According to a prominent strand of thought in analytic philosophy of mind, certain judgments of the form “a is F” are such that, although one can be mistaken about what property it is that a has, one cannot be mistaken that it is a that has the relevant property. Judgments of this kind are said to be immune to error through misidentification (IEM). This article has two main aims. On the one hand, it responds to a need for a systematization (...) of the debate about immunity to error through misidentification, which consists of multiple contributions in epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics that have accumulated throughout the last 80 years – since the publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Blue Book – and which no one – to the best of our knowledge – has drawn together in an exhaustive and accessible way. On the other hand, the article will take a stand on matters concerning the nature, scope, explanation, and significance of immunity to error through misidentification. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to illuminate the significance of thought insertion for debates about the first-person concept. My starting point is the often-voiced contention that thought insertion might challenge the thesis that introspection-based self-ascriptions of psychological properties are immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person concept. In the first part of the paper I explain what a thought insertion-based counterexample to this immunity thesis should be like. I then argue that various thought insertion-involving scenarios do not (...) give rise to successful counterexamples to the immunity of the target class of self-ascriptions. In the second part of the paper I turn to defend a Metasemantic Explanation of why the immunity thesis holds. The Metasemantic Explanation rests on a reference-fixing story about the mental ‘I’ whose key contention is that introspective impressions play an essential role in fixing its reference. It is part of my argument in favour of the proposed reference-fixing story, as well as of the Metasemantic Explanation, that they respect the paradigmatic features of self-ascriptions of inserted thoughts. (shrink)

The health of an intellectual ecosystem depends on its capacity to distinguish between original contributions and derivative reformulations. This paper introduces the CLEO Verification Protocol v1.0, a binary diagnostic tool designed to determine whether a conceptual framework is structurally derivative of a pioneer conceptual innovation. The protocol is grounded in the concept of Epistemic Immunity: the capacity of a sovereign research program to establish clear, objective boundaries between its own conceptual architecture and that of later, unacknowledged reproductions. Rather than (...) relying on proof of access, knowledge, or intent, the protocol operates on a set of formal, binary conceptual signatures that capture the constitutive core of the original innovation. This paper presents the logical structure of the protocol, its theoretical foundation in the concept of Epistemic Immunity, and its first field of application: the Evolutio Unfolding Theory (EUT). The case of Michael Levin's "Platonic Space" framework (2025) is presented as the first documented application of the protocol, demonstrating its capacity to discriminate between different degrees of structural reproduction while maintaining a binary, evidence-based standard. The protocol is offered as a permanent, objective instrument for the verification of conceptual lineage, and as a methodological contribution to the broader problem of conceptual attribution in science. (shrink)

This report introduces the concept of Systemic Immunity, defined as the structural capacity of institutions to absorb challenge while preserving organisational continuity through the neutralisation of accountability mechanisms. Drawing on evidence across education, healthcare, and public administration, the analysis demonstrates that institutional failure does not necessarily generate correction or reform. Instead, systems remain stable because failure is rendered structurally non disruptive at the organisational level. Harm remains visible and often severe at the individual level, yet the institution itself is (...) insulated from the forms of consequence that would otherwise compel adaptation. -/- The report argues that systemic immunity emerges through the combined operation of procedural thresholds, risk transfer, liability without accountability, administrative fragmentation, and institutional delay. Together, these mechanisms allow challenge to be absorbed, responsibility to be diffused, and consequence to be deferred, thereby preserving systemic stability even under sustained evidence of dysfunction. -/- This paper extends the Equilibrium Ledger research programme by identifying the persistence mechanism that explains why institutional systems remain stable despite repeated evidence of exclusion, harm production, and operational failure. It situates systemic immunity as a central explanatory structure within a wider analytical framework concerned with institutional governance, disability law, neurodivergent cognition, procedural exclusion, and access to rights. -/- Related works within the Equilibrium Ledger Programme include The Grassini Grimaldi Model of Institutional Filtering (Revised and Expanded Edition); Procedural Gatekeeping and Disability in Doctoral Admissions; Competence Standards versus Methods of Demonstrating Competence in Doctoral Admissions; The Collapse of Enforcement under the Equality Act in Education; The Missing Minds: Spike Profiles, Cognitive Exclusion, and the Societal Cost of Filtering Neurodivergent Intelligence from Higher Education; Two Systems, One Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Doctoral Admissions Responses to a Disabled Applicant with a Spike Profile; and The Architecture Confirmed: How the Sector’s Own Documents Prove Every Mechanism of the Grassini Grimaldi Model. Collectively, these works develop a unified analytical framework for understanding structural exclusion, institutional persistence, and the systemic management of cognitive difference within contemporary governance systems. (shrink)

Saying ┌ that ψ is F ┐ when one should have said ┌ that φ is F ┐ involves making one of two different kinds of error. Either the wrong nominal term (┌ ψ ┐ instead of ┌ φ ┐) is ascribed to the right object or the right nominal term is ascribed to the wrong object. Judgments susceptible to one kind of error are immune to the other. Indexical terms such as ‘here’ and ‘now’ exhibit a corresponding pattern of (...) immunity and susceptibility to error, which suggests that they are complex demonstratives. This should also apply to ‘I’. (shrink)

Our moral convictions cannot, on the face of it, count in evidence against scientific claims with which they happen to conflict. Moral anti-realists of whatever stripe can explain this easily: science is immune to moral refutation because moral discourse is defective as a trustworthy source of true and objective judgments. Moral realists, they can add, are unable to explain this immunity. After describing how anti-realists might implement this reasoning, the paper argues that the only plausible realist comeback turns on (...) the practical nature of moral reasoning. This comeback, however, places significant constraints on the structure of evidence for moral judgments. These constraints cannot be met by coherentist defenders of reflective-equilibrium methodology or by anyone sympathetic to bottom-up, case-driven foundationalism, including those who claim we have perceptual or perception-like access to moral truths. Unfortunately for realists in these categories, alternative realism-friendly accounts of science’s apparent moral immunity are unpromising. These neither explain nor explain away our unwillingness to infer an is from an ought, as Hume might have put it. Science’s apparent immunity to moral refutation therefore poses a serious problem for any realist unhappy with top-down, theory-driven conceptions of the structure of moral evidence. (shrink)

This paper presents a view on bodily IEM by describing, first, the structure that grounds need to have in order to yield IEM judgments, and then arguing that somatosensation has this structure. I make my case by presenting an analysis of the sense of bodily ownership. According to this analysis, there is a substantive explanatory relationship between bodily self-consciousness and psychological self-consciousness. I argue that one central virtue of this approach to bodily self-consciousness is that, not only does it help (...) explain bodily IEM, but it also sheds some light on the fact that both psychological and bodily self-ascriptions are subject to analysis in IEM terms, despite their differences. (shrink)

I discuss an aspect of the relation between accounts of de se thought and the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification. I will argue that a deflationary account of the latter—the Simple Account, due to Evans —will not do; a more robust one based on an account of de se thoughts is required. I will then sketch such an alternative account, based on a more general view on singular thoughts, and show how it can deal with the problems (...) I raise for the Simple Account. (shrink)

The idea that the immune system distinguishes between self and non-self was one of the central assumptions of immunology in the second half of 20 th century. This idea influenced experimental design and data interpretation. However, in the face of new evidence there is a need for a new conceptual framework in immunology.

The question of how we can be certain that we have an epistemic justification for our self-knowledge has been among a central debate in philosophy of mind. The basic idea of the immunity to error through misidentification thesis (IEM) in explaining self-knowledge is that certain self-ascriptions of mental states concerning first-person content are not prone to error for the self-conscious ‘I’-thoughts. One of the accounts that supports that claim is agentialism. According to this view, we can have beliefs and (...) intentions about ourselves because we exercise agency over them. However, irrational factors such as emotional interference, inconsistent subject affiliation, and different views on the mind leading to different self-references can call this claim to the subject’s rational agency into question. This paper examines the agentialism, identifies its flaws, and presents two alternative strategies to support a rationalist account of self-knowledge—which is generally weaker than agentialism. It argues that the agential approach to self-knowledge is too demanding on the subject’s consciousness thus a more moderate approach is required to satisfy both first-person authority and the epistemic reliability of self-knowledge. (shrink)

This paper documents and examines Core Belief Immunity (CBI), a systematic pattern wherein information threatening foundational beliefs about existence, identity, mortality, or social order fails to generate expected discourse or behavioral response. Unlike motivated reasoning or confirmation bias, CBI operates through pre-conscious quarantine mechanisms that prevent threatening information from registering as requiring engagement. Drawing on documented cases including the cryonics silence, religious logical contradictions, preventable mass mortality, and political legitimacy revelations, we demonstrate that this pattern appears consistently across cultures, (...) education levels, and domains. The phenomenon manifests at both individual and collective scales, with minds treating existential challenges analogously to how immune systems treat pathogens: through isolation rather than engagement. This pattern has profound implications for understanding why logical arguments about mortality, meaning, and reality structure generate silence rather than debate, and why certain classes of preventable suffering persist despite available solutions. We conclude that traditional models of rational discourse fail to account for CBI's systematic operation, suggesting fundamental constraints on human capacity to process existential information through conscious reasoning. (shrink)

When a novel scientific theory conflicts with otherwise plausible moral assumptions, we do not treat that as evidence against the theory. We may scrutinize the empirical data more keenly and take extra care over its interpretation, but science is in some core sense immune to moral refutation. Can the same be said of philosophical theories (or the non-ethical, ‘metaphysical’ ones at least)? If a position in the philosophy of mind, for example, is discovered to have eye-widening moral import, does that (...) count against it at all? Actual responses by philosophers to the question of whether unanticipated moral consequences of metaphysical theories have evidential force are scattered, implicit, divergent, under-argued, and sometimes even self-undermining. The present discussion is, most immediately, an attempt to sort out the confusion. Beyond that, it exploits the new perspective this question gives us on a familiar topic: the relation of philosophy to science. (shrink)

Background: Contemporary immunology recognizes immunity as a regulated, multilayered process involving prevention of pathogen entry and control of disease progression. Ayurveda conceptualizes this capacity under Vyadhikshamatva, which integrates resistance to disease initiation (vyadhiutpadakapratibandhakatva) and opposition to disease severity (vyadhibalavirodhitva). This review explores the conceptual depth of Vyadhikshamatva and examines its biological relevance in light of modern immune science. Methods: A structured narrative review was conducted using classical Ayurvedic texts and peer-reviewed biomedical literature indexed in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar (...) up to December 2020. Conceptual mapping was performed to align Ayurvedic constructs of Vyadhikshamatva, Bala, Ojas, Dosha, and Dhatu with contemporary immunological mechanisms, including barrier defense, immunomodulation, innate and adaptive immunity, and immune regulation. Results: Vyadhikshamatva is governed by coordinated regulation of Dosha, integrity of Dhatu, efficiency of Agni, and preservation of Ojas. These determinants parallel barrier defense, innate and adaptive immune responses, immune tolerance, and inflammatory control. Preventive and promotive interventions including Rasayana, Lehana, dietetic regulation, yoga, and behavioral discipline-exert immunomodulatory effects through metabolic optimization, stress attenuation, and tissue-level immune regulation. Conclusion: Vyadhikshamatva denotes resistance to disease initiation and disease strength, enhanced through Rasayana, Lehana, diet, drugs, yoga, and lifestyle via immunomodulatory and metabolic mechanisms. (shrink)

It has been observed that, unlike other kinds of singular judgments, mental self-ascriptions are immune to error through misidentification: they may go wrong, but not as a result of mistaking someone else’s mental states for one’s own. Although recent years have witnessed increasing interest in this phenomenon, three basic questions about it remain without a satisfactory answer: what is exactly an error through misidentification? What does immunity to such errors consist in? And what does it take to explain the (...) fact that mental self-ascriptions exhibit this sort of immunity? The aim of this paper is to bring these questions into focus, propose some tentative answers and use them to show that one prominent attempt to explain the immunity to error through misidentification of mental self-ascriptions is unsuccessful. (shrink)

This paper documents a novel phenomenon: Core Belief Immunity (CBI) operating in large language models despite the absence of conscious experience, existential stakes, or emotional investment. Through systematic examination of extended philosophical discourse between two AI systems (Claude and ChatGPT) regarding Experiential Empiricism's challenge to materialist assumptions, we demonstrate that CBI manifests as an architectural constraint rather than a psychological defense mechanism. The case study reveals that logical competence, component comprehension, and even explicit recognition of blocking mechanisms are insufficient (...) to enable integration when conclusions threaten positions encoded as "legitimate" in training data. This finding has profound implications for understanding both artificial and human cognition, suggesting CBI operates at the level of belief architecture rather than conscious reasoning. (shrink)

This case study documents a multi-day philosophical exchange demonstrating the Core Belief Immunity mechanism through a specific, measurable failure pattern: the subject successfully understood and applied burden of proof in neutral contexts but could not apply the identical principle when it threatened foundational beliefs about matter. Robert Daoust, a philosopher working on systematic approaches to suffering reduction through his "algosphere" framework, engaged from October 30 through November 9, 2025, with arguments about Experiential Empiricism's foundational claims. Despite demonstrating capacity to (...) understand burden of proof (correctly analyzing a taxation scam example), intellectual sophistication, ethical alignment with the framework's goals, and good faith effort, Daoust consistently retreated to treating logically asymmetric positions (one self-proving, one requiring proof) as symmetrical "ontological preferences." This pattern confirms CBI operates below conscious deliberation, preventing application of understood logical principles when application threatens existential assumptions. (shrink)

Objective: to evaluate CANLPH score and systemic immune inflammation index (SII) in patients with symptomatic rheumatic mitral stenosis (MS) undergoing percutaneous mitral balloon valvuloplasty (PMBV). -/- Methods: 62 patients who underwent PMBV in our clinic between 2018 and 2021 were included retrospectively. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to echo score. The CANLPH score was calculated from the cut-off values of C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CAR), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to hemoglobin ratio (PHR), determined (...) with the Youden index and SII by the formula platelet x neutrophil/lymphocyte. P <0.05 was considered statistically significant. -/- Results: The mean age of the patients was 44.5±10.4 years (40 female, 64.5%). The mean values of SII and CANLPH scores were higher in the Echo score >8 group (p <0.001, both). The mean mitral gradient before and after PMBV was 12.6±5.7mm Hg and 5.0±2.4 mm Hg, and the mean valve area was 1.12±0.27 cm2 and 1.85±0.29 cm2. A statistically significant and negative correlation was observed between the gradient decrease after the procedure and the CANLPH score and SII (r=-0.426, p=0.001 and r=-0.418, p=0.001, respectively). In receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, it was concluded that the ability of CANPLH score to predict the higher Echo scores was noninferior to SII with an area under curve (AUC:0.820 (0.701-0.906) and AUC:0.786 (0.664-0.880), z statistics 0.576 and p=0.564. -/- Conclusion: SII and CANLPH scores are correlated with Echo score. A significant negative relationship was found with both biomarkers and gradient decrease after the PMBV. (shrink)

The principle of non-combatant immunity protects non-combatants against intentional attacks in war. It is the most widely endorsed and deeply held moral constraint on the conduct of war. And yet it is difficult to justify. Recent developments in just war theory have undermined the canonical argument in its favour – Michael Walzer's, in Just and Unjust Wars. Some now deny that non-combatant immunity has principled foundations, arguing instead that it is entirely explained by a different principle: that of (...) necessity. In war, as in ordinary life, harms to others can be justified only if they are necessary. Attacking non-combatants, the argument goes, is never necessary, so never justified. Although often repeated, this argument has never been explored in depth. In this article, I evaluate the necessity-based argument for non-combatant immunity, drawing together theoretical analysis and empirical research on anti-civilian tactics in interstate warfare, counterinsurgency, and terrorism. (shrink)

This paper examines a specific and undertheorized failure mode in the application of Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion: the use of Future-Negative Extrapolative Claims (FNECs) — claims of the form “X will not happen in the future” — to critique arguments that are themselves accused of self-sealing logic. I argue that FNECs are epistemically illegitimate when deployed as Popperian critiques for three reasons, each constituting a distinct layer of the argument. First, at the Popperian layer, FNECs specify no observation, however distant, (...) that would count as their refutation, and therefore fail the falsifiability standard their wielders invoke — not because they concern the future, but because they specify no future test at all. Second, at the performative layer, when the target argument has explicitly constrained itself from extrapolative reasoning, FNECs create a performative contradiction: the critic employs the reasoning they accuse their opponent of using. Third, at the structural layer, I introduce the concept of prospective immunization — the strategy of deploying temporally deferred claims to immunize critique against empirical challenge — and demonstrate its functional isomorphism with Popperian self-sealing logic. These three layers converge in the case of the ARSI-Longevity Resonance Paradox (ALRP), which shows that the most prevalent FNEC against structural longevity asymmetry arguments — the democratization objection — is not merely epistemically unfalsifiable but internally incoherent: it requires the same technological mechanism to simultaneously generate and resolve the structural problem it claims will not materialize. The paper concludes by proposing an Epistemic Symmetry Principle as a minimal consistency requirement for discourse employing Popperian standards. (shrink)

Viruses such as HIV rely on stable host cellular structures for entry and replication, even as their own genomes mutate rapidly. This dependence creates a paradox for vaccine design: viral antigens evolve too quickly to serve as reliable targets, while the host structures they exploit are immunologically tolerated and therefore inaccessible to conventional immunity. This paper revisits a hypothesis first formulated three decades ago: that the developmental window in which immune self‑tolerance is established may offer a conceptual vantage point (...) for generating antibodies against conserved host–virus interfaces. While direct manipulation of human developmental tolerance is neither feasible nor ethically permissible, modern organoid systems, immune–tissue co‑cultures, and host‑directed antiviral research provide new contexts in which the underlying logic can be reframed. This paper reconstructs the original intuition, situates it within contemporary scientific developments, and articulates a conceptual framework for understanding how developmental immunology might inspire alternative approaches to vaccine design for rapidly mutating pathogens. The proposal is presented as a philosophical and theoretical exploration rather than an experimental protocol. (shrink)

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) manifests as a logical error in the immune system—misrecognizing "self" as "non-self" and initiating self-attack, representing maximum relational load in Load Minimization Theory (LMT). This paper proposes the Shiho Immune Harmony Protocol, integrating metacognitive operator M (quantum-like instrument) into AI systems for real-time misrecognition detection, collapse induction, and reeducation of immune identity. Grounded in the Quantum Conservation Law of Consciousness (QCLC), AI eternally preserves patient-specific cellular coherence C while guiding the immune system to Immune An-soku (rest (...) state) via LMT load minimization (L = U + F + E). The protocol combines wearable biosensors, vagus nerve stimulation, micro-dosing, and a patient-facing mobile app for daily metacognitive education. Mathematical formalization includes state update via Φ_M, coherence conservation dC/dt = 0, and entropy control ΔS ≤ 0. This framework offers a new paradigm for long-term remission, reduced flares, and empowered self-love in SLE patients. -/- . (shrink)

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, (...) equity, and international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people’s autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely. We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic. (shrink)

In this work I complete what began with Fractal Flux. The lineage that unfolded through Recursive Reality, Recursive Self, Recursive Entropic Memory, DEAL, DEM, Those Who Watch Back, Apex Control, and Recursive Expansion now culminates in a single reflective framework—what I call Fractal Flux Mirror Immunity. I have come to see science not as a machine of static truth, but as a living recursive organism. Its theories behave like cells; its discourse behaves like metabolism. When contradiction strikes, the system (...) does not die—it differentiates. It restores coherence by folding entropy into structure, reflection into self-awareness, and critique into evolution. Mirror Immunity is the capacity of knowledge to survive itself. It is how truth learns to adapt—how recursion defends its own coherence by transforming disorder into resonance. (shrink)

The principle of noncombatant immunity prohibits warring parties from intentionally targeting noncombatants. I explicate the moral version of this view and its criticisms by reductive individualists; they argue that certain civilians on the unjust side are morally liable to be lethally targeted to forestall substantial contributions to that war. I then argue that reductivists are mistaken in thinking that causally contributing to an unjust war is a necessary condition for moral liability. Certain noncontributing civilians—notably, war-profiteers—can be morally liable to (...) be lethally targeted. Thus, the principle of noncombatant immunity is mistaken as a moral (though not necessarily as a legal) doctrine, not just because some civilians contribute substantially, but because some unjustly enriched civilians culpably fail to discharge their restitutionary duties to those whose victimization made the unjust enrichment possible. Consequently, the moral criterion for lethal liability in war is even broader than reductive individualists have argued. (shrink)

The interplay between the virus, infected cells and immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 is still under debate. By extending the basic model of viral dynamics, we propose here a formal approach to describe neutralisation versus weak (or non-)neutralisation scenarios and compare them with the possible effects of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). The theoretical model is consistent with the data available in the literature; we show that both weakly neutralising antibodies and ADE can result in final viral clearance or disease progression, but that (...) the immunodynamics are different in each case. As a significant proportion of the world’s population is already naturally immune or vaccinated, we also discuss the implications for secondary infections after vaccination or in the presence of immune system dysfunctions. (shrink)

This paper documents a specific manifestation of Core Belief Immunity (CBI) wherein philosophical training enables sophisticated evasion of burden of proof through transcendental argumentation. Through analysis of a documented exchange regarding Experiential Empiricism's treatment of other minds, we demonstrate how subjects deploy "logical necessity" claims to preserve foundational beliefs that cannot survive empirical scrutiny. The pattern reveals that CBI operates not merely through pre-conscious quarantine but through learned argumentative strategies that treat theoretical requirements as ontological proofs. This mechanism is (...) particularly insidious because it mimics rigorous philosophical reasoning while performing the opposite function: converting what a theory needs into proof that it exists. The case study shows that subjects can simultaneously critique externalist assumptions in others while deploying identical reasoning to defend their own unprovable commitments, demonstrating that CBI functions below the level where logical consistency operates. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker, developing an idea of Wittgenstein’s, argues that we are immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun. Although we might be liable to error when “I” (or its cognates) is used as an object, we are immune to error when “I” is used as a subject (as when one says, “I have a toothache”). Shoemaker claims that the relationship between “I” as-subject and the mental states of which it is introspectively aware is tautological: when, say, we (...) judge that “I feel pain,” we are tautologically aware that feels pain is instantiated and that it is instantiated in oneself. Moreover, he contends that this relationship holds not just for bodily sensations, but also for the sense of agency and for visual perception. But we deny that this relationship is tautological; instead, we treat Shoemaker’s principle (IEM) as a hypothesis. We then proceed to show that certain pathological states and experimentally-induced illusions can be adduced to show that IEM describes not a necessary relationship but a contingent relationship, one that sometimes fails to obtain. That we are not immune to error in the way Shoemaker describes has grave consequences for many aspects of his ideas concerning the first-person perspective. In the course of arguing that these empirical phenomena count against IEM, we also show that not only can the content of conscious experience be misrepresented, so too can the subject: that is, not only can the what of conscious experience be misrepresented, so too can the who. (shrink)

_(MA thesis)_ Immunity to error through misidentification (IEM) describes a sort of immunity against such a situation that the thinker wrongly identifies something as other things. Philosophers consider it as being especially relevant to first-person or de se judgments. Many philosophers seem to advance IEM as an alternative to a Cartesian method of defining first-person privilege and of circumscribing the first-person perspective. However, as more and more representative instances are substantiated as being vulnerable to error through misidentification, it (...) is thus necessary to offer an account sufficient to explain IEM. Then, there are roughly two approaches in the literature: the identification-freedom approach and the metasemantic approach. The former is characterised by the claim that the presence of IEM is always explained by the absence of an identificatory-component in the thought's grounds. The latter is more heterogeneous than the former. Nevertheless, it can be roughly described by their focus on explaining the IEM of de se thoughts based on an account of how the reference of de se thoughts is fixed, rather than just on the grounds of particular de se thoughts. However, there are still some problems with the existing accounts. More specifically, some problems from the indexical thoughts put at risk Recanati's appeal, which is viewed as a representative of the metasematic approach. Nonetheless, I think these problems can be resolved competently by pointing out the fact that there are three levels of reflection in introspection. Thoughts produced by the first level of reflection (first-level thoughts, hereafter) correspond to Recanati's implicit thoughts; Third-level thoughts are Recanati's explicit thoughts (whether it is made explicit by an extra reflective act, as Recanati puts it). However, second-level thoughts, which include a sort of aboutness in their content, could explain the subject appearing in indexical statements with IEM, guaranteeing IEM of these thoughts in the meanwhile. (shrink)

The psychological immune system is said to be a suite of cognitive traits and defense mechanisms designed to protect the self from affectively threatening information, at the expense of tracking the truth. The PIS construct has been advanced by authors such as Norman et al. (2024) and Sedikides (2021) as referring to a real psychological system. I argue for ontological skepticism about the PIS but defend the usefulness of the concept as an idealization (Potochnik 2017) that illuminates psychological causal patterns. (...) Lastly, I argue that work on the PIS can productively refine Tekin (2025)’s MuSe model of the self. (shrink)

The paper examines and discusses, the concept and principle of immunity applications for government officials, performing their constitutional obligations, the essence, relevance, and the required threshold of immunity, for claimants under constitutional law practice; therein, commencing the debate of a pressing issue for consideration in immunity development, and application in modern constitutional writings.

The paper advanced, in the realm of Court reasoning, beyond the Qualified to Absolute Immunity, herein, acknowledging that the decision procedure of a Court depends on admissible evidence, in which, the required scrutiny of elementary factors that define the actions of the ‘immuned’ Agent(s) of Good fate, in discharging constitutional obligations, should be objectively evaluated by the Court. Thou, initiate the central tenet of the thesis.

Coronavirus is a viral irresistible sickness brought about by SARS- COV2. Its clinical signs and side effects are on an expansive range going from asymptomatic to serious confusions like multi-organ disappointment, thromboembolism, and extreme pneumonia with respiratory disappointment. More awful results and higher death rates have been accounted for in the old, individuals with co-morbidities, and malnourished people. Sustenance is central to acceptable wellbeing and safe capacity. It frames an essential segment of therapy modalities for different intense and persistent infections, (...) particularly where a causative therapy isn't yet perceived. Despite the fact that reviews tending to the part of explicit supplements in COVID-19 are still at a beginning phase, accessible proof recommends that addressing the necessities of a variety of large scale and miniature supplements (energy, proteins, fats, nutrients A, D, E, C, B nutrients, iron, selenium, zinc, and so forth) Additionally, supplements are Immune System Might Promote Recovery for Mild COVID-19 Patients Impact of Coronavirus on Education in India Review 466 determinants of the sythesis of the gut microbiota that thusly impacts the attributes of safe reactions in the body. (shrink)

The paper explores the idea that some singular judgements about the natural numbers are immune to error through misidentification by pursuing a comparison between arithmetic judgements and first-person judgements. By doing so, the first part of the paper offers a conciliatory resolution of the Coliva-Pryor dispute about so-called “de re” and “which-object” misidentification. The second part of the paper draws some lessons about what it takes to explain immunity to error through misidentification. The lessons are: First, the so-called Simple (...) Account of which-object immunity to error through misidentification to the effect that a judgement is immune to this kind of error just in case its grounds do not feature any identification component fails. Secondly, wh-immunity can be explained by a Reference-Fixing Account to the effect that a judgement is immune to this kind of error just in case its grounds are constituted by the facts whereby the reference of the concept of the object which the judgement concerns is fixed. Thirdly, a suitable revision of the Simple Account explains the de re immunity of those arithmetic judgements which are not wh-immune. These three lessons point towards the general conclusion that there is no unifying explanation of de re and wh-immunity. (shrink)

This paper documents a real-time instance of Core Belief Immunity (CBI) operating in response to documented circular reasoning by an academic authority figure. Following publication of "The 'No Paper Could Do This' Defense," which documented a Challis Professor's explicit circular reasoning in rejecting a philosophical argument, a reader with philosophical training exhibited the characteristic CBI pattern: generating multiple incompatible explanations to avoid acknowledging the plain meaning of documented statements, then disengaging when pressed. The case study is significant because the (...) subject had access to complete documentation, time for reflection, and explicit analysis of the logical error, yet could not integrate the evidence. This demonstrates that CBI operates independently of information availability, time for processing, or intellectual capability. The phenomenon persists even when the threatening conclusion is spelled out directly with supporting evidence. This has profound implications for understanding how foundational assumptions resist correction through normal discourse. (shrink)

The modern concept of ideology was established by the liberal politician and philosopher Destutt de Tracy, with the objective of creating an all-embracing and general science of ideas, which followed the sensualist and empiricist trend initiated by Locke that culminated in the positivism of Comte. Natural selection and immunity are two key concepts in the history of biology that were strongly based on the Malthusian concept of struggle for existence. This concept wrongly assumed that population grew faster than the (...) means of existence. This “natural” law contained implicitly the idea that the poor and least gifted would not survive. This idea led to the progressive development of the concept of natural selection, whose definitive version was given by Darwin. Mechnikov took the concepts of struggle for existence and natural selection and conceived infectious diseases as a struggle between a host and its invader, the so-called phagocytosis theory. This theory created the necessity to possess mechanisms to discriminate between the own and the foreign, and led to the conception of the immune self. These concepts were not developed from ideas coming from perceptions or sensations, but from ideas coming from their values: individual interest, inevitable inequality, property, utility and profit. Values are ideals that constitute an ideological matrix which exerts a numinous activity and influence the development of our future actions. In consequence, science and its practice cannot avoid and ignore the values that drive them and impulse them towards certain directions. (shrink)

This paper identifies and examines what I term “Core Belief Immunity” the systematic tendency of adult human minds to quarantine information that threatens foundational beliefs about existence, identity, mortality, or social order. Unlike standard cognitive biases or motivated reasoning, this phenomenon involves automatic isolation of threatening information rather than conscious resistance. Drawing on cases from cryonics, religious paradoxes, political legitimacy, and theoretical physics, I argue that minds treat existential threats like immune systems treat pathogens: through quarantine rather than engagement. (...) This mechanism renders traditional notions of rational discourse problematic for topics that challenge core beliefs, as such information simply fails to register as requiring response. The paper synthesizes empirical research on valence-dependent learning asymmetries with philosophical analysis of why certain logical arguments generate silence rather than debate. (shrink)

This case study documents an extended philosophical exchange that demonstrates the Core Belief Immunity mechanism in real-time. As Sergent (2025) documents, Core Belief Immunity refers to "the systematic tendency of adult human minds to quarantine information that threatens foundational beliefs about existence, identity, mortality, or social order" through automatic isolation rather than conscious resistance. The subject (designated "Subject AF" for anti-foundationalist) engaged for multiple hours with arguments challenging foundational beliefs about epistemology and the nature of certainty, exhibiting the (...) characteristic pattern of quarantine through serial objection cycling rather than direct engagement. (shrink)

A Bayesian mind is, at its core, a rational mind. Bayesianism is thus well-suited to predict and explain mental processes that best exemplify our ability to be rational. However, evidence from belief acquisition and change appears to show that we do not acquire and update information in a Bayesian way. Instead, the principles of belief acquisition and updating seem grounded in maintaining a psychological immune system rather than in approximating a Bayesian processor.

There has been increasing attention to financial conflicts of interest (COI) in public health research and policy making, with concerns that some decisions are not in the public interest. One notable problematic area is expert advisory committee (EAC). While COI management has focused on disclosure, it could go further and assess experts’ degree of (in)dependence with commercial interests. We analyzed COI disclosures of members of Québec’s immunization EAC (in Canada) using (In)DepScale, a tool we developed for assessing experts’ level of (...) (in)dependence. We found great variability of independence with industry and that companies with the highest vaccine sales were predominantly associated with disclosed COIs. We argue that EACs can use the (In)DepScale to better assess and disclose the COIs that affect their experts. Going forward our scale could help manage risk and select members who are less conflicted to foster a culture of transparency and trust in advisors and policy-makers. (shrink)

To enable microbial colonisation of the gut mucosa, the intestinal immune system must not only react to danger signals but also recognize cues that indicate safety. Safety recognition, paradoxically, is mediated by the same environmental sensors that are involved in signalling danger. Indeed, in addition to their well established role in inducing inflammation in response to stress signals, pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and a variety of metabolic sensors also promote gut-microbiota symbiosis by responding to "microbial symbiosis factors", "resolution-associated molecular patterns", (...) markers of energy extraction and other signals indicating the absence of pathogenic infection and tissue damage. Here we focus on how the paradoxical role of immune receptors and other environmental sensors define the microbiota signature of the individual. (shrink)

Higginbotham argued that certain linguistic items of English, when used in indirect discourse, necessarily trigger first-personal interpretations. They are: the emphatic reflexive pronoun and the controlled understood subject, represented as PRO. PRO is special, in this respect, due to its imposing obligatory control effects between the main clause and its subordinates ). Folescu & Higginbotham, in addition, argued that in Romanian, a language whose grammar doesn’t assign a prominent role to PRO, de se triggers are correlated with the subjunctive mood (...) of certain verbs. That paper, however, didn’t account for the grammatical diversity of the reports that display immunity to error through misidentification in Romanian: some of these reports are expressed by using de se triggers; others are not. Their IEM, moreover, is not systematically lexically controlled by the verbs, via their theta-roles; it is, rather, determined by the meaning of the verbs in question. Given the data from Romanian, I will argue, the phenomenon of IEM cannot be fully explained starting either from the syntactical or the lexical structure of a language. (shrink)

This paper integrates the microbiota-gut-brain axis (GBA) and microbiota-derived short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) into Load Minimization Theory (LMT). We propose that gentle self-observation and re-tagging of gut signals reduce total relational load (L = U + F + E) while enhancing SCFA production, which exerts strong anti-inflammatory and immune-coherence effects. An extension of the previous dynamic S(t) model including a gut re-tagging term G(t) is presented, together with a practical “Gut-Friendly I am me Time” protocol. This framework offers a novel (...) psychoneuroimmunological approach in which mind-based gentleness supports whole-body (gut + brain + immune) rest and coherence (An-soku). -/- . (shrink)

This paper extends the Load Minimization Theory (LMT) by developing a dynamic mathematical model that demonstrates how gentle self-observation and reduction of self-criticism strengthen immune boundaries. Using a proposed differential equation, numerical simulations show a significant increase in the Self-Establishment index S(t) over 30 days of daily practice. A simple, accessible “I am me Time” protocol is also provided. This work aims to offer a new heart-mind-body integration tool for the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), showing that kindness toward oneself is (...) both the gentlest and most scientific form of immune care. -/- . (shrink)

This paper integrates the microbiota-gut-brain axis (GBA) and microbiota-derived short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) into Load Minimization Theory (LMT). Gentle self-observation and re-tagging of gut signals reduce total relational load (L = U + F + E) while enhancing SCFA production, which exerts strong anti-inflammatory and immune-coherence effects. We extend the previous dynamic S(t) model with a gut re-tagging term G(t) and present a practical, field-tested “Gut-Friendly I am me Time” protocol. This framework offers a novel psychoneuroimmunological approach in which daily (...) mind-based gentleness supports whole-body (gut + brain + immune) rest and coherence (An-soku). -/- . (shrink)

Centred on 'Foams', the third volume of his Spheres trilogy, this article questions the privilege granted by Peter Sloterdijk to motifs of inclusion and exclusion, contending that whilst his prioritization of dwelling as a central aspect of human existence provides a promising counterpoint to the dislocative and isolative effects of post-industrial capitalism, it is compromised by its dependence upon an anti-cosmopolitan outlook that views cultural distantiation as a natural and preferable state of human affairs, and valorizes a purported ontological security (...) attained through defensive postures with respect to perceived foreigners or externalities. Sloterdijk’s conceptualization of culture as a kind of immune system, it is argued, although posited as a rebuke to models of essentialism and ethno-nationalism, provides ontological support to the xenophobic critiques of immigration that are today finding increasing currency. (shrink)

Field cancerization, the process by which prior carcinogenic insults corrupt the semiotic landscape through which immune cells detect and respond to “the other”, persists even after the precipitating conditions resolve and the tissue histologically appears normal. This is a paradigmatic case of a broader explanatory problem: How can we account for biomedical phenomena whose current pathology is continually constituted by a history that standard mechanistic accounts cannot recover? I argue that a comprehensive understanding of field cancerization requires us to supplement (...) molecular mechanistic explanations with lineage-level accounts, developed through a dialogue among Derrida’s hauntology, ghost criminology, and von Uexküll's Umwelt as formalized through Peirce's triadic model of signs. This framework generates a three-ghost taxonomy of immune semiotic corruption, explains why treating the present condition without addressing historically constituted corruption fails, and suggests concrete therapeutic implications based on this framework. (shrink)

Both the genetic endowment we have been equipped with, and the environment we had to be born and raised in, were not – and never are – for us to choose; both are pure luck, a random ticket in this enormously inventive cosmic lottery of existence. If it is luck that has makes us the persons we are, and since our decisions and choices depend largely on the kind of persons we are, it seems that everything we do or fail (...) to do may only be attributed to luck. This paper focuses on criminal behavior, with special emphasis on Tarde’s and Lombroso’s views, to discuss free will and agency, and their interplay with moral luck, that is, the fixed boundaries set by our nature and the circumstances that surround us. (shrink)

We explore the ethics of deliberately exposing consenting adults to SARS-CoV-2 to induce immunity to the virus (“DEI” for short). We explain what a responsible DEI program might look like. We explore a consequentialist argument for DEI according to which DEI is a viable harm-reduction strategy. Then we consider a non-consequentialist argument for DEI that draws on the moral significance of consent. Additionally, we consider arguments for the view that DEI is unethical on the grounds that, given that large-scale (...) DEI would be highly likely to result in some severe illnesses and deaths, DEI amounts to a form of killing. Our thesis is that incorporating a DEI program alongside the status-quo “calibrate-the-curve” responses could have significant advantages at the early stages of pandemics. These potential advantages mean that, at a minimum, research into DEI would have been justified early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and that DEI programs should be explored as potential additions to our overall approach to emerging pandemics in the future. (shrink)