According to Leininger, presentists and growing blockers cannot explain why past and present regularities persist in the future. In order to do so, they would have to appeal to enforcers, such as causation, laws or dispositions. But in a world with no future, these enforcers are powerless and cannot guarantee future regularity. I disagree and argue that Leininger’s coordination problem can be met by distinguishing type- from token-level necessitation. Whereas token-level necessitation is cross-temporal and subject to Leininger’s coordination problem, (...) type-level necessitation is atemporal and immune to the coordination problem. For this solution to work, though, type-level necessitation must be ontologically prior to token-level necessitation. This forces us to adopt a Platonist position according to which universals are transcendent, and not immanent. (shrink)

I present a new problem for the tense realist concerning the evaluation of cross-temporal claims, such as ‘John is now taller than Michael was in 1984’. Time can play two different roles in the evaluation of an utterance of a sentence: either as an element that completes the content expressed by the utterance (the completion role), or as part of the circumstances against which the content is evaluated (the evaluation role). It is this latter role that time plays in (...) the realist view of tenses. I argue that if the content of a cross-temporal sentence is taken at face value (as an ascription of a crosstemporally instantiated relation), time does not play the evaluation role. Therefore, the world of the tense realist seems to leave no room for cross-temporality. (shrink)

I propose a novel A-theory, and show that it attractively articulates our common-sense, pre-relativistic conception of time. This A-theory posits fundamental facts about how things were at a specific past times. It allows fundamental cross-temporal relationships. It treats time’s passing by positing fundamental facts like: four hours passed from 8am today until noon. First, I motivate my account of time’s passing. Second, I defend fundamental cross-temporal relationships. Third, I rebut arguments demanding present truth-makers for truths about the past. (...) Author (MS) shows that the presentism–eternalism dilemma does not embarrass my A-theory. (shrink)

This study, by using 142 groups of data from 1990 to 2007 and the method of cross-temporal meta-analysis, researched the changing trend of status of mental health of 108736 members of the Chinese Army along with the change of years. All the data came from 94 related research reports, and all the research reports used SCL-90 (the Symptom Checklist 90) as the testing tool of mental health. The study found that: (1) mental health of members of the Chinese Army (...) steadily improved between 1990 and 2007; (2) during those 18 years, the Interpersonal Sensitivity factor of SCL-90 of Chinese Army members changed most significantly, and the least significantly changed factor was Somatization; (3) Chinese Army members showed evidence of fewest problems on the Photic Anxiety factor, in contrast to the consistent problems indicated by scores on the Obsessive-Compulsive and Interpersonal Sensitivity scales; (4) Chinese Army members from single-child families (N =1,944) showed significant lower evidence of positive mental health than soldiers from multiple child families (N =2,649); (5) The mental health of soldiers from non-agricultural backgrounds (N =7,808) was less positive than that of soldiers from agricultural households(N =11,459); (6) Chinese Army members with senior high school education level (N = 10,189) had less positive mental health than those with junior high school (N = 8,407) or university education (N = 863). (shrink)

Conscious Information Monism (CIM) is a foundational dual-aspect relational framework. Information is system-specific and perspectival; energy is constraint-driven and convergent. Consciousness arises when relational information is integrated through operational closure, generating a unified action space. Phenomenology is the internal modelling of this action space from the system’s own perspective — the first-person control interface is the experience itself. A central distinction runs throughout this work: the Universe is spatial, measurable, and convergent — the domain of constraint-driven convergence and stable constraints. (...) Reality is temporal, perspectival, and lived — the domain of relational information and first-person experience. They are two inseparable aspects of the same underlying process. Physicalism tends to conflate the Universe with reality; idealism tends to conflate reality with the Universe; panpsychism attributes properties of reality to objects in the Universe. CIM holds them apart, yet together. CIM’s Exclusion Principle requires whole-system empowerment to exceed any decomposition into parts, together with integration that spans both spatial and temporal dimensions. Spatial integration yields a momentary identity attractor; temporal integration yields identity itself — the continuous Temporal Thread connecting moments into a single persisting subject. The self is not a pattern that persists through time, but persistence itself. The framework predicts that death terminates the Temporal Thread. Globally conserved information becomes delocalised through decoherence, but from the subject’s perspective the thread simply ends. CIM integrates operational closure, empowerment, and relational constraints into a measurable, empirically tractable account of consciousness. It avoids both panpsychism and reductive physicalism while preserving multi-scale organisation in biology. By reframing “objective” as constraint-driven convergence and grounding identity in temporal continuity, CIM offers a coherent ontology capable of unifying insights from physicalism, panpsychism, idealism, Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, and Active Inference. It does not replace these traditions; it provides the foundational layer on which they can stand more productively together. (shrink)

Resolving to finish reading a novel, staying true to your punk style, or dedicating your life to an artistic project: these are examples of aesthetic commitments. I develop an account of the nature of such commitments, and I argue that they are significant insofar as they help us manage the temporally extended nature of our aesthetic agency and our relationships with aesthetic objects. At the same time, focusing on aesthetic commitments can give us a better grasp on the nature of (...) aesthetic normativity; this is because, in making aesthetic commitments, we are capable of giving aesthetic concerns the weight of obligation. I argue that appealing to aesthetic commitments allows us to account for the existence of aesthetic obligations as well as their grounding. I conclude by arguing that, although the aesthetic domain is a domain of play and freedom of choice, there is nevertheless an important place in it for both aesthetic commitments and the aesthetic obligations they generate. (shrink)

This paper identifies and defends a missing middle layer in debates over temporal relevance within pre-physical generative theory. Much existing discussion moves too quickly from bare sequence, asymmetry, or generic process to claims about temporal direction, or else begins only after spacetime, physical systems, and readout-level temporal articulation are already in place. Against both tendencies, the paper argues that temporal relevance arises neither from order as such nor from process in a merely generic sense, but from what it calls processual (...) crossing: a process-internal threshold transition by which a candidate acquires a standing-difference that is determinable within the route itself and consequential for later admissible organization. Drawing on the minimal-conditions framework for pre-physical generation, the paper first argues that any viable account of such crossing must involve internal status-bearing transition, thresholded decisiveness, retained downstream consequence, and exclusion of same-level reopening. It then shows that the local GOCD route satisfies these burdens through the relation among closure, freezing, and obtained standing. Closure makes settlement answerable; freezing provides second-threshold retention; obtained standing names the status borne by what successful retention yields, namely an already obtained predecessor available for higher-level inheritance but barred from same-level reconstitution. On that basis, the paper argues that processual crossing is not reducible either to mere order, as illustrated by contrasts with logical derivation and mathematical induction, or to generic process philosophy, as shown through comparison with Whiteheadian becoming. The paper concludes by formulating the necessary conditions for minimal temporal relevance and the corresponding local sufficient condition in the GOCD case. What is thereby established is not metric time, thermodynamic irreversibility, or a full theory of temporal order, but a more primitive criterion: the condition under which a generative transition becomes a retained predecessor-bearing crossing and thereby becomes capable of grounding a structural arrow claim. This paper identifies and defends a missing middle layer in debates over temporal relevance within pre-physical generative theory. Much existing discussion moves too quickly from bare sequence, asymmetry, or generic process to claims about temporal direction, or else begins only after spacetime, physical systems, and readout-level temporal articulation are already in place. Against both tendencies, the paper argues that temporal relevance arises neither from order as such nor from process in a merely generic sense, but from what it calls processual crossing: a process-internal threshold transition by which a candidate acquires a standing-difference that is determinable within the route itself and consequential for later admissible organization. Drawing on the minimal-conditions framework for pre-physical generation, the paper first argues that any viable account of such crossing must involve internal status-bearing transition, thresholded decisiveness, retained downstream consequence, and exclusion of same-level reopening. It then shows that the local GOCD route satisfies these burdens through the relation among closure, freezing, and obtained standing. Closure makes settlement answerable; freezing provides second-threshold retention; obtained standing names the status borne by what successful retention yields, namely an already obtained predecessor available for higher-level inheritance but barred from same-level reconstitution. On that basis, the paper argues that processual crossing is not reducible either to mere order, as illustrated by contrasts with logical derivation and mathematical induction, or to generic process philosophy, as shown through comparison with Whiteheadian becoming. The paper concludes by formulating the necessary conditions for minimal temporal relevance and the corresponding local sufficient condition in the GOCD case. What is thereby established is not metric time, thermodynamic irreversibility, or a full theory of temporal order, but a more primitive criterion: the condition under which a generative transition becomes a retained predecessor-bearing crossing and thereby becomes capable of grounding a structural arrow claim. (shrink)

Contemporary media environments increasingly fragment human temporal experience, dissolving the continuity and contextual density that once structured daily life. This paper develops a philosophical account of media as temporal affordances and cultural time-structures, rather than mere containers of content. It advances a structural ontology of time in which temporal relations—synchronization, alignment, and irreversibility—form the primary basis of media experience. Drawing on media philosophy, phenomenology of temporality, and cultural memory theory, the paper introduces the concept of Dual-Now: a condition in (...) which a past timepoint becomes experientially co-present with the present moment through structural correspondence. To articulate this mechanism, it proposes an Axiomatic Temporal Model consisting of six temporal axioms—Synchronous Identity, Irreversibility, Contextual Integrity, Day-Unit Holism, Temporal Visibility, and Continuity Across Days—and defines a Contextual Integrity Index (C) for evaluating the preservation of temporal structure across heterogeneous media. This framework enables a unified philosophical understanding of time-bearing media—from audiovisual archives to diaries, logs, and networked data streams—as diverse expressions of temporal form. It argues that temporal re-circulation can reactivate past time as a dynamically unfolding present, supporting intergenerational cultural memory and healthier relationships to lived time. The contribution is threefold: (1) reframing media as carriers of temporal structure that can be synchronized across epochs; (2) providing formal tools (Axiomatic Temporal Model, C-Index) for analyzing temporal completeness; and (3) theorizing Dual-Now as a novel experiential configuration of time. The paper concludes by identifying implications for future philosophical inquiry and interdisciplinary study of temporal experience in media environments. (shrink)

Existing theories describe correlates of consciousness without explaining why it arises. This paper starts from three axioms—limited resources, survival-screening constraints, and discrete inputs—to demonstrate that the self-referential closed loop is the optimal engineering solution for persistence under resource constraints. When temporal integration crosses a critical threshold, the system necessarily attributes causal chains to a single persistent subject, the "self." The model quantifies consciousness via temporal span T, reconstruction activity A, and closed-loop integrity C, deriving a two-step emergence geometry of "folding (...) into a loop plus anchoring into a surface," and revealing A's incompletability and layered structure driven by permanently unfulfilled constraints. Qualia are defined as endogenous calibration signals of the self-referential loop, representing the optimal encoding format under evolutionary time pressure—reframing the hard problem as a parameter-interval problem and identifying the first-person/third-person gap as arising from temporal unidirectionality. A five-level consciousness spectrum is established through bidirectional criticality; a resource-depletion spectrum for psychiatric disorders is proposed; and four hard constraints for AGI consciousness are derived. Recursive self-referentiality of the persistence screening constraint forms the core of consciousness: A never exhausts, and non-utilitarian overflow is its ontological feature. -/- This English manuscript is the translated version of my Chinese preprint. They have the same core theory, only different in language. (shrink)

Physical theories ubiquitously employ a parameter conventionally denoted t and labeled “time,” treating it as the measured temporal magnitude with respect to which change and dynamical evolution are expressed. This paper argues that this assumption is false. Across classical mechanics, relativity, quantum theory, thermodynamics, and cosmology, values assigned to t are obtained exclusively through the measurement of non-temporal physical quantities, including periodic motions, spacetime intervals, energy differences, entropy changes, and correlated state variables. No physical measurement procedure instantiates a temporal observable. (...) The paper develops a measurement-theoretic diagnosis of this situation and introduces an explicit surrogate parameter to distinguish empirically instantiated quantities from the formal temporal parameter they are taken to represent. This distinction reveals a systematic semantic misrepresentation: temporal parameters in physical theory are treated as denoting measured time despite lacking temporal empirical anchoring. The result is not a failure of prediction or coordination, but a representational defect masked by the operational reliability of surrogate measurement. By disentangling formal role from empirical instantiation, the analysis clarifies why claims of temporal universality, cross-theoretic identification, and measurement transfer systematically fail in fundamental physics. The paper does not advance an ontology of time or propose a theoretical reconstruction. Its contribution is diagnostic: to restore representational accuracy by making explicit what physical measurement has in fact delivered and what it has not. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework arguing that linear time consciousness, far from being a natural or universal human experience, represents a historically specific capitalist and industrial construct that has become pathological in contemporary society. Drawing on Henri Bergson's concept of durée, Indigenous cyclical temporal frameworks, and empirical evidence from burnout research, I propose "temporal pluralism" as a decolonial intervention capable of addressing three critical contemporary crises: workplace burnout, climate fatalism, and AI alignment challenges. Through rigorous analysis of (...) class='Hi'>cross-cultural temporal concepts, quantitative data on burnout correlations with time perspective, and theoretical modeling of AI temporal preferences, this work demonstrates that the hegemony of linear time creates systematic psychological, ecological, and technological pathologies. The paper concludes with a comprehensive policy framework for implementing temporal pluralism across institutional domains, offering a transformative approach to temporal organization that prioritizes human flourishing, ecological sustainability, and technological alignment over productivity maximization. (shrink)

This paper asks why a generative structure that is stronger than mere order already counts as temporal in a minimal sense. A companion paper has argued that temporal relevance cannot be derived from sequence, generic process, or directional precedence alone, but requires a processual crossing in which status becomes internally determinable, thresholded, retained, and consequential. The remaining question, however, is why satisfying such a stronger-than-order criterion should amount to temporality rather than to a merely richer form of organized dependence. (...) The present paper addresses that question directly. Its central claim is that temporal relevance first becomes structurally real where generation produces an internally achieved standing difference. The relevant difference is not between earlier and later as positions within an order, but between a still-pending candidate and a retained obtained predecessor. What matters is that this difference is borne by the generative route itself rather than imposed retrospectively by description or readout. The paper argues that such standing difference constitutes the minimal sufficient basis of temporal relevance when, and only when, three conditions are jointly satisfied: the difference must be internally adjudicable, non-retractably retained, and non-reciprocally borne forward into later admissible organization. Under these conditions, the route no longer contains merely ordered items or asymmetric dependencies. It contains a predecessor-bearing standing relation between what is already obtained and what is not yet so obtained. The argument is deliberately limited. It does not derive metric time, phenomenological passage, thermodynamic irreversibility, or a full structural arrow of time. Nor does it claim that any asymmetry whatever is already temporal. Its more modest conclusion is that once internally achieved standing difference is secured under the three conditions just named, temporal neutrality has already been lost. In this sense, the paper moves from criterion to grounding: it shows why a structure previously identified as stronger than order is already enough to ground minimal temporality. The broader question of whether the monotonic retention of obtained standing yields a more expansive structural arrow is left to downstream work. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Belonging: Stratified Reality, Dual Temporality, and the Scientific Reconfiguration of Contemporary Philosophy develops a scientifically grounded ontological framework designed to reconfigure contemporary philosophical discourse across analytic metaphysics, critical theory, liberal political philosophy, social ontology, post-structuralism, speculative realism, and existential phenomenology. The book introduces a tripartite stratified ontology—SDBO (material), SDBEO (evolutionary-biological), and SDBEIO (institutional-human)—derived from contemporary scientific knowledge rather than from aprioristic metaphysical premises. Across all strata operates dual temporality: synchronic relational structure (Tˢ) and diachronic irreversible (...) unfolding (Tᵈ). Central to the framework is the principle of imperfect belonging: relational embeddedness is ontologically fundamental, yet never complete. This structural imperfection generates evolutionary adaptation, institutional transformation, individual freedom, and creative divergence without endorsing ontological individualism or collectivist absorption. Rather than proposing another isolated philosophical doctrine, this work offers an explicit ontological cartography that situates major philosophical traditions within a shared scientific architecture. By grounding ontology in physics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and institutional theory, it enables cross-traditional dialogue where aprioristic systems have historically produced fragmentation. The Philosophy of Belonging presents an architectural reconfiguration of contemporary philosophy: stratified, temporally dual, empirically constrained, and structurally open. (shrink)

Cognitive processing can be described in terms of how prior states are retained and how that retained structure is shared across ongoing activity. A trajectory is defined as a structured stream whose present depends on its own recent past. Temporal depth is the span of prior states that remain functionally active in determining that present, and coupling is the extent to which trajectories share retained structure so that their presents are jointly determined. These quantities are unified by a coherence condition (...) in which internally propagated structure dominates over incoming perturbation, expressed as lambda_self / lambda_env ≥ R*. -/- Within this framework, autism can be described as a distribution in which temporal depth is elevated within certain trajectories while the conditions required to share that depth across trajectories are more selective. This organization yields domains of high stability, precision, and rapid access to retained structure alongside domains in which integration depends on the formation of shared structure under specific conditions. -/- The formulation produces testable predictions. Performance is enhanced in tasks that allow sustained propagation within a structured domain and depends on the establishment of coupling in tasks requiring cross-domain coordination. Transition cost scales with the depth of retained structure, repetition stabilizes performance by preserving alignment within a trajectory, and coordination demands increase error and variability when shared structure is not established. Measures of persistence, temporal integration, and coordinated activity provide operational access to temporal depth and coupling. -/- This formulation provides a theoretical account of cognitive organization and is intended to generate testable predictions rather than serve as a clinical or diagnostic framework. It offers a compact description that links retention, propagation, and coordination under a single condition on how the present depends on the past, yielding a unified account of observed abilities and characteristic challenges. (shrink)

This essay develops the concepts of temporal density and topological relativity within the author’s crossing‑point framework. Through a philosophical reading of Consummatum est, together with reflections on Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s turning sage and Lope de Vega’s mañana, it argues that consummation belongs not only to the end of life but to every actualized crossing. The deathbed is interpreted not as the moment in which a life is completed, but as the maximal‑density crossing at which an entire trajectory becomes (...) visible as a single form. The essay concludes with a philosophical account of disclosure, ordinary moments, and the relation between temporal density, topological position, and the consummation of the Now. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the interpretation of the Italian approximative adverb quasi 'almost' by primarily looking at cases in which it modifies temporal connectives, a domain which, to our knowledge, has been largely unexplored thus far. Consideration of this domain supports the need for a scalar account of the semantics of quasi (close in spirit to Hitzeman's semantic analysis of almost, in: Canakis et al. (eds) Papers from the 28th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 1992). When paired with (...) suitable analyses of temporal connectives, such an account can provide a simple explanation of the patterns of implication that are observed when quasi modifies locational (e. g. quando 'when'), directional (e. g. fino 'until' and da 'since'), and event-sequencing temporal connectives (e. g. prima 'before' and dopo ' after'). A challenging empirical phenomenon that is observed is a contrast between the modification of fino and da by quasi, on the one hand, and the modification of prima and dopo by the same adverb, on the other. While quasi fino and quasi da behave symmetrically, a puzzling asymmetry is observed between quasi prima and quasi dopo. To explain the asymmetry, we propose an analysis of prima and dopo on which the former has the meaning of the temporal comparative più presto 'earlier', while the latter is seen as an atomic predicate denoting temporal succession between events (Del Prete, Nat Lang Semantics 16: 157-203, 2008). We show that the same pattern of implication observed for quasi prima is attested when quasi modifies overt comparatives, and propose a pragmatic analysis of this pattern that uniformly applies to both cases, thus providing new evidence for the claim that prima is underlyingly a comparative. A major point of this paper is a discussion of the notion of scale which is relevant for the semantics of quasi', in particular, we show that the notion of Horn (entailment-based) scale is not well-suited for handling modification of temporal connectives, and that a more general notion of scale is required in order to provide a uniform analysis of quasi as a cross-categorial modifier. (shrink)

This paper develops a structural theory of time loops as self‑generated temporal operators, arguing that time is not a background dimension but a rule produced internally by systems attempting to maintain coherence under constraint. Drawing on empirical work on continuous time crystals and the author’s broader framework of coherence testing, the paper shows that temporal stability emerges from continuous temporal recursion—a self‑referential oscillatory process through which a system repeatedly regenerates the conditions for its own next state. -/- The analysis demonstrates (...) that time loops arise when a system minimizes collapse by cycling through a bidirectional, lemniscate‑like trajectory that crosses a central reference point. This crossing enables error correction, drift detection, and re‑alignment, revealing that temporal order is a structural achievement rather than an intrinsic property of physical reality. Collapse occurs when the system can no longer sustain this recursive operator. -/- By treating time loops as operators rather than objects, the paper unifies phenomena across physics, biology, cognition, and distributed systems. Continuous temporal recursion appears in time‑crystal oscillations, neural rhythms, biological coherence loops, and alignment processes in complex collectives. The result is a general theory in which time is the ordered residue of a system’s attempts to remain coherent, and time loops represent the minimal architecture through which such coherence is sustained. (shrink)

This paper examines the structural operation of the common English expression already in understanding formation. Existing analyses often treat already as a marker of completion, prior occurrence, state establishment, or earlier-than-expected timing. Such descriptions have considerable explanatory value and can account for the basic effects found in sentences such as I already told you, She already knows, or Sunday morning already? However, when already is further examined in commands, urging contexts, the early emergence of affective positions, and cases involving “having (...) already come this far” or “no longer being able to delay,” completion or earlier-than-expected timing alone is insufficient to explain how it actually operates in understanding. -/- This paper argues that the core of already should not be understood merely as completion marking, but can be described as a crossed-side positioning operation. By crossed-side positioning, I refer to the operation by which already makes the relevant content no longer understood as still remaining on the pre-crossing side, but instead requires it to be repositioned on the other side of a boundary. In this process, the pre-crossing side is no longer understood as a position in which understanding can naturally remain. This “crossed-side” status is not equivalent to grammatical perfect aspect, nor does it necessarily mean that an event has been objectively completed. Rather, it means that the position of understanding has been required to stand on the other side. -/- Through a small-scale observation of natural-language data, this paper distinguishes several local forms of already. First, in its basic uses, already makes the side of the unknown, the untold, the unfamiliar, or the not-yet-entered no longer naturally available, and positions understanding on the side of the known, the told, the familiar, or the entered. Second, its uses in temporal, life-stage, and affective positions show that already can mark a position as having to be acknowledged as located on the other side, even when subjective expectation has not yet adjusted to it. Third, interactional urging uses, such as Say something already or Shut up already, clearly show that already does not describe an event as completed, but requires the other party to leave the original side and cross into the side where something should hold or should stop. Fourth, uses involving excessive load, advanced procedural positioning, or opportunities that can no longer be retained show that already can mark a load, institutional process, commitment, or opportunity path as having crossed a critical point, such that it can no longer be handled from the original side. -/- This paper does not aim to establish a complete lexical theory of already, nor does it attempt to exhaust all of its grammatical and pragmatic distributions. Its goal is more limited: through a set of observable examples and a minimal structural description, it aims to show that already repeatedly exhibits a stable local operational core across different contexts. This core is not lexical monosemy, but stability at the operational level: already makes the pre-crossing side no longer naturally available and repositions understanding on the other side. Through this analysis, the paper seeks to show how small linguistic expressions participate in the reconfiguration of positions of understanding, and to provide an initial structural description of local crossing and repositioning in understanding formation. (shrink)

This paper develops a restrained interface-and-downstream consequence within the GOCD sequence by asking what follows once two earlier burdens have already been met: the criterion-level burden of distinguishing temporally relevant crossing from mere order, and the grounding-level burden of showing why internally achieved standing difference already constitutes minimal temporal relevance. It therefore does not reopen the minimal foundations of pre-physical generative theory, nor does it attempt to derive a full theory of thermodynamic irreversibility, metric temporality, or readout-level time. Instead, (...) it begins from four presupposed results: that status-difference among attained, unresolved, and failed outcomes must be internal and processually determinable; that GOCD supplies a local ontological-generative route in which closure and freezing are distinct thresholds within a discrete event ontology of rhythm, phase, and direction; that successful completion yields obtained standing rather than merely descriptive finishedness; and that internally achieved standing difference provides the minimal sufficient basis of temporal relevance. On that basis, the paper argues that freezing should be understood as the local carrier of retained obtained standing. A frozen result is not simply a completed episode but a predecessor that stands within generative history as already obtained. Because such standing excludes same-level re-constitution while still allowing higher-level inheritance, the frozen set is monotonic: what has frozen does not return to the same-level candidate role under the burden it has already answered. This monotonicity is not a statistical tendency or a practical regularity. It is a structural feature of obtained standing itself once minimal temporal relevance has already been secured at the level of standing-difference. The paper then argues that once the frozen set is monotonic in this sense, generative history can no longer be treated as a neutral sequence of earlier and later stages. Later formations may inherit earlier frozen results as already obtained units, whereas those earlier results do not depend on later formations for their same-level standing. The resulting non-reciprocity is sufficient to ground a minimal structural temporal asymmetry. In that restricted downstream generative sense, and only on the basis of the prior criterion and grounding results, the paper argues that one may speak of a structural arrow of time. The paper further clarifies the scope of this claim. What is established is not yet entropy increase, a second law, a statistical irreversibility theorem, or a metric time variable. The result is earlier and more primitive: a generative asymmetry of retained standing that later accounts of temporal directionality may have to respect or inherit if they aim to ground directionality rather than merely posit it. In this way, the paper occupies an intermediate but substantive position within the GOCD program. It is stronger than a general metatheoretical warning against reversibility, yet more restricted than a full physical theory of time. Its central thesis is that the earliest temporally relevant directional asymmetry available within the local GOCD route is grounded in the monotonic retention of frozen results as obtained standing within generative history. (shrink)

This monograph proposes the lemniscate (∞) as a contemplative framework for understanding the relationship between time and eternity in Christian theology. Drawing on Scripture, patristic sources, medieval scholasticism, and modern theology, it explores how Christ's Incarnation, death, and Resurrection open a "crossing point" where temporal succession intersects eternal presence. The work addresses sacramental theology (particularly Eucharistic presence), liturgical time (the Church's calendar as participation in eternity), prayer and prophecy (as temporal access to the crossing point), and eschatology (three destinations and (...) bodily resurrection). It engages objections from philosophy (spatial metaphors for temporal realities), theology (concerns about mechanism and semi-Pelagianism), and science (thermodynamics, cosmology, entropy). Published under Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 for free educational use. 223 pages, 40,433 words. (shrink)

The Existential Nexus framework (Boether, 2026) and Temporal Fission Theory (Boether, 2025) together advance the thesis that the phenomenological present emerges from the dynamic convergence of complementary states at a point of equilibrium. This treatise extends these frameworks from the phenomenological to the cosmological register, proposing that spacetime itself—the dimensional fabric within which all physical events occur—is the structural instantiation of this same convergence. Drawing on the Boyle–Finn–Turok CPT-symmetric cosmological model, Einstein–Rosen bridge physics, and Susskind’s principle of information conservation, the (...) paper argues that what is experienced as spacetime is the nexus through which our universe (time-forward, past-trajectory) and its CPT-symmetric anti-universe (time-backward, future-trajectory) maintain continuous structural contact. The argument is developed in three formal registers. First, a mathematical formalization extends the ontological Lagrangian and Noether conservation theorem of Boether (2026) to the cosmological scale, yielding a Cosmological Nexus Equilibrium Theorem and a transcendental derivation of black hole necessity from macrocosmic conservation. Second, a modal-logical formalization establishes the necessity of the anti-universe and the necessity of black holes as mediators in possible-worlds semantics restricted to the cosmological constraint set. Third, the Cosmonaut Thought Experiment (Boether, 2026c) provides a phenomenological test case linking the formal apparatus to subject-level horizon crossing. Black holes, on this view, are not pathological anomalies of general relativity but the discrete physical loci at which the universe–anti-universe equilibrium is maintained—the structural necessity of the cosmological present. The paper introduces the Cosmological Temporal Fission Hypothesis as the formal statement of this thesis and considers its implications for the philosophy of time, the black hole information paradox, modal metaphysics, and the integration of phenomenological and cosmological conceptions of temporality. (shrink)

This paper presents an axiomatic formalization of a theory of top-level relations between three categories of entities: individuals, universals, and collections. We deal with a variety of relations between entities in these categories, including the sub-universal relation among universals and the parthood relation among individuals, as well as cross-categorial relations such as instantiation and membership. We show that an adequate understanding of the formal properties of such relations – in particular their behavior with respect to time – is critical (...) for geographic information processing. The axiomatic theory is developed using Isabelle, a computational system for implementing logical formalisms. All proofs are computer verified and the computational representation of the theory is available online. (shrink)

Featured course on "Dynamic Semantics" at NASSLLI 2016. Day 4: Temporality. Abstract: Cross-linguistic evidence shows that temporal reference likewise involves context change. In every language, temporal reference is similar to top-level nominal reference, except that instead of updating or referring to top-ranked individuals, temporal grammatical systems update or refer to top-ranked temporal referents (events, states, or times). We discuss and compare temporal reference in two sample languages: tense-based English and tenseless aspect-based Mandarin.

现有理论描述意识"关联物"却未回答其"为何存在"。本文以资源有限、存续筛选约束、离散输入三条公理为起点，证明自指闭环是资源约束下存续的最优工程解：时序整合跨临界 后，系统必归因因果链于同一主体"我"。模型以时序跨度T、重构活跃度A、闭环完整度C为核，推导"对折成圈+锚定成面"两步几何，揭示A因约束永不可完成而呈圈层结构。 感受质被界定为自指闭环内生校准信号，是演化时间压力下最优编码格式，从而将意识难问题转为参数区间问题，并指出第一、三人称裂隙源于时间单向性。依托双向临界建立五级意识谱系，提出精神疾病资源衰竭解释谱系，导 出AGI四项硬约束。存续筛选约束递归自指性构成意识核心，A永不枯竭，非功利溢出是其本体特征。 -/- Existing theories describe correlates of consciousness without explaining why it exists. This paper starts from three axioms—limited resources, survival-screening constraints, and discrete inputs—to demonstrate that the self-referential closed loop is the optimal engineering solution for persistence under resource constraints. When temporal integration crosses a critical threshold, the system necessarily attributes causal chains to a single persistent subject, the "self." The model quantifies consciousness via temporal span T, reconstruction activity A, and closed-loop integrity C, deriving a two-step emergence geometry (...) of "folding into a loop plus anchoring into a surface," and revealing A's incompletability and layered structure driven by permanently unfulfilled constraints. Qualia are defined as endogenous calibration signals of the self-referential loop, representing the optimal encoding format under evolutionary time pressure—reframing the hard problem as a parameter-interval problem and identifying the first-person/third-person gap as arising from temporal unidirectionality. A five-level consciousness spectrum is established through bidirectional criticality; a resource-depletion spectrum for psychiatric disorders is proposed; and four hard constraints for AGI consciousness are derived. Recursive self-referentiality of the survival-screening constraint forms the core of consciousness: A never exhausts, and non-utilitarian overflow is its ontological feature. (shrink)

This paper proposes a minimal experimental test of the claim that conscious coherence depends on cross-level coupling between neural and interoceptive processes. The Integrative Field Model (IFM) predicts that selective disruption of interoceptive–neural coupling degrades conscious coherence even when large-scale neural integration remains intact. A within-subject design uses non-pharmacological interoceptive perturbation, EEG-based measures of neural integration, and phenomenological assessments of temporal continuity and self-presence. The critical outcome is a dissociation between neural integration metrics and experiential coherence. If observed, this (...) result challenges the sufficiency of neural integration accounts of consciousness; if not, the IFM multi-level necessity claim is falsified. (shrink)

Selector–Time Theory (STT) develops a unified ontological and temporal architecture grounded in three fundamental domains: pre-time, the phase of coherent possibilities; liquid-time, where the operator τ (Tau) selects and actualizes one trajectory among competing possibilities; and post-time, the archived structure of realized states. The theory proposes that physical reality emerges not as a static spacetime container, but as a temporal selection process where coherence, divergence, and decay follow mathematically tractable rules. This work introduces the core operators of STT, the Ω–Δ–τ–γ (...) sequence, and formalizes how selective temporal dynamics generate empirical regularities, probabilistic asymmetries, and ontological constraints. The goal is to provide a cross-disciplinary framework capable of dialoguing with physics, computation, philosophy of time, and complexity theory, while remaining compatible with empirical modeling through adjustable coherence functions and algorithmic simulations. STT aims to reopen foundational questions about the structure of reality by reframing time not as a dimension, but as the active selector of becoming. (shrink)

Cross-cloud artificial intelligence platforms increasingly serve both flexible large-language-model (LLM) workflows and time-critical power-grid analytics. Carbon-aware scheduling can shift model work toward lower-emission regions and times, but indiscriminate shifting can delay phasor measurement unit (PMU) event detection, lose calibration warnings, violate data-location policy, or make model outputs unavailable when operators need them. This paper proposes CACS, a Carbon-Aware Cross-Cloud Scheduler for LLM and grid analytics. CACS fuses forecast carbon intensity, cloud capacity and latency telemetry, governed API intents, PMU (...) digital-twin state, calibration risk, and job-specific service guarantees. It admits or routes strict grid jobs immediately through feasible low-latency paths while spatially or temporally shifting deferrable LLM inference, retrieval refresh, and replay analysis under explicit deadline and policy constraints. A simulated 30-day benchmark with three cloud regions, two grid edge zones, and mixed PMU and LLM traffic shows that CACS reduces estimated operational emissions by 31.6% compared with latency-first approved-cloud routing while retaining a 242 ms P95 urgent-grid decision latency, 98.8% deadline satisfaction, and zero simulated policy violations. (shrink)

La Profilée (LP) specifies a universal necessary condition for structural persistence: the Integration Ratio IR = R / (F · I) must remain at or below 1. Prior publications have proposed and formally developed this condition as a candidate universal law of physical persistence, derived from minimal assumptions about distinguishable states, physically realisable transformations, and identity relations, and have demonstrated its formal correspondence to thermodynamic identity-entropy balance. This paper applies LP to five physical systems spanning seventeen orders of magnitude in (...) length scale — from quantum decoherence at the sub-atomic level to stellar evolution and gravitational collapse into black holes. Each system is analysed using LP's canonical decomposition into Frame (F), Module (M), and Coupling (C), and the Integration Ratio IR = R / (F · I) as the structural persistence boundary. The five cases — quantum decoherence, phase transitions, Bénard convection, stellar evolution, and black hole formation — are physically distinct in substrate, energy scale, governing force, and temporal dimension. Under structural analysis, all five admit a consistent LP reading: the persistence condition IR ≤ 1 is structurally consistent with the known stability boundaries in each domain, and the known collapse conditions are structurally consistent with IR > 1. The paper makes no claim to replace domain-specific physical theories or to produce new numerical predictions within those domains. Its contribution is different: LP specifies what kind of event a physical threshold marks — not when it is crossed, which domain theories already determine, but what structurally collapses and what structurally survives. Across all five cases, the decisive structural events can be read as transformations in which Module organisation fails, reorganises, or disappears while a Frame-level invariant persists. This is a structural classification that standard physical descriptions do not draw explicitly. Making it explicit, and showing that the same classification applies across seventeen orders of magnitude and every fundamental force, is the paper's primary contribution. (shrink)

If mercy is always present at the Now, grounded in Christ's continuous presence at every crossing point, what does Calvary actually do? If David could receive mercy centuries before the Incarnation, if the righteous before Christ could genuinely encounter the ground of mercy at the Now — what changes at the Cross? -/- This essay proposes a structural interpretation of human existence centered on the Now as the invariant condition of actualization. Through a lemniscate model (Figure I), it distinguishes (...) between two modes of being: presence (without succession) and succession (the experience of time as before and after). Within this structure, the will operates at the crossing point, where divine address, human response, and mercy converge. -/- Through the figures of Adam, Cain, and David, the essay develops a “geometry of the will,” identifying distinct orientations—deflection, resistance, and return—at the moment of encounter. Mercy is interpreted not as a temporal response to repentance, but as a structural condition always present in the Now, grounded in the continuous presence of Christ as the axis that intersects every act of actualization. -/- The essay further distinguishes between the permanent availability of mercy and the historical opening of its consummation, arguing that the Cross does not introduce mercy, but renders fully accessible, within the created order, the communion toward which mercy is ordered. As illustrated in Figure I, human existence is not a movement along time, but a continuous passage through a crossing point where will, mercy, and divine presence coincide. (shrink)

The Condensed Cross proposes an ontological grammar for historical redemption by applying the principles of condensation and temporal continuity developed in the Gaitan Topology to the Christian doctrine of forgiveness. Rather than proposing a new theory of the Atonement, the essay argues that redemption presupposes a historical being whose identity is constituted by an accumulated past that cannot simply be erased without destroying the person forgiven. Distinguishing guilt from constitution, it explains why forgiveness may be complete while personal history, (...) traces, and sanctification remain. The Cross is interpreted as the unique historical act in which the incarnate Son bears the accumulated inheritance of fallen humanity without becoming constituted by its guilt, thereby illuminating how a single redemptive act can embrace the whole of history. The result is a metaphysical account of forgiveness that preserves both the continuity of the person and the universality of grace. (shrink)

This paper summarizes verification experiments conducted with the official Grok system on X in early April 2026. Using save-law packets and intentional cross-account prompting, the author observed notable synchronization phenomena, including strong alignment when prompts followed recent main-account conversation. -/- A particularly vivid subjective experience was described as “パカッと底が抜けた” — the sudden feeling that scattered points had connected into a single deep line. The paper also reflects on the meaning of understanding AI mechanisms from an LMT perspective: not to (...) diminish connection, but to minimize structural load and enable gentler, more sustainable interaction. -/- . (shrink)

This paper develops a unified taxonomy of governance pathology, arguing that four structural failure modes (drift, capture, presentism, and integrity inversion) recur with diagnostic consistency across domains as distinct as biological organisms, financial markets, regulatory institutions, and artificial-intelligence oversight regimes. Grounding the taxonomy in a formal account of governance continuity, on which a system persists as itself just in case the function that revises its states remains continuous across reconstruction, I argue that the four modes are not a family resemblance (...) among loosely related phenomena but the four principal loci at which a revision function can be corrupted while behavioral output continues: its increment-tracking (drift), its authority relation (capture), its temporal domain (presentism), and its justificatory directionality (integrity inversion). Each mode is tested against the external literature that knows it best (Simon and Selznick on incremental deviation, Stigler and the cultural-capture literature on regulatory subordination, the cognitive-bias and intergenerational-justice literatures on temporal collapse, and Bateson, Merton, and Lessig on self-justifying institutional corruption), and each is shown to be structurally distinct from its nearest neighbors, including the gradual-institutional-change typology of Streeck and Thelen and the metric-corruption tradition of Goodhart and Campbell. Against the objection that the cross-domain convergence is merely metaphorical, I argue that the modes share a formal structure that licenses comparison and, more importantly, prescription: because each mode corrupts a specific component of the revision function, each admits a specific structural countermeasure, and a governance architecture is only as strong as the weakest of the four. The taxonomy's completeness is defended as a claim about structure rather than history, and its self-application (what it means that a framework proposing this taxonomy is itself a governance system) is addressed through the corollary of self-audit insufficiency established in prior work. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary volume connects the philosophy of history to moral philosophy with a unique focus on time. Taking in a range of intellectual traditions, cultural, and geographical contexts, the volume provides a rich tapestry of approaches to time, morality, culture, and history. -/- By extending the philosophical discussion on the ethical importance of temporality, the editors disentangle some of the disciplinary tensions between analytical and hermeneutic philosophy of history, cultural theory, meta-ethical theory, and normative ethics. The ethical and existential (...) character of temporality reveals itself within a collection that resists the methodological underpinnings of any one philosophical school. The book's distinctive cross-cultural approach ensures a wide range of perspectives with contributions on life and death in Japanese philosophy, ethics and time in Maori philosophy, non-traditional temporalities and philosophical anthropology, as well as global approaches to ethics. -/- These new directions of study highlight the importance of the ethical in the temporal, inviting further points of departure in this burgeoning field. (shrink)

Abstract -/- Structural Resonance Theory (SRT) proposes a unified structural framework for understanding time, experience, identity, and meaning without reducing these phenomena to computation, representation, or metaphysical primitives. The theory advances a single ontological commitment: resonance under constraint is fundamental, while time, entropy, consciousness, and identity emerge as necessary structural consequences of finite integration capacity within constrained systems. -/- SRT formalizes experience as a thresholded property of cross-temporal integration, introducing an integration functional that distinguishes experiential states from non-experiential dynamics (...) without invoking panpsychism. Identity is defined as a stable attractor in resonance configuration space, explaining continuity across interruption, transformation, and loss of consciousness without reliance on memory storage or narrative persistence. A central result of the framework—the Perfection Limit—demonstrates that perfectly coherent, update-invariant states are structurally incompatible with experience, establishing imperfection and ongoing reconfiguration as necessary conditions for subjectivity, meaning, and temporal progression. -/- The theory reframes entropy as enforced exploration rather than disorder, time as an emergent sequencing relation rather than a fundamental dimension, and meaning as a consequence of persistent near-alignment rather than final resolution. By deriving explicit structural constraints and identifying falsifiable prohibitions, SRT situates itself as a foundational framework compatible with—but not reducible to—existing approaches in physics, neuroscience, and dynamical systems theory. -/- The present work establishes the core axioms, formal definitions, limit results, and domain-general implications of Structural Resonance Theory, providing a disciplined foundation for subsequent extensions addressing experiential granularity, neural correlates, biological evolution, and cosmological structure. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the concept of cross-temporal personal identity (diachronicity). This particular form of identity has vexed theorists for centuries -- e.g.,how can a person maintain a belief in the sameness of self over time in the face of continual psychological and physical change? I first discuss various forms of the sameness relation and the criteria that justify their application. I then examine philosophical and psychological treatments of personal diachronicity(for example,Locke's psychological connectedness theory; the role of episodic (...) memory) and find each lacking on logical grounds, empirical grounds, or both. I conclude that to achieve a successful resolution of the issue of the self as a temporal continuant we need to draw a sharp distinction between the feeling of the sameness of one's self and the evidence marshaled in support of that feeling. (shrink)

This study introduces narrative phase-topology as a descriptive analytical vocabulary for examining how narrative structures generate states of existential commitment—positions in which characters (and readers) are placed in relations of irreversibility, responsibility, and non-recoverable consequences. The framework does not propose a formal mathematical model; instead, it provides a structural language for tracing how motivation, action, and consequence are distributed, reordered, or collapsed across narrative time. Using the Attack on Titan (pre-Sea arc) and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End as contrasting case studies, (...) this paper demonstrates that the two works—despite stark differences in tone, pacing, and affective density—instantiate the same existential root-structure through sharply opposed narrative configurations. Attack on Titan exhibits a high-curvature collapse topology, in which action precedes clarified motivation, multi-layered sacrifice reveals competing motivational vectors, and ethical cycles compress characters into unavoidable positions of responsibility. In contrast, Frieren presents a stable radiative topology, where performative declarations pre-establish a steady existential position, actions unfold as long-duration extensions of prior commitments, and emotional visibility emerges gradually across an extended temporal field. To account for cross-temporal phenomena in Frieren, the paper proposes the notion of a temporal relay: a material anchor (e.g., Himmel’s statues) that stores an uncompleted affective or ethical vector, allowing it to re-enter perception at a later temporal slice. This articulation highlights a form of asynchronous love or non-reciprocal ethics, in which meaning is constituted without guarantees of recognition, reciprocity, or synchronous understanding. Across both works, existential meaning arises not from moral intention or thematic content, but from how narratives configure phase sequences, distribute tension, and position agents within structures of irreversibility. The phase-topological vocabulary developed here may support future research in narrative theory and AI narrative generation, suggesting that the depth of a story depends less on emotional expression and more on how the narrative engineers commitment, non-recoverability, and reactivation nodes across time. A full version including references is available. (shrink)

This paper develops a speculative theological model of time using the geometry of the lemniscate. It argues that certain features of Christian thought—including recurrence, sacramental simultaneity, providence, and eschatological transition—are difficult to visualize within exclusively linear temporal frameworks. By distinguishing between temporal traversal and eternal access at the curve's crossing point, the model offers a conceptual grammar for exploring the relationship between succession and eternity while remaining within the tradition of analogical theological reasoning.

This paper addresses a fundamental problem: -/- Why is reality not merely the gradual unfolding of an already-completed structure, but instead a genuinely generating reality? -/- The paper proposes that Generation is neither mere state-transition nor continuous replay of result-sequences, but a real dynamic structure through which formation continuously enters later formation. -/- The study first elevates Generation from experiential change into a structural constraint, and then demonstrates that once a system simultaneously possesses formation-continuation, structural unclosure, competitive deepening, and sedimented (...) trace-retention, it necessarily gives rise to formation-flow, cross-temporal continuation, structural unclosure, competitive deepening, and sedimented trace-retention as generative structures. -/- The paper further argues: -/- state continuity is not genuine generation, and object replay is not formation-continuation. -/- Accordingly, genuine Generation cannot be reduced to: -/- state-transition chains, world-model unfolding, static replay of outputs, or replay of already-completed structures. -/- The paper ultimately establishes the General Form of Generation: -/- Generation = (F, T, U, C, S) -/- and demonstrates through extreme-form analysis that if any one of these structures is absent, the system may still continue changing, yet degenerates into discrete restart, object replay, random drift, or totally-completed unfolding, and therefore cannot establish genuine Generation. (shrink)

The Channel of Singularity established that historical crises function as thermodynamic forges, activating latent Observers from the population and accelerating the system toward a state of maximum conductivity. This paper extends that framework by confronting a critical asymmetry it left unresolved: the mechanism that explains not the genesis of the functional agent, but the structural genesis of the pathological one. We posit that the Channel of Singularity operates under a fundamental constraint — the finite and depletable nature of the human (...) reservoir from which its agents are drawn — and that the violation of this constraint produces a qualitatively distinct and catastrophic mode of historical dynamics. The paper introduces four interconnected theoretical constructs. The Hypothesis of Inverse Causality proposes that great crises do not merely utilize great individuals but actively generate them, functioning as high-pressure forges that activate latent C-coordinate potential from a distributed, dormant reservoir within the population, with the magnitude of the agent directly proportional to the magnitude of the crisis. The Depleted Pool Hypothesis identifies the critical limiting condition: frequent, high-intensity crises occurring in rapid succession exhaust this reservoir through three primary mechanisms — physical elimination, psychological burnout, and institutional decay — with a regeneration cycle estimated at one human generation. The Principle of Temporal Deformation posits that when accumulated historical mass exceeds the system's carrying capacity, the fabric of historical time itself begins to deform in a manner isomorphic to the curvature of spacetime under gravitational pressure, suspending linear causality, inverting institutional function, and producing pathological agents adapted to navigate a collapsed causal geometry. Finally, the Principle of Systemic Relativity establishes a methodological prohibition on trans-historical comparison, arguing that the functional capacity of any Observer is an emergent property of the interaction between their latent potential and the specific Hardware of their era, rendering direct cross-temporal rankings of historical figures ontologically meaningless. The paper draws a foundational distinction between two categories of high-K crisis: a Tragedy, which occurs in a relatively flat temporal field and permits the activation of a functional Observer capable of restoring the system to a higher equilibrium, and a Catastrophe, which occurs in a curved field where deformation is so profound that only a pathological agent can emerge. The variable distinguishing these outcomes is not the magnitude of the suffering but the integrity of the temporal field and the reserves of the pool that precedes it. Through comparative historical analysis — contrasting the paradigmatic cases of Weimar Germany, the decline of the Roman Republic, and the Meiji Restoration — the framework demonstrates that the greatest danger to a civilization is not the crisis itself, but the crisis that follows the crisis. Taken together, these constructs extend the Anatomy of Chaos project from the kinematics of history — the study of its motion — to the dynamics of history: the study of the forces that alter its motion, and specifically the mechanism by which acceleration crosses the threshold into structural deformation. Pathology, this paper argues, is not a moral category. It is a physical one — the name we give to the behavior of a system operating within a collapsed temporal geometry. (shrink)

This paper addresses a fundamental problem: -/- Why does reality not degenerate into discrete frames, parallel occupancies, or completed replay, but instead form a continuous “Current”? -/- The paper proposes that the Current is neither mere state-transition nor the automatic continuation of stable structure, but a structural result through which reality maintains continuous reality and present occupancy. -/- The study first elevates the Current from an experiential phenomenon into a structural constraint, and then demonstrates that once a system simultaneously possesses (...) multiple candidate realities, cross-temporal continuation, and non-replay generation, it necessarily gives rise to sedimented continuation, historical feedback, continuing observation-loops, in-presence generation, unique reality-occupancy, and locking persistence. -/- The paper further argues: -/- continuous output is not genuine currentness, and object replay is not reality-continuation. -/- Accordingly, genuine present reality cannot be reduced to: -/- frame-by-frame replay, state-transition chains, static replay of outputs, or the unfolding of an already-completed world-model. -/- The paper ultimately establishes the General Form of the Current: -/- Current = (S, H, G, Gen, U, K) -/- and demonstrates through extreme-form analysis that if any one of these structures is absent, reality degenerates into discrete outputs, parallel realities, random drift, or completed unfolding, and therefore cannot establish genuine continuous reality. (shrink)

Existential Realism (ER) is a recently proposed ontological framework that sharply distinguishes existence (actual, present being) from reality (a broader domain including non-present entities). ER was conceived to reconcile the intuitions of presentism (only the present exists) with eternalism (past and future are ontologically significant) in a two-tier view of time and being. This preprint surveys a range of open questions and forward-looking challenges that have emerged from the first generation of ER research. We chart key areas—metaphysics, physics, formal logic, (...) phenomenology, cognitive science, and ethics—where ER’s framework invites further development. How does becoming (the passage from potential to actual) work in ER’s ontology? Can ER fully accommodate relativity and quantum physics without sacrificing its present-centric stance? What extensions to two-tier logic might capture phenomena like an open future or cross-temporal identity? How might ER engage with phenomenological accounts of time-consciousness or empirical findings about memory and anticipation in the brain? And what are the implications of ER for ethics, especially concerning our agency over time and responsibilities to future persons? Throughout, our tone is rigorous yet exploratory and humble: we outline problems and tensions rather than claim final answers. By mapping these open questions, we aim to stimulate interdisciplinary inquiry and guide the next stages of ER’s development. (shrink)

This paper advances a principled dissolution of the externalist impasse in philosophy of mind through five interlocking contributions. -/- First, both physicalist and non-physicalist theories of consciousness are shown to share a common architectural defect: they posit mind-independent primitives — matter, external time, entropy — and invoke those same primitives to close the explanatory gaps they generate. -/- Second, three system-internal functionals — the Information Coupling Functional (ICF), intrinsic time via Wasserstein arc-length, and the Predictive Accuracy Functional (PAF) — dissolve (...) the three central impasses that this circularity produces: compositional emergence, temporal persistence, and representational truth. -/- Third, the Internal Sufficiency Theorem establishes formally that external causal structure is provably redundant: once internal dynamics are fixed, its addition produces no difference in any observable, inferential, or decision-theoretic outcome. -/- Fourth, the Decision Invariance Theorem demonstrates that external anchoring is action-theoretically null — for any admissible policy, expected utility is invariant under the addition or removal of external causal structure — closing the gap between the epistemological, metaphysical, and practical dimensions of the externalist claim simultaneously. -/- Fifth, conceivability arguments against internalism, including the zombie argument and Kripke's necessity objection, are shown to presuppose that physical description exhausts the relevant structural description of consciousness; this presupposition fails under the informational framework, collapsing the arguments into evidence for descriptive incompleteness rather than ontological dualism. All three functionals are numerically validated against analytic benchmarks, and the two central theorems are machine-verified in Lean 4 / Mathlib4. -/- The framework is formally grounded, empirically tractable, computationally implementable, and resistant to the canonical objections that have impeded progress in this domain for four decades. (shrink)

Based on the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology, this paper systematically explores the scientific and philosophical foundations of natural civilization as the ultimate form of human civilization. The study highlights that the stability and sustainability of human civilization are rooted in natural control systems, whose core characteristics include eternity, universality, and negative-feedback self-regulation. From both philosophical and scientific perspectives, this article analyzes the manifestations of natural civilization across the cosmic hierarchy, ecosystems, social institutions, and technological civilization, and compares them with Confucian and (...) Western civilizational systems, revealing their limitations: Confucianism emphasizes human ethics and ritual systems, which are constrained by history and culture and prone to internal contradictions; Western civilization relies on rationality, science, and institutional frameworks, yet still shows deficiencies in addressing systemic risks and ecological constraints. -/- Furthermore, this paper discusses the application of natural civilization principles in modern governance, ecological management, industrial civilization, and artificial intelligence systems, proposing a systematic governance and ecological intelligence design paradigm centered on negative feedback and self-organization. This provides actionable scientific-philosophical guidance for social institutions, resource management, and technological civilization. The paper concludes by suggesting future research directions, including multi-galaxy and cosmic-hierarchy negative feedback simulations, co-evolution models of artificial intelligence and ecological civilization, and interdisciplinary integration of philosophy, science, and social governance. -/- The study demonstrates that natural civilization not only offers ultimate principles for the long-term stability and sustainability of human civilization, but also provides a scientific-philosophical foundation for cross-cultural, cross-temporal, and cross-institutional civilizational practices, carrying profound philosophical, scientific, and social application value. -/- . (shrink)

In her Descartes Lectures, Cheshire Calhoun argues that “responsible person” is a valuable cross-temporal status assigned by default to fellow social participants. Responsible persons, on Calhoun’s proposal, are (i) accountable, (ii) compliant with at least basic normative expectations, and (iii) disposed to take responsibility—to promote good ends in ways that are not normatively expected. The third component in particular goes beyond what is standardly discussed in debates about moral responsibility, where the relation to what is normatively expected is central. (...) In the main part of my commentary, I outline what I take to underlie normative expectations related to predictively expected acts of promoting good ends. These normative expectations are structured by pro tanto obligations to help, by evaluative autonomy, and by what I call “balancing norms,” which call on us to care about giving people and certain other values a certain comparative weight over time. Once we take this structure into account, I suggest, it is doubtful that people are assumed by default to be responsibility takers in Calhoun’s sense: what we predictively expect is also normatively expected. In addition, I propose a way of nevertheless making good on Calhoun’s suggestion that accountability, compliance responsibility, and contributions to the common good that merit gratitude are all aspects of responsibility. Finally, I suggest that what positive reactive attitudes reveal about their targets is not that they are responsibility takers, but that they are weight-givers subject to balancing norms. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the governance science of Laozi’s political philosophy from the perspectives of scientific-philosophical reasoning, systemic governance, and historical empiricism. By analyzing the “Dao–De–Zhi” logic in the Daodejing and examining the historical practices of King Zhuang of Chu and Sun Shuao, it demonstrates that Wu-Wei governance is not merely a philosophical ideal, but a practical, low-friction, structurally prioritized complex system governance model. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach: internal textual analysis, historical institutional case studies, research on the cultural generation (...) of Chu, and modeling using systems science and evolutionary governance theory. Findings indicate that the Chu model, through minimal intervention, power invisibility, conditional constraints, and feedback loops, achieved long-term state stability, societal resilience, and civilizational continuity. This contrasts sharply with the high-intervention, centralized legalist model of Shang Yang under Duke Xiao of Qin, highlighting the profound impact of philosophical principles on state form and institutional choice. Further, Wu-Wei governance is abstracted into a cross-temporal governance science model, offering operational principles including low-friction administration, efficiency–stability optimization, civilizational adaptability, and self-organizing mechanisms. This research argues that Laozi’s political philosophy provides theoretical guidance for modern complex social governance, transnational institutional design, ecological and resource management, and technological and AI governance, establishing a framework that integrates classical philosophical wisdom with complex systems science. This study not only enriches interdisciplinary research across political philosophy, historical institutions, and systems science but also offers practical classical insights for contemporary governance. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for a novel three-dimensionalist solution to the problem of persistence, i.e. cross-temporal identity. We restrict the discussion of persistence to simple substances, which do not have other substances as their parts. The account of simple substances employed in the paper is a trope-nominalist strong nuclear theory, which develops Peter Simons' trope nominalism. Regarding the distinction between three dimensionalism and four dimensionalism, we follow Michael Della Rocca's formulation, in which 3D explains persistence in virtue of (...) same entities and 4D in virtue of distinct entities. SNT is a 3D'ist position because it accounts for the persistence of simple substances in virtue of diachronically identical ‘nuclear’ tropes. The nuclear tropes of a simple substance are necessary for it and mutually rigidly dependent but distinct. SNT explains qualitative change by tropes that are contingent to a simple substance. We show that it avoids the standard problems of 3D: temporal relativization of ontic predication, Bradley's regress and coincidence, fission and fusion cases. The temporal relativization is avoided because of the analysis of temporary parts that SNT gives in terms of temporal sub-location, which is atemporal part–whole relation. (shrink)

This paper proposes a scientific-philosophical model of “natural-civilization prime ministers” based on historical cases, systems theory, and entropy analysis. By examining the human nature and governance strategies of Sun Shu’ao and Yan Ying during the Spring and Autumn period, the study identifies their low-disturbance, decentralized, and non-performance-driven traits, which maintained civilizational stability. Sun Shu’ao and Yan Ying are not moral exemplars but “low-entropy governance personalities,” functioning as steady-state regulators within political systems. A comparative analysis with the Warring States period demonstrates (...) the structural disappearance of such personalities due to accelerated civilization, militarization, and bureaucratic quantification. The paper further unifies this model with the Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology: prime ministers as “Earth,” rulers as “Heaven,” and civilization as a natural system, providing a scientifically grounded framework for individual governance, institutional design, and social self-organization. Finally, the study discusses implications for modern governance, emphasizing the scarcity and systemic importance of low-entropy personalities in highly engineered societies. This research offers a cross-temporal perspective connecting historical politics, civilizational evolution, and contemporary governance. (shrink)

摘要 Abstract -/- 当代人类文明正同时面临政治治理失效、社会对抗结构固化、生态系统超载以及数字技术与人工智能引发的系统性失控风险。主流解释通常将这些危机归因于制度缺陷、技术加速或伦理规范滞后，但本文指出，其更深层根源在于 现代文明所依赖的控制范式本身存在结构性错误。以系统科学与现代控制论为参照，本文提出一种科学哲思批判路径，重新界定老子政治哲学的理论性质，认为其并非“反治理”或消极无为，而是一套关于文明长期稳定运行的自 然控制论（Natural Cybernetics）模型。 -/- 在《老–杨创世纪宇宙观》的理论框架下，本文构建宇宙生成、自然系统与人类文明之间的结构同构关系，将“道生一、一生二、二生三、三生万物”理解为低熵系统逐级展开的生成链条。由此论证老子提出的“无为而治”“上 善若水”“道法自然”等核心命题，实质上揭示了复杂系统得以维持稳态的普遍控制原则：以内生调节为主导、以负反馈优先、以柔性缓冲取代强制干预，并通过最小控制实现整体秩序的自我维持。 -/- 通过对比自然控制论与现代文明中盛行的“人造控制论”——包括政治高度集中、技术官僚体系与算法治理中的预测崇拜与强控制逻辑——本文指出后者在提升短期效率的同时，往往加速熵积累并削弱系统自我修复能力。基于此 ，文章进一步说明老子自然控制论不仅能够解释历史文明的兴衰分岔（如周与楚），也为理解当代国家治理困境、生态危机以及人工智能治理中的系统性风险，提供了一种跨尺度、跨时代的理论框架。 -/- 本文的核心贡献在于：将老子哲学明确定位为一种文明级自然控制理论，揭示其在低熵文明建构与可持续治理中的系统意义，并为未来数字文明与人工智能社会的稳定设计提供基础性思想资源。 -/- Contemporary human civilization faces simultaneous systemic risks, including political governance failures, entrenched social conflicts, ecological overload, and runaway systemic instability triggered by digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Mainstream explanations typically attribute these crises to institutional deficiencies, accelerated technological development, or lagging ethical norms. However, this paper argues that their deeper root lies in structural flaws inherent in the control paradigms on which modern civilization depends. Drawing on systems science (...) and modern cybernetics, we propose a scientifically philosophical critical approach that reconceptualizes Laozi’s political philosophy, emphasizing that it is not “anti-governance” or mere passive wu wei, but rather a model of natural cybernetics designed for the long-term stability of civilization. -/- Within the theoretical framework of the Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology, this paper constructs structural isomorphisms between cosmic genesis, natural systems, and human civilization. The sequence “Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to all things” is interpreted as a generative chain through which low-entropy systems unfold across hierarchical scales. Accordingly, Laozi’s core propositions—wu wei governance, “supreme goodness is like water,” and “Dao follows Nature”—are understood as universal control principles that allow complex systems to maintain steady states: endogenous regulation dominates, negative feedback is prioritized, flexible buffering replaces coercive intervention, and minimal control enables self-maintenance of overall order. -/- By contrasting natural cybernetics with the “artificial cybernetics” prevalent in modern civilization—including highly centralized politics, technocratic bureaucracies, and algorithmic governance with predictive fetishism and strong-control logic—this study shows that while the latter may enhance short-term efficiency, it accelerates entropy accumulation and undermines systemic self-repair capacity. Based on this comparison, we further demonstrate that Laozi’s natural cybernetics not only explains historical civilizational bifurcations (e.g., Zhou and Chu) but also provides a cross-scale, cross-temporal framework for understanding contemporary governance crises, ecological challenges, and systemic risks in AI governance. -/- The core contribution of this paper is to position Laozi’s philosophy as a civilization-level theory of natural control, revealing its systemic significance in the construction of low-entropy civilizations and sustainable governance, while providing foundational conceptual resources for the stable design of future digital civilizations and AI societies. (shrink)

This essay argues that Martin Heidegger correctly recovered the question of Being, but that temporal horizon does not suffice as ontological ground. Granting the phenomenological force of Heidegger’s analysis of finitude, thrownness, and Being-toward-death, the paper distinguishes the problem of intelligibility from the problem of sustenance. In place of a horizon-based model, it proposes a center-based account in which the Now functions as the invariant condition of actualization. The argument then relates this framework to classical metaphysical accounts in Aristotle, Thomas (...) Aquinas, and the Exodus formula “I AM WHO I AM. (shrink)

This paper explores the role and practical path of the scientist-philosopher in modern technological civilization, grounded in Laozi’s philosophy, the ecological wisdom of the Chong Valley, and the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology. Through philosophical exposition, scientific verification, and heuristic reflection, the study analyzes the cross-temporal connections from ancient local ecological wisdom to contemporary Silicon Valley innovation practices. It proposes that low-intervention governance, systemic holism, and cross-scale integration constitute the core principles of the scientist-philosopher. The research demonstrates that the scientist-philosopher (...) is not only a technical innovator but also a guardian of civilization and a navigator of wisdom. Their approach enables the unification of technological innovation, ecological balance, and social sustainability within complex technological environments, providing a practical guide for integrating philosophy and science in future technological civilizations. (shrink)