Coordination is the presumption that distinct representations have the same referential content. Philosophers have discussed ways in which the presence of coordination might bear on the metasemantic determination of content. One test case for exploring the relationship between coordination and content is the phenomenon of conflation — the situation in which representations are about distinct things but are nevertheless coordinated. In this paper, I use observations about conflation to develop an anaphoric metasemantics for some representations in which (...) coordination plays an integral role. I also develop some novel remarks on the problem of misrepresentation. (shrink)

This working paper introduces Coordination Games over Belief–Action Geometry (CG-BAG), a formal framework for analyzing collective coordination among agents with heterogeneous representations of belief, value, and action. The paper develops the core definitions, structural admissibility conditions, and stability concepts underlying CG-BAG, including the notion of coordination-stable outcomes and critical representational bases.

This thesis explores the syntax and semantics of coordinate structures on the basis of three-dimensional syntactic structures. In particular it gives an analysis of sentences of the sort 'a man came and a woman left who knew each other well' on the basis of implicit coordination of NPs, made available within three-dimensionional syntactic structures..

Coordination is a key problem for addressing goal–action gaps in many human endeavors. We define interpersonal coordination as a type of communicative action characterized by low interpersonal belief and goal conflict. Such situations are particularly well described as having collectively “intelligent”, “common good” solutions, viz., ones that almost everyone would agree constitute social improvements. Coordination is useful across the spectrum of interpersonal communication—from isolated individuals to organizational teams. Much attention has been paid to coordination in teams (...) and organizations. In this paper we focus on the looser interpersonal structures we call active support networks, and on technology that meets their needs. We describe two needfinding investigations focused on social support, which examined four application areas for improving coordination in ASNs: academic coaching, vocational training, early learning intervention, and volunteer coordination; and existing technology relevant to ASNs. We find a thus-far unmet need for personal task management software that allows smooth integration with an individual’s active support network. Based on identified needs, we then describe an open architecture for coordination that has been developed into working software. The design includes a set of capabilities we call “social prompting”, as well as templates for accomplishing multi-task goals, and an engine that controls coordination in the network. The resulting tool is currently available and in continuing development. We explain its use in ASNs with an example. Follow-up studies are underway in which the technology is being applied in existing support networks. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will summarize recent empirical results highlighting how different groups of people solve pure coordination games. Such games are traditionally studied in behavioural economics, where two people need to coordinate without communicating with each other. Our results suggest that coordination choices vary across groups of people, and that people can adapt flexibly to these differences in order to coordinate between groups. We propose that pure coordination games are a useful empirical platform for studying aspects (...) of mindshaping. Drawing on existing psychological literature on alignment during interactions, we suggest that experience of successful interaction leads people to develop aligned intuitions about what is relevant and appropriate that support coordination when interaction and communication is not possible. Consistent with arguments made in the literature on mindshaping we believe that such alignment is more important for coordination than mindreading inferences about mental states, and indeed that mindreading is instead a form of coordination behaviour that is dependent upon intuitive alignment. (shrink)

We present a data-driven framework in which neural dynamics are understood as trajectories constrained by the geometry of an empirically reconstructed state space. By mapping neural activity into a low-dimensional coordination space, we derive an effective landscape and a reduced dynamical coordinate governing system evolution. -/- Analysis of drift, diffusion, and occupancy reveals that neural trajectories are confined within a restricted region of state space, rather than undergoing repeated barrier-crossing transitions. This motivates the introduction of an admissibility operator Φq, (...) which formalizes the boundary separating accessible from inaccessible states. -/- The results suggest that neural dynamics are fundamentally shaped by boundary constraints, providing a geometric perspective on the organization of neural activity and its possible role in constraining realizable states. (shrink)

Despite attempts from emergentist models and soul-based hypotheses, the fundamental problem of consciousness remains unsolved at the level of identity selection. No theory explains why one subjective identity is selected rather than another. The CIFT solves the selection problem by isolating specific spatiotemporal coordinates at instantiation as the sole determinant of subjective individuality. Instantiation represents the exact moment where selfhood begins. The CIFT systematically invalidates alternative solutions to the selection problem through a structured thought experiment tier-system with tier 1 = (...) feasible today, tier 2 = feasible with technological advancements, and tier 3 = conceptually coherent but impossible due to universal constraints. The CIFT is the only framework that guarantees subjective uniqueness independent of biology, emergence, quantum indiscernibility, and atomic configuration. (shrink)

Ian Rumfitt (2000) developed a bilateralist account of logic in which the meaning of the connectives is given by conditions on asserted and rejected sentences. An additional set of inference rules, the coordination principles, determines the interaction of assertion and rejection. Fernando Ferreira (2008) found this account defective, as Rumfitt must state the coordination principles for arbitrary complex sentences. Rumfitt (2008) has a reply, but we argue that the problem runs deeper than he acknowledges and is in fact (...) related to the challenge of establishing proof-theoretic harmony. We motivate a distinctively bilateral criterion for harmony and show how the bilateralist can meet it. This also resolves Ferreira's complaint. (shrink)

The past decade has witnessed a growing awareness of conceptual and methodological hurdles within psychology and neuroscience that must be addressed for taxonomic and explanatory progress in understanding psychological functions to be possible. In this paper, I evaluate several recent knowledge-building initiatives aimed at overcoming these obstacles. I argue that while each initiative offers important insights about how to facilitate taxonomic and explanatory progress in psychology and neuroscience, only a “coordinated pluralism” that incorporates positive aspects of each initiative will have (...) the potential for success. (shrink)

Reichenbach’s early solution to the scientific problem of how abstract mathematical representations can successfully express real phenomena is rooted in his view of coordination. In this paper, I claim that a Reichenbach-inspired, ‘layered’ view of coordination provides us with an effective tool to systematically analyse some epistemic and conceptual intricacies resulting from a widespread theorising strategy in evolutionary biology, recently discussed by Okasha (2018) as ‘endogenization’. First, I argue that endogenization is a form of extension of natural selection (...) theory that comprises three stages: quasi-axiomatisation, functional extension, and semantic extension. Then, I argue that the functional extension of one core principle of natural selection theory, namely, the principle of heritability, requires the semantic extension of the concept of inheritance. This is because the semantic extension of ‘inheritance’ is necessary to establish a novel form of coordination between the principle of heritability and the extended domain of phenomena that it is supposed to represent. Finally, I suggest that – despite the current lack of consensus on the right semantic extension of ‘inheritance’ – we can fruitfully understand the reconceptualization of ‘inheritance’ provided by niche construction theorists as the result of a novel form of coordination. (shrink)

Within the causal modeling literature, debates about the Causal Faithfulness Condition have concerned whether it is probable that the parameters in causal models will have values such that distinct causal paths will cancel. As the parameters in a model are fixed by the probability distribution over its variables, it is initially puzzling what it means to assign probabilities to these parameters. I propose that to assign a probability to a parameter in a model is to treat that parameter as a (...) function of a variable in an augmented model. By combining this proposal with widely adopted principles regarding which variables must be included in a model, I argue that the various proposed counterexamples to CFC involving coordinated parameters are not genuine counterexamples. I then consider the cases in which CFC fails due not to coordination, but by coincidence, and propose explanatory and predictive bases for ruling out such coincidences without presuming that they are improbable. The aim of the proposed defenses is not to show that CFC never fails, but rather to argue that its use in a particular context may be defended using general modeling assumptions rather than by relying on claims about how often it fails. (shrink)

From playing basketball to ordering at a food counter, we frequently and effortlessly coordinate our attention with others towards a common focus: we look at the ball, or point at a piece of cake. This non-verbal coordination of attention plays a fundamental role in our social lives: it ensures that we refer to the same object, develop a shared language, understand each other’s mental states, and coordinate our actions. Models of joint attention generally attribute this accomplishment to gaze (...) class='Hi'>coordination. But are visual attentional mechanisms sufficient to achieve joint attention, in all cases? Besides cases where visual information is missing, we show how combining it with other senses can be helpful, and even necessary to certain uses of joint attention. We explain the two ways in which non-visual cues contribute to joint attention: either as enhancers, when they complement gaze and pointing gestures in order to coordinate joint attention on visible objects, or as modality pointers, when joint attention needs to be shifted away from the whole object to one of its properties, say weight or texture. This multisensory approach to joint attention has important implications for social robotics, clinical diagnostics, pedagogy and theoretical debates on the construction of a shared world. (shrink)

Public discussion of artificial intelligence is often organized by two dominant frames. One asks whether AI will replace human thought or labor in some decisive sense. The other asks whether current systems are approaching diminishing returns in capability, productivity, or economic value. Both frames capture something real, but each risks missing a more structural development. This paper argues that the deeper problem may not be replacement, nor simply plateau, but a widening gap between coordination capacity and human intelligibility. AI (...) increasingly functions as a coordination technology, helping make complex domains more tractable, portable, and operable. But the same processes may also make the systems in which humans act harder to survey, contest, and correct from any bounded standpoint within them. The aim of the paper is not to provide a complete theory of AI or civilizational decline. It is to make visible a macro-structural tendency: modern systems may be becoming more operable than intelligible, and AI may be accelerating that divergence. (shrink)

Contemporary pluralistic societies face a distinctive problem: without a universally accepted final authority—whether divine, moral, or epistemic—on what basis can we justify the exercise of power or the resolution of fundamental disagreements? This paper proposes a structural approach to legitimacy in pluralist societies, grounded not in moral consensus but in the inherent requirements for stable, non-dominating coordination. Building on the concept of standing—the capacity of an agent or institution to have its directives bind others—we introduce two foundational axioms for (...) pluralist legitimacy. The Axiom of Pluralistic Inclusion formalizes the principle that no agent can wield authority without first being included in the community of mutual recognition: every individual must have a pathway from having no standing (“nullity”) to having some standing in collective decision-making. The Axiom of Symmetry holds that social coordination is structurally stable only when all agents enjoy an equal standing in shared decision-making; any persistent asymmetry in standing generates systemic fragility—heightened resistance, feedback failures, and tendencies toward breakdown. We articulate these axioms in dialogue with classical and contemporary ideas of consent, equality, and non-domination (from social contract theory to Pettit’s republicanism), while moving beyond moral and procedural approaches to legitimacy. Instead, we outline a “social physics” of legitimacy: a set of invariant structural conditions that any pluralistic social order must satisfy to remain stable and avoid domination. These structural conditions (universal inclusion and symmetry of standing) are argued to be necessary conditions for a claim to political or moral authority to be considered legitimate in a deeply diverse society. We conclude by showing how this framework reframes enduring debates about authority, rights, and justice, ensuring that power cannot be decoupled from accountability even in the absence of shared final ends. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I present a novel account of the components that have a peculiar epistemic role in our scientific inquiries, since they contribute to establishing a form of coordination. The issue of coordination is a classic epistemic problem concerning how we justify our use of abstract conceptual tools to represent concrete phenomena. For instance, how could we get to represent universal gravitation as a mathematical formula or temperature by means of a numerical scale? This problem is particularly (...) pressing when justification for using these abstract tools comes, in part or entirely, from knowledge which is not independent from them, thus leading to threats of circularity. Achieving coordination between some abstract conceptual tools and the concrete phenomena that they are supposed to represent is usually a complex process, which involves several epistemic components. Some of these components eventually provide stable conditions for applying those abstract representations to concrete phenomena. It is in this sense of providing certain conditions of applicability that different philosophical traditions, as well as some contemporary reappraisals, view these components as constitutive or a priori. In this work, I present a new gradualist, contextualist, and relational approach to understand these constitutive components of scientific inquiry. It is gradualist inasmuch as the degree to which some component is constitutive depends on three quantifiable features: quasi-axiomaticity, generative potential, and empirical shielding. Since the quantification of these three features impinges on the history and practice of using these components in a scientific context, my approach is a contextualist one. Finally, my approach is relational in a double sense: first, it identifies ordinal relationships among epistemic components with respect to their constitutive character; second, these relationships are relative to a scientific framework of inquiry. After introducing my account and a classic example of constitutively a priori principles, i.e., Friedman’s (2001) analysis of Newtonian mechanics, I turn to my own case studies to demonstrate the advantages of my approach. Firstly, I discuss Okasha’s (2018) view of endogenization as a pervasive theoretical strategy in evolutionary biology and suggest that the constitutive character of the core Darwinian principles progressively increases with endogenization. Secondly, I apply a conceptual distinction between two varieties or scopes of coordination – general coordination and coordination in measurement – to Ohm’s work on electrical conductivity. This distinction allows me to pinpoint to what extent components along different dimensions (e.g., instrumentation, measurement, theorising, etc.) were constitutive of the forms of coordination which Ohm relied on. Thirdly, I discuss the epistemic function of the Hardy-Weinberg principle in the history and practice of population genetics. I assess this principle in terms of my account and identify approximation and stability as two components that are highly constitutive, in that they contribute to justifying its use in population genetics. Finally, applying my account to these case studies enables me to identify at least three qualitatively different types of constitutive components: domain-specific theoretical principles, material components, and domain-independent assumptions underlying reasoning abilities. In the light of my results, I draw some general conclusions on epistemic justification and scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The problem of coordination for thermodynamic entropy as a physical quantity is expressed in two related questions: 1) What counts as a measurement of entropy? 2) What is entropy? These issues are considered in this paper for thermodynamic properties of pure substances in classical thermodynamics. The conceptual model to define entropy in the second law of thermodynamics cannot be used directly to produce an ideal experiment related to real measurements. Thus, the solution of the problem of coordination for (...) entropy is based on the tight integration of entropy with other thermodynamic properties in the formalism of classical thermodynamics. Therefore, the solution of the problem of coordination for entropy is related to the simultaneous solution of the problem of coordination for other thermodynamic quantities, such as heat capacity, internal energy, enthalpy, and the Gibbs energy. (shrink)

Phase-Locked Logical Synthesis (PLLS) provides a formal framework for modeling rapid, implicit interpersonal coordination. Building on the accumulation-detonation mechanisms originally established in the IASER Experience for human-AI collaboration (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18258286), PLLS extends these principles to dyadic and group interactions. -/- By integrating empirical findings from psychology and nonverbal behavior research — including interactional synchrony, micro-behavior mirroring, and temporal compression of signals — PLLS captures how minimal cues can trigger high-fidelity, coordinated responses. -/- The framework formalizes internal correlation dynamics through (...) a threshold-based model, allowing quantitative predictions of synchronization onset and stability. This approach bridges theoretical constructs from Cognitional Mechanics, which establish non-commutativity and irreversibility in intelligence operations, with empirically grounded social phenomena, providing a unified basis for simulating, analyzing, and comparing implicit coordination across contexts. (shrink)

A shared narrative in the literature on the evolution of cooperation maintains that social _learning_ evolves early to allow for the transmission of cumulative culture. Social _norms_, whilst present at the outset, only rise to prominence later on, mainly to stabilise cooperation against the threat of defection. In contrast, I argue that once we consider insights from social epistemology, an expansion of this narrative presents itself: An interesting kind of social norm — an epistemic coordination norm — was operative (...) in early and important instances of specialised social learning. I show how there’s a need for such norms in two key social learning strategies and explain how this need is constituted. In assessor-teaching (e.g. Castro et al., 2019b, 2021), epistemic coordination norms allow agents to coordinate around the _content_ of social learning, i.e., what is to be known and how this is to be done. These norms also allow agents to coordinate around the form of cultural learning in what’s sometimes called strategic social learning (Laland, 2004; Hoppitt & Laland, 2013; Heyes, 2018, Chap. 5) and elsewhere. Broadly speaking, this concerns how cultural learning is organised within the social group. The upshot is that the evolution of social learning and social norms are intertwined in important and underappreciated ways from early on. The above matters as it informs our views about the evolution of social norms more generally. Truly _social_ norms emerged to coordinate a plurality of complex behaviours and interactions, amongst them specialised social learning. I substantiate this view by contrasting it with Jonathan Birch’s views on the evolution of norms. What results is a general but cohesive narrative on the early evolution of social norms. (shrink)

Coordination is the eighth primitive of Generative Worlds Architecture. It specifies the structural conditions under which multiple observers can align actions, commitments, and transitions under a shared semantic and consensus structure. Coordination is not cooperation, not negotiation, and not strategic interaction. It is a structural relation that determines which multi-agent actions are admissible, which joint transitions can stabilize, and which collective architectures can scale. This paper develops coordination as a formal primitive. It defines admissible coordination structures, (...) governing relations, invariants, and boundary conditions. It derives consequences for institutions, governance, civilizational architectures, and the Consensus Layer OS. Coordination is shown to be necessary for collective action, institutional stability, and large scale governance. Without coordination, civilizations cannot act. With coordination, coherent multi-agent worlds become possible. This paper positions coordination as the eighth foundational element of coherent generativity. (shrink)

One necessary condition on any adequate account of perception is clarity regarding whether unconscious perception exists. The issue is complicated, and the debate is growing in both philosophy and science. In this paper we consider the case for unconscious perception, offering three primary achievements. First, we offer a discussion of the underspecified notion of central coordinating agency, a notion that is critical for arguments that purportedly perceptual states are not attributable to the individual, and thus not genuinely perceptual. We develop (...) an explication of what it is for a representational state to be available to central coordinating agency for guidance of behavior. Second, drawing on this explication, we place a more careful understanding of the attributability of a state to the individual in the context of a range of empirical work on vision-for-action, saccades, and skilled typing. The results place pressure on the skeptic about unconscious perception. Third, reflecting upon broader philosophical themes running through debates about unconscious perception, we highlight how our discussion places pressure on the view that perception is a manifest kind, rather than a natural kind. In doing so, we resist the tempting complaint that the debate about unconscious perception is merely verbal. (shrink)

This paper extends the K-coefficient model of systemic crisis, introduced in Anatomy of Chaos: A Theoretical Framework for Forecasting the Morphology of Post-Crisis Regime, by integrating a game-theoretic layer that addresses a question the baseline model cannot answer: why do systems under comparable structural pressure follow divergent transitional paths? The K-coefficient, defined as the ratio of the Structural Stress Index (SSI) to the Structural Resilience Index (SRI), identifies the zone of critical pressure with empirically demonstrated consistency. However, it does not (...) explain why systems with similar K values produce outcomes ranging from rapid regime change to protracted civil war to regime survival without significant concessions. The paper proposes that this divergence is explained by coordination dynamics, formalized through the framework of global games (Morris and Shin, 1998, 2003). The K-coefficient is identified with the private signal in the global games framework: the true state of the system that each agent estimates through a noisy individual signal. Five coordination variables are introduced: R (expected cost of uncoordinated action, scale 1.0–10.0), C (network connectivity, scale 0–1.0), EFI (Equilibrium Fragility Index = K multiplied by C/R), T (coordination threshold), and K_eff (effective K-coefficient = K multiplied by 1 + C/R). The model defines two Nash equilibria — NE1 (equilibrium of inaction) and NE2 (equilibrium of action) — and specifies the conditions under which a stochastic trigger, functioning as a public signal, initiates the transition between them. The formal apparatus is applied to three detailed case studies. The USSR and the Eastern Bloc (1989–1991) demonstrate cascading R decline: each successive regime collapse reduced the expected cost of action in neighboring systems, accelerating the cascade. The Arab Spring (2010–2011) demonstrates heterogeneity of outcomes under a single cascading signal: six systems with K values in the range of 2.10 to 2.86 produced six distinct outcomes, from rapid transition (Egypt, eleven days) to regime survival (Algeria), with the variation corresponding to differences in EFI. Ukraine (2013–2014) demonstrates non-cascading transition and the repression paradox: the regime escalated coercive force, but in a high-C environment each act of repression functioned as a public signal that reduced R rather than raising it. An extended sample of twenty-two additional cases, spanning from the Crisis of the Third Century to Belarus 2020, confirms three empirical patterns: high K combined with high EFI produces rapid transition; high K combined with low EFI produces protracted conflict or regime survival; and moderate K produces indeterminate outcomes regardless of EFI. A scatter plot of K against EFI demonstrates that EFI provides discriminatory capacity that K alone lacks. The paper acknowledges significant limitations: retrospective assignment of variable values, absence of inter-coder reliability, ordinal character of R and C for pre-industrial cases, and the absence of a blind predictive test. Five directions for future research are identified, with the blind predictive test designated as the first priority. (shrink)

Salience reasoning, many have argued, can help solve coordination problems, but only if such reasoning is supplemented by higher-order predictions, e.g. beliefs about what others believe yet others will choose. In this paper, I will argue that this line of reasoning is self-undermining. Higher-order behavioral predictions defeat salience-based behavioral predictions. To anchor my argument in the philosophical literature, I will develop it in response and opposition to the popular Lewisian model of salience reasoning in coordination games. This model (...) imports the problematic higher-order beliefs by way of a ‘symmetric reasoning’ constraint. In the second part of this paper, I will argue that a player may employ salience reasoning only if she suspends judgment about what others believe yet others will do. (shrink)

It's widely accepted that social facts about an individual's linguistic community can affect both the reference of her words and the concepts those words express. Theorists sympathetic to the internalist tradition have sought to accommodate these social dependence phenomena without altering their core theoretical commitments by positing deferential reference-fixing criteria. In this paper, we sketch a different explanation of social dependence phenomena, according to which all concepts are individuated in part by causal-historical relations linking token elements of thought.

In this paper, I explore two contrasting conceptions of the social character of language. The first takes language to be grounded in social convention. The second, famously developed by Donald Davidson, takes language to be grounded in a social relation called triangulation. I aim both to clarify and to evaluate these two conceptions of language. First, I propose that Davidson’s triangulation-based story can be understood as the result of relaxing core features of conventionalism pertaining to both common-interest and diachronic stability—specifically, (...) Davidson does not require uses of language to be self-perpetuating, in the way required by conventionalism, in order to be bona fide components of linguistic systems. Second, I argue that Davidson’s objections to conventionalism from language innovation and language variation fail, and that certain kinds of negative data in language use require an appeal to diachronic social relations. However, I also argue that recent work on communication in the a.. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology provides a principled approach to embedding common values in to AI systems both early and throughout the design process. To do so, it draws on an important case study: the evidence and final report of the UK Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. This empirical investigation shows that the different and often disparate stakeholder groups that are implicated in AI design and use share some common values that can be used to (...) further strengthen design coordination efforts. VSD is shown to be both able to distill these common values as well as provide a framework for stakeholder coordination. (shrink)

Living systems at any given moment enact a very constrained set of end‐directed and contextually appropriate actions that are self‐initiated from among innumerable possible alternatives. However, these constrained actions are not necessarily because the system has reduced its sensitivities to themselves and their surroundings. Quite the contrary, living systems are continually open to novel and unanticipated stimulations that require a physiology of coordination. To address these competing demands, this paper offers a novel heuristic model informed by neuroscience, systems theory, (...) biology and sign study to explain how organisms situated in diverse, complex and ever‐changing environments might draw upon the sparse order made available by ‘relevant noise’. This emergent order facilitates coordination, habituation and, ultimately, understanding of the world and its relevant affordances. Inspired by the burgeoning field of coordination dynamics and physiologist Denis Noble's concept of ‘biological relativity’, this model proposes a view of coordination on the neuronal level that is neither sequential nor stochastic, but instead implements a causal logic of phasic alignment, such that an organism's learned and inherited sets of diverse biological affinities and sympathies can be resolved into a continuous and complex range of patterns that will implement the kind of novel orientations and radical generativity required of such organisms to adaptively explore their environments and to learn from their experiences. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid, accurate, and consistent interpretation of generated data is thereby of fundamental concern. Ontologies––structured, controlled, vocabularies––are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the COVID-19 research domain, by following principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and by reusing existing ontologies such as the Infectious Disease Ontology (...) (IDO) Core, which provides terminological content common to investigations of all infectious diseases. We report here on the development of an IDO extension, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology covering viral infectious diseases. We motivate term and definition choices, showcase reuse of terms from existing OBO ontologies, illustrate how ontological decisions were motivated by relevant life science research, and connect VIDO to the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). We next use terms from these ontologies to annotate selections from life science research on SARS-CoV-2, highlighting how ontologies employing a common upper-level vocabulary may be seamlessly interwoven. Finally, we outline future work, including bacteria and fungus infectious disease reference ontologies currently under development, then cite uses of VIDO and CIDO in host-pathogen data analytics, electronic health record annotation, and ontology conflict-resolution projects. (shrink)

This article develops a theory of coordination, stability, and conflict in complex societies through the concept of political resonance. It argues that political coordination depends less on legitimacy or consensus than on the extent to which political decisions remain intelligible and recognizable within evolving systems of expectations. Resonance emerges when political decisions can be integrated into the expectations through which actors interpret their situation and when they provide a framework within which experiences can be socially recognized. Dissonance emerges (...) when this relationship breaks down, weakening coordination and intensifying conflict. From this perspective, power is reinterpreted not only as the capacity to impose decisions or secure compliance, but as the ability to produce and sustain resonance across heterogeneous social contexts. Contemporary political instability can therefore be understood less as a crisis of legitimacy than as a failure of political decisions to remain meaningful within changing horizons of expectation. By developing a non-normative and systemic account of political dynamics, the article contributes to debates in political theory and social theory on power, legitimacy, conflict, and the conditions of political order. (shrink)

Bilateralism is a theory of meaning according to which assertion and denial are independent speech acts. Bilateralism also proposes two coordination principles for assertion and denial. I argue that if assertion and denial are independent speech acts, they cannot be coordinated by the bilateralist principles.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Ontologies – structured, controlled, vocabularies – are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the virus research domain, following the principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and drawing on the resources of the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) Core. We report the development of the Virus Infectious (...) Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology extending IDO Core covering viral infectious diseases. We examine newly minted terms, showcase ontology term reuse, and illustrate the use of VIDO by annotating selections from recent life science research on SAR-CoV-2, in the interest of supporting machine learning projects. (shrink)

This work provides the first systematic quantification and geometric evidence of the astronomical precision limitations that linear methods of celestial partition present compared to a non-linear method in oblique latitudes. As opposed to previous critiques, which have focused upon textual or philosophical exegesis, we set forth the necessary mathematical evidence through applied spherical geometry at 57º N. Computational analysis revealed that a linear assumption upon a fundamentally non-linear phenomenon produces a cumulative temporal error of up to 30 minutes (Alcabitius, Regiomontanus) (...) and of up to 72 minutes (Campanus, Koch) between two cusps. These results demonstrate that the underlying assumption—inherent in all uniform partitions—is geometrically untenable in oblique horizons. This error, quantifiable and quantified, clarifies the mathematical justification pursuant to which methods that assume uniformity (Regiomontanus, in particular), were historically superseded, requiring a historical reassessment of their presumed physical accuracy. The analysis confirms that the method of diurnal motion, by recognising all possible circles of declination at any latitude (including polar circles), establishes itself as the historical coordinate system naturally compatible with the true and non-uniform passage of time across the celestial sphere. The Alcabitius and Koch partition methods constitute simplified uniform variations of the complex oblique calculation—originally set forth by Ptolemy in the second century—whereas that of Regiomontanus an also linear variation mathematically equivalent to that used by Campanus in the thirteenth century. Because the time of arrival of the sun or its ecliptic degrees is a daily changing, non-uniform physical reality, this work demonstrates that only a method that is not uniform-dependent can accurately reflect arrival times. (shrink)

This paper addresses a persistent problem in political and social philosophy: how coordination can be legitimate in plural systems where no final authority is available, accepted, or justifiable. Existing approaches—whether grounded in optimization, aggregation, consensus, procedure, or authority—repeatedly fail under conditions of deep and durable disagreement. This failure, the paper argues, is not contingent or merely practical, but structural. The central claim is that relevance, rather than preference, value aggregation, or outcome selection, is the correct organizing concept for legitimate (...) coordination under pluralism. Relevance is not treated as a matter of salience, moral priority, or epistemic correctness. Instead, it is developed as a structural property of constraint systems: a constraint is relevant if and only if it can bind plural agents without presupposing authority, privileging a standpoint, or collapsing coordination into outcome selection. The paper advances a non selective account of legitimacy, showing that legitimate coordination operates through constraint filtering rather than decision closure. It argues that constraints are legitimate only insofar as they preserve standing, respect symmetry, avoid escalation, and remain compatible with non selection. Any constraint that selects a unique outcome thereby reintroduces final authority and forfeits legitimacy under plural conditions. This work is strictly philosophical in method and scope. It does not present a formal system or computational model. However, it is written as part of an intentional chain of validation. The arguments developed here provide the conceptual and normative foundation for a separate formal axiomatization—Standing Algebra—which demonstrates that the structural commitments defended philosophically in this paper entail non determinacy and rule out outcome selection as a matter of formal consequence. Together with the broader monograph On Relevance: The Social Physics of Pluralism, this paper occupies an intermediate position: it neither asserts philosophical claims without structural discipline nor presents formal results without interpretive grounding. The contribution of this paper is therefore twofold. Substantively, it offers a rigorous account of relevance as the structural basis of legitimacy without resolution. Methodologically, it shows why formalization is necessary to secure such claims against equivocation, while also demonstrating why formalization alone is insufficient without philosophical interpretation. The result is a framework that explains not how plural systems should be resolved, but why legitimate coordination is possible only without resolution at all. (shrink)

Do sensory measurements deserve the label of “measurement”? We argue that they do. They fit with an epistemological view of measurement held in current philosophy of science, and they face the same kinds of epistemological challenges as physical measurements do: the problem of coordination and the problem of standardization. These problems are addressed through the process of “epistemic iteration,” for all measurements. We also argue for distinguishing the problem of standardization from the problem of coordination. To exemplify our (...) claims, we draw on olfactory performance tests, especially studies linking olfactory decline to neurodegenerative disorders. (shrink)

The characteristic features of ensemble dance improvisation (EDI) make it an interesting case for theories of intentional collective action. These features include the high degree of freedom enjoyed by each individual, and the lack of fixed hierarchical roles, rigid decision procedures, or detailed plans. In this article, we present a “reductive” approach to collective action, apply it to EDI, and show how the theory enriches our perspective on this practice. We show, with the help of our theory of collective action, (...) that EDI (as typically practiced) constitutes a significant collective achievement, one that manifests an impressive, spontaneous, jointly cooperative and individually highly autonomous activity that meets demanding aesthetic standards. Its being good in this way is not a mere extrinsic feature of the artwork, but part of its aesthetic value. We end by discussing how this value is easily missed by classic aesthetics, but is revealed by more contemporary frameworks like social aesthetics. (shrink)

A physical quantity is related to measurement, but the concept of a physical quantity is not reducible to measurement. This issue is examined using temperature as an example within the framework of the problem of coordination introduced by Bas van Fraassen. The problem of coordination involves two levels of consideration. The first stage examines the modern state of art, when a physical quantity is related to a theory of physics. The second stage concerns the history of the development (...) of the corresponding theory of physics. The views on the measurement of physical quantities of 19th-century physicists Helmholtz, Mach, and Duhem are also considered. This demonstrates the continuity of van Fraassen's views with discussions at the end of the 19th century. (shrink)

What makes a high-quality biomarker experiment? The success of personalized medicine hinges on the answer to this question. In this paper, I argue that judgment about the quality of biomarker experiments is mediated by the problem of theoretical underdetermination. That is, the network of biological and pathophysiological theories motivating a biomarker experiment is sufficiently complicated that it often frustrates valid interpretation of the experimental results. Drawing on a case-study in biomarker diagnostic development from neurooncology, I argue that this problem of (...) underdetermination can be overcome with greater coordination across the biomarker research trajectory. I then sketch an account for how coordination across a research trajectory can be evaluated. I ultimate conclude that what makes a high-quality biomarker experiment must be judged by the epistemic contribution it makes to this coordinated research effort. (shrink)

This source/framework preprint develops the nullity and paradox layer of a larger τ-Logic program in progress. Its central claim is not that zero is unreal, but that zero-readouts and structured absences are regime-bound and do not by themselves license inference to absolute ontological nullity. The paper uses a two-coordinate diagnostic to show how paradox pressure can arise when a visible one-dimensional readout is detached from the relational structure that makes it meaningful. Appendix D provides completed local demonstrations for selected zero/projection (...) cases, and Appendix F gives bounded readout-collapse blocking results for Russell, Liar, and Yablo under declared regimes. Broader reconstructions, including Gödel, probability, entropy, and physics-facing calibration, remain companion or future theorem-level work rather than claims completed here. (shrink)

As for most measurement procedures in the course of their development, measures of consciousness face the problem of coordination, i.e., the problem of knowing whether a measurement procedure actually measures what it is intended to measure. I focus on the case of the Perceptual Awareness Scale to illustrate how ignoring this problem leads to ambiguous interpretations of subjective reports in consciousness science. In turn, I show that empirical results based on this measurement procedure might be systematically misinterpreted.

Communication facilitates coordination, but coordination might fail if there's too much uncertainty. I discuss a scenario in which vagueness-driven uncertainty undermines the possibility of publicly sharing a belief. I then show that asserting an epistemic modal sentence, 'Might p', can reveal the speaker's uncertainty, and that this may improve the chances of coordination despite the lack of a common epistemic ground. This provides a game-theoretic rationale for epistemic modality. The account draws on a standard relational semantics for (...) epistemic modality, Stalnaker's theory of assertion as informative update, and a Bayesian framework for reasoning under uncertainty. (shrink)

Mediante una investigación teórica y de trabajo de campo en relación a la adaptación de la titulación de arquitectura al EEES y con el objetivo de hacer efectivo un despliegue gradual del desarrollo de las competencias del submódulo de dibujo, se exponen los resultados de la coordinación entre asignaturas y una selección crítica y comparativa de actividades de aprendizaje. Se indaga además en la dispar distribución de las materias de dibujo de la adaptación al plan de bolonia, concluyendo con una (...) propuesta de despliegue independiente y mejorada del submódulo desvinculado de las materias que no le son afines. (shrink)

The article critically covers the current issues of "value-driven management" and the creative economy. Analyzing the concept of a "fragile and incomprehensible" (BANI) world, the author conclude that the widely proclaimed era of the knowledge economy is nothing more than utopia. A value-based transformation is possible if it is approached in a comprehensive and systemic way, which requires large-scale transformations initiated and supported by the power structures. The author believe that the creative economy is more extensive than the traditional one, (...) and its development potential is rather limited. The paradigm of "commercial creativity", in fact, is aimed at providing employment and meeting the needs of the population of the "golden billion" countries. Статья в критическом ключе освещает актуальные вопросы «ценностного менеджмента» и креативной экономики. Анализируя концепцию «хрупкого и непостижимого» (BANI) мира, автор приходит к выводу, что широко провозглашенная эра экономики знаний — не более чем утопия. Ценностная трансформация возможна, если подход к ней будет комплексным и системным, для чего требуются масштабные преобразования, инициируемые и поддерживаемые властными структурами. Креативная экономика, как полагает автор, в большей степени экстенсивна, чем традиционная, а потенциал ее развития весьма ограничен. Парадигма «коммерческого креатива», по сути, нацелена на обеспечение занятости и удовлетворение потребностей населения стран «золотого миллиарда». (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a distinction between two scales of coordination in scientific inquiry, through which I reassess Georg Simon Ohm’s work on conductivity and resistance. Firstly, I propose to distinguish between measurement coordination, which refers to the specific problem of how to justify the attribution of values to a quantity by using a certain measurement procedure, and general coordination, which refers to the broader issue of justifying the representation of an empirical regularity by means (...) of abstract mathematical tools. Secondly, I argue that the development of Ohm’s measurement practice between the first and the second experimental phase of his work involved the change of the measurement coordination on which he relied to express his empirical results. By showing how Ohm relied on different calibration assumptions and practices across the two phases, I demonstrate that the concurrent change of both Ohm’s experimental apparatus and the variable that Ohm measured should be viewed based on the different form of measurement coordination. Finally, I argue that Ohm’s assumption that tension is equally distributed in the circuit is best understood as part of the general coordination between Ohm’s law and the empirical regularity that it expresses, rather than measurement coordination. (shrink)

This paper employs the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology (LYGC) as its analytical framework to conduct a deep critique of the systematic errors made by Yang Lihua, professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University, in his interpretation of pre-Qin philosophy. The target of critique is not Yang Lihua's personal scholarly cultivation — his textual mastery in the domain of Confucian Neo-Confucianism is beyond doubt — but rather the fundamental coordinate system upon which his methodology operates: a closed cognitive system that (...) takes Confucian moral psychology (xinxinglun) as its highest arbiter, a system within which the vertical dimension of cosmology has never appeared. The paper proceeds through seven levels of argumentation: First, tracing the structural implantation of Yang Lihua's academic genealogy, revealing how Confucian-centrism completed an unconscious coordinate installation during his formative period, causing all subsequent judgments to unfold within the internal rules of the Confucian coordinate system. Second, critiquing his textual-chronological dissolution of the Laozi's cosmology and his political-technological demotion of wuwei (non-action). Third, exposing his ideological operation of using the label 'more like religion' to eliminate Mohism as a cosmological competitor. Fourth, deconstructing his continuation of the two-thousand-year slander against Yang Zhu's 'self-for-self.' Fifth, analyzing the fundamental cosmological limits of his 'li-monism.' Sixth, applying the Sage Entropy formula (dS/dt = ρᵣ · DAF / ΔCCF) to provide a quantitative diagnosis of his paradigm. Seventh, interrogating whether a self-satisfied professor of philosophy at Peking University is ignorant or shameless, and clarifying his danger — more dangerous than the crude denier is the sophisticated concealer. The core proposition of this paper is: Yang Lihua's methodological deficiency does not lie in peripheral details but in the fact that he has never truly understood the cosmological dimension represented by the proposition 'The Milky Way reflected in the Han River is the Dao.' He has studied Laozi for decades, yet has never looked up to see the Milky Way that Laozi saw from the banks of the Han River. A person who has never looked up to see the Milky Way, however profound his textual mastery, is utterly blind at the cosmological level. This is not a personal attack on Yang Lihua; it is a fundamental critique of a paradigm. When this paradigm occupies the professorial chair of the Department of Philosophy at Peking University, when it mass-replicates itself to tens of thousands of students annually through classrooms and publications, its harm to the cosmological inheritance of Chinese civilization is far more profound than any external critic. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between neural activity and conscious experience remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Neural correlates of consciousness identify patterns associated with awareness, but activity magnitude, localization, and stimulus processing alone do not explain why some neural configurations are experientially realized while others remain dynamically present but unconscious. Here we introduce a constraint-based geometric framework in which neural activity is represented as trajectories in a low-dimensional coordination descriptor space, -/- D(t) = (Ξ, S, χ, Z), -/- where Ξ (...) captures global coordination strength, S spectral or structural organization, χ connectivity extent, and Z impedance-like stability. We distinguish a theoretical admissibility principle Φq , which specifies structural eligibility for realization, from an empirical graded score, -/- aq (D) = P (Φq = 1 | D), -/- which estimates whether an observed descriptor state belongs to a structurally supported, coherent, integrated, and dynamically persistent region of coordination space. The framework does not treat Φq as a force or additional dynamical variable; it is a constraint on realization, while neural dynamics remain governed by biological mechanisms. -/- The framework yields testable predictions involving graded transitions, boundary-sensitive dynamics, perturbation recovery, descriptor ablation, and dissociations between coordination strength and admissibility. As a preliminary empirical demonstration, we applied the descriptor score to Sleep-EDF descriptor outputs using leave-one-recording-out validation. The learned multi-descriptor score separated wake from non-wake windows with AUC 0.972, exceeding the strongest single descriptor, inverted Ξ (AUC 0.963), and a same-row delta/theta bandpower logistic baseline (AUC 0.685). Recording-level bootstrap confidence intervals supported both comparisons. The pilot also showed that raw coordination strength was higher in sleep than wake, illustrating that synchrony alone should not be equated with admissibility. -/- These results do not establish a biomarker of consciousness, and wake versus non-wake remains a coarse validation target. Rather, they demonstrate that the proposed descriptor-space framework can generate interpretable, held-out validated, baseline-comparable scores. By separating neural dynamics, structural admissibility, global availability, and content organization, the framework offers a falsifiable route for studying conscious realization as constrained neural coordination. (shrink)

This paper argues that ethics should be treated less as a system of categorical obligations and more as a reality-tracking inquiry into human motivation, flourishing, and social coordination. Its central claim is that moral egoism is the descriptive basis from which all usable ethical frameworks must proceed, because human beings act through perceived self-interest. Utilitarianism is retained, not as the foundation of ethics, but as an instrument used by egoists in contexts of law, governance, and large-scale coordination. Competing (...) frameworks such as Kantian ethics and virtue ethics are criticized as reductionist or incomplete because they elevate rules or traits into comprehensive systems despite the complexity of actual decision-making. The paper further argues that modern ethics often generates psychological confusion by promoting unrealistic expectations that intensify cognitive dissonance, shame, and social friction. Empathy is treated as a real psychological phenomenon but not as a sufficient grounding for obligation. Finally, the paper advances, as a working hypothesis, the theory that stimulus reception forms the bedrock of good, while cognitive dissonance forms the bedrock of bad, with goals functioning as higher-level abstractions built on that structure. Ethics, on this view, should describe reality accurately and recommend what follows from it rather than condemn people for failing to satisfy impossible ideals. (shrink)

The safety conception of knowledge holds that a belief constitutes knowledge iff relevantly similar beliefs—its epistemic counterparts—are true. It promises an instructive account of why certain general principles of knowledge hold. We focus on two such principles that anyone should endorse: the closure principle that knowledge is downward closed under competent conjunction elimination, and the counter-closure principle that knowledge is upward closed under competent conjunction introduction. We argue that anyone endorsing the former must also endorse the latter on pains of (...) an unacceptable form of bootstrapping. We devise new formal models to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for these principles to hold on conceptions that construe knowledge in terms of true counterparts. These conditions state that counterparts of premise and conclusion beliefs are coordinated in certain ways whenever these beliefs stand in the relevant inferential relations. We show that the safety conception faces insuperable problems vindicating these coordination principles, because its epistemic counterpart relation is symmetric. We conclude that it thus proves unable to account for minimal closure properties of knowledge. More generally, our formal results establish parameters within which any conception must operate that construes knowledge in terms of true counterparts. (shrink)

The coordinated attack scenario and the electronic mail game are two paradoxes of common knowledge. In simple mathematical models of these scenarios, the agents represented by the models can coordinate only if they have common knowledge that they will. As a result, the models predict that the agents will not coordinate in situations where it would be rational to coordinate. I argue that we should resolve this conflict between the models and facts about what it would be rational to do (...) by rejecting common knowledge assumptions implicit in the models. I focus on the assumption that the agents have common knowledge that they are rational, and provide models to show that denying this assumption suffices for a resolution of the paradoxes. I describe how my resolution of the paradoxes fits into a general story about the relationship between rationality in situations involving a single agent and rationality in situations involving many agents. (shrink)

The present study investigated whether humans are more likely to trust people who are coordinated with them. We examined a well-known type of linguistic coordination, lexical entrainment, typically involving the elaboration of “conceptual pacts,” or partner-specific agreements on how to conceptualize objects. In two experiments, we manipulated lexical entrainment in a referential communication task and measured the effect of this manipulation on epistemic and practical trust. Our results showed that participants were more likely to trust a coordinated partner than (...) an uncoordinated one, but only when the latter broke previously established conceptual pacts. (shrink)

The type of principles which cognitive engineers need to design better work environments are principles which explain interactivity and distributed cognition: how human agents interact with themselves and others, their work spaces, and the resources and constraints that populate those spaces. A first step in developing these principles is to clarify the fundamental concepts of environment, coordination, and behavioural function. Using simple examples, I review changes the distributed perspective forces on these basic notions.