English uses the relative Reference Frame which includes the speaker’s viewpoint assigning directions to identify a Located Object and a Reference Object. Projective prepositions express the position of the LO and the RO along the front-back and left-right axes: the speaker’s egocentric axes are either mapped onto the RO under a 180-degree rotation so that the speaker’s right is the listener’s left; or the speaker’s egocentric axes are translated onto the RO without rotation. When the RO is a (...) non-fronted object, English refers to it without rotation along the left-right axis, but it depicts it with rotation along the front-back line. In comparison to this model, this paper explores the way English treats the location of a RO represented by animate and human entities. The use of projective prepositions to consider animate, fronted items used as RO is here examined through spoken corpora collected with English-speaking students, describing the position of such items with or without rotation. (shrink)

The Common Anatomy Reference Ontology (CARO) is being developed to facilitate interoperability between existing anatomy ontologies for different species, and will provide a template for building new anatomy ontologies. CARO has a structural axis of classification based on the top-level nodes of the Foundational Model of Anatomy. CARO will complement the developmental process sub-ontology of the GO Biological Process ontology, using it to ensure the coherent treatment of developmental stages, and to provide a common framework for the model (...) organism communities to classify developmental structures. Definitions for the types and relationships are being generated by a consortium of investigators from diverse backgrounds to ensure applicability to all organisms. CARO will support the coordination of cross-species ontologies at all levels of anatomical granularity by cross-referencing types within the cell type ontology (CL) and the Gene Ontology (GO) Cellular Component ontology. A complete cross-species CARO could be utilized in other ontologies for cross-product generation. (shrink)

In clinical endocrinology, it is often assumed that the results of thyroid hormone function tests (TFTs) before total thyroidectomy are considered euthyroid when the circulating concentrations of thyrotropin [TSH] and free thyroxine [FT4] are within the normal reference ranges. Postoperative thyroid replacement therapy with levothyroxine (L-T4) is aimed to reproduce the preoperative euthyroid condition. Currently, intra-individual changes in the euthyroid set point before and after total thyroidectomy are only partly understood. After total thyroidectomy, a greater postoperative [FT4] than preoperative (...) [FT4] for equivalent euthyroid [TSH] was found, with differences ranging from 3 to 8 pmol/l. This unexplained difference can be explained by the use of a mathematical model of the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis set point theory. In this article, the postoperative HPT euthyroid set point was calculated using a dataset of total thyroidectomized patients with at least three distinguishable postoperative TFTs. The postoperative [TSH] set point was used as a homeostatic reference for the comparison of preoperative TFTs. The preoperative [FT4] value was equal to the postoperative [FT4] value in 50% of the patients, divided by a factor of ~ 1.25 (within +/- 10%). The factor of 1.25 stems from the lack of postoperative use of thyroidal triiodothyronine (T3). Furthermore, approximately 25% of the patients presented a greater preoperative [FT4] difference than postoperative [FT4]/1.25 combined with a normal [TSH] difference. Based on these observations, the effect of T3 on the value of the [FT4] set point was analyzed and explained from a control theory perspective. (shrink)

In clinical endocrinology, it is often assumed that the results of thyroid hormone function tests (TFTs) before total thyroidectomy are considered euthyroid when the circulating concentrations of thyrotropin [TSH] and free thyroxine [FT4] are within the normal reference ranges. Postoperative thyroid replacement therapy with levothyroxine (L-T4) is aimed to reproduce the preoperative euthyroid condition. Currently, intra-individual changes in the euthyroid set point before and after total thyroidectomy are only partly understood. After total thyroidectomy, a greater postoperative [FT4] than preoperative (...) [FT4] for equivalent euthyroid [TSH] was found, with differences ranging from 3 to 8 pmol/L. This unexplained difference can be explained by the use of a mathematical model of the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis set point theory. In this article, the postoperative HPT euthyroid set point was calculated using a dataset of total thyroidectomized patients with at least three distinguishable postoperative TFTs. The postoperative [TSH] set point was used as a homeostatic reference for the comparison of preoperative TFTs. The preoperative [FT4] value was equal to the postoperative [FT4] value in 50% of the patients, divided by a factor of ~ 1.25 (within +/- 10%). The factor of 1.25 stems from the lack of postoperative use of thyroidal triiodothyronine (T3). Furthermore, approximately 25% of the patients presented a greater preoperative [FT4] difference than postoperative [FT4]/1.25 combined with a normal [TSH] difference. Based on these observations, the effect of T3 on the value of the [FT4] set point was analyzed and explained from a control theory perspective. (shrink)

The polarisation of the embryonic anteroposterior (AP) axis requires the establishment of positional cues with spatial information, and often involves complex intercellular communications, cell adhesion and cell movement. Recent work on several fronts has begun to shed light on how the initial asymmetries are established and maintained. In this review, I discuss the polarisation of the AP axis during Drosophila oogenesis, focusing on the function of the Notch signalling pathway and its relationship to the activation of the epidermal (...) growth factor receptor. I make special reference to some aspects of Notch activity regulation during oogenesis that appear to depart from the canonical pathway. Finally, I hypothesise on possible similarities between these activities of Notch signalling during Drosophila oogenesis and vertebrate somitogenesis. BioEssays 25:781–791, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Mandarin speakers, like most other language speakers around the world, use spatial terms to talk about time. However, the direction of their mental temporal representation along the front-back axis remains controversial because they use the spatial term “front” to refer to both earlier times and the future. Although the linguistic distinction between time- and ego-reference-point spatiotemporal metaphors in Mandarin suggests a promising clarification of the above controversy, there is little empirical evidence verifying this distinction. In this study, Mandarin (...) speakers’ time- and ego-reference-point temporal representations on three axes were separately examined through two tasks. In a time-reference-point task, Mandarin speakers judged whether the time point of the second picture was earlier or later than the time point of the first picture, while in an ego-reference-point task, they judged whether an event or phase had happened in the past or would happen in the future. The results indicate that Mandarin speakers construe an earlier-times-in-front-of-later-times temporal sequence and adopt the front-to-the-future orientation. (shrink)

The paper aims at describing the findings and conclusions formulated in the analysis of the authorship factor in legal discourse. It is hypothesised that verbal structures show systemically varied distribution across legal discourse and the relevant distinctions run through the authorship categories. When it comes to the aim of the research it draws on the tradition of sociolinguistic methodology targeting issues related to language variation which follows the basic assumptions of functional grammar. From the point of view of the material (...) covered by the analysis it contributes to the research on legal discourse and specifically on its specialised domain referred to as corporate, company or business discourse. It provides additional empirical data pointing to the non-homogeneity of the legal style and formal distinctions originating from rich contextual background. The study is conducted on the material of a custom-designed corpus of English legal texts, classified as secondary genres. Methodologically, the study makes use of the tenets of supervised search of digitalised corpora and automatic data extraction based on discrete units, subsequent identification of recurring longer contiguous and/or non-contiguous sequences, if any, built around the axis of specific verbal structures and finally qualitative comparative analysis (characterisation) of the material. The discussion presents sample data and focuses on the most salient categories, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The inductive approach confirms the formal divergencies in the communicative situation covered by the analysis. The findings encapsulate patterns and tendencies in the quantitative distribution of verbal structures depending on the authorship category. It may be concluded that authorship is a factor delineating distinctions as regards (i) the repertoire of grammatical instruments exploited (verbal structures), which contributes to the specific stylistic profile of given authors. This shows that the thesis posed is verified positively and the study shows further, more detailed distinctions running through groups of subcategories distinguished within the authorship categories specified upon the start of the research. (shrink)

The Moroccan philosopher Taha Abderrahmane is one of the leading surviving philosophers of the Arab-Islamic world. His fields of study are issues such as logic, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and political theology. He built a holistic and versatile Islamic methodology in his works and formed a world of thought on the axis of trusteeship (divine contract and trust paradigm) and circulation tedavuliyya (pragmatic-word-action theory). Taha Abderrahmane has analyzed, criticized and constructed the Islamic thought tradition, which he handled with (...) a holistic view, with a versatile reference network. In addition, one of his most important contributions is that he put forward a moral philosophy in the Qurʾānic and prophetic axis. Taha Abderrahmane proved to be a prolific thinker with his thirty-five work consisting of ten thousand pages. He proposes a deliberative model of political communication in harmony with his theo-political writings and physical and metaphysical integrity. While this article aim to provide information on the main components of Abderrahmane’s paradigm of divine contract and trusteeship (i’timaniyya), essentially a theory of morality, such as political theology, linguistics, and negotiation ethics, it also tries to identify the Western references of these elements. In this context how the theory of speech acts that seems quite important in the field of modern social sciences and created by theorists such as John Searl and Austin was transformed by Taha Abderrahmane into an Islamic theory of speech is also subject to a comparative assessment. In addition, the possibility of the issue of negotiation ethics, which gained more importance with new communication theories in the West, in the axis of Islamic thought was questioned in the article. The article reviews how views on negotiation ethics are positioned by Taha Abderrahmane within the Islamic paradigm. Therefore, the article is limited in scope to Taha Abderrahmane’s references about the theories in the West. Taha Abderrahmane attempts to construct an Islamic Pragmatic or Islamic Theory of Verbal Action, with reference to Pragmatics or Theory of Speech Acts, which is a sub-branch of linguistics, but in line with principles specific to the Islamic paradigm. Taha Abderrahmane combined the Islamic concept of pragmatic with the concept of negotiation. The terms “praxis” and “praxeology [fiqh al falsafa]”, which define the framework of the Trust Paradigm and the Islamic Pragmatic Model proposed by Taha Abderrahmane, emphasize “deed” or, in other words, “action” and he is linguistically referencing the founding masters of the pragmatics field such as J. L. Austin and J. R. Searle. However, there are two other fields that constitute the main reference to his concept of praxis (action) and praxeology (action science). These are economics and philosophy. Praxeology is a scientific field that deserves to be mentioned especially with the economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). According to Mises, the laws of the field about which physics, biology, and praxeology [mainly economics] provide information, are independent of human will. These are primary ontological facts that strictly limit the human power to act (Mises, 1998, 67). Taha Abderrahmane references western thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises, Jürgen Habermas, Chantal Mouffe and Hannah Arendt, as well as Islamic sources. However, the way he makes use of them takes place within the framework of criticism and analysis. He also refers to other personalities such as Jonas, Freud, Ellul, Putnam, Ricoeur and Rawls. While Taha Abderrahmane explains the process of turning words into action, he also draws on the Action Theory of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), who was one of the children of Heidegger, such as Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse, and who was accepted as a real philosopher even though he rejected the title of philosopher during his lifetime. On the other hand, Taha Abderrahmane makes strong references to the basic dimension of Islam, such as “O believers! If you avoid opposing Allah; It gives you an understanding to distinguish good from bad (Al-Anfal, 8/29)” verse. He makes strong references to the supposed dimension of Islam, and in this context, he tries to create a praxis based on nature, especially based on the hadith known as nawāfil hadith. (shrink)

The transience of being in the Chinese context—and specifically within Daoist texts—has been the subject of scholarly attention both as a philosophical theme and as a social phenomenon. Dao is the mystery that makes nature “the way it is.” It can mean process, pattern, or existence. Eastern thinkers tend to find truth in every perspective, pursuing the middle way, and they stress mutual dependence—Zhuangzi’s “equality of things,” the “axis of Dao,” etc. The Chinese sages tend to harbor an optimistic (...) outlook that, however opposed divergent views may appear, in the end they are bound to harmonize and complement one another. Humans can unite themselves with the way they live. There are three threads at work in Zhuangzi’s thought:(1) The principle of equality: all things are equal or have relative parity. Each has its own merit, even that which seems deformed or useless to humans.(2) The principle of difference: each thing is unique and exists in itself in accordance with the Dao.(3) The principle of transformation. The only constant is that myriad beings are always transforming and becoming. (shrink)

This study redefines conflict avoidance not as the absence of conflict, but as a structure that delays misalignments that could have been addressed at an early stage. Existing discussions have tended to explain conflict avoidance in terms of individual disposition or cultural characteristics; however, this study argues that the core issue lies in the conceptual confusion between conflict prevention and conflict avoidance. Conflict prevention is a process that reduces long-term costs through alignment at an early stage, whereas conflict avoidance is (...) a mechanism that conceals and delays already-detected misalignments under conditions of surface-level stability. This study explains the structure of early alignment failure along three dimensions. First, individuals interpret situations based on different reference axes, which leads to divergence in problem definition even for the same event. Second, early alignment requires metacognitive processing—distinguishing emotional signals from structural signals and evaluating patterns and timing of intervention—which makes it difficult to perform consistently across individuals. Third, humans tend to overestimate the relational costs of early articulation while underestimating the structural costs that may arise in the future. Under these conditions, groups and organizations reinforce delay structures through conformity, delayed articulation, and formal agreement. In addition, this study critiques approaches that attempt to surface all misalignments immediately and proposes the need for criteria to selectively identify misalignments that require intervention. Furthermore, it analyzes the conditions under which repeated silence transitions from consideration into structural complicity. In conclusion, conflict avoidance is not the elimination of conflict but its delay. The central task of conflict management, therefore, is not to surface all misalignments, but to identify those that require early intervention and to specify the cognitive, relational, and structural conditions that enable them to be addressed. (shrink)

The Möbius transformation (MT) was analyzed as a coordinate transformation in the Minkowski form. The transformation function contains three separate light cones. The Weyl spheres were interpreted as basic constituents of local light cones. These cones are related to the denominators of the MT and its inverse, and their apexes define an axis with the top of the global light cone as the centerpoint. That axis represents the local part of the world-line of a moving frame of (...) class='Hi'>reference. On the world-line, the scale factor of the MT is proportional to the ratio of the radii of the initial Weyl sphere and the equivalent transformed one. The projection centers, defining the transformation of the world-line, were determined graphically. There are two types of such MT's. Inner transformations have their projetion centers on the axes of the frame at rest, outer transformations on the axes of the “observed” moving frame. The signature of x 0 2 −r2 is conserved during inner transformations. All possible directions of the world-line of an inertial frame form a timelike “mass cone” around the time axis of the frame at rest. The mass cone and the related spacelike “phase cone” may be seen as projections of a lightlike central motion on the surface of a Weyl sphere. Conformal transformations leave both the mass cone and the phase cone invariant: the MT locally, and the Lorentz transformation globally. The moving frame of any lightlike particle rotates by π/2 radians, thus exchanging the time axis with one of the space axes. The measurable mass of such a particle is considered to be zero because only the central plane of the particle is space-oriented. The real mass is invariant. To test this hypothesis, the two γ-quanta produced by the electron pair annihilation should be led to a recollision, for recreating the initial electron-position pair. (shrink)

A role of perirhinal cortex (PrC) in recognition memory for objects has been well established. Contributions of parahippocampal cortex (PhC) to this function, while documented, remain less well understood. Here, we used fMRI to examine whether the organization of item-based recognition memory signals across these two structures is shaped by object category, independent of any difference in representing episodic context. Guided by research suggesting that PhC plays a critical role in processing landmarks, we focused on three categories of objects that (...) differ from each other in their landmark suitability as confirmed with behavioral ratings (buildings > trees > aircraft). Participants made item-based recognition-memory decisions for novel and previously studied objects from these categories, which were matched in accuracy. Multi-voxel pattern classification revealed category-specific item-recognition memory signals along the long axis of PrC and PhC, with no sharp functional boundaries between these structures. Memory signals for buildings were observed in the mid to posterior extent of PhC, signals for trees in anterior to posterior segments of PhC, and signals for aircraft in mid to posterior aspects of PrC and the anterior extent of PhC. Notably, item-based memory signals for the category with highest landmark suitability ratings were observed only in those posterior segments of PhC that also allowed for classification of landmark suitability of objects when memory status was held constant. These findings provide new evidence in support of the notion that item-based memory signals for objects are not limited to PrC, and that the organization of these signals along the longitudinal axis that crosses PrC and PhC can be captured with reference to landmark suitability. (shrink)

Speakers of English frequently associate location in space with valence, as in moving up and down the “social ladder.” If such an association also holds for the sagittal axis, an object “in front of” another object would be evaluated more positively than the one “behind.” Yet how people conceptualize relative locations depends on which frame of reference (FoR) they adopt—and hence on cross‐linguistically diverging preferences. What is conceptualized as “in front” in one variant of the relative FoR (e.g.,translation) (...) is “behind” under another variant (reflection), and vice versa. Do such diverging conceptualizations of an object's location also lead to diverging evaluations? In two studies employing an implicit association test, we demonstrate, first, that speakers of German, Chinese, and Japanese indeed evaluate the object “in front of” another object more positively than the one “behind.” Second, and crucially, the reversal of which object is conceptualized as “in front” involves a corresponding reversal of valence, suggesting an impact of linguistically imparted FoR preferences on evaluative processes. (shrink)

The central axis of the article is the argument thatHistory and Class Consciousnessadopts from the Hegelian dialectics not only the category of totality but also the master–slave dialectic, although it never refers explicitly to the latter. Hence, in this article, we aim to detect the subtle influence that the Hegelian master–slave dialectic exerts onHistory and Class Consciousnessand, more specifically, on the constitution of the Lukacsian concepts of reification, praxis, working class-bourgeoisie interaction, working-class self-consciousness, autonomous subject. Our approach to the (...) Hegelian master–slave dialectic is mostly – but not only – based on its philosophical–anthropological interpretation by A. Kojeve. Kojeve’s interpretation, by attributing a crucial role to labour in the mastery–slavery dialectic, focuses on that aspect of the Hegelian dialectic which, in our estimation, was determining forHCC.In addition, our approach to the Hegelian master–slave dialectic is based on some occasional references Lukacs has to it inYoung Hegelas well as on his interpretation latent inHistory and Class Consciousness. (shrink)

Evolutionary computation (EC) refers to a family of population-based optimisation algorithms that iteratively modify candidate solutions through selection, variation, and fitness-guided search. EC is often presented as an in silico analogue of natural selection, yet its representational status remains unsettled. This raises not only technical questions but also philosophical concerns about how metaphors mediate our understanding of computation and shape societal imaginaries of AI. We reassess EC by integrating model theory, accounts of emergence, and the philosophy of algorithmicity, and by (...) situating its evolutionary language alongside Artificial Life and the existential risk discourse in AI. We argue that EC is best understood as an algorithmic metaphor and a mediating model: representationally modest yet instrumentally powerful for optimisation. The novelty it produces is task-bounded and exemplifies weak emergence arising from high-dimensional search, deceptive fitness landscapes, and interactions among operators and hyperparameters. Randomness in EC is engineered through seeds, distributions, and stopping criteria, which supports auditability and responsibility while introducing epistemic opacity for explanation and communication. Building on these results, we propose a three-axis framework that maps EC and neighbouring traditions by representational commitment, emergence scope, and randomness governance. The framework yields practical communication guidelines, including explicit boundary statements about what is and is not being modelled, audience signalling for public-facing contexts, reproducibility disclosures, and reframing from “evolution” to “population-based search” where appropriate. In this way, EC contributes methodological insight without overclaiming biological equivalence and supports responsible discourse. At the same time, we show how evolutionary metaphors shape public perceptions of inevitability in AI, underscoring the need for careful boundary-setting in both expert and societal communication. (shrink)

This book is a survey of the most important developments in Austrian philosophy in its classical period from the 1870s to the Anschluss in 1938. Thus it is intended as a contribution to the history of philosophy. But I hope that it will be seen also as a contribution to philosophy in its own right as an attempt to philosophize in the spirit of those, above all Roderick Chisholm, Rudolf Haller, Kevin Mulligan and Peter Simons, who have done so much (...) to demonstrate the continued fertility of the ideas and methods of the Austrian philosophers in our own day. For some time now, historians of philosophy have been gradually coming to terms with the idea that post-Kantian philosophy in the German-speaking world ought properly to be divided into two distinct traditions which we might refer to as the German and Austrian traditions, respectively. The main line of the first consists in a list of personages beginning with Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling and ending with Heidegger, Adorno and Bloch. The main line of the second may be picked out similarly by means of a list beginning with Bolzano, Mach and Meinong, and ending with Wittgenstein, Neurath and Popper. As should be clear, it is the Austrian tradition that has contributed most to the contemporary mainstream of philosophical thinking in the Anglo-Saxon world. For while there are of course German thinkers who have made crucial contributions to the development of exact or analytic philosophy, such thinkers were outsiders when seen from the perspective of native German philosophical culture, and in fact a number of them found their philosophical home precisely in Vienna. When, in contrast, we examine the influence of the Austrian line, we encounter a whole series of familiar and unfamiliar links to the characteristic concerns of more recent philosophy of the analytic sort. As Michael Dummett points out in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, the newly fashionable habit of referring to analytic philosophy as "Anglo-American" is in this light a "grave historical distortion". If, he says, we take into account the historical context in which analytic philosophy developed, then such philosophy "could at least as well be called "Anglo-Austrian" (1988, p. 7). Much valuable scholarly work has been done on the thinking of Husserl and Wittgenstein, Mach and the Vienna Circle. The central axis of Austrian philosophy, however, which as I hope to show in what follows is constituted by the work of Brentano and his school, is still rather poorly understood. Work on Meinong or Twardowski by contemporary philosophers still standardly rests upon simplified and often confused renderings of a few favoured theses taken out of context. Little attention is paid to original sources, and little effort is devoted to establishing what the problems were by which the Austrian philosophers in general were exercised -- in spite of the fact that many of these same problems have once more become important as a result of the contemporary burgeoning of interest on the part of philosophers in problems in the field of cognitive science. (shrink)

The P versus NP problem, formalized by Cook (1971) and designated a Clay Millennium Prize Problem in 2000, asks whether every computational problem whose solution can be verified in polynomial time can also be solved in polynomial time. For fifty-five years the problem has resisted all single-axis formal resolution attempts. Three independently proven barrier results (Baker-Gill-Solovay 1975, Razborov-Rudich 1997, Aaronson-Wigderson 2008) establish that all currently known classes of mathematical proof technique are structurally incapable of settling the question within the (...) formal axis alone. This paper presents a unified geometric determination of both P = NP and P ≠ NP using the Trisduction Engine, a P-class verification architecture operating across three orthogonal warrant-vectors: Formal-Structural (V_F), Empirical-Thermodynamic (V_E), and Epistemic-Registrational (V_ER). The determination runs the three-state native verdict economy {[⟀] Sealed, [X] Broken Geometry, [?] Numerical Inadmissibility}. V_F-only ceilings such as the Turing-domain question route to the V_F-Only Ceiling Acknowledgment Register out-of-band by bypass-at-layer-difference, not as a cascade verdict state. The Meta-Epistemic Hierarchy (Geometry > Mathematics > Logic) and Rule 9 Axiomatic Quarantine remove the Turing Machine abstraction from the framework's admissible physical baseline and replace it with the Tri-Layer Plenum topology. The two audits are presented as a single master document so the asymmetry between the claims is structurally transparent. Both run under one fixed protocol applied without modification, so the asymmetry in the verdicts is a product of the evidence structure rather than the method. P = NP carries zero positive warrant across all three axes and is stopped at Gate 2 with a positive structural diagnosis: it asserts a zero-energy, zero-transition equivalence between two operations the architecture places on opposite sides of the actualization boundary, which is a dimensional failure under the Mass Mandate before any witness is sought. P ≠ NP passes all twelve gates with three fully independent, orthogonal warrant-vectors that survive the Linguistic Isolation Test, the Deletion Test, the conclusion-dependency audit, and the Convergence Dissolution Test. The determination is explicitly non-deductive. It does not constitute a traditional mathematical proof and does not satisfy the Clay Mathematics Institute's criteria. The Geometric Orthogonal Lock [⟀] is defined as the strongest achievable non-deductive epistemic warrant relative to the recognized vulnerability taxonomy: the geometric fact that, within that taxonomy, three orthogonal planes exhaust the degrees of freedom in the warrant-space that the taxonomy can articulate, leaving no recognized coordinate for the alternative claim to occupy. The qualifier is load-bearing and is carried consistently: the lock is strongest relative to the current taxonomy, and the taxonomy is open and extensible, so the claim is conditional on that taxonomy rather than absolute, and a newly identified vulnerability class re-enters the cascade rather than being precluded by fiat. The empirical leg is anchored on the per-crossing transition-energy floor, and the warrant is typed at the precise grade it earns. Driving a frustrated configuration across one energy barrier to a distinguishable state is a physical transition bounded below in energy-time by the Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin quantum speed limits in the quantum regime and by Arrhenius escape time in the classical regime. This per-crossing floor is theorem-grade for the single transition, binds reversible and irreversible traversal identically, and makes no claim about the energy of the resulting state, since distinguishable states may be isoenergetic. The aggregate exponential cost of traversing an exponentially-barriered landscape is established by conjoining the per-crossing floor with the formal closure that no polynomial-resource reparametrization collapses the barrier count, and is therefore typed openly as a joint V_E-plus-V_F result rather than a standalone thermodynamic theorem. The empirical leg is operationalized through three falsifiable predictions resting on three disjoint instrument families: micro-calorimetry of physical solvers, power telemetry of synthetic substrates, and neuroimaging of biological substrates. Each prediction carries a stated method, expected outcome, and null hypothesis, and each is testable by decentralized laboratories using orthogonal measurement modalities. The V_ER leg is anchored on the conviction-capacity gap of the statistical (perfect) zero-knowledge proof, an observer-state registration fact whose information-theoretic guarantee holds against an unbounded prover and verifier and therefore invokes no one-way-function assumption and no presupposition of the separation it registers. This re-anchoring closes the circularity a critic would raise against a computational-zero-knowledge anchor: the registrational fact no longer presupposes the very separation it is cited to support. The gap is instantiated on problems lying in SZK and in NP without being NP-complete, so that the containment of SZK in AM ∩ coAM is honored and no polynomial-hierarchy collapse is implied; it is read as a lower-bound witness for the verification-generation asymmetry rather than as a claim that NP-complete problems admit such proofs. The V_ER content survives the Linguistic Isolation Test against V_F and V_E vocabulary, the Deletion Test, and the conclusion-dependency audit. The certifying architecture's own operational asymmetry is not cited as warrant at any weight: its referent is the Engine itself, so Gate 1 routes it at the input gate, and the axis is single-anchored on the external zero-knowledge fact with no self-referential content carried. The seal rests on external mathematics and falsifiable physical prediction; the framework's broader ontology is corroborative resonance, not ground, and the certifying architecture's own operation is excluded from the warrant set by Gate 1 rather than carried at reduced weight. The Convergence Dissolution Test finds irreducible residue in all three vectors under the strongest single-factor account, and survives explicit subtraction of the named mass-bearing covariates a critic would introduce to dissolve the asymmetry. The monism premise underwriting the cross-axis bridge is carried as premise-grade at the bridge itself, not silently load-bearing under a theorem-grade seal. The cosmogonic resonance is carried as a one-directional corroborative annotation, not as a derivation. (shrink)

This paper analyses the connection between Nietzsche’s early employment of the genealogical method and contemporary neo-pragmatism. The paper has two goals. On the one hand, by viewing Nietzsche’s writings in the light of neo-pragmatist ideas and reconstructing his approach to justice as a pragmatic genealogy, it seeks to bring out an under-appreciated aspect of his genealogical method which illustrates how genealogy can be used to vindicate rather than to subvert, and accounts for Nietzsche’s lack of historical references. On the other (...) hand, by highlighting what Nietzsche has to offer neo-pragmatism, it seeks to contribute to neo-pragmatism’s conception of genealogy. The paper argues that Nietzsche and the neo-pragmatists share a naturalistic concern and a pragmatist strategy in responding to it. The paper then shows that Nietzsche avoids a reductive form of functionalism by introducing a temporal axis, but that this axis should be understood as a developmental model rather than as historical time. This explains Nietzsche’s failure to engage with history. The paper concludes that pragmatic genealogy can claim a genuinely Nietzschean pedigree. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for explaining the subjective character of pain experience in terms of what we will call ‘embodied predictive processing’. The predictive processing (PP) theory is a family of views that take perception, action, emotion and cognition to all work together in the service of prediction error minimisation. In this paper we propose an embodied perspective on the PP theory we call the ‘embodied predictive processing (EPP) theory. The EPP theory proposes to explain pain (...) in terms of processes distributed across the whole body. The prediction error minimising system that generates pain experience comprises the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic system in continuous causal interaction with pathways spread across the whole neural axis. We will argue that these systems function in a coordinated and coherent manner as a single complex adaptive system to maintain homeostasis. This system, which we refer to as the neural-endocrine-immune (NEI) system, maintains homeostasis through the process of prediction error minimisation. We go on to propose a view of the NEI ensemble as a multiscale nesting of Markov blankets that integrates the smallest scale of the cell to the largest scale of the embodied person in pain. We set out to show how the EPP theory can make sense of how pain experience could be neurobiologically constituted. We take it to be a constraint on the adequacy of a scientific explanation of subjectivity of pain experience that it makes it intelligible how pain can simultaneously be a local sensing of the body, and, at the same time, a more global, all-encompassing attitude towards the environment. Our aim in what follows is to show how the EPP theory can meet this constraint. (shrink)

There is growing support for the view that social categories like men and women refer to “objective types” (Haslanger 2000, 2006, 2012; Alcoff 2005). An objective type is a similarity class for which the axis of similarity is an objective rather than nominal or fictional property. Such types are independently real and causally relevant, yet their unity does not derive from an essential property. Given this tandem of features, it is not surprising why empirically-minded researchers interested in fighting oppression (...) and marginalization have found this ontological category so attractive: objective types have the ontological credentials to secure the reality (and thus political representation) of social categories, and yet they do not impose exclusionary essences that also naturalize and legitimize social inequalities. This essay argues that, from the perspective of these political goals of fighting oppression and marginalization, the category of objective types is in fact a Trojan horse; it looks like a gift, but it ends up creating trouble. I argue that objective type classifications often lack empirical adequacy, and as a result they lack political adequacy. I also provide, and in reference to the normative goals described above, several arguments for preferring a social ontology of natural kinds with historical essences. (shrink)

In her recent paper ‘The Epistemology of Propaganda’ Rachel McKinnon discusses what she refers to as ‘TERF propaganda’. We take issue with three points in her paper. The first is her rejection of the claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur. The second is the examples she presents as commitments of so-called ‘TERFs’, in order to establish that radical (and gender critical) feminists rely on a flawed ideology. The third is her claim that standpoint epistemology can be used to establish (...) that such feminists are wrong to worry about a threat of male violence in relation to trans women. In Section 1 we argue that ‘TERF’ is not a merely descriptive term; that to the extent that McKinnon offers considerations in support of the claim that ‘TERF’ is not a slur, these considerations fail; and that ‘TERF’ is a slur according to several prominent accounts in the contemporary literature. In Section 2, we argue that McKinnon misrepresents the position of gender critical feminists, and in doing so fails to establish the claim that the ideology behind these positions is flawed. In Section 3 we argue that McKinnon’s criticism of Stanley fails, and one implication of this is that those she characterizes as ‘positively privileged’ cannot rely on the standpoint-relative knowledge of those she characterizes as ‘negatively privileged’. We also emphasize in this section McKinnon’s failure to understand and account for multiple axes of oppression, of which the cis/trans axis is only one. (shrink)

Intersectionality is a term that arose within the black feminist intellectual tradition for the purposes of identifying interlocking systems of oppression. As a descriptive term, it refers to the ways human identity is shaped by multiple social vectors and overlapping identity categories (such as sex, race, class) that may not be readily visible in single-axis formulations of identity, but which are taken to be integral to robustly capture the multifaceted nature of human experience. As a diagnostic term, it captures (...) the confluence of power and domination on the social construction of identity in order to remedy concrete harms that result from this convergence. It is not a prescriptive methodology or closed system of analysis, but rather an open-ended hermeneutic lens through which interconnected systems of oppression can come into focus in the fight for social justice. (shrink)

This paper defends the Trisduction verification methodology against the strongest form of the Bayesian aggregation objection. The methodology adds an architecture-certification layer to probabilistic inference. The argument proceeds in three structural layers. First, the operational-type distinction. Bayesian apparatus produces credence, a continuous probability that gives directional information about a hypothesis given assumed model structure. The Trisduction verification engine produces the Geometric Orthogonal Lock, a discrete architecture-state verdict on whether the evidence architecture is structurally non-degenerate. The two methods occupy structurally distinct (...) layers of the epistemological hierarchy. The verification engine operates at the architecture-certification layer that grounds whether credence-computation can proceed on trustworthy inputs. Second, the historical excavation of unresolved foundational issues in Bayesian probability. These issues begin in the founder's own 1763 paper with the contested Bayes-Price scholium. They persist through Laplace's general formulation, Jeffreys's reference priors, Cox's axiomatic foundations, the Ramsey-de Finetti-Savage Dutch book grounding, Hájek's reference class problem, the unresolved subjective-versus-objective fracture, the computational complexity hole, and the structural absence of architecture-certification operations across all 263 years of Bayesian development. Each issue is named and located at the architectural register where the present analysis identifies the completion-gap. Third, the universal-supersession claim under operational-existence definitional closure. Whatever exists carries thermodynamic mass per the Root Axiom. Whatever carries thermodynamic mass falls within the methodology's verification scope. Whatever lacks thermodynamic mass is operationally null. The supersession claim is qualified by the Engine-versus-Source typing discipline. The verification engine is one valid instantiation of access to the structural-geometric configuration that verification has when verification reaches completion. The configuration exists in the underlying mathematical-structural order independently of any specific instrument that reads it. Other methodologies achieving completeness instantiate the same configuration through different vocabulary. The methodology's self-characterization at the bounded scope it claims is Exhaustive Structural Auditor of Manifested Mechanisms, not Ultimate Arbiter of Truth. Bayesian methodology, audited against fifteen structural invariants the paper derives, scores zero of fifteen on full presence and is contained as the formal-axis projection under credence-aggregation discipline. The foundational anchoring is the bare Root Axiom under dual internal-and-external grounding. Internal: a twelve-gate structural cascade specified below. External: anchoring through five independent measurement instruments grounded in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Landauer thermodynamic bound, Zermelo-Fraenkel-Choice set-theoretic distinguishability, Hadamard-regularized smeared field variance, and Friedrichs-Hodge decomposition. The Heaviside step on the Gram determinant of the residue under Convergence Dissolution Test projection produces a discrete three-state verdict: sealed, broken, or under-determined. Adjacent to this cascade, the methodology operates two out-of-band annotation registers. The first acknowledges formal-axis theorem-grade ceilings (Gödel-class undecidability, Turing-class halting undecidability, Tarski-class undefinability, and a Bayesian-credence-circularity that the present analysis derives) at the layer where they are trapped, without importing them as cascade verdicts. The second acknowledges practitioner-interior phenomenology and trans-spatial structural content at a cosmological-architectural layer where the cascade does not adjudicate by structural commitment. Only the verification engine produces complete epistemic certainty at the architecture-certification register. Continuous credence is structurally incomplete by a precise geometric criterion the paper proves. (shrink)

Chinese traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have a profoundly philosophical dimension. The three traditions are frequently referred to as three paths of moral teachings. In this book, Mou provides a clear account of the textual corpus that emerges to define each of these traditions and how this canonical axis was augmented by a continuing commentarial tradition as each generation reauthorized the written core for their own time and place. In his careful exegesis, Mou lays out the differences between (...) the more religious reading of these traditions with their defining practices that punctuate the human journey through life, and the more intellectual and philosophical treatment of the texts that has and continues to produce a first-order culture of annotation that become integral to the traditions themselves. At the center of the alternative religious experience reflected throughout the teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism is the project of personal cultivation as it comes to be expressed as robust growth in family and communal relations. For Mou, these three highly distinctive and yet complementary ways of thinking and living constitute a kind of moral ecology, wherein each of them complements the others as they stand in service to a different dimension of the human need for an educated spirituality. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for explaining the subjective character of pain experience in terms of what we will call ‘embodied predictive processing’. The predictive processing (PP) theory is a family of views that take perception, action, emotion and cognition to all work together in the service of prediction error minimisation. In this paper we propose an embodied perspective on the PP theory we call the ‘embodied predictive processing (EPP) theory. The EPP theory proposes to explain pain (...) in terms of processes distributed across the whole body. The prediction error minimising system that generates pain experience comprises the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic system in continuous causal interaction with pathways spread across the whole neural axis. We will argue that these systems function in a coordinated and coherent manner as a single complex adaptive system to maintain homeostasis. This system, which we refer to as the neural-endocrine-immune (NEI) system, maintains homeostasis through the process of prediction error minimisation. We go on to propose a view of the NEI ensemble as a multiscale nesting of Markov blankets that integrates the smallest scale of the cell to the largest scale of the embodied person in pain. We set out to show how the EPP theory can make sense of how pain experience could be neurobiologically constituted. We take it to be a constraint on the adequacy of a scientific explanation of subjectivity of pain experience that it makes it intelligible how pain can simultaneously be a local sensing of the body, and, at the same time, a more global, all-encompassing attitude towards the environment. Our aim in what follows is to show how the EPP theory can meet this constraint. (shrink)

Sigils are among the most familiar objects in magical literature, yet they are among the least clearly defined. They appear as spirit seals in Western grimoires, as intention-marks in modern chaos magic, as elemental signs in Franz Bardon's hermetic system, as vévé in Haitian Vodou, and as deity-related diagrams in tantric and contemplative traditions. Despite this ubiquity, no systematic cross-traditional framework for analysing them has previously been proposed. This paper offers the first such framework. The central argument is that existing (...) definitions of the sigil, as seal, spirit signature, or symbolic representation of desire, are historically useful but analytically incomplete. They describe what a sigil looks like or represents, but not what makes it operative. The paper proposes a narrower and more functional definition: a sigil is a charged graphic operator, a visible mark formed and activated to condense or express a relation between a practitioner and an invisible referent. A sigil is not made operative by graphic form alone. It becomes a sigil through charge: the condensation of intention, desire, will, imagination, attention, and character into the mark. A six-axis taxonomy is developed covering origin, morphology, function, the sigil-referent relationship, activation, and charge. The fourth axis, the sigil-referent relationship, is argued to be the most philosophically significant dimension for cross-traditional comparison. It asks whether the connection between mark and referent is arbitrary and conventional, iconic, indexical, or participatory. The distinction between arbitrary and participatory is shown to correspond to the classical magical distinction between evocation, calling an external presence into the ritual space, and invocation, inviting a force or quality to inhabit the practitioner directly. It is at the participatory-invocatory end of this axis that the sigil connects to the phenomenology of the ultra-subjective hyperspace: the intense inner field of consciousness in which the boundary between practitioner, mark, and referent begins to dissolve and altered reality opens. The sixth axis, charge, explains why graphic form alone is never sufficient. Two identical marks may differ entirely in operative force depending on the quality of the inner state condensed into them. At its fullest charge the sigil stops being a graphic object and becomes an operative event: not a representation of a relation but the living relation itself, enacted in the field of the practitioner's altered state of consciousness. The taxonomy is applied comparatively to seven sigil examples drawn from six traditions spanning five centuries: Bardon's gestural fire elemental sigils, Bardon's planetary composite diagram Aschmunadai, the seal of Demoriel from the Theurgia Goetia, the Seal of Solomon from the 15th century Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, the Thjófastafur or thief's stave from the Icelandic Galdrabok, Crowley's Liber Arcanorum and Liber Carcerorum grids, and the Second Gate of Nebo from the Simon Necronomicon. Each example receives a full six-axis profile demonstrating that the taxonomy produces meaningfully different results across traditions without collapsing them into sameness. (shrink)

The history of biological systematics documents a continuing tension between classifications in terms of nested hierarchies congruent with branching diagrams (the ‘Tree of Life’) versus reticulated relations. The recognition of conflicting character distribution led to the dissolution of the scala naturae into reticulated systems, which were then transformed into phylogenetic trees by the addition of a vertical axis. The cladistic revolution in systematics resulted in a representation of phylogeny as a strictly bifurcating pattern (cladogram). Due to the ubiquity of (...) character conflict—at the genetic or morphological level, or at any level in between—some characters will necessarily have to be discarded ( qua noise) in favor of others in support of a strictly bifurcating phylogenetic tree. Pattern analysts will seek maximal congruence in the distribution of characters (ultimately of any kind) relative to a branching tree-topology; process explainers will call such tree-topologies into question by reference to incompatible evolutionary processes. Pattern analysts will argue that process explanations must not be brought to bear on pattern reconstruction; process explainers will insist that the reconstructed pattern requires a process explanation to become scientifically relevant, i.e., relevant to evolutionary theory. The core question driving the current debate about the adequacy of the ‘Tree of Life’ metaphor seems to be whether the systematic dichotomization of the living world is an adequate representation of the complex evolutionary history of global biodiversity. In ‘Questioning the Tree of Life’, it seems beneficial to draw at least four conceptual distinctions: pattern reconstruction versus process explanation as different epistemological approaches to the study of phylogeny; open versus closed systems as expressions of different kinds of population (species) structures; phylogenetic trees versus cladograms as representations of evolutionary processes versus patterns of relationships; and genes versus species as expressions of different levels of causal integration and evolutionary transformation. (shrink)

The advent of quantum computing will compromise current asymmetric cryptography. Awaiting this moment, global superpowers are routinely collecting and storing encrypted data, so as to later decrypt it once sufficiently strong quantum computers are in place. We argue that this situation gives rise to a new mode of global surveillance that we refer to as a _quantum panopticon._ Unlike traditional forms of panoptic surveillance, the quantum panopticon introduces a _temporal axis_, whereby data subjects’ future pasts can be monitored from an (...) unknown “superposition” in the quantum future_._ It also introduces a new level of _uncertainty,_ in that the future watchman’s very existence becomes a function of data subjects’ efforts to protect themselves from being monitored in the present. Encryption may work as a momentary protection, but increases the likelihood of long-term preservation for future decryption, because encrypted data is stored longer than plaintext data. To illustrate the political and ethical aspects of these features, we draw on cryptographic as well as theoretical surveillance literature and call for urgent consideration of the wider implications of quantum computing for the global surveillance landscape. (shrink)

People can represent temporal stimuli (e.g., pictures depicting past and future events) as spatially connoted dimensions arranged along the three main axes (horizontal, sagittal, and vertical). For example, past and future events are generally represented, from the perspective of the individuals, as being placed behind and in front of them, respectively. Here, we report that such a 3D representation can also emerge for facial stimuli of different ages. In three experiments, participants classified a central target face, representing an individual at (...) different age stages, as younger or older than the reference face of 40 years. Manual responses were provided with two keys placed along the horizontal axis (Experiment 1), the sagittal axis (Experiment 2), and the vertical axis (Experiment 3). The results indicated that the younger faces were represented on the left/back/top side of the space, whereas the older faces were represented on the right/forward/bottom side of the space. Furthermore, in all experiments, the latencies decreased with the absolute difference between the age of the target face and that of the reference face (i.e., a distance effect). Overall, this work suggests that the spatial representation of time includes social features of the human face. (shrink)

The advent of quantum computing will compromise current asymmetric cryptography. Awaiting this moment, global superpowers are routinely collecting and storing encrypted data, so as to later decrypt it once sufficiently strong quantum computers are in place. We argue that this situation gives rise to a new mode of global surveillance that we refer to as a quantum panopticon. Unlike traditional forms of panoptic surveillance, the quantum panopticon introduces a temporal axis, whereby data subjects’ future pasts can be monitored from (...) an unknown “superposition” in the quantum future. It also introduces a new level of uncertainty, in that the future watchman’s very existence becomes a function of data subjects’ efforts to protect themselves from being monitored in the present. Encryption may work as a momentary protection, but increases the likelihood of long-term preservation for future decryption, because encrypted data is stored longer than plaintext data. To illustrate the political and ethical aspects of these features, we draw on cryptographic as well as theoretical surveillance literature and call for urgent consideration of the wider implications of quantum computing for the global surveillance landscape. (shrink)

Four structures of the Trisduction architecture are gathered into one self-grounding chain and proven to one discipline: the actuation floor RA, the triaxial count, the sufficient lock, and the twelve-gate roster. The chain is a single self-similar object, a floor that grounds itself four ways, verifies itself by its own cascade, and returns as a smaller posterior copy that grounds again. Beneath the architecture sits its pure-algebra completion. The architecture carries three seals under an explicit independence law, linguistic, geometric, and (...) mathematical, each forbidden to stand on the others' instruments. This paper closes the mathematical seal alone, with the linguistic and geometric instrument sets removed entirely and demoted to corroboration. An Order-Sensitivity Completion theorem shows that non-commutativity of audit composition alone forces the quaternions by the Frobenius classification, fixing exactly three orthogonal axes over one scalar ground and demoting the axis-plurality floor from premise to corollary, so the premise ledger shrinks by one. The twelve-gate roster is recovered three ways inside the integers of the quaternions and corroborated twice from geometry. The truth function stands in closed form, det(R) equals the squared scalar part of the composed triad, with derived bounds that retire the classical composition inequalities from the warrant set, a Weyl-closed invariant catalog, conjugation frame-invariance, explicit precedence, and the Return Law. The reflective register is then run, not asserted: the foundational reflection splits each claim into a decidable bridge and a located residence, the orientation-blindness theorem is executed at machine precision with the discarded sign conserved as a made-zero, and the imprint test separates a genuine determination from a Platonic Ghost. The falsifiable core is two reference batteries totaling twenty-five recorded checks, identity residues at machine precision and parameter-free integer counts, twenty-four, twelve and twelve, and the class equation 1, 3, 4, 4, with seven falsifier clauses stating the exact null results that break each claim. Each link is theorem-grade on grounded premise; the union of the four pillars into one chain is the structural road, named structural and never a new theorem. The word counts three, the geometry closes four, and the algebra is the receipt. (shrink)

This paper presents an annotated visual survey of nineteen sigils, seals, characters, and related magical graphic operators drawn from the Western esoteric tradition, spanning five centuries of continuous practice from the Renaissance compilations of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) to the popular grimoire tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries and its modern extensions. The survey serves as empirical complement to the companion paper ‘Toward a Taxonomy of Sigils’ (Keppel Hesselink, 2026), applying that paper's six-axis analytical framework, covering origin type, (...) morphology, function, sigil-referent relationship, activation, and charge, to a representative selection of primary source material drawn from public domain collections. Sources include Agrippa, Paracelsus, Trithemius, the Arbatel, the Grimoire of Honorius, the Clavis Inferni, the Petit Albert, the Verus Jesuitarum Libellus, Lévi, Papus, Vintras, Le Vasseur, and the Gauntlet manuscript, among others. The collection is organised chronologically and concludes with a classification table applying four axes to all nineteen entries and a summary identifying cross-traditional patterns in origin, morphology, function, and sigil-referent relationship. Two entries occupy explicit boundary positions that the taxonomy must address directly. The Trithemius cipher alphabet from the Polygraphia of 1518 is not a sigil under the working definition but a sigil-generative script: a complete graphic substitution system whose individual elements become operative only when combined to render a spirit name or divine formula. It marks the lower boundary of the sigil category, the point where grammar ends and operative mark begins. The serpent woodcut from the Black Letter Edition of the Necronomicon marks a different boundary: it is a fictive-archival mark, a modern fabrication embedded within a fully constructed historical provenance apparatus designed to pass as genuine transmission. Its inclusion forces the taxonomy's most fundamental question about the nature of operative charge: whether charge inheres in historical transmission as such, or in sincere practitioner engagement, whatever the origin of the mark. -/- A central finding of the survey emerges from the Le Vasseur entry. The paired tables in Le Vasseur's 1910 French edition of Agrippa's fourth book classify the graphic primitives of good spirits and evil genii along precisely the axis the present taxonomy employs under the heading of morphology: good spirits are represented through abstract geometric forms, while evil genii are represented through natural, bodily, elemental, and animal-like forms. This demonstrates that the morphology axis is not a modern analytical imposition on the material but a principle the Western sigil tradition encoded in its own graphic practice. The tradition contains its own implicit morphology of the invisible, and the present survey makes that morphology visible for the first time as a sustained analytical argument. (shrink)

This essay presents a point of view for looking at `free will', with the purpose of interpreting where exactly the freedom lies. For, freedom is what we mean by it. It compares the exercise of free will with the making of inferences, which usually is predominantly inductive in nature. The making of inference and the exercise of free will, both draw upon psychological resources that define our ‘selves’. I examine the constitution of the self of an individual, especially the involvement (...) of personal beliefs, personal memories, affects, emotions, and the hugely important psychological value-system, all of which distinguish the self of one individual from that of another. The foundational position that adopted in this essay is that all psychological processes are correlated with corresponding ones involving large scale neural aggregates in the brain, communicating with one another through wavelike modes of excitation and de-excitation. Of central relevance is the value-network around which the affect system is organized, the latter, in turn, being the axis around which is assembled the self, with all its emotional correlates. The self is a complex system. I include a brief outline of what complexity consists of. In reality all systems are complex, for complexity is ubiquitous, and certain parts of nature appear to us to be ‘simple’ only in certain specific contexts. It is in this background that the issue of determinism is viewed in this essay. Instead of looking at determinism as a grand principle entrenched in nature independent of our interpretation of it, I look at our ability to explain and to predict events and phenomena around us, which is made possible by the existence of causal links running in a complex course that set up correlations between diverse parts of nature, in this way putting the stamp of necessity on these events. However, the complexity of systems limits our ability to explain and to predict to within certain horizons defined by contexts. Our ability to explain and predict in matters relating to acts of free will is similarly limited by the operations of the self that remain hidden from our own awareness. The aspects of necessity and determinism appear to us in the form of reason and rationality that explain and predict only within a limited horizon, while the rest depends on the complex operation of self-linked psychological resources, where the latter appear as contingent in the context of the exercise of free will. The hallmark of complex systems is the existence of amplifying factors that operate as destabilizing ones, along with inhibiting or stabilizing factors as well that generally limit the destabilizing influences to local occurrences, while preserving the global integrity of a system. This complex interplay of destabilizing and stabilizing influences lead to the possibility of an enormous number of distinct modes of behavior that appear as emergent phenomena in complex systems. Looking at the particular case of the self of an individual that guide her actions and thoughts, it is the operation of our emotions, built around the psychological value-system, that provide for the amplifying and inhibiting factors mentioned above. The operation of these self-linked factors stamps our actions and thoughts as contingent ones that do not fit with our concepts of reason and rationality. And this is what provides the basis of our idea of free will. Free will is not ‘free’ in virtue of exemption from causal links running through all our self-based processes - ones that remain hidden from our awareness, but is free of what is perceived to be ‘reason and rationality’ based on knowledge and the common pool of beliefs and principles associated with a shared world-view. When we speak of the choice involved in an act of exercise of free will what we actually refer to is the commonly observed fact that various different individuals of a similar disposition respond differently when placed under similar circumstances. In other words, free will is ‘free’ precisely because it is not subject to constraints of a commonly accepted and shared set of principles, beliefs, and values. While it is possible that, in an exercise of free will, the self-linked psychological resources are brought into action when a number of alternatives are presented to the self by the operation of the ingredients of a commonly shared world-view, it seems likely that, that set of alternatives is not of primary relevance in the final response that the mind produces, since the latter is primarily a product of the operation of the self-based psychological resources. What is of greater relevance here is the operation of emotion-driven processes, guided by the psychological value-system based on the activity of the so-called reward-punishment network in the brain. These processes lead the individual to a response that appears to be free from the shackles of determinism precisely because their mechanisms, which are hidden from us, do not conform to commonly accepted and shared rules and principles. In contrast, inductive inference is a process that is based on the ‘cognitive face’ of self, where the self-based psychological resources play a supportive role to the commonly shared world-view of an individual. There is never any freedom from the all-pervading causal links representing correlations among all objects, entities, and events in nature. In the midst of all this, the closest thing to freedom that we can have in our life comes with self-examination and self-improvement. The possibility of self-examination appears in the form of specific conjunctions between our complex self-processes and the ceaseless changes of scenario in our external world. This actually makes the emergent phenomenon of self-examination a matter of chance, but one that keeps on appearing again and again in our life. Once realized, self examination creates possibilities that would not be there in the absence of it, and these possibilities include the enhancement of further self-enrichment and further diversity in the exercise of our free will. (shrink)

This paper presents the complete methodology and empirical evaluation of the MUja framework, a dimensionless comparative index for dissipative processes defined as: MUja = (F·d)/(m·E) · m₀ · (ΔS/k_B) where F is force, d displacement, m mass, E energy, ΔS entropy change, m₀ a reference mass, and k_B Boltzmann’s constant. The framework replaces conventional time with a cycle count N, where N counts periods of a reference periodic process. The methodology is demonstrated on two physically distinct dissipative systems: (...) Damped harmonic oscillator – reconstructed from published fitted parameters (Sebastião 2014). The oscillator parameters are: m = 0.10219 kg, K = 10.392 N·m⁻¹, λ = 0.13878 s⁻¹. The amplitude decay A(t) = (Zt₀ - Z∞)exp(-λt) + Z∞ is used to compute dissipated energy per cycle ΔE_diss = π b ω A² and MUja = (m₀/m)·(π b ω A²)/(k_B T). The reconstructed MUja evolution follows MUja(N) ∝ exp(-0.173N), with a dimensionless decay constant of 0.173 cycle⁻¹. Note: these numerical values are derived from the fitted model and are illustrative, not direct experimental measurements. GRACE FO 1 satellite (NORAD 43476) under atmospheric drag – using 2680 orbital records from 30 November 2023 to 31 May 2026 (912.42 days). The semi major axis altitude decreased from 483.379 km to 451.615 km (total loss 31.764 km), corresponding to a total orbital energy loss ΔE_total = 5.836 × 10⁷ J. Over 14,034 orbital revolutions, the mean dissipated energy per orbit is 4.158 × 10³ J, yielding a mean MUja of 6.972 × 10²⁰. The full MUja distribution (n = 2608 valid adjacent intervals) gives: mean = 7.126 × 10²⁰, median = 6.421 × 10²⁰, standard deviation = 3.558 × 10²⁰, 95% bootstrap CI = [7.00 × 10²⁰, 7.29 × 10²⁰], skewness = 2.425, indicating a right tailed distribution consistent with episodic atmospheric disturbances (e.g., geomagnetic storms). The oscillator analysis is a proof of concept consistency test based on a fitted model. The satellite analysis uses real orbital observations and demonstrates operational feasibility. The framework does not claim new physical laws; it provides a dimensionless, cycle based language for comparing dissipative processes across vastly different scales. Limitations include the reliance on fitted parameters for the oscillator, the assumed constant thermospheric temperature (T = 1000 K) for the satellite, and the exclusion of conservative systems, massless particles, and relativistic effects. (shrink)

The study of plant signaling and behaviour, whose aim is to address the physiological basis for adaptive behaviour in plants, is a growing and thought-provoking field of research. In this review we discuss relevant studies that try to interpret in a neurocognitive fashion cases in which plants seem to behave similarly to animals. By comparing observations and experiments about plants and animals, we propose a framework composed of three axes in which interactions of living organisms with the world can be (...) represented. The first axis refers to adaptiveness, the second to sensitivity, and the third to sentience. This model allows us to interpret the behaviours of living organisms along a continuum capable of giving a smooth transition from simple to complex responses. In light of this, plants show an excellent adaptiveness, a variable level of sensitivity, and a good degree of sentience (restricted to the immediate perception that something is happening to themselves). Only the organisms with a high degree of sentience can have the basis for developing consciousness. However, even though it is necessary for consciousness, sentience is not sufficient, as it must be associated with a complex functional organization of structures that can support a recursive and synchronized processing of information. So far, plants have been found to completely lack this type of organization. Plants appear to be, therefore, sentient but not conscious. (shrink)

Speakers perform manual gestures in the physical space nearest them, called gesture space. We used a controlled elicitation task to explore whether speakers use gesture space in a consistent way and whether they use space in a contrastive way when talking about abstract referents. Participants answered two questions designed to elicit contrastive, abstract discourse. We investigated manual gesture behavior. Gesture hand, location on the horizontal axis, and referent in corresponding speech were coded. We also coded contrast in speech. Participants’ (...) overall tendency to use the same hand = 13.12, p =.001, 95% CI [.31,.43], d = 2.53) and same location = 7.47, p =.001, 95% CI [.27,.47], d = 1.69) when referring to an entity was higher than expected frequency. When comparing pairs of gestures produced with contrastive speech to pairs of gestures produced with non-contrastive speech, we found a greater tendency to produce gestures with different hands for contrastive speech: = 4.19, p =.001, 95% CI [.27,.82], d = 1.42). We did not find associations between dominant side and positive concepts or between left, center, and right space and past, present, and future, respectively, as predicted by previous studies. Taken together, our findings suggest that speakers do produce spatially consistent and contrastive gestures for abstract as well as concrete referents. They may be using spatial resources to assist with abstract thinking, and/or to help interlocutors with reference tracking. Our findings also highlight the complexity of predicting gesture hand and location, which appears to be the outcome of many competing variables. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.2 (2000) 3-24 [Access article in PDF] Agamben's Potential Leland Deladurantaye Giorgio Agamben. Potentialities: Collected Essays In Philosophy. Ed., trans., and intro. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1999. [P] It is only after a long and arduous frequenting of names, definitions, and facts that the spark is lit in the soul which, in enflaming it, marks the passage from passion to accomplishment.--Giorgio Agamben, The Idea of ProseIn (...) a preface written for the French translation of his Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience, Giorgio Agamben states that"every written work can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so, because later works, which in turn will be the prologues or the moulds for other absent works, represent only sketches or death masks." 1 This remark, which describes every work of art as a preface, does not simply refer to the impossibility of translating the all of life into a single work. Nor does it simply refer to those purely empirical obstacles which stand in the way of creation, preventing the work of art from attaining the plenitude it might have hoped for had not greedy wine-merchants, harrying tailors, and eloquent panderers distracted the Great Minds from their tasks. Instead, in returning every work of art to its originary hesitation, in evoking the oscillation between work and draft, effort and accomplishment, Agamben invokes a much richer and darker potentiality lying at the heart of the work. It is this richer and darker potentiality that constitutes the central concern of Agamben's thought and that gives its name to this collection. Yet what is named in this potentiality? What is the nature of the potentiality of which Agamben speaks? What is this potentiality the potential for?Before advancing in the investigation of this question, let us look briefly at what is gathered together under its name. In this collection of essays by a thinker of unquestionable brilliance one finds a number of axes. The first of these is that of chronology: the essays presented in this volume stretch from 1975 to 1996 and thus cover the period during which works such as Stanzas, Infancy and History, The Idea of Prose, and The Coming Community were prepared and published. The second axis--the one that dictates the ordering of the texts found in this volume and which is the choice of the editor and not the author--is a thematic one: the book is divided into four sections entitled respectively, "Language," "History," "Potentiality," and "Contingency." 2 One notes the presence of other, more fugitive axes such as those which can be found in connections between different essays in the collection (as in the case of the remark from a late Byzantine lexicon cited in the closing paragraphs of the first essay, which receives a magisterial, thirty-page gloss in the last, richest essay in the collection) and between the essays gathered together in this volume and Agamben's other written works (the question [End Page 3] of the genealogy of the sacred, which lies at the heart of Agamben's most recent works, is evoked here in the closing lines of the eighth essay in this collection; the question of a philosophy of life as the coming philosophy in the chronologically final essay in this volume [chapter 14] thus announces Agamben's more recent studies on the politico-philosophical concept of life). These last two axes confront the reader with all the more urgency, as no major thinker since Walter Benjamin has occupied himself with such a tensely, densely interconnected constellation of concerns at the heart of such seeming diversity of subject. At the hub of these axes, which accelerate and blur in the reading of the work, lies the animating, abiding concern of Agamben's thought: potentiality. The Potentiality of Language, or Matter 1.1 This preface with which we began, and which finds itself near the chronological midpoint of the essays gathered together in this volume, contains a singular profession de foi. After suggesting that, "if for every author there exists a... (shrink)

Few metaphors in biology are more enduring than the idea of Adaptive Landscapes, originally proposed by Sewall Wright (1932) as a way to visually present to an audience of typically non- mathematically savvy biologists his ideas about the relative role of natural selection and genetic drift in the course of evolution. The metaphor, how- ever, was born troubled, not the least reason for which is the fact that Wright presented different diagrams in his original paper that simply can- not refer (...) to the same concept and are therefore hard to reconcile with each other (Pigliucci 2008). For instance, in some usages, the landscape’s non- fitness axes represent combinations of individual genotypes (which cannot sensibly be aligned on a linear axis, and accordingly were drawn by Wright as polyhedrons of increasing dimensionality). In other usages, however, the points on the diagram represent allele or genotypic frequencies, and so are actually populations, not individuals (and these can indeed be coherently represented along continuous axes). (shrink)

Immersive virtual environments can produce a state of behaviour referred to as ‘presence’, during which the individual responds to the virtual environment as if it were real. Presence can be arranged to scientifically evaluate and affect our consciousness within a controlled virtual environment. This phenomenon makes the use of virtual environments amenable to existing and in-development forms of therapy for various conditions. Delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU) is one such condition for which virtual reality (VR) technology has not (...) been evaluated to date. We are currently assessing the feasibility and utility of a delirium prevention and treatment system, which implements VR to improve quality of sleep, reduce pain, lower usage of sedatives, and stimulate cognition. The proposed system will consist of 3-axis wearable accelerometers, 6-DOF position trackers, a VR system and apps designed to promote sleep quality and mindfulness. Our a priori hypothesis is that our VR therapy system would lower the occurrence of delirium in patients admitted to ICUs. (shrink)

Problem of the Totality of Reality in Kant’s Philosophy. In this article I present the problem of the totality of reality in Kant's philosophy and, in connection with it, the different understandings of the world that appear in this concept: traditional (dogmatic), empirical and transcendental (proper). The classical concept of the world is subjected to criticism and rejected as a type of "thing-in-itself"; the empirical concept, in turn, refers to a certain narrow, private world surrounding the subject and is insufficient, (...) and the transcendental, proper and adequate concept of the world ("idea of ​​the world") is developed only at the level of reason. The main interpretative axis of the publication is the thesis that since in Kant's theory we have no access to the world outside of knowledge, and the only world given to us is the world represented in knowledge-about-the-world, the philosophical path to understanding the world must lead through knowledge. (shrink)

In addition to historical epistemology’s focus on the fragmentation of scientific reason, both on the historical-diachronic level and in its regional pluralization, it foregrounds the intrinsically social and political dimensions of knowledge. Indeed, the existence of a third pole of mediation between the natural referent—that is, the research object—and the activity of the knowing subject is central to historical epistemology. However, what is controversial is how this mediation should be characterized. As the previous chapters show, historicizing scientific facts necessarily implies (...) dealing with the cultural and social components that impact the processes of constituting and developing scientific knowledge. The first section reconstructs the reasons why authors who were affiliated with French historical epistemology (FHE) were been directly involved in the international debate on “internalism” and “externalism” (except for Koyré). I show how Meyerson, Metzger, Bachelard, and Canguilhem, while taking different positions, integrated social and anthropological perspectives into their theoretical and methodological systems. The second section shows how the legacy of Bachelard-Canguilhemism developed different directions with authors such as Althusser, Foucault, and Bourdieu. In particular, I describe how Canguilhem imparted a significant twist or bend in the development of this tradition by shifting the axis of interest from the physical-mathematical sciences toward the biological and life sciences. This process opened FHE to the human and social sciences, which had not been included previously. I also detail how, starting from common historical-epistemological references, Althusser, Foucault, and Bourdieu pursued three trajectories in their analyses of scientific knowledge, though they were marked by a common tendency to focus on the links between power and knowledge and between science and society. (shrink)

Visual identity systems allow a visual object to stand for, and provide suggestive expression of, a host. The primary graphic element in a visual identity system is the logo. In three sections, this article explores inportant semiotic mechanisms by which logos perform the work of identifying. The first section points to the difference between basic visual differentiation (boundary coherence) and affective/cognitive reference (semantic coherence). It makes a distinction between two kinds of reference that occur simultaneously in logos: (1) (...) an immediate referencing of the host entity (the entity for which identification is sought), and (2), indirect, reference that is often metaphoric in character. The second section offers a four-part classification scheme for logos based upon a Peircean icon/index/symbol division with the addition of an axis of syntactical detail. A “hidden” class of logo is predicted by this Peircean framework; examples are identified and this class is named “gesturegraphs”. It is argued that this four-part classification scheme is both semiotically necessary and sufficient. Any further classes of logos can be considered subclasses within the four semiotic factors proposed. These classes are not judged to be discrete, but rather to afford blended and combinatorial situations. The rhetorical tropes of metonym and metaphor are discussed in terms of their value to the pictographic mode of logo design. Finally, in the third section of the article, genre is defined as the coherence of stylistic features in relation to the sector of the host’s activity. Two case studies are given as examples of how genre influences the semantical context of logos. (shrink)

Şerif Mardin and Nilüfer Göle have left traces of high reference value in Turkish sociology, whose echoes still continue. When it comes to their attempts to understand and make sense of Turkish modernization and the perspective they put forward, it can be said that the two names make undeniable contributions to the literature on their approaches. The concepts they use, the discourses, the fictions they put forward, the emphasis on the triangulation points of Turkish modernization, the micro and macro (...) theoretical approaches make the two thinkers similar at some points and differentiate them at some points. The aim of this study is to comparatively analyze the fictions of the two leading figures who come to the fore with their political, historical and socio-cultural analyzes on the depiction of Turkish modernization, on the axis of the “discourses” they use. In this context, literature review was used. The study consists of two main parts. In the first part, the concepts that are the basic building blocks of the Turkish modernization fictions of the two thinkers are discussed. Then, the general theoretical framework of Turkish modernization is presented by comparing the two thinkers. In the second part, the fictions of the two thinkers are depicted by comparing Turkish modernization fictions on the axis of their prominent discourses. It is encountered with a fiction in which center-periphery separation, historical and socio-cultural continuities, integration under the roof of the “nation-state”, a top-down and projected political structure are emphasized. At the same time, the reflections of the multidimensional relationship between these elements and the phenomenon of “religion” are presented within the framework of the relevant discourses. It is concluded that both thinkers characterize the phenomenon of “religion” as a dominant element in the Turkish modernization experience constructs. It has been determined that other elements support this characterization. (shrink)

The essay considers the seeker as weaver and positions relationality as central to the experiences of many at the intersections of esotericism and modern art. It invokes the metaphor of weaving to envision a non-static, dislocated and liminal relational positioning by which the seeker weaves worlds: the visible and invisible, material and immaterial, self and other, public and private, and past, present, future. It refers to a relational approach within broader practices around art including art-making, curating and viewing and for (...) which certain forms of art are intertwined with notions of futurity and the potential for societal and spiritual renewal. In doing so, it considers a possible feminine praxis of seekership that connects recent scholarship on seekership with notions of praxis and feminist theory with regards to the relational on the double axis of the social and psychic. It takes as its case study the American artist Paulina Peavy (1901–1999) whose feminist praxis of art-making and curating was guided towards collective change on both a social and spiritual level. Resisting the temptation to conceive of the artist as lone visionary, it establishes her networks (psychic and social) as productive spaces through which she navigated her praxis. (shrink)

The essay departs from a detailed discussion of Jakobson’s description of the »poetic function.« It comes to the conclusion that the distinctive feature of poetic language, defined by Jakobson as the production of paradigmatic similarity, cannot be understood as a result of the projection of the paradigmatic axis of language onto its syntagmatic axis. Furthermore, the semantic effect of these similarities does not consist exclusively in a production of ambivalence; frequently, they produce coherence, as can be shown with (...) reference to examples of metaphors, metonymies and allegories. In a second step, the essay turns to a detailed interpretation of the 8th sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, which examines its intertextual relations to other son- nets of this cycle as well as those to scholastic theology and Platonic philosophy. This interpretation further develops the idea that poetic language produces coherence; for, precisely those lines that at first seem incomprehensible can be understood as implicit propositions and coherencecreating statements. In its concluding section, the paper characterizes the implicit production of coherence as the specific feature of poetic language and discusses the necessity of a hermeneutics of literary texts. (shrink)

One of the problems regarding one of the breaking points in the history of Islamic thought is the presidency. Muslims did not only fall into a theoretical conflict on this issue, but unfortunately, they also engaged in actual battles. The disagreement among Muslims has retained its influence to the present day and has shaped both the religious and worldly views of Muslims. The debate on the identity of the candidate who will assume the role of Muhammad and organize the religious (...) and worldly affairs of Muslims has set the scene of historical conflicts that manifest themselves in the theoretical and practical fields. The religious references made in order to legitimize the political theses caused the said theses to be institutionalized, and matters basically of a political character were associated with religion. Among the Islamic sects, especially Shia, attributed an existential meaning to the problem of the presidency and shaped all their religious and worldly views on this axis. The Shia, who considered the presidency almost a basis of faith, assigned a rank close to prophethood to the heads of state. Zaydiyya stands out as the closest branch of the Shia to the Ahl al-Sunnah in terms of politics. They think more moderately about the characteristics of the head of state, heads of state other than Ali, and the Companions. Ahl as-Sunnah considers the presidency essentially as a juristically -political issue. Bringing this discussion into the field of belief, even with the aim of objecting to Shia, who sees the presidency as a problem of faith and systematizes this problem, shows the first effects of Shia on Sunni political thought. In order to defend Ali's presidency and to question the legitimacy of others, Shia brought the issue into the field of belief, and sought to prove that Ali was superior in the sight of Allah, and therefore, more worthy of the presidency, by referring to various religious texts. Shia examined the issue in a dogmatic way in order to prove his political theses strongly and establish absolute authority. As an inevitable consequence of this method, the institution of the presidency is endowed with divine powers. The theses that the heads of state are appointed with religious references and have the quality of ismah (infallibility) are the most concrete reflections of this approach. Ahl as-Sunnah tried to justify Abu Bakr's legitimacy by defending his superiority against Shia, who defended Ali's superiority. This approach reveals the methodical interaction as well as taking on the mission of responding to Shia effectively in its own way. Shamsaddin as-Samarqandī, whose political imagination we have examined, is a Sunni scholar belonging to the Hanafi - Maturidite kalam tradition. Due to his political views and style, he is also described as a Shiite by some. By examining Samarqandī's concept of politics in the context of his ideas on the general philosophy of theology, we can have clearer information about his sectarian belonging and political stance. He adopted the analytical method in politics, as in other issues, and revealed his own unique style and views, while adhering to the main vein of Ahl as-Sunnah. He adopted the analytical method in politics, as in other issues, and revealed his own unique style and views, while adhering to the main street of Ahl al-Sunnah. (shrink)

The patron of the chapter is Yoneji Masuda, who is also considered the author of the concept of the information society, according to the title of his book, which was published in 1981. However, this concept appeared earlier in Japan, which was racing against the United States in this field. Masuda had no doubt that the axis of transformations concerning social organization, especially in the context of the economy, is the computer and the technology associated with it. These were (...) the times of the formation of a new way of defining society and new definitions of society were emerging, such as post-industrial society. The chapter seeks to organize this issue by describing extensively the ideas of two of its most important legislators: Fritz Machlup and Graham Bell. Machlup’s idea refered to the phenomenon of information as the basis of social processes, which led him to formulate the important role of knowledge. In a comprehensive book, Graham Bell addressed the subject of knowledge, making it the basis of the existence of post-industrial society. The problem of knowledge thus becomes a social and economic problem, without the need to derive its philosophical definition, as well as the direct presence of man as an instance of knowledge. It appeared as an autonomous social phenomenon that also become an important political context because it served the distribution of power. This aspect of knowledge was already described by Plato, followed by Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes. The latter formulated a maxim known to this day: scientia potentia est. This means opening the problem of knowledge to a new level: knowledge becomes the basic variable of social structures such as the state. The mutual relationship of knowledge and power would be ordered by Michel Foucault. (shrink)

This conflict can be interpreted in both religious and nonreligious ways. However, some intellectuals have identified a common thread parallel to the theological axis. The research study determines the role of existential philosophy in the contemporary religious beliefs. They have interpreted this contradiction as the conflict between our current selves and aspirations. Recognizing our animality and the role that such creatures play in the world is a requirement of our rational side. You may guarantee a well-attended eulogy by eating (...) well, exercising, not being a burden, helping out where you can, raising the next generation, and leaving the area essentially as you found it when it's time to leave. We must deal with this since it is who we are and what we are at our core. However, to be human means to be unhappy with this chilly, conventional assessment. As human beings, we possess the capacity to make decisions that influence our potential. Our destiny is not predetermined and that we can use our willpower to slightly warm the universe's unbreakable laws so that we can bend and shape them into the things we want. In the end, the cosmos prevails, yet we try to become rather than just exist during our brief existence. In the ongoing struggle against finitude, we strive for transcendence. The general framework has secular and strong religious proponents, and this view has been widely referred to as existentialist. (shrink)