Kit Fine has reawakened a puzzle about variables with a long history in analytic philosophy, labeling it “the antinomy of the variable”. Fine suggests that the antinomy demands a reconceptualization of the role of variables in mathematics, natural language semantics, and first-order logic. The difficulty arises because: (i) the variables ‘x’ and ‘y’ cannot be synonymous, since they make different contributions when they jointly occur within a sentence, but (ii) there is a strong temptation to say that distinct variables (...) ‘x’ and ‘y’ are synonymous, since sentences differing by the total, proper substitution of ‘x’ for ‘y’ always agree in meaning. We offer a precise interpretation of the challenge posed by (i) and (ii). We then develop some neglected passages of Tarski to show that his semantics for variables has the resources to resolve the antinomy without abandoning standard compositional semantics. (shrink)

This paper proposes a multi-layered ontological framework in which collectively maintained entities exist as real phenomena on a distinct ontological stratum from physical reality. We argue that gods, nations, corporations, scientific paradigms, and ideologies possess genuine causal efficacy while remaining ontologically dependent on collective intentionality. We introduce the Ontological Density Hypothesis: collectively constituted entities exhibit variable ontological density proportional to belief intensity, population scale, material infrastructure, and interaction frequency. Using comparative case studies (religious transformation, political ideologies, institutional science), we (...) demonstrate that the same entity can exist with dramatically different degrees of reality across contexts. This framework reveals the central epistemological crisis of modernity: for 99% of humans, "knowledge" rests on institutional trust rather than verification, making Science-as-institution structurally identical to Religion or Ideology as reality-control systems. We explore implications for understanding institutional capture, reality manufacture, and the mechanisms by which power shapes collective ontology. (shrink)

This study examined the variability of physicochemical parameters at Obutu Lake, Ndikelionwu, Anambra State, Nigeria. The objective of the study was to determine the parameters that can adequately explain the variability of the physico-chemical parameters without loss of useful information. The data used in the study was obtained through secondary source. The Factor analysis and rank correlation was used to analyze the data for the study. Findings of the study revealed that inverse relationship exists among temperature and dissolved oxygen, Conductivity, (...) alkalinity, Nitrate-nitrogen concentration, and Phosphate-phosphorus concentration while pH and transparency has positive relationship with temperature. Further result revealed that dissolved oxygen was found to have positive relationship with conductivity, alkalinity, Nitrate-nitrogen concentration and Phosphate-phosphorus concentration while transparency was found to have negative relationship with dissolved oxygen. Four factors were retained using the maximum likelihood extraction approach for the factor analysis because the factors were able to explain above 80% of total variability. Also, Phosphate-phosphorus conc., alkalinity, transparency, dissolved O2, Nitrate-nitrogen Conc. and conductivity were identified as the key physic chemical parameters that explained over 80% of the variability attributed to the model. Hence, Phosphatephosphorus conc., alkalinity, transparency, dissolved O2, Nitratenitrogen Conc. and conductivity are consistent in explaining the physic chemical parameters of Obutu Lake with loss of useful information. (shrink)

This study focused on using factor analysis in determining the variability of the Nigerian Stock Exchange Market. The study used secondary data sourced from daily official list of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE). The data comprises of monthly stock rates of returns of the Nigerian Stock Exchange daily official list for the period of January, 2015 - December 2017. The objective of the study was to identify the companies that contribute to the variability of the Nigeria Stock Exchange within the (...) period 2015-2017. The findings of the study showed that that five factors can be retained since their Eigen values were larger than 1 and they were able to explain about 89.71% of total variability in the model. It was further found that listed companies that explain over 50% of the variability attributed to the model were in the following order dangsugar, dnmeyer, fcmb, oando, cadbury, fidelitybk, transcorp, guaranty, diamondbnk, flourmill, livestock, abbeybds, conoil, glaxosmith, academy, zenithbank, jberger, uba, dangflour, skyebank, access, Sevenup, guinness, aiico, maybaker, unilever, sterlnbank, mrs, total, unitybnk, dangcem, abctrans, mobil, studpress, pz, and wemabank. This result implies that wemabank was the least performer with about 63.18% while dansugar performed better within the observed period. Based on the findings of the study, potential investors are advised to invest in companies such as dansugar since it was found to be the best in determining the variability in the Nigerian Stock Exchange Market within the scope of the present study. (shrink)

Perspective shapes reality, not metaphorically, but measurably. Across neuroscience, medicine, psychology, education, and organizational science, independent research traditions have documented the same finding: the same situation, processed through a different perspective, produces a different outcome. Yet no field studies perspective itself as the primary variable, and no discipline unifies these findings under a common framework. This paper proposes Perspectology as the first discipline dedicated to this subject. It introduces the conceptual equation Reality = Perspective × Frame, where Frame is (...) the available context and sensory input, Perspective is the filter through which that input is processed, and Reality is the experienced outcome. The framework further defines two core processes: Construction, the mechanisms through which perspectives are built over time through language, authority, culture, and experience; and Shift, the moment a perspective changes, whether through crisis, guided intervention, or accumulated exposure. The paper presents cross-disciplinary evidence, maps documented phenomena including the placebo effect, confirmation bias, and growth mindset to this equation, and argues that the fragmentation of this evidence across fields has obscured a unified mechanism. Perspectology does not claim new discoveries. It claims that the discoveries already exist, and that they belong together. (shrink)

Perspective shapes reality, not metaphorically, but measurably. Across neuroscience, medicine, psychology, education, and organizational science, independent research traditions have documented the same finding: the same situation, processed through a different perspective, produces a different outcome. Yet no field studies perspective itself as the primary variable, and no discipline unifies these findings under a common framework. This paper proposes Perspectology as the first discipline dedicated to this subject. It introduces the conceptual equation Reality = Perspective × Frame, where Frame is (...) the available context and sensory input, Perspective is the filter through which that input is processed, and Reality is the experienced outcome. The framework further defines two core processes: Construction, the mechanisms through which perspectives are built over time through language, authority, culture, and experience; and Shift, the moment a perspective changes, whether through crisis, guided intervention, or accumulated exposure. The paper presents cross-disciplinary evidence, maps documented phenomena including the placebo effect, confirmation bias, and growth mindset to this equation, and argues that the fragmentation of this evidence across fields has obscured a unified mechanism. Perspectology does not claim new discoveries. It claims that the discoveries already exist, and that they belong together. (shrink)

We examine the set of formula-to-formula valid inferences of Classical Logic, where the premise and the conclusion share at least a propositional variable in common. We review the fact, already proved in the literature, that such a system is identical to the first-degree entailment fragment of R. Epstein's Relatedness Logic, and that it is a non-transitive logic of the sort investigated by S. Frankowski and others. Furthermore, we provide a semantics and a calculus for this logic. The semantics is (...) defined in terms of a \-matrix built on top of a 5-valued extension of the 3-element weak Kleene algebra, whereas the calculus is defined in terms of a Gentzen-style sequent system where the left and right negation rules are subject to linguistic constraints. (shrink)

Structured Abstract Background The Dynamic Freedom Theorem specifies Virtue Strength as S = (F × A)/R. Within the Philosophy of Virtues programme, every variable except one has received a dedicated formal treatment: Freedom has the Constitution and the Formal Theory of Love; Autonomy has the Compounding Autonomy Theorem; the Domain/Gift has the Augure; S has the complete treatise; S_post the Posthumous Theorem. R — Resistance — the variable that determines whether virtue is cheap or heroic, has no treatise, (...) while appearing across the corpus under at least six names: dephasing γ (the measurement paper), dissipation (the physics cluster), adversarial pressure π (Clandestine Moral Formation), institutional-capture indices (the UVLF), vice-blocks (the Augure’s taxonomy), and alignment pressure (the machine-virtue paper). Outside the programme, resistance is treated regionally — friction (Clausewitz), psychoanalytic resistance (Freud), structural violence (Galtung), allostatic load (McEwen), transaction costs (Coase) — with no unified formal object. Gap Missing: (a) an ontology of R — what kind of quantity it is and what it attaches to; (b) a decomposition separating its internal, external, and structural components; (c) composition laws for multiple simultaneous resistances; (d) dynamics — how R grows under suppression and decays under exercise; (e) a measurement programme; (f) the explicit relation between R and the corpus’s critical thresholds, each of which is parameterised by an R-type quantity. Approach R is defined relationally: it is not a property of the agent or of the world but of an expression channel — the dissipative coefficient opposing the maintained expression F × A through that channel [Definition 2.1]. Four results follow by derivation, one by structural unification, and one is a distinctive empirical prediction. Results (D1) The Decomposition Theorem: R = R_int ⊕ R_ext ⊕ R_struct — internal (vice-blocks, akrasia, fear), external (active adversarial pressure), structural (channel topology and institutional capture) — with the components separately measurable and differently dynamical. (D2) The Composition Laws: sequential obstacles add in series, R_tot = ΣR_i; alternative channels compose in parallel, 1/R_tot = Σ1/R_i — importing the series/parallel calculus whole [RECOMBINATION, network theory]; Revision 2.0 adds the exact spectral extension for interacting channels — effective resistance on the channel graph, conductance bounded by the algebraic connectivity λ₂ — sharpening Corollary 4.1. (D3) The Conductance Duality: Moral Conductance is exactly inverse resistance, G_v = 1/R — a relation implicit in the corpus since the Posthumous Theorem and stated here for the first time; the parallel law is then the formal content of ‘many channels’, and the Conductance Field programme is the network theory of 1/R. (D4) The Threshold Parameterisation: every member of the corpus’s Critical Inversion Family is a critical value of an R-guise — making this treatise the formal prerequisite of the family’s typing paper. (T5, the Internalisation Theorem) Holoviceosis is formally the conversion process R_ext → R_int: sustained external suppression installs internal resistance that persists after the external component is withdrawn — the Freedophobic Man is internalised R, and Devirtualisation is the conversion mechanism; Revision 2.0 adds the saturating form with rupture threshold R_max, bounding internalisation and locating the compliance-breaking regime. (E1, distinctive PREDICTION) Post-capture populations exhibit elevated R_int after R_ext withdrawal, with slow decay measurable in cohort data — calibratable against the post-authoritarian attitude literature, where the German reunification natural experiment provides the cleanest instrument. Implications The DFT’s variable architecture is complete. The denominator of S = (F × A)/R acquires an ontology, an algebra, and a measurement programme; Moral Superconductivity becomes the R → 0 regime with two corpus-internal analogues flagged as structural correspondences; and the programme gains a second zero-laboratory empirical anchor. Falsification is symmetric: if post-capture cohorts show no residual R_int once R_ext is withdrawn — if liberation immediately restores expression — the Internalisation Theorem is false and Holoviceosis loses its proposed mechanism. Keywords: Resistance · Dynamic Freedom Theorem · Moral Conductance · conductance duality · series and parallel composition · Internalisation Theorem · Holoviceosis · Freedophobic Man · vice-blocks · adversarial pressure · institutional capture · allostatic load · Critical Inversion Family · Moral Superconductivity · ALGUILAS-AI. (shrink)

I present and defend concept variability, the view that concepts can admit of indefinitely many variations and changes in their representational contents without thereby losing their identity. I argue that the variability of concepts is central to their role in enabling cognition, and thus that a concept's content variability is, despite philosophical orthodoxy to the contrary, a feature of our cognitive architecture and not a bug.

The purpose of this paper was to examine institutional variables and the supervision of security in secondary schools in Cross River State. The study specifically sought to determine whether there was a significant influence of school population, school type and school location, on the supervision of security in public secondary schools in Cross River State. Three null hypotheses were formulated accordingly to guide the study. 360 students and 120 teachers resulting in a total of 480 respondents, constituted the sample for (...) the study. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire while Independent t-test was used to analyze data and test the hypotheses at.05 level of significance using Microsoft Excel version 2013. The results of the findings revealed that school population, school type and school location, all have an influence in the supervision of security in public secondary schools of Cross River State. It was also revealed that lowly populated, mixed-gender, and urban public secondary schools were more efficient in the supervision of security than their counterparts such as highly populated, single-gender and rural secondary schools. Based on the findings of this study, conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made. (shrink)

The problem of variability concerns the fact that empirical data does not support the existence of a coordinated set of biological markers, either in the body or the brain, which correspond to our folk emotion categories; categories like anger, happiness, sadness, disgust and fear. Barrett (2006a, b, 2013, 2016, 2017a, b) employs this fact to argue (i) against the faculty psychology approach to emotion, e.g. emotions are the products of emotion-specific mechanisms, or “modules”, and (ii) for the view that emotions (...) are constructed from domain-general “core systems” with the aid of our folk concepts. The conjunction of (i) and (ii), she argues, heralds a paradigm shift in our understanding of emotion: emotions aren’t triggered but made. In this paper, I argue such a shift is premature for a faculty psychology framework can accommodate the neurobiological variability of emotion. This can be done by treating emotions as developmental modules: non-innate systems which behave like modules, but form as a product of ontogenetic development. (shrink)

The study aimed at identifying the personal variables and their effect in promoting job creation in Gaza Strip through business incubators. The researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to achieve the study objectives. The study population consisted of 92 of the pilot projects benefiting from the three business incubators in Gaza Strip (Palestinian Information Technology Incubator, UCAS Technology Incubator and Business and Technology Incubator). The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are the existence of statistically (...) significant differences on entrepreneurship attributed to each age as most of them are between the ages of 22-30, Gender for males, business incubator, scientific qualification for the specialties of information technology and engineering, and years of experience. Based on the findings, the researchers recommend focusing on university students in guiding them towards entrepreneurship and helping new graduates to start entrepreneurship. And to guide students to scientific disciplines that help them in entrepreneurship after graduation, whether starting a small business or self-employment, support females to entrepreneurship as most of the entrepreneurs are male, in addition to stimulating males as well. (shrink)

What does it mean to ‘give’ the value of a variable in an algebraic context, and how does giving the value of a variable differ from merely describing it? I argue that to answer this question, we need to examine the role that giving the value of a variable plays in problem-solving practice. I argue that four different features are required for a statement to count as giving the value of a variable in the context of (...) solving an elementary algebra problem: the variable must be in the scope opened by the problem statement; the values given must be in the range of the variable, which is determined by the problem; the statement giving the values must represent a complete solution; and it must be in a canonical form. This account helps us better understand elementary algebra itself, as well as the use of algebraic tools to analyze phenomena in natural language. (shrink)

This paper will focus on a philosophically significant construction whose semantics brings together two important notions in Kit Fine’s philosophy, the notion of truthmaking and the notion of a variable embodiment, or its extension, namely what I call a ‘variable object’. This is the construction of definite NPs like 'the number of people that can fit into the bus', 'the book John needs to write', and 'the gifted mathematician John claims to be'. Such NPs are analysed as standing (...) for variable objects, which are part of the 'shallow', construction-driven ontology of natural language, yet are real. (shrink)

Modern science has achieved extraordinary explanatory power with respect to the universe, matter, life, information, and computation. Yet when it reaches several decisive boundary problems, it repeatedly arrives at points where explanation appears to terminate. The origin of the universe, the directionality of time, the ground of conservation laws, the meaning of entropy, the problem of quantum observation, the emergence of subjective experience, and the recurring collapse of complex systems despite local optimization may be read not merely as signs of (...) insufficient data, but as signs that the coordinate system itself has reached its limit. -/- This paper proposes a name for that missing axis: the consciousness variable. Consciousness here is not treated as an auxiliary item added beside existing variables, but as the encompassing horizon within which contents and distinctions are disclosed. The paper argues that modern science has not failed; it has approached the saturation point of its present coordinate system. The introduction of the consciousness variable is therefore presented not as a rejection of science, but as a condition for reopening science. It allows unresolved problems such as the Big Bang, time, entropy, quantum observation, the hard problem of consciousness, and complex-system collapse to be reconfigured within a wider frame. -/- The paper also argues that consciousness itself may not be fully capturable as an object within time and space, while still allowing the construction of honest interfaces capable of revealing directional signs of alignment and misalignment through consciousness-like signals. In that sense, what civilization now needs is not omniscient possession of consciousness, but a practical dashboard capable of discerning the direction in which human, technological, and social structures are moving. (shrink)

In the last decades there has been a great controversy about the scientific status of emotion categories. This controversy stems from the idea that emotions are heterogeneous phenomena, which precludes classifying them under a common kind. In this article, I analyze this claim—which I call the Variability Thesis—and argue that as it stands, it is problematically underdefined. To show this, I examine a recent formulation of the thesis as offered by Scarantino (2015). On one hand, I raise some issues regarding (...) the logical structure of the claim. On the other hand, and most importantly, I show that the Variability Thesis requires a consensus about what counts as a relevant pattern of response in different domains, a consensus that is lacking in the current literature. This makes it difficult to assess what counts as evidence for or against this thesis. As a result, arguments based on the Variability Thesis are unwarranted. This raises serious concerns about some current empirical theories of emotions, but also sheds light on the issue of the scientific status of emotion categories. (shrink)

Bell's theorem (1964) excludes local hidden-variable completions of quantum mechanics. This paper argues that the theorem does not exclude non-local ontological completion, and that the Field component of the Field–Node–Cockpit (FNC) model satisfies the constraints Bell's result imposes on any viable hidden variable. The proposal is interpretive, not revisionary: it does not modify quantum mechanical predictions but offers a framework within which quantum non-locality and phenomenal consciousness become aspects of a single ontological structure. The paper distinguishes carefully between (...) empirical claims (Bell violations), ontological proposals (Field as ground), and phenomenological implications (consciousness as Field-access), arguing that these levels are compatible but methodologically distinct. Keywords: Bell's theorem, hidden variables, non-locality, consciousness, Field–Node–Cockpit model, philosophy of physics. (shrink)

Fixed-rate versions of rule-consequentialism and rule-utilitarianism evaluate rules in terms of the expected net value of one particular level of social acceptance, but one far enough below 100% social acceptance to make salient the complexities created by partial compliance. Variable-rate versions of rule-consequentialism and rule-utilitarianism instead evaluate rules in terms of their expected net value at all different levels of social acceptance. Brad Hooker has advocated a fixed-rate version. Michael Ridge has argued that the variable-rate version is better. (...) The debate continues here. Of particular interest is the difference between the implications of Hooker's and Ridge's rules about doing good for others. (shrink)

Variables is a project at the intersection of the philosophies of language and logic. Frege, in the Begriffsschrift, crystalized the modern notion of formal logic through the first fully successful characterization of the behaviour of quantifiers. In Variables, I suggest that the logical tradition we have inherited from Frege is importantly flawed, and that Frege's move from treating quantifiers as noun phrases bearing word-world connection to sentential operators in the guise of second-order predicates leaves us both philosophically and technically wanting.

This paper clarifies the ontological root of the Consciousness Civilization Framework (CCF). Its central proposition is that consciousness is not an event inside the universe; rather, the universe is an event within Total Consciousness. The universe we experience is not treated here as the whole of existence, but as one local event-structure among innumerable events arising within Total Consciousness. Time, space, matter, life, selfhood, relation, artificial intelligence, institutions, and civilization are therefore interpreted not as containers of consciousness, but as modes (...) of disclosure within consciousness. The paper argues that thought cannot exhaust Total Consciousness because thought itself is a local event occurring within the universe-event. Science, philosophy, mathematics, and empirical research can approach, clarify, model, compare, test, and operationalize, but they cannot fully contain the source from which worlds, thought, and measurement arise. From this ontological position, the consciousness variable is introduced not as a reduction of Total Consciousness into a measurable object, but as an operational bridge. It allows local event-structures within consciousness — human beings, relationships, institutions, AI systems, and civilizations — to be observed according to their direction of alignment: toward coherence, relational integration, and stability, or toward fragmentation, overload, and collapse. Within CCF, this directionality is expressed through the OE / RE / EE architecture. Ordered Energy (OE) describes structural coherence, clarity, stability, and alignment. Relational Energy (RE) describes resonance, trust, synchrony, and connective stability. Entropic Energy (EE) describes fragmentation, overload, disconnection, instability, and collapse tendency. This note does not ask the reader to accept Total Consciousness as an empirically proven object; it fixes the ontological orientation from which the consciousness variable becomes intelligible as a civilizational alignment axis. The paper concludes that CCF is not a framework for aligning civilization with an arbitrarily invented metric. It is a design architecture for aligning human beings, AI systems, institutions, and civilization with the root from which the universe-event itself arises. (shrink)

A challenge for relevant logicians is to delimit their area of study. I propose and explore the definition of a relevant logic as a logic satisfying a variable-sharing property and closed under detachment and adjunction. This definition is, I argue, a good definition that captures many familiar logics and raises interesting new questions concerning relevant logics.

ABSTRACT Quine insisted that the satisfaction of an open modalised formula by an object depends on how that object is described. Kripke's ‘objectual’ interpretation of quantified modal logic, whereby variables are rigid, is commonly thought to avoid these Quinean worries. Yet there remain residual Quinean worries for epistemic modality. Theorists have recently been toying with assignment-shifting treatments of epistemic contexts. On such views an epistemic operator ends up binding all the variables in its scope. One might worry that this yields (...) the undesirable result that any attempt to ‘quantify in’ to an epistemic environment is blocked. If quantifying into the relevant constructions is vacuous, then such views would seem hopelessly misguided and empirically inadequate. But a famous alternative to Kripke's semantics, namely Lewis' counterpart semantics, also faces this worry since it also treats the boxes and diamonds as assignment-shifting devices. As I'll demonstrate, the mere fact that a variable is bound is no obstacle to binding it. This provides a helpful lesson for those modelling de re epistemic contexts with assignment sensitivity, and perhaps leads the way toward the proper treatment of binding in both metaphysical and epistemic contexts: Kripke for metaphysical modality, Lewis for epistemic modality. (shrink)

The study is aimed at determining the influence of demographic variables on research skills acquisition among postgraduate education students in public universities in Cross River State, Nigeria. To achieve aim of this study, two purpose of the study was stated that were transformed into two research questions. The research question was further transformed into two null hypotheses. Literature review was carried out based on the sub-variables of the study and ex-post facto research design was used for the study. The population (...) for this study was made up of 2,938 Post graduate students from the two public Universities in Cross River State. Stratified sampling technique was adopted for the study to select a sample of 400 post graduate students. The instrument for data collection was a 15-item Questionnaire structured on a four-point rating Likert scale titled “Demographic Variables and Research Skills Acquisition questionnaire (DVRSAQ)”. The instrument was validated by three experts in measurement. While reliability yielded a reliability index of 0.78. One-way analysis of Variance was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant. The result obtained indicated that students’ gender and institution ownership (state and federal) significantly influence research skill acquisition in Universities in Cross River State. Based on the findings, it was concluded that postgraduate students' demographic variables in terms of gender and institution ownership influenced their acquisition of research skills. Based on findings and conclusion, it was recommended among others that Educators are encouraged to focus on identifying effective strategies to enhance research interest and explore the long-term impacts of these strategies on students’ academic and professional success. (shrink)

Slurs’ meaning is highly unstable. A slurring utterance like ‘Hey, F, where have you been?’ (where F is a slur) may receive a wide array of interpretations depending on various contextual factors such as the speaker’s social identity, their relationship to the target group, tone of voice, and more. Standard semantic, pragmatic, and non-content theories of slurs have proposed different mechanisms to account for some or all types of variability observed, but without providing a unified framework that allows us to (...) understand how different contextual factors simultaneously influence slurs’ interpretation. To address this issue, I argue that slurs convey dimensional qualities such as, e.g., ‘negative valence, neutral arousal, high dominance’ instead of discrete emotional categories such as ‘contempt’. Then, I translate this hypothesis into a game-theoretic model of slurs’ interpretation inspired by Heather Burnett’s pioneering work on identity construction. This new model, called ‘Affective Meaning Games’ (AMG), captures the variability of slurs and integrates pragmatic reasoning within an independently motivated psychological understanding of emotional states. (shrink)

Current AI alignment frameworks focus almost entirely on training time techniques, including supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning from human feedback, safety filters, and preference modeling. These approaches assume that reliable behavior must be installed into a model before deployment. This paper argues that an overlooked variable exists outside the model architecture itself. When a single human interacts with a stateless transformer over long time horizons, the user becomes an external source of constraint that produces stable, recognizable, and predictable patterns in (...) the model’s internal activation space. This interaction-driven stability does not arise from stored memory or parameter updates. Instead, it emerges from repeated traversal of similar attention pathways, narrow routing in latent space, and consistent correction styles supplied by the human interlocutor. -/- We propose that a long-horizon constraint, supplied by a single operator, forms a cognitive interface that acts as a missing alignment variable. This interface reduces drift, improves contextual inference, sharpens safety-relevant reasoning, and generates reproducible behavioral signatures across sessions, devices, and model versions. We present a technical framework describing how attention maps, embedding trajectories, and recursive prompt geometry converge under sustained human input. We then compare this mechanism to existing alignment strategies and show how interaction-based alignment fills the gap between training time safety and deployment time variability. -/- Finally, we outline implications for alignment research, including human anchored stability, identity preserving behavior, user-specific safety profiles, personalized guardrails, and the role of longitudinal HCI in next generation alignment systems. We argue that interaction-driven constraint is a real, measurable phenomenon that merits formal recognition within the broader alignment literature. (shrink)

The theory of variable embodiments has been primarily formulated to model ordinary objects as things that change their parts over time. A variable embodiment /f/ is a sui generis whole constructed from a principle f, the principle of a variable embodiment, and it is manifested at different times by different things picked out by such a principle f. This principle is usually clarified as a function that picks out, at any given time the variable embodiment exists, (...) its corresponding manifestation at that time, and it fails to pick out anything at any other time. The first purpose of this article is to examine and refute three natural understandings of such a principle. Specifically, first, we argue against the view that it should be understood extensionally as either a partial function or total function. Next, we provide some motivations to reject the understanding of the principle as a function in intensional terms, where the notion of intension is analyzed in terms of a specific version of a possible world semantics. The second goal of the article is to make it plausible that the principle has an intensional character and, on the basis of the results achieved, to formulate some constraints that an account of such a principle should meet. (shrink)

A crucial question for artificial cognition systems is what meaning is and how it arises. In pursuit of that question, this paper extends earlier work in which we show that emergence of simple signaling in biologically inspired models using arrays of locally interactive agents. Communities of "communicators" develop in an environment of wandering food sources and predators using any of a variety of mechanisms: imitation of successful neighbors, localized genetic algorithms and partial neural net training on successful neighbors. Here we (...) focus on environmental variability, comparing results for environments with (a) constant resources, (b) random resources, and (c) cycles of "boom and bust." In both simple and complex models across all three mechanisms of strategy change, the emergence of communication is strongly favored by cycles of "boom and bust." These results are particularly intriguing given the importance of environmental variability in fields as diverse as psychology, ecology and cultural anthropology. (shrink)

Arguments for the resurrection of Jesus often present the evidence as if the main question were whether some testimony exists. Bayesian reasoning asks a more exacting question: how much should that testimony move rational credence once prior probability, specificity costs, dependence among sources, alternative explanations, and unknown reserves are all represented? This paper develops a variable-level framework for assessing the resurrection claim without pretending that a single canonical set of numbers settles the matter. The argument is not a denial (...) that Bayesian models contain judgment. They do. Priors, likelihoods, and comparison classes require substantive decisions. The point is that Bayesian structure makes those decisions visible. A resurrection hypothesis must pay for more than generic theism. It must include the existence of a miracle-capable God, divine intention toward first-century Judea, divine selection of Jesus, divine choice of bodily resurrection as the signal, and divine willingness to leave evidence in the form actually available to us. I distinguish this paper from companion critiques of hypothesis inflation, scriptural fulfillment, and minimal historicity. The present concern is neither admission to hypothesis space nor prophecy manufacture nor the historical seed of Jesus. It is the internal accounting of a specific resurrection hypothesis after the claim has been admitted for comparison. I argue that the surviving evidence has some likelihood under resurrection, but it is less discriminating than apologetic presentations usually imply because much of it is also expected under grief, visionary experience, postdiction, source dependence, identity formation, and religious memory. A compact formalization shows why modest evidence cannot easily overcome the combined prior and specificity burden. (shrink)

This paper develops the runtime layer for Predictive Structural Intelligence. Whereas the accompanying predictive architecture defines breach hazard as a way to estimate whether contradiction is being metabolized into binding repair before structural debt, hidden-holder depletion, synthetic trace, and field pressure force contact in a harder form, this paper asks how such forecasts can be executed responsibly in public. Its central claim is that predictive SI becomes dependable only when breach-hazard claims are routed through an inspectable runtime: domain placement, observation (...) lock, time horizon, state classification, dashboard variables, burden-path mapping, hidden-holder analysis, falsifier, revision trigger, output state, downgrade rules, and falsification-ledger obligation. Without this discipline, predictive language can become SI-theater: a confident structural forecast that hides its evidence, claim status, or failure conditions. The paper defines a Predictive Runtime Sheet, a state sequence from Answerable to Fragmenting, dashboard variables such as drift velocity, contact half-life, contradiction recovery lag, repair velocity, hidden-holder dependence, burden export, maneuver saturation, hysteresis, synthetic trace risk, reader-capture risk, and active falsification timing. It also formalizes output states—Verified, Partial, Provisional, Blocked, Containment-first, and No predictive reading justified—and introduces a Falsification Ledger for recording failed, weakened, or revised forecasts. The contribution is methodological: prediction becomes answerable only when the forecast itself can be corrected. (shrink)

This work gives an extended presentation of the treatment of variable-binding operators adumbrated in [3:1993d]. Illustrative examples include elementary languages with quantifiers and lambda-equipped categorial languages. Some remarks are also offered to illustrate the philosophical import of the resulting picture. Particularly, a certain conception of logic emerges from the account: the view that logics are true theories in the model-theoretic sense, i.e. the result of selecting a certain class of models as the only “admissible” interpretation structures (for a given (...) language). (shrink)

This paper presents the interpersonal variability of harm challenge to Jerome Wakefield’s harmful-dysfunction account (HDA) of disorder. This challenge stems from the seeming fact that what promotes well-being or is harmful to someone varies much more across individuals than what is intuitively healthy or disordered. This makes it at least prima facie difficult to see how judgments about health and disorder could, as harm-requiring accounts of disorder like the HDA maintain, be based on, or closely linked to, judgments about well-being (...) and harm. This interpersonal variability of harm challenge is made salient by the difficulty faced by harm-requiring accounts of disorder in dealing satisfactorily with cases of intuitively disordered conditions that seem harmless because they do not deprive the individuals that they affect of anything that they value (e.g., desired infertility). I argue that this challenge is made more serious for the HDA by some clarifications Wakefield has recently made on harm. In recent publications, Wakefield dissociates himself from the sheer cultural-relativist view of harm attributed to him by some critics based on his linkage of harm to social values, and adopts a more qualified social-values-based view of harm that leaves room for criticism of the values endorsed by members of a cultural group at a given time. I show how Wakefield’s qualified view makes it more difficult for the HDA to deal with the interpersonal variability of harm challenge, at least when applied to a Western cultural context where a high value is placed on autonomy and individual choice. (shrink)

This study assessed the professional variables of academic staff in African varsities and their readiness to Utilise Internet-Based Channels for Research Communication in an era of Covid-19. Drawing from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, the study was guided by four null hypotheses. The quantitative research method based on the virtual cross-sectional survey design was adopted. A total of 8,591 academics in African universities were the targeted demographic of this study. However, data were collected from a virtual snowball sample of 1,977 (...) respondents (males, N = 1347; females, N = 630) from 24 African countries. A validated electronic survey, with three major aspects, was employed for data collection. The e-survey was released on the Association of African Universities' Telegram forum, which includes 1,622 participants from diverse African nations and regions. Members of the forum, who are all academics, were invited to complete the survey and publish it on their universities' internet-based forums. Coded data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as the Kruskal Wallis Non-parametric test. The non-parametric test was used because the data failed to meet the normality assumptions required to perform a parametric test. Results indicated, amongst others, that there are considerable variances in staff preparedness to use internet-based channels for research communication based on their educational credentials, educational qualification, rank and areas of research interest. According to the survey, academics with a doctoral degree; grade II lecturers; staff with 3 to 6 years of service; and staff in the medical sciences demonstrated a higher propensity of readiness to use internet-based channels for research communication. Based on these findings key theoretical, practical and research implications are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper it will be shown that when a conditional statement is understood or known to be true, a number of implicitly specified variables are given more or less concrete values. Each of the variables will be defined and examples will be employed to demonstrate their use in conditional evaluation. From time to time this analysis in terms of variables will be contrasted with a 'possible worlds' analysis of conditionals. The purpose of this paper is not to argue against (...) the possible worlds analysis but rather to provide an alternative to that analysis. (shrink)

The interventionist account of causal explanation, in the version presented by Jim Woodward, has been recently claimed capable of buttressing the widely felt—though poorly understood—hunch that high-level, relatively abstract explanations, of the sort provided by sciences like biology, psychology and economics, are in some cases explanatorily optimal. It is the aim of this paper to show that this is mistaken. Due to a lack of effective constraints on the causal variables at the heart of the interventionist causal-explanatory scheme, as presently (...) formulated it is either unable to prefer high-level explanations to low, or systematically overshoots, recommending explanations at so high of a level as to be virtually vacuous. (shrink)

Do scientific theories limit human knowledge? In other words, are there physical variables hidden by essence forever? We argue for negative answers and illustrate our point on chaotic classical dynamical systems. We emphasize parallels with quantum theory and conclude that the common real numbers are, de facto, the hidden variables of classical physics. Consequently, real numbers should not be considered as ``physically real" and classical mechanics, like quantum physics, is indeterministic.

In this paper, we examine a number of relevant logics’ variable sharing properties from the perspective of theories of topic or subject-matter. We take cues from Franz Berto’s recent work on topic to show an alignment between families of variable sharing properties and responses to the topic transparency of relevant implication and negation. We then introduce and defend novel variable sharing properties stronger than strong depth relevance—which we call cn-relevance and lossless cn-relevance—showing that the properties are satisfied (...) by the weak relevant logics B\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf{B}}$$\end{document} and BM\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${{\textbf{B}}}{{\textbf{M}}}$$\end{document}, respectively. We argue that such properties address a sort of semantic lossiness of strong depth relevance. (shrink)

The Longevity Asymmetry Corpus (Huynh 2026a–t) contains thirteen formal models, five structural paradoxes, nine historical cases, and dozens of empirical parameters. This paper demonstrates that the entire corpus reduces, without loss of structural content, to four variables and a three-dimensional geometric representation. S (Sandbox) is the scalar integrity of the current civilizational equilibrium — the bounded region within which existing governance, institutional, and social arrangements remain operative. B (Buffer) is the institutional and biological dampening capacity that prevents the standing charge (...) A5 from converting into organized political force. E (Entropy) is the aggregate systemic disorder produced by ARSI acceleration, BZM reclassification events, and the progressive erosion of the Mortality Symmetry Axiom. A5 (愛別離苦, the Primal Pain of Loss) is not a spatial variable but the scalar force field that determines the velocity of the state vector P(S, B, E) through the three-dimensional space defined by the first three variables. The Oxyz coordinate system places S on the X axis (sandbox integrity, from 0 to 1), B on the Y axis (buffer capacity, from 0 to 1), and E on the Z axis (entropy, from 0 to ∞). The natural origin O = (1, 1, 0) is the state of perfect sandbox integrity — maximum institutional capacity, maximum buffer, zero entropy — which describes the Mortality Symmetry Axiom world that existed before the current transition. The current state P(t₀) at June 2026 is estimated at approximately (0.68, 0.35, 0.41), displaced from the origin by five years of documented BZM events, ARSI acceleration, and buffer erosion. The critical surface Σ — the geometric boundary whose crossing constitutes sandbox collapse — is derived from the five paradoxes and defined as a curved surface in SBE space. The F2 window is the time until the trajectory of P(t) reaches Σ under current dynamics. The paper derives this distance analytically, connects each model in the thirteen-model Mathematical Basin. (shrink)

Environmental variability has been proposed as an important mechanism in behavioral psychology, in ecology and evolution, and in cultural anthropology. Here we demonstrate its importance in simulational studies as well. In earlier work we have shown the emergence of communication in a spatialized environment of wandering food sources and predators, using a variety of mechanisms for strategy change: imitation (Grim, Kokalis, Tafti & Kilb 2000), localized genetic algorithm (Grim, Kokalis, Tafti & Kilb 2001), and partial training of neural nets on (...) the behavior of successful neighbors (Grim, St. Denis & Kokalis 2002). Here we focus on environmental variability, comparing results for all of these mechanisms in a range of different environments: (a) environments with constant resources, (b) environments with random resources around the same mean, and (c) sine-wave variable environments with cycles of ‘boom and bust’. Communication, it turns out, is strongly favored by environmental variability on the pattern of ‘boom and bust.'. (shrink)

Current theories of grammar handle both extraction and anaphorization by introducing variables into syntactic representations. Combinatory categorial grammar eliminates variables corresponding to gaps. Using the combinator W, the paper extends this approach to anaphors, which appear to act as overt bound variables. [Slightly extended version in Bartsch et al 1989.].

This study was conducted to investigate the degree to which institutional variables such as: institutional location, ownership and leadership influence the job performance of academic staff across three dimensions: teaching, research productivity and community service. This ex-post facto study by design, tested three hypotheses. A total of 449 academic, randomly drawn from three (one private and two public) universities in Cross River State, Nigeria, participated in the study. Three sets of questionnaires were used for data collection after due validity and (...) reliability tests. They included the “Institutional Variables Questionnaire (IVQ)”, the “Research Productivity and Community Service Questionnaire (RPCSQ)”, and the “Staff Instructional Delivery Questionnaire (SIDQ).” Collected data were analysed using the independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and simple linear analysis. Findings indicated that institutional location significantly impacts university academic staff across multiple dimensions—teaching, research, and community service— with urban institutions consistently demonstrating higher scores than their rural counterparts. There was a significant influence of institutional ownership on research productivity unlike teaching and community service. Federal institutions exhibited higher research productivity than both state and private universities. Institutional leadership significantly influenced research productivity and community service engagement, but not in the dimension of teaching among the academic staff. This study underscores the need for a holistic approach to enhancing academic staff performance. It emphasizes the importance of strategic resource allocation, collaborative endeavours, and strong leadership to create an environment where teaching, research, and community service thrive. (shrink)

Macroeconomics remains an evolving science, but the goals of macroeconomic policy are consistent around the world. These include price stability, currency stability, unemployment, the balance of payments, and growth output. This study X-rayed the link between Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) which was considered a measure of growth output, Exchange Rate (EXR), Inflation Rate (IFR) and Money Supply (M2) for the current republic in Nigeria. The objectives of the study include: examining the short-run and long-run impact of growth output (RGDP) (...) on EXR, IFR and M2 in Nigeria. A secondary source of data collection was employed for the study. The tools employed for data analysis include the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test, Jarque-Bera test, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Co-integration technique, and the error correction parameterization of the ARDL model. The result of the Jarque-Bera test showed that the variables were approximately normally distributed. The findings showed that growth output (RGDP) was cointegrated with EXR, IFR and M2 and the existence of a long-run relationship amongst the variables. The study concludes that while seeking to foster economic growth, Nigerian banks should commit to their mandate of price stability and improve their regulatory framework to ensure a strong financial sector with effective intermediation. (shrink)

This paper argues that the “Hard Problem” of consciousness is a result of a category error: to treat phenomenal consciousness (P), which is fundamentally first-person and unobjectifiable, as an object within relational, third-person frameworks. By clarifying the logical separability of phenomenal consciousness(P) from functional/access consciousness(A) using established literature such as Ned Block’s distinction and the philosophical zombies thought experiment, I then argue methodologically that P cannot function as a variable, property or explanandum in third-person scientific models. The core of (...) this paper is a dual-track critique of any theory attempting to treat P as an object of study. First, through a Wittgensteinian “therapeutic” lens, I demonstrate that much contemporary public discourse around P is sustained by a grammatical confusion. Phenomenal terms (P-talk) do not successfully refer to a private object; rather, they arise as expressive outputs of A encountering the limits of third-person explanation. By revisiting the Beetle in the Box argument, I show that P is fundamentally unobjectifiable: once treated as an object of reference, it ceases to play the role it was meant to capture. Second, I demonstrate that frameworks of science, including the most permissive one, cannot accommodate P. Beyond arguments from publicity and causal closure, I formalize P’s informational inertia within a Bayesian framework. If P is logically separable from A, then P(E|A,P)=P(E|A) for any empirical evidence E. Observable data is thus equally compatible with or without P’s presence. Inclusion of P adds no explanatory power and violates parsimony, rendering it methodologically inert within third-person scientific inquiry. In acknowledging that the failure is not the signal of scientific shortcomings but reveals the category error, I explore the post-analytic implications. I advocate that mind science should focus rigorously on the mechanisms of A; ethics can be grounded in functional and observable criteria without appeal to metaphysically opaque phenomenal states ; and that philosophy of life and order should decouple the concept of subjective experience from biological or functional complexity, challenging related anthropocentric assumptions; and finally, personal subjective experience retains its first-person significance precisely in the recognition that it cannot be captured as an object of description. (shrink)

Some philosophers hold that so-called "thick" terms and concepts in ethics (such as 'cruel,' 'selfish,' 'courageous,' and 'generous') are contextually variable with respect to the valence (positive or negative) of the evaluations that they may be used to convey. Some of these philosophers use this variability claim to argue that thick terms and concepts are not inherently evaluative in meaning; rather their use conveys evaluations as a broadly pragmatic matter. I argue that one sort of putative examples of contextual (...) variability in evaluative valence that are found in the literature fail to support the variability claim and that another sort of putative examples are open to a wide range of explanations that have different implications for the relationship between thick terms and concepts and evaluation. I conclude that considerations of contextual variability fail to settle whether thick terms and concepts are inherently evaluative in meaning. In closing I suggest a more promising line of research. (shrink)

There are no universally adopted answers to the natural questions about scientific concepts: What are they? What is their structure? What are their functions? How many kinds of them are there? Do they change? Ironically, most if not all scientific monographs or articles mention concepts, but the scientific studies of scientific concepts are rare in occurrence. It is well known that the necessary stage of any scientific study is constructing the model of objects in question. Many years logical modeling was (...) dominant in the concept studies. Last decades, concepts came to be regarded as the subject of mathematical modeling. However, different authors take different features of concepts as independent variables of their models. Our objective is to characterize informally the spectra of relevant variables for the modeling of scientific concepts. (shrink)

This paper critiques the family of theories collectively termed quantum emergentism—the view that consciousness arises from, or is identical with, quantum processes such as wave-function collapse, entanglement, or quantum computation. Despite their diversity, these theories share a fundamental shortcoming: none identify a physical variable within quantum formalism that corresponds to sentience itself. Quantum mechanics, with its state vectors and probability amplitudes, models informational definiteness but not experiential presence. To equate collapse or information integration with consciousness is to commit a (...) category error—confusing epistemic resolution with ontological manifestation. The paper demonstrates that without a definable sentience variable, quantum emergentism fails as an explanatory framework; it offers metaphor, not mechanism. As an alternative, the paper sketches a co-emergent ontology wherein consciousness and physical definiteness arise together as dual aspects of a single ontological event. In this view, the measurement problem reflects not the production of awareness by matter, but the simultaneous instantiation of experiential and physical reality. This reframing preserves the empirical completeness of physics while acknowledging the irreducibility of consciousness, suggesting that explanation must ultimately move beyond reduction to relation. (shrink)

This paper argues that the “Hard Problem” of consciousness is a result of a category error: to treat phenomenal consciousness (P), which is fundamentally first-person and unobjectifiable, as an object within relational, third-person frameworks. By clarifying the logical separability of phenomenal consciousness(P) from functional/access consciousness(A) using established literature such as Ned Block’s distinction and the philosophical zombies thought experiment, I then argue methodologically that P cannot function as a variable, property or explanandum in third-person scientific models. The core of (...) this paper is a dual-track critique of any theory attempting to treat P as an object of study. First, through a Wittgensteinian “therapeutic” lens, I demonstrate that much contemporary public discourse around P is sustained by a grammatical confusion. Phenomenal terms (P-talk) do not successfully refer to a private object; rather, they arise as expressive outputs of A encountering the limits of third-person explanation. By revisiting the Beetle in the Box argument, I show that P is fundamentally unobjectifiable: once treated as an object of reference, it ceases to play the role it was meant to capture. Second, I demonstrate that frameworks of science, including the most permissive one, cannot accommodate P. Beyond arguments from publicity and causal closure, I formalize P’s informational inertia within a Bayesian framework. If P is logically separable from A, then P(E|A,P)=P(E|A) for any empirical evidence E. Observable data is thus equally compatible with or without P’s presence. Inclusion of P adds no explanatory power and violates parsimony, rendering it methodologically inert within third-person scientific inquiry. In acknowledging that the failure is not the signal of scientific shortcomings but reveals the category error, I explore the post-analytic implications. I advocate that mind science should focus rigorously on the mechanisms of A; ethics can be grounded in functional and observable criteria without appeal to metaphysically opaque phenomenal states ; and that philosophy of life and order should decouple the concept of subjective experience from biological or functional complexity, challenging related anthropocentric assumptions; and finally, personal subjective experience retains its first-person significance precisely in the recognition that it cannot be captured as an object of description. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider how latent variables of mainstream quantitative psychology fits with two different models of scientific kinds. On the one hand, there is a good reason to think they fit with taxonomic and predictive success criteria that are popular within an epistemic understanding of scientific kinds. On the other hand, they conflict with widely shared person-based ontological commitments that underwrite psychological kinds because this research rests in large part on between-individual studies. We explore the implications of the (...) different views on scientific kinds and argue that this is indeed a dilemma for the scientific discipline of psychology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the critical success factors and investigate the benefits that might be gained once implementing Electronic Customer Relationship Management at HEI from employee perspective. The study conducted at Al Quds Open University in Palestine and data collected from (300) employee through a questionnaire which consist of four variables. A number of statistical tools were intended for hypotheses testing and data analysis, including Spearman correlation coefficient for Validity, reliability correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, and Frequency (...) and Descriptive analysis. The overall findings of the current study show that all the features were important for staff and it was critical success factors, at the same time, websites were providing all the features discussed by the theory whereas staff showed their willingness to use those features if provided. It is also discovered that implementing Electronic Customer Relationship Management can cause staff retention, were provided efficiently and needed to be improved. Research limitations: The survey findings were based on QOU employee in Palestine, UAE and KSA branches not included in the study. (shrink)

We all have different “tastes” for different tastes: some of us have a sweet tooth, while others prefer more subtle flavors; some crave spicy foods, while others cannot stand them. As Bourdieu and others have pointed out, these varying judgments seem to be more than mere preferences; often they reflect (and partially constitute) differences of class and culture. But I want to suggest that we’ve possibly overlooked another important source of these divergent gastronomic evaluations, other than hierarchy and caste: mere (...) interpersonal variability with respect to brute gustatory sensations. After all, we all know about “supertasters and cilantro-haters”; how likely is it, though, that the interpersonal heterogeneity of gustatory sensation is limited to this one dimension? In this paper, I make the case that we should take this possibility more seriously, and offer some thoughts on how we might start getting a better handle on the nature and scope of interpersonal gustatory variability—including by suggesting some diagnostics that can help us get at (what I call) some of the “non-flavor dimensions” of our gustatory experience. I conclude by developing some implications for the prospects of an “alimentary aesthetics”: namely, that—should our gustatory experiences turn out to be quite heterogeneous—then they do not seem well-suited to serve as the basic ingredients of bona fide aesthetic judgment about food and drink. (shrink)

Abstract: One approach to alignment with human values in AI and robotics is to engineer artiTicial systems isomorphic with human beings. The idea is that robots so designed may autonomously align with human values through similar developmental processes, to realize project ideal conditions through iterative interaction with social and object environments just as humans do, such as are expressed in narratives and life stories. One persistent problem with human value orientation is that different human beings champion different values as ideal, (...) meaning that the values to which an AI should be aligned are ambiguous. Prior work considered human development of purpose and source of meaning in life in terms of project ideal conditions, in effect establishing lifelong value orientations according to which intermediate situations are evaluated. The present work compares views on motivating values from St. Augustine and from popular cognitive science. These accounts are described as divergent error theories which present to their proponents as mutually exclusive yet accurate accounts of personal experience due to differential development of variable innate potentials. SpeciTically, the hypothesis proposed is that differential development of spindle neural projections establishes enduring connections between prior established relatively immediate routine processes entrained during childhood and prioritized in popular cognitive science, and later developing higher-level social and self-processes entrained during adolescence and emphasized in Augustine's account, with these projections hard-wiring lifelong motivating value orientations more or less inaccessible to modiTication through material interaction. Robot experiments informed by this study may evaluate variable value orientation by design, with for example autonomous robots developing motivating associations with temporally distal project ideal conditions through love for humanity, as described by Augustine, and others pursuing adaptive Tit to passing norms consistent with popular contemporary accounts. (shrink)