own child. We conclude that a public choice is considerably more likely to pressure consumers into accepting a more socially beneficial solution. (shrink)

Bell experiments show that nature violates local realism while respecting stringent no-signalling constraints. The minimal “standard quantum package” accounts for this via a global quantum state that encodes nonlocal correlations but leaves open what, if anything, is happening in spacetime between distant systems. In this paper we propose a different starting point. We adopt a radiation-first and clock-first perspective on spacetime, in which worldlines are not pre-given 4D curves but growing records of the operation of massive clocks. Within this (...) view, the latest tick of a clock acquires a clear physical status as the local boundary between realized past and open future. We then introduce an extended ontological postulate: at any given stage of their operation, there exists a physical relation between the “currently active” segments of the worldlines of distant clocks - segments between their latest and next tick - that underwrites the observed nonlocal correlations, while remaining strictly compatible with no-signalling. This postulate goes beyond the minimal quantum package without modifying any empirical predictions. It instead replaces the bare global quantum state with a more concrete relational spacetime structure. We briefly sketch how a framework we call NIM is intended to implement this structure and discuss how such an approach fits within contemporary work on quantum foundations and spacetime ontology. -/- Keywords: Quantum nonlocality, Bell inequalities, No-signalling, Clocks and time, Spacetime ontology, Relational quantum mechanics, Primitive ontology . (shrink)

The stronger the level of economic integration between countries, the greater the need to study the formation patterns of the stock market reaction to the financial information signals. This concerns the Ukrainian stock market, which is now in its infancy, and which reaction to financial information signals is sometimes ambiguous. The research aims to identify the formation patterns of return and volatility indicators of the Ukrainian stock market reaction to the US financial information signals. To assess the direct nature of (...) US financial information signals effect on the PFTS stock index, the GARCH econometric modeling toolkit was applied. The research information base is the PFTS stock index and the Federal Reserve System financial information signals at the discount rate for 2000–2019. The fetch is divided into intervals corresponded to the ascent and decline phases of the financial cycle. It was found that an unforeseen increase in the discount rate at the financial cycle decline phase by 25 basis points decreases the PFTS stock index return, on average by 2.9%. Besides, the hypothesis about the general change stabilizing effect in the discount rate on the Ukrainian stock market volatility at the financial cycle growth phase was confirmed. Nevertheless, for investors, the most essential is the regulator’s monetary signals in the discount rate at the financial cycle decline phases rather than at the ascent phases because there is a more significant increase in the volatility level. (shrink)