Objects and events are fundamental units of perception: Objects structure our experience of space, and events structure our experience of time. A striking and counterintuitive finding about object representation is that it can warp perceived space, such that stimuli within an object appear farther apart than stimuli in empty space. Might events influence perceived time in the same way objects influence perceived space? Here, five experiments (N=500 adults) show that they do: Just as stimuli within an object are perceived as (...) farther apart in space, stimuli within an event are perceived as further apart in time. Such “Event-based Warping” is elicited both by events characterized by sound (E1), as well as events characterized by silence (E2). Moreover, these effects cannot be explained by surprise, distraction or attentional-cueing (E3 and E4), and also arise cross-modally (from audition to vision; E5). We suggest that object-based warping and event-based warping are both instances of a more general phenomenon in which representations of structure — whether in space or in time — generate powerful and analogous relative perceptual distortions. (shrink)

This paper will first give an overview of the role of events in semantics against the background of Davidsonian semantics and its Neo-Davidsonian variant. Second, it will discuss some serious issues for standard views of events in contemporary semantics and present novel proposals of how to address them. These are [1] the semantic role of abstract (or Kimean) states, [2] wide scope adverbials, and [3] the status of verbs as event predicates with respect to the mass-count distinction. The paper (...) will show that abstract states as the entities described by (most) stative verbs are incompatible with Neo-Davidsonian event semantics and proposes a decompositional analysis of stative verbs that may be able to overcome the difficulty. The paper will argue that in addition to Davidsonian events, the semantics of adverbials requires events as truthmakers as well as actions as more complex entities sharply distinguished from events. The paper will also argue that the verbal domain of events sides with mass nouns rather than dividing into mass and count, unlike event nouns. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper I argue that an ontology of events is precise, flexible and general enough so as to cover the three main alternative formulations of quantum mechanics as well as theories advocating an antirealistic view of the wave function. Since these formulations advocate a primitive ontology of entities living in four-dimensional spacetime, they are good candidates to connect that quantum image with the manifest image of the world. However, to the extent that some form of (...) realism about the wave function is also necessary, one needs to endorse also the idea that the wave function refers to some kind of power. In the second part, I discuss some difficulties raised by the recent proposal that in Bohmian mechanics this power is holistically possessed by all the particles in the universe. (shrink)

This paper develops the Event Density (ED) account of how spacetime and geometry emerge from a pre‑geometric substrate of micro‑events, participation relations, ED gradients, and irreversible commitment. At the micro‑scale there are no distances, durations, or manifolds; these appear only when participation becomes thick, redundant, and coherent. Spatial proximity becomes stable participation adjacency, time becomes commitment order, curvature becomes ED gradient structure, and horizons arise as participation bottlenecks rather than geometric boundaries. -/- In this framework, classical spacetime is the (...) large‑scale limit of dense, committed participation, and Einstein’s equations describe the behavior of ED gradients in this regime rather than fundamental laws. This reconstruction dissolves familiar paradoxes—singularities, nonlocality, and the clash between quantum discreteness and geometric continuity—by showing that geometry, information, and causal structure are emergent features of ED’s relational architecture. (shrink)

We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o, P, t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o, (...) q, t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the way they are described. Contra Bennett, who famously argued that the semantics of event names ultimately depends on “local context and unprincipled intuitions”, we show how the lexicon provides systematic principles for individuating such clusters and classifying them into kinds. Finally, we address some open challenges in the semantics of locative and manner modifiers. (shrink)

A critical review of the main themes arising out of recent literature on the semantics of ordinary event talk. The material is organized in four sections: (i) the nature of events, with emphasis on the opposition between events as particulars and events as universals; (ii) identity and indeterminacy, with emphasis on the unifier/multiplier controversy; (iii) events and logical form, with emphasis on Davidson’s treatment of the form of action sentences; (iv) linguistic applications, with emphasis on issues concerning aspectual phenomena, (...) the telicity/atelicity distinction, the treatment of statives, and temporal quantification. (shrink)

The semantics of our event talk is a complex affair. What is it that we are talking about when we speak of Brutus’s stabbing of Caesar? Exactly where and when did it take place? Was it the same event as the killing of Caesar? Some take questions such as these to be metaphysical questions. I think they are questions of semantics—questions about the way we talk and about what we mean. And I think that this conflict between metaphysic (...) and semantic concerns is indicative of a “deep indeterminacy” (Bennett’s phrase) in our event concept. We do talk about events; but what events a statement is about is not something that can be inferred from the event names we use; it depends heavily (more heavily than with ordinary material objects) on local context and unprincipled intuitions. This paper illustrates this view in connection with two examples: the phenomenon of vagueness and the dispute over identity statements. (shrink)

This paper argues that a counterpart-theoretic treatment of events, combined with a counterfactual theory of causation, can help resolve three puzzles from the causation literature. First, CCT traces the apparent contextual shifts in our causal attributions to shifts in the counterpart relation which obtains in those contexts. Second, being sensitive to shifts in the counterpart relation can help diagnose what goes wrong in certain prominent examples where the transitivity of causation appears to fail. Third, CCT can help us resurrect the (...) much-maligned fragility response to the problems of late pre-emption by understanding fragility in counterpart-theoretic terms. Some reasons to prefer this CCT approach to rivals are discussed. (shrink)

Discussions of advanced intelligence often locate qualitative cognitive transitions in consciousness or subjective experience. This paper argues that such accounts misidentify the relevant boundary. The true event horizon in intelligence is not phenomenological but structural: a phase boundary in cognitive organization that separates systems governed by reversible, exploratory dynamics from systems regulated by temporally stabilized, integrated abstraction. Below this horizon, cognition operates through relevance optimization, heuristic selection, and horizontal exploration within an existing solution space. Above it, integrated abstract structures (...) acquire regulatory dominance, progressively constraining which distinctions remain dynamically viable. This transition constitutes a phase change rather than a continuous scaling of capacity. Importantly, irreversibility at the horizon does not imply the elimination of prior cognitive modes, but a loss of symmetry at the level of global regulation: earlier modes may remain available, yet no longer function as the system’s default organizing regime. By framing the event horizon as a structural boundary rather than a marker of consciousness, the paper provides a disciplined account of qualitative change applicable to both human and artificial cognition, while avoiding anthropomorphic and phenomenological assumptions. (shrink)

Most event-referring expressions are vague; it is utterly difficult, if not impossible, to specify the exact spatiotemporal location of an event from the words that we use to refer to it. We argue that in spite of certain prima facie obstacles, such vagueness can be given a purely semantic (broadly supervaluational) account.

Events occur before physics. -/- This paper argues that temporal order is independent of mathematical formalism and cannot be derived from the structures of physical theory. Natural processes such as the alternation of day and night, the formation of sedimentary layers, or the growth of tree rings establish an order of events prior to any theoretical representation. Observers subsequently construct mathematical frameworks—coordinates, metrics, symmetries, and equations—in order to organize and model those events. -/- The paper introduces the concept of the (...) Constructive Temporal Interval (CTI), the historically real interval during which observers construct the conceptual and mathematical tools used in scientific description. During this interval, theoretical structures are developed within the same temporal order that they later attempt to represent. Once this constructive process is suppressed, formal structures are easily mistaken for ontological features of reality. -/- On this basis, the paper distinguishes three levels: the canonical order of events, the epistemic reconstruction of that order by observers, and the mathematical formalism employed in physical theory. The argument is supported by a formal sketch of the CTI and by the Temporal Priority Theorem, according to which mathematical formalism presupposes an already ordered domain of events. -/- The analysis also clarifies the status of causality. Causal relations arise as theoretical reconstructions within the Constructive Temporal Interval rather than as primitive features of temporal ontology. What is ontologically primary is not causal structure but the historical succession of events. -/- The paper concludes that physical theories function as systems of epistemic organization. They model and correlate events within an already existing temporal order, but they do not constitute the ontological ground of that order. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes the concept of an event and of event representation as an umbrella notion. It provides an overview of different ways events have been dealt with in philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science. This variety of positions has been construed in part as the result of different descriptive and explanatory projects. It is argued that various types of notions — common-sense, theoretically revised, scientific, and internalist psychological — be kept apart.

This monograph investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse in two parts. The theme of the first part is narrative progression. It begins with a case study of the adverb ‘now’ and its interaction with the meaning of tense. The case study motivates an ontological distinction between events, states and times and proposes that ‘now’ seeks a prominent state that holds throughout the time described by the tense. Building on prior research, prominence is shown to be influenced by principles of (...) discourse coherence and two coherence principles, NARRATION and RESULT, are given a formally explicit characterization. The key innovation is a new method for testing the definitional adequacy of NARRATION and RESULT, namely by an abductive argument. This contribution opens a new way of thinking about how eventive and stative descriptions contribute to the perceived narrative progression in a discourse. The theme of the second part of the monograph is the semantics and pragmatics of tense. A key innovation is that the present and past tenses are treated as scalar alternatives, a view that is motivated by adopting a particular hypothesis concerning stative predication. The proposed analysis accounts for tense in both matrix clauses and in complements of propositional attitudes, where the notorious double access reading arises. This reading is explored as part of a corpus study that provides a glimpse of how tense semantics interacts with Gricean principles and at-issueness. Several cross-linguistic predictions of the analysis are considered, including their consequences for the Sequence of Tense phenomenon and the Upper Limit Constraint. Finally, a hypothesis is provided about how tense meanings compose with temporal adverbs and verb phrases. Two influential analysis of viewpoint aspect are then compared in light of the hypothesis. (shrink)

Consciousness inquiry is self-describing: the apparatus through which phenomenal experience is investigated is itself phenomenal. This structural feature entails explanandum fixation failure—the condition that any well-formed explanatory problem requires its target to remain stable across explanatory attempts cannot be met. The hard problem's thirty-year record of non-convergence is what this structure predicts. -/- From this failure, a positive result follows. What consciousness inquiry has been tracking—not a fixed explanandum but a succession of locally individuated referents constituted through acts of characterization—is (...) the constitutive event M→E. This paper establishes M→E as the primary unit of analysis for consciousness research and derives four structural properties from the conditions the fixation failure discloses: asymmetry, local stability, contextual constraint, and non-recoverability. -/- The principal positions—physicalism, dualism, illusionism, and mechanistic theories—each inherit the fixation failure rather than escape it. The phenomenal concepts strategy relocates rather than resolves it. The reorientation toward fixation dynamics—inquiry into the structural processes by which experience is individuated at all—opens three tractable research directions: attentional structure, linguistic articulation, and reflective constitution. (shrink)

Event Density (ED) develops a constitutive ontology in which the fundamental primitive is the local rate of becoming — the density of micro‑events in spacetime. From four primitives and seven axioms, the framework yields a unique scalar dynamical equation whose three channels correspond exactly to familiar physical laws: nonlinear diffusion, exponential relaxation, and telegraph‑type oscillation. -/- This paper tests this architecture across scales. In condensed matter, the predicted decline of diffusivity near saturation fits three chemically distinct systems with a (...) common exponent near two, and the porous‑medium front‑propagation law is confirmed in simulation. At galactic scales, coupling the ED equation to Poisson gravity produces naturally cored halo profiles that match observed dwarf‑galaxy cores, while interpreting the global participation mode as a “temporal‑tension” field explains flat weak‑lensing velocities out to one megaparsec and reproduces the baryonic Tully–Fisher relation with the observed one‑quarter exponent. -/- ED makes two sharp, discriminating predictions: activity‑dependent weak‑lensing velocities and a diffusive lensing lag in merging clusters. Neither is expected in MOND or in standard dark‑matter models. The framework does not replace existing physics; it shows that a minimal process‑based ontology can generate structural features of physical law across domains, making its empirical tests philosophically and scientifically significant. (shrink)

Event concepts are unstructured atomic concepts that apply to event types. A paradigm example of such an event type would be that of diaper changing, and so a putative example of an atomic event concept would be DADDY'S-CHANGING-MY-DIAPER.1 I will defend two claims about such concepts. First, the conceptual claim that it is in principle possible to possess a concept such as DADDY'S-CHANGING-MY-DIAPER without possessing the concept DIAPER. Second, the empirical claim that we actually possess such (...) concepts and that they play an important role in our cognitive lives. The argument for the empirical claim has the form of an inference to the best explanation and is aimed at those who are already willing to attribute concepts and beliefs to infants and nonhuman animals. Many animals and prelinguistic infants seem capable of re-identifying event-types in the world, and they seem to store information about things happening at particular times and places. My account offers a plausible model of how such organisms are able to do this without attributing linguistically structured mental states to them. And although language allows adults to form linguistically structured mental representations of the world, there is no good reason to think that such structured representations necessarily replace the unstructured ones. There is also no good reason for a philosopher who is willing to explain the behavior of an organism by appealing to atomic concepts of individuals or kinds to not use a similar form of explanation when explaining the organism's capacity to recognize events. -/- We can form empirical concepts of individuals, kinds, properties, event-types, and states of affairs, among other things, and I assume that such concepts function like what François Recanati calls ‘mental files’ or what Ruth Millikan calls ‘substance concepts’ (Recanati 2012; Millikan 1999, 2000, 2017). To possess such a concept one must have a reliable capacity to re-identify the object in question, but this capacity of re-identification does not fix the reference of the concept. Such concepts allow us to collect and utilize useful information about things that we re-encounter in our environment. We can distinguish between a perception-action system and a perception-belief system, and I will argue that empirical concepts, including atomic event concepts, can play a role in both systems. The perception-action system involves the application of concepts in the service of (often skilled) action. We can think of the concept as a mental file containing motor-plans that can be activated once the individual recognizes that they are in a certain situation. In this way, recognizing something (whether an object or an event) as a token of a type, plays a role in guiding immediate action. The perception-belief system, in contrast, allows for the formation of beliefs that can play a role in deliberation and planning and in the formation of expectations. I distinguish between two particular types of belief which I call where-beliefs and when-beliefs, and I argue that we can model the formation of such perceptual beliefs in nonlinguistic animals and human infants in terms of the formation of a link between an empirical concept and a position on a cognitive map. According to the account offered, seemingly complex beliefs, such as a baby's belief that Daddy changed her diaper in the kitchen earlier, will not be linguistically structured. If we think that prelinguistic infants possess such concepts and are able to form such beliefs, it is likely that adults do too. The ability to form such beliefs does not require the capacity for public language, and we can model them in nonlinguistic terms; thus, we have no good reason to think of such beliefs as propositional attitudes. Of course, we can use sentences to refer to such beliefs, and thus it is possible to think of such beliefs as somehow relations to propositions. But it is not clear to me what is gained by this as we have a perfectly good way to think about the structure of such beliefs that does not involve any appeal to language. (shrink)

We present Event Density (ED), a single substrate ontology of discrete events and relational adjacency from which the foundational structures of three nominally separate domains of physics are derived rather than postulated. From substrate primitives alone we obtain: (i) the four foundational postulates of non-relativistic quantum mechanics — Born’s rule, the Schrödinger equation, the Heisenberg uncertainty bound, and the Bell– Tsirelson bound — as forced structural theorems, together with gauge fields, canonical (anti- )commutation, UV-finiteness, and the kernel-level arrow of (...) time; (ii) Newton’s gravitational law with, the MOND transition acceleration, the deep-regime combination law, and the slope-4 baryonic Tully–Fisher relation, all parameter-free; and (iii) a universal degenerate-mobility law that fits diffusion data from ten chemically unrelated soft-matter systems with R2 > 0.986 at a common exponent. The framework predicts no laboratory result that differs from standard physics in the regimes where standard physics has been tested. What it does is replace a long list of independent postulates with a smaller list of substrate commitments, from which those postulates follow as theorems. We tabulate twenty-one forced structural theorems plus one foundational substrate rule, derive the load-bearing results, and close with the framework’s pre-registered empirical falsifiers. (shrink)

Extended systems are often treated as unified whenever internal causal interactions are sufficiently dense and recurrent over a characteristic timescale (Tononi, 2004; Baars, 1988; Friston, 2010). In relativistic spacetimes with one-way causal boundaries (such as black-hole event horizons, cosmolog- ical horizons, and Rindler wedges) and strong curvature, this background assumption can fail: closed causal loops that sustain macroscopic informational unity predicates can be obstructed without any local disruption of microphysical evolution (Hawking and Ellis, 1973; Wald, 1984). This paper intro- (...) duces the Reciprocal Coherence Kernel KT (t), defined as the inclusion-minimal, strongly connected operational subgraph that sustains a unified perspective according to a theory-relative functional predicate FT . Kernel persistence is analysed using a relativistically explicit condition: the effective causal diameter Λ(KT (t)) must remain less than or equal to a theory–and–model-specific coherence window τT,m, measured in proper time. When Λ(KT (t)) > τT,m, or when a strict one-way boundary intersects the kernel, unity (as defined by the theory’s own predicate) fails by coherence timeout, an operationally distinct failure mode from mechanical destruction. A theory-relative taxonomy of geometry-sensitive versus geometry-robust unity predicates is developed. The framework is applied to horizon-straddling implementations, distributed systems, and selected fault-tolerant architectures (Nielsen and Chuang, 2010). The project is explicitly non-causal. It offers a compatibility analysis over theory-indexed model families, not a causal explanation of consciousness. The contribution lies in philosophy of science: diagnosing hidden structural commitments in integration-based theories and exposing geometric constraints on extended subjects in relativistic spacetimes (Woodward, 2003; Ladyman and Ross, 2007). (shrink)

The paper proposes a novel solution to the problem of the time of a killing (ToK), which persistently besets theories of act-individuation. The solution proposed claims to expose a crucial wrong-headed assumption in the debate, according to which ToK is essentially a problem of locating some event that corresponds to the killing. The alternative proposal put forward here turns on recognizing a separate category of dynamic occurents, viz. processes. The paper does not aim to mount a comprehensive defense of (...) process ontology, relying instead on extant defenses. The primary aim is rather to put process ontology to work in diagnosing the current state of play over ToK, and indeed in solving it. (shrink)

Abstract: The following is an outline of an emerging foundation for science that begins to explain living forms and their patterns of movement beyond the sphere of mechanistic interactions. Employing an event ontology based on a convergence of quantum physics and Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, coupled with the controversial yet promising theory of formative causation, this development will explore possible influences on the outcomes of events beyond any combination of external forces, laws of Nature, and chance. If it (...) turns out there are no such additional influences--beyond mechanistic causes--it is difficult to see how agency or free will could exist. Assuming agency exists, as Whitehead apparently does, while committing to an event ontology in which process is fundamental leads to interesting questions about the natures of any entities that might participate in events. Furthermore, what might the purposes and agendas of such entities be based upon, beyond memory traces or DNA code? This ontological model, recognizing processes as fundamental, leads to a revised cosmology where the trajectory of a series of events may be due to more than rearrangement of material bits according to external forces and where goal-directed, recurring processes and the emergence of mind are not so surprising. Just as special relativity reduces to classical treatment when speeds slow down, this scientific model for a living world reduces to mechanistic materialism whenever conditions are more limited. Though this development is based on a philosophy of process, there are some dissimilarities with respect to Whitehead’s particular version. (shrink)

"Event Symmetry and the Socratic Cosmos" presents a single, integrated framework for understanding quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the structure of time by interpreting the Keldysh contour ontologically rather than computationally. The Fixed Point Formulation, when extended from technical quantum field theory to a representational model of reality, interpretively reveals that the fundamental ontology is not a collection of states at sequential instants but a multi-temporal structure defined over both forward and backward temporal branches. The universal wavefunction encodes all possible (...) histories simultaneously within a globally self-consistent constraint structure, and actualization proceeds as fixed points crystallize from superposition to classical definiteness. The Big Bang emerges not as the beginning of existence but as the first point in our cosmic timeline, with the space of possibilities existing atemporally as the phase space within which all temporal sequences are defined. -/- *** The three parts of this paper tell a layered story. Part One established the technical backbone: the Keldysh contour, as interpretively extended by Ridley and Adlam and this paper, provides a mathematically rigorous framework for time-symmetric and event-symmetric quantum mechanics. By treating the contour structure as ontologically real rather than merely calculational, we obtain a picture in which quantum states are inherently multi-temporal objects, probabilities emerge from wavefunction structure, and the entire history is globally self-consistent. This framework does not require new microscopic dynamical laws beyond standard unitary evolution; it satisfies the same empirical predictions as standard quantum mechanics; and resolves conceptual tensions with relativity’s block universe by treating all moments democratically while preserving genuine quantum indeterminacy. -/- *** Part Two extended this formal structure to cosmology. The contour space serves as a phase space of all possible histories, within which our universe’s trajectory is one path among infinitely many. The Big Bang is reinterpreted as the first actualization in our temporal sequence rather than the origin of existence itself. Destiny states emerge naturally as future-fixed points, whose constraints, encoded in the backward-branch wavefunction component, participate in the global consistency requirement that determines amplitude distributions across all times. Free will is reconciled with the block universe by recognizing that the future exists as a probability distribution over superposed possibilities rather than as a fixed classical outcome. The thermodynamic arrow of time is explained not as a fundamental law but as an emergent feature arising from boundary-condition asymmetries: the “Big Bang” as a micro-constraint of low entropy and the “Good” as an asymptotic macro-constraint toward which the system perpetually reaches without ever exhausting. -/- *** Part Three ventured into explicitly speculative territory, asking how far the same mathematical architecture might reach if we allow it to engage with questions traditionally reserved for metaphysics and theology. The Forms, in this reading, correspond to high-amplitude configurations in low-event sectors that constrain the admissible initial conditions through spectral selection mechanisms. The World Soul is the universal wavefunction itself, stratified into sectors of differing event-density and exhibiting correlations across this stratification, such that transcendent structures shape the probabilities of embodied events. The soul (as discussed in Appendix C) is modeled as a contingent standing-wave configuration occupying intermediate event-sectors, coupled to Forms through upward resonance and to physical embodiment through downward correlation, with mind as the active intermediary navigating this vertical gradient. Conscious intentionality, addressed in Appendix D, operates through fixed points in mental sectors that constrain correlated physical sectors through the global consistency requirement rather than through causal propagation in the usual sense. -/- *** The paper demonstrates how resources internal to accepted quantum field theory can be used to articulate a coherent time-symmetric ontology that systematically connects foundational questions, cosmological structure, and metaphysical analysis. Its contribution is conceptual and unifying: it shows how a single formal architecture can sustain a disciplined interpretation with implications for the philosophy of physics and metaphysics, while remaining within the scope of established theory. (shrink)

Eckardt argues against the ontological reduction of events to “little movies in time and space.” In this paper I explore what this means for the representation of events in visual discourse, specifically film. As it turns out, we can build a rather intuitive film semantics on top of the ‘regional event’ ontology that Eckardt rejects. But we can also follow Eckardt’s reasoning and incorporate her participant-based event ontology.

Статья посвящена исследованию event-менеджмента в управлении развитием туризма. Раскрыт потенциал event-менеджмента в сфере туризма. Изучен событийный туризм и его перспективы развития на украинском рынке туристических услуг.

In the last two decades, Davidson’s event-argument hypothesis has become very popular in natural language semantics. This article questions that event-based analyses actually add something to our understanding of the respective phenomena: I argue that they already find their explanation in independently motivated grammatical assumptions and principles which apply to all kinds of modification. Apart from a short discussion of Davidson’s original arguments in favour of his hypothesis, I address Larson’s event-based account of the distinctions between stage-level (...) vs. individual-level modification and adverbial vs. adjectival modification in the nominal domain. I argue that his analysis of the former reduces straightforwardly to the grammatical structure of the nominal phase. As for the latter, I provide reasons which motivate a re-description of the phenomenon in terms of sensitivity to descriptive content rather than events. I argue that, so described, the phenomenon can be explained in terms of interface conditions, given a phasal architecture of grammar. (shrink)

This paper is ED‑05 in the Event Density Framework. This paper presents the mathematical core of the Event Density (ED) framework, a structural approach to reality grounded in becoming rather than objects, states, or trajectories. The formalism begins with a bare event domain and assigns non‑negative density values to finite configurations of events. These values represent how much becoming is present in a configuration, without presupposing time, geometry, causality, or probability. The paper introduces the minimal axioms governing (...) event density—non‑negativity, a null baseline, monotonicity, and subadditivity—and shows how they capture the non‑linear, relational character of becoming. Morphisms between ED systems are developed to identify when two systems share the same underlying structure, providing a categorical perspective on ED. The framework is situated relative to measure theory, probability, point processes, causal sets, and statistical mechanics, clarifying both its generality and the commitments that distinguish it. Worked examples illustrate how ED can model simple counts, weighted systems, subadditive interaction, number‑theoretic structure, and temporal tension. This formalization provides the foundation for the broader ED research program and supports its applications in metaphysics, arithmetic, and temporal ontology. (shrink)

This paper is ED‑01 in the Event Density Framework. This paper proposes that the universe is made of activity before it is made of things. Beneath the familiar foundations of physics and cosmology lies becoming—the continual unfolding and updating of the processes, patterns, and relations that constitute events. Event Density (ED), the local rate of this activity, and the gradients between regions are taken as the primitive structure from which spacetime, gravity, quantum behavior, information, and the arrow of (...) time emerge. The result is a unified, structural account of why the universe has the features it does, without invoking new substances, hidden variables, or additional laws. ED provides a single architectural principle that makes the familiar structures of physics inevitable. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of a metaphysical event theory that incorporates the concept of hope as a disposition. Hope is interp- reted as an expectation regarding future events while representing certain manifestations expected to occur in certain future events. In this sense, for ontologies that deny change or claim that its degree is purely fundamental, hope is a redundant concept in a metaphysical context. Additionally, in a world governed by fatalism or theological determinism it is meaningless to hope (...) for an alternative result. These two interpretations are compatible with a form of Stoicism as they depict a world where hope is redundant. To make hope more meaningful within the framework of event theory, we can propose an alternative view in which hope is considered not merely a psychological pheno- menon but also related and more active to metaphysical events. To strengthen this relation, we will change our perspective on our feature ontology and argue that what is hoped for can exist as a dispositional property that is realized as a particular consequence of an event, when it encounters certain stimuli. In examining the relationship between hope and event theory from different ontological perspectives, the first two view hope as a redundant concept for event theories. In contrast, the third perspective reinterprets hope as a disposition, making it more significant for a fundamental ontology. (shrink)

Event-causal libertarians maintain that an agent’s settling of whether certain states-of-affairs obtain on a particular occasion can be reduced to the causing of events (e.g., bodily motions, coming to a resolution) by certain mental events or states, such as certain desires, beliefs and/or intentions. Agent-causal libertarians disagree. A common critique against event-causal libertarian accounts is that the agent’s role of settling matters is left unfilled and the agent “disappears” from such accounts—a problem known as the disappearing agent problem. (...) Recently, Franklin (Philos Stud 170:413–432, 2014) has argued that an “enriched” event-causal account can overcome this problem. Franklin, however, doesn’t consider whether, as Pereboom (J Philos 99:499–531, 2015) argues, the agent as decider of “torn decisions” disappears from even enriched accounts. As I show here, Franklin’s enriched account takes some modifying if it is to overcome Pereboom’s torn decision problem—a special case of the disappearing agent problem. However, as I also show, there is a more fundamental problem facing event-causal libertarian accounts. It is implausible that an agent qua event or state simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes. The upshot is that events and/or states lack an ability essential to completely fulfilling an agent’s role qua settler. This isn’t a problem for agent-causal accounts like the one offered by Steward (A metaphysics for freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) because in as much as an agent qua substance settles whether her body moves in certain ways on certain occasions she simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes. As a consequence, event-causal libertarians face a dilemma, or rather several, that agent-causal libertarians do not. This may ultimately be explained by the irreducibility of causation by agents to causation by events. (shrink)

This paper is ED‑09 in the Event Density Framework. Quantum mechanics is empirically unmatched yet conceptually unsettled, with competing interpretations disagreeing about what is real, what is fundamental, and what a quantum state represents. The Event Density (ED) framework begins from a different primitive: micro‑events, the atomic units of becoming, and the participation relations that weave them into coherent structures. At microscopic scales, ED is granular, fluctuating, and relationally rich. Quantum behavior emerges naturally from this architecture: superposition corresponds (...) to coexisting participation channels; interference to relational timing; entanglement to shared participation bandwidth; decoherence to participation thinning; and measurement to a structural commitment to a single stable channel. The wavefunction becomes a coarse‑grained summary of participation structure rather than a physical object. Quantum dynamics arise from the evolution of participation geometry, and relativistic constraints follow from participation limits and micro‑event discreteness. ED‑09 develops the micro‑scale account of quantum behavior and shows how the same primitives — micro‑events, ED gradients, and participation — unify quantum, relativistic, classical, and cosmological phenomena. ED provides the ontology that quantum mechanics has always lacked. (shrink)

This paper is ED‑09.5 in the Event Density Framework. Quantum mechanics exhibits smooth environmental decoherence, yet classical behavior appears abruptly and without intermediate states. The Event Density (ED) framework explains this contrast by distinguishing two independent phenomena: environmental decoherence, which erodes coherence gradually, and the ED transition, a sharp structural boundary determined by internal event density. In ED, a system’s capacity to sustain superposition depends on its micro‑event production rate and participation bandwidth. When internal complexity outpaces (...) event‑production capacity, participation channels collapse to a single stable configuration, producing a one‑world classical outcome. This transition is not a dynamical collapse, not branching, and not an environmental effect; it is a structural limit of becoming. ED‑09.5 develops the quantum–classical transition law, shows why the transition is sharp rather than smooth, and explains why standard quantum mechanics never predicted or measured this boundary. Together with ED‑09, this paper completes the micro‑scale account of quantum behavior and prepares the ground for ED‑10, where classical stability and macroscopic behavior emerge from thick participation. (shrink)

This paper is ED‑07 in the Event Density Framework. Relativistic phenomena are typically understood as geometric consequences of spacetime structure. In the Event Density (ED) ontology, they arise from a deeper substrate. ED takes becoming—the continual production of micro‑events—as primitive, with spacetime emerging as the coarse‑grained record of ED gradients. Differences in the local rate of becoming generate the familiar signatures of relativity: time dilation, length contraction, redshift, inertial motion, and the invariance of the speed of light. In (...) this framework, the invariant speed c, is not a geometric postulate but the maximum rate at which causal updates can propagate through the ED network. Inertial motion corresponds to gradient‑minimizing participation pathways, and curvature appears as the macroscopic imprint of uneven ED flow. This paper develops a unified ED account of relativistic behavior, showing how Lorentz symmetry, geodesic motion, and the structure of spacetime arise naturally from the architecture of becoming rather than from fundamental geometry. (shrink)

Physics typically treats its laws, symmetries, and conserved quantities as fundamental features of the universe. The Event Density (ED) framework shows they are not. At the micro‑event level there is no spacetime, no geometry, no symmetry, no conservation, and no field—only participation relations, ED gradients, and irreversible commitment. Physical laws arise only when participation becomes thick, ED gradients stabilize, adjacency becomes coherent, and commitment histories become redundant. -/- In this account, symmetry is participation invariance, conservation is commitment accounting, (...) forces are ED‑gradient responses, fields are stable participation modes, and particles are persistent commitment motifs. These structures hold in classical regimes but weaken or fail in quantum, relativistic, and horizon‑scale contexts. Laws are therefore not metaphysical primitives but emergent regularities of participation geometry. (shrink)

This work presents a structural critique of the CERN AD/ELENA Antimatter Program by R. Caravita, A. Cridland Mathad, J. S. Hangst, M. Hori, B. M. Latacz, A. Obertelli, P. Perez, S. Ulmer, and E. Widmann, on behalf of the Antiproton Decelerator User Community (ADUC) (arXiv:2503.22471). -/- The program produces and studies antiprotons, antihydrogen, and related systems through controlled experimental procedures including deceleration, trapping, cooling, transport, and manipulation. These configurations are interpreted as physically existing entities and used to perform tests of (...) CPT invariance, gravitational behavior, and fundamental symmetries. -/- We show that all experimentally realized configurations are externally sustained, time-dependent, and dependent on continuous interaction with the experimental apparatus. As such, they do not satisfy the structural conditions required for physical existence, which require stationarity and independence from external forcing. All observables arise from these laboratory configurations and therefore correspond to event-dependent outputs rather than autonomous physical states. -/- The mapping from measurement to physical ontology is non-invertible, implying that observed signals cannot establish the existence of underlying physical entities. Furthermore, the assumption of a distinct antimatter sector is not derived from any structural condition and is introduced without a generating mechanism. -/- The analysis demonstrates a systematic misclassification of externally generated configurations as physical objects. In particular, antiprotons and antihydrogen correspond to non-stationary, apparatus-dependent configurations rather than physically realized entities. -/- All conclusions follow from structural analysis alone and do not rely on fitting procedures or external theoretical assumptions. (shrink)

This paper develops a structural interpretation of alarm events as weighted continuity interruptions within the PATON System Cognitive Branch. It proposes that alarm does not necessarily imply fear, danger, or negative emotion. Humour, discovery, protection, care, uncertainty, and threat may all interrupt an active cognitive pathway and temporarily gain foreground dominance. The paper distinguishes interruption topology from the weighting assigned to the event. Different weightings may produce laughter, exploration, verification, withdrawal, or sustained recursive capture. Its central proposition is that (...) alarm events may share a broadly similar interruption topology while producing different emotional and behavioural outcomes according to the weighting assigned to the interruption. The framework is structural, phenomenological, interpretive, and non-clinical. (shrink)

This book constitutes the first review of the techniques of event history analysis in demography. During the 1971s, the amount of reliable data made available as a result of surveys increased enormously. At the same time, statistical and computational techniques developed to allow the new data to be handled. This treatment of the subject gives a detailed treatment of the techniques of event history data analysis. It provides not only a thorough description of models, but also a theoretical (...) presentation of this new research path without losing sight of the underlying application to population dynamics. It will serve as a handbook of methodology for demographers and other social scientists interested in the study of the timing of events in individual lives. (shrink)

Violence is signaled by a mark of discontinuity, interruption, rupture. The tripartite temporality of violence, with its strong focus on the present, points to the originary violence. Moreover, the violent event is structuring the order of the action sequences in an actual violent (embodied) interaction. The interactional dynamics in violent encounters between co-present actors shapes the specific forms of the experiencing in (and of) the violent interaction. Based on how violence is experienced in an interactive situation, the phenomenon of (...) violence articulates itself according to three coordinates: directedness, co-performativity and de-capabilisation. The outlining of the structure of the lived experience of violence is revealing something irreducible in it. To understand the experience of violence as such, I propose that we accept the idea of violence per se and depart from the idea that the acts of violence are essentially moral actions. The core of the ethical-moral discussion concerning violence should be grounded instead on the moment of conversion identifiable when we take into account the reaction to violence. (shrink)

There is an emerging view according to which countability is not an integral part of the lexical meaning of singular count nouns, but is ‘added on’ or ‘made available’, whether syntactically, semantically or both. This view has been pursued by Borer and Rothstein among others in order to deal with classifier languages such as Chinese as well as challenges to standard views of the mass-count distinction such as object mass nouns such as furniture. I will discuss a range of data, (...) partly from German, that such a grammar-based view of countability receives support when applied to verbs with respect to the event argument position. Verbs themselves fail to specify events as countable in English and related languages; instead countability is made available only by the use of the event classifier time or else particular lexical items, such as frequency expressions, German beides ‘both’, or the nominalizing light noun -thing. The paper will not adopt or elaborate a particular version of the grammar-based view of countability, but rather critically discuss existing versions and present two semantic options of elaborating the view. (shrink)

I describe and discuss one particular dimension of disagreement in the philosophical literature on episodic memory. One way of putting the disagreement is in terms of the question as to whether or not there is a difference in kind between remembering seeing x and remembering what x looks like. I argue against accounts of episodic memory that either deny that there is a clear difference between these two forms of remembering, or downplay the difference by in effect suggesting that the (...) former contains an additional ingredient not present in the latter, but otherwise treating them as the same thing. I also show that a recent ‘minimalist’ approach to episodic memory (Clayton & Russell in Neuropsychologia 47 (11): 2,330–2,340, 2009; Russell & Hanna in Mind & Language 27 (1): 29–54, 2012) fails to give a satisfactory explanatory account of the difference between the two types of remembering. I finish by sketching an alternative approach to episodic memory, which turns on the idea that episodic recollection recruits a specific form of causal reasoning that provides for a concrete sense in which remembered events are remembered as belonging to the past. (shrink)

This work develops a formal distinction between events and objects within a closed variational framework defined by a fundamental functional S[Psi]. Physical existence is defined as the selection of a stationary configuration Psi* from an admissible domain, obtained through a global decisional functional. -/- It is shown that laboratory configurations Psi_lab(t), which underlie all high-energy experiments, are time-dependent, externally sustained, and do not satisfy the stationary condition delta S / delta Psi^dagger = 0. As a consequence, such configurations do not (...) belong to the set of physically realized states. -/- Observables, including the quantity g-2, are constructed as functionals of Psi_lab(t) and therefore describe properties of event structures rather than intrinsic properties of physical objects. The mapping from configurations to observables is non-invertible, implying that no physically realized configuration can be reconstructed from experimental data alone. -/- The analysis leads to a reinterpretation of high-energy physics experiments, including those performed at CERN and Fermilab, as procedures that generate and classify controlled event structures without accessing physically existing objects. The distinction between event and object is thus not interpretative but follows from the internal structure of the variational framework. -/- The framework is structurally closed, non-modular, and rigid, and all results are derived without external assumptions. (shrink)

I argue that the direct perception of emotion (DP) is best conceived in terms of event perception, rather than fact perception or object perception. On neither of these two traditional models can the perception of emotion be as direct as its counterpart in ordinary perception; the proponent of DP must either drop the ‘direct’ claim or embrace a part-whole model of emotion perception and its problems. But our best account of how we perceive events directly can be applied to (...) emotion perception without any loss in directness. Not only this but there are good reasons to think that such a conception better respects both empirical evidence and the phenomenology of emotion perception. (shrink)

This article offers a Nietzschean theory of digital will to power to conceptualize the temporality of social media feeds run by algorithms. Stylistic and methodological temporalities of Nietzsche are discussed as well as their influence in subsequent social theory of political technologies. The paradox of heavy investment in both subjective expression and nonhuman temporalization in social media milieus is addressed with the concept of an event-without-witness drawn from Nietzsche’s account of himself as the solitary thinker of catastrophe of nihilism (...) and psychoanalytical and deconstructive literatures on the catastrophes of the 20th century. Nietzsche’s fundamental resistance to and fascination with the philosophical and cultural modes of mummyfication, i.e. eternalization as an expression of the will to power is used to think the will to power in the creative algorithmic temporalization of social interactions through the selection, distribution and serialization of data for social media feeds. (shrink)

Event Density (ED) is a substrate ontology advanced here as a candidate unified framework for physics. This report is a research-program overview: a single, cold-reader document that orients a physicist to a corpus of roughly 150 papers, stating box by box, at explicit honesty tiers, what the framework derives, what it inherits, what remains open, and where each deep result lives. It points to the corpus rather than re-deriving it. -/- The organizing idea is that one primitive, the arrow (...) of time (the irreversible act of commitment), does load-bearing work across sectors that mainstream physics treats as separate. The same arrow that selects the quantum pointer basis is gravity's preferred time (the khronon), so the "problem of time" dissolves rather than being reconciled. On that spine the report surveys quantum mechanics, gravity (with dark matter and dark energy carried by a single field), the Standard Model's gauge structure, charge and electromagnetism, chirality, the matter sector, entanglement, the constants, and internal consistency. -/- The framework's honest shape is form-complete across the boxes a unified framework must check, and value-inherited exactly where the Standard Model's own free parameters live, a consequence of a pure-relation ontology having no intrinsic scalar. It names two genuine structural open problems, one proven wall (a finite-memory ceiling anchored to established number-theoretic theorems), and, decisively, no distinctive, argument-ending prediction confirmed yet. Every claim is stated at its source tier, and an appendix carries one result (charge quantization) end to end from the primitives so a reader can check the method directly. -/- This is not a "theory of everything" and not a finished or confirmed theory. It is a research-program overview whose case is breadth without contradiction plus a defensible ontology, stated with its limits as loud as its results. The full corpus and the certified-simulation scripts are public in the linked repositories. (shrink)

This paper proposes a geometric framework for describing how concrete relational structures emerge from a space of possibilities. The approach is motivated by the observation that many systems develop through phases of relative stability punctuated by discrete structural transitions. The framework models such processes in terms of a semantic field whose instantaneous configuration is represented by a state variable evolving within a structured space of relational possibilities. Structural transformations occur through discrete events termed microvita. In the present interpretation, microvita are (...) not external agents but intrinsic selection events arising from the dynamics of the field itself. They act as operators that transform the field configuration and thereby redirect its evolution. To represent the relational structure of the possibility space, the semantic field is formulated in a quaternionic framework. In this representation, the real component corresponds to realized relations, while the imaginary components represent possible relational trajectories within a structured space of possibilities. The geometry of this representation is naturally related to the Hopf fibration, which maps the quaternionic sphere (S^3) onto the relational sphere (S^2). Within this perspective, microvitic events can be interpreted as selective projections from a topologically structured possibility space into realized relational configurations. The resulting model integrates continuous field evolution with discrete acts of relational selection and provides a geometric interpretation of how new structures can arise within metastable systems. (shrink)

One of the dominant themes structuring the trajectory of Jean-François Lyotard's philosophical work is his concern to think the event in a way that renders it intelligible, but that also respects the alterity and the uncanniness that are essential to it. In this paper I defend Lyotard's earlier understanding of the event, articulated most thoroughly in Discours, figure, from the criticisms of the later Lyotard, articulated most thoroughly in The Differend. More specifically, I attempt to demonstrate that the (...) event, as disruption of the stable system of signification, is given immediately with the signification that it disrupts. (shrink)

Debates about advanced artificial intelligence frequently frame qualitative cognitive change in terms of consciousness, experience, or phenomenology. This paper argues that such framing obscures a more immediate and structurally relevant issue. Building on a prior theoretical account that defines the cognitive event horizon as a structural phase boundary between reversible exploratory dynamics and regimes governed by temporally stabilized, integrated abstraction, this article examines why that boundary is especially significant for artificial intelligence. Unlike human cognition, artificial systems combine large representational (...) capacity with malleable organization and externally modifiable regulation. As a result, the event horizon functions not merely as a theoretical construct but as a design-relevant threshold. The paper argues that scale alone is insufficient to induce a phase transition and that contemporary AI systems already exhibit transient abstract integration without stabilization. It identifies catalysts unique to artificial systems—architectural persistence, training regimes favoring coherence, external constraints, and meta-level intervention—that could, in principle, transform transient integration into regulatory dominance. Throughout, the analysis remains structural and mechanistic, explicitly separating cognitive organization from consciousness. The event horizon in artificial intelligence is thus framed as a question of regulation and design, not of experience. (shrink)

This paper examines the ontological status of resonance signals in high-energy physics, focusing on the interpretation of tetraquark and pentaquark states. Within a closed variational framework, physical existence is defined exclusively by stationary configurations selected by a global decisional functional. Experimental configurations, by contrast, are shown to be externally sustained, non-stationary, and therefore excluded from physical ontology. -/- We demonstrate that all observables in high-energy experiments are functions of laboratory configurations and not of physically existing states. The reconstruction of invariant (...) mass distributions yields statistical structures, such as peaks, which are features of event-dependent data rather than indicators of underlying objects. -/- A formal non-invertibility theorem is established, proving that observable structures do not uniquely determine physical configurations. As a consequence, the identification of resonance peaks with composite particles is shown to be a model-dependent assumption rather than a necessary implication of the data. -/- The analysis leads to a structural reinterpretation of experimental results: tetraquark and pentaquark signals are non-stationary event structures, not ontologically independent entities. (shrink)

Taylor has recently argued that adopting either the standard Kimian or Davidsonian approaches to the metaphysics of events quite directly solves the regress of pure powers. I argue, though, that on closer inspection Taylor’s proposal does not succeed, given either the Kimian or the Davidsonian account of events.

This paper discusses three approaches to the semantics of event nominalizations and adverbial modification: the Davidsonian account, the Kimian account, and the truthmaker account. It argues that a combination of all three accounts is needed for the semantics of the full range of event, trope, and state nominalizations in English.

The luck argument raises a serious challenge for libertarianism about free will. In broad outline, if an action is undetermined, then it appears to be a matter of luck whether or not one performs it. And if it is a matter of luck whether or not one performs an action, then it seems that the action is not performed with free will. This argument is most effective against event-causal accounts of libertarianism. Recently, Franklin (Philosophical Studies 156:199–230, 2011) has defended (...) event-causal libertarianism against four formulations of the luck argument. I will argue that three of Franklin’s responses are unsuccessful and that there are important versions of the luck challenge that his defense has left unaddressed. (shrink)

the event, on the evening of time, should be a place in our society for optimism?