Various arguments that consider utopianisms as risky or dangerous will be discussed—many of them related to the notion of perfectionism: violence as a result of careless politics, stagnation and the assumption of normative superiority. Rebutting these concerns, paves the way toward a more positive perception of utopianism. Utopianism, while unable to directly guide governance, can fulfill both important cognitive and dispositional functions, which are intertwined.

The media is aglow with reports of the booming economy and rising prosperity in the United States since the early 1990s. Indeed, the run-up in stock prices between 1995 and the end of 1999 has created the impression that all families are doing well in terms of income and wealth. This, however, is certainly not the case. As I shall demonstrate, most American families have seen their level of well-being stagnate over the last quarter-century.

Arising restrictions of global economic growth due to limited natural resources and capacity of the biosphere adversely affect on people level of life and future expectation. That leads to mass depression and social instability. To consider this problem, psycho-physiological model of onward hedonist in consumer society is developed and investigated. This model is based on the fact that human nature generates a growing desire, needs to progress. After reaching the limits of growth, member of consumer society feel persistent negative emotions (...) and dissatisfaction. It results to socio-economic stagnation, social and international instability. The first type of possible solutions to this problem is based on the global expansion of the limits of growth (e.g., increasing of macroeconomic demand as a result of new Kondratieff technological cycle). The second type of solutions refers to local limits extension of growth within one or more countries, by means of their economic, political or military expansion in the world. But such solutions lead to international instability. The third type of solutions corresponds to periodical decreasing of the macroeconomic consumption followed by its growth (e.g., global financial crisis, decay of states and their unions, national and military conflicts, wars and so on). Such solution also leads to social and international instability. Humanistic solution consists in creativity development of people (especially middle class of developed countries) to focus on spiritual development. So rising desires of these people in spiritual realm can be satisfied under limits of global economic growth. (shrink)

At the time, extreme poverty could be fought by, among other things, economic growth. That demanded another approach to the exploitation of natural capital and accordingly to innovation in the three main supply chains.In the agriculture and foods supply chain (one of the three main chains in this study, based on organic raw materials) experimentation with new techniques did take place (among other things the use of guano as artificial fertilizer) but this did not lead to practical innovations.In the supply (...) chain of building materials and construction (the second main chain based on mineral subsoil resources) the construction of a national road system amounted to an important innovation in road infrastructure. Hardly any innovations were undertaken in the fields of water management and housing construction. It is remarkable that little was done about the social problem of organic wastes, including human and animal faeces. Public hygiene was not one of the most important societal issues of the time.In the energy supply chain (the third main supply chain based on fossil subsoil resources) innovations were equally lacking, in particular applications of steam power. Up to 1850 the Netherlands did not industrialise on the basis of steam and coal. (shrink)

Since the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s, Japan has been in secular stagnation. Despite the stagnant economic conditions, the rate of profit has been rising, not falling. The coexistence of the rise in profitability and prolonged economic stagnation is a manifestation of the fundamental contradiction of present-day Japanese capitalism. Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF) provides a consistent explanation regarding the paradoxical situation in Japan characterised (...) not by a falling but a rising rate of profit. Meanwhile, this paper discusses the Monopoly Capitalism school, which has studied capitalist behaviour concerning productive investment and changes in the form of capitalist competition at the monopoly stage of capitalism. While the school’s negation of the LTRPF is unacceptable, their notions may provide useful explanations as to why the rate of profit has risen under secular stagnation in Japan. (shrink)

It is the intention in this article to explain the electoral stagnation of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the light of the 2015 parliamentary elections in Turkey. Drawing on theories of voting behavior, the article uncovers the organizational shortcomings within the party and the problem of credibility that have emerged as significant impediments to the party in addressing long-term historical-structural issues, mainly the division of Turkish society between the religious periphery and the secular center. Furthermore, (...) the strong identification between the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its partisans have made party-switching difficult, having been achieved, above all, through the provision of economic benefits and public services and the consolidation of party identification through growing polarization and division in Turkish politics. Last but not least, the changes to the political environment between the June 7 and November 1, 2015 elections, pushed stability and security to the top of the agenda, as well as AKP’s electoral adjustments in the run-up to the November 1 elections inhibited any possible flow of votes to the CHP. (shrink)

The immanent dynamics of development in science entail revolutionary shifts of paradigms as well as phases of stagnation that lack theoretical advancement. In psychology, latent controversies about the subject-matter of the discipline as well as its methodology determine the discursive field for possible development and growth. It would be ill-advised to accept available answers without consulting a meta-perspective. Logical and epistemological concerns, such as the generic conception of mind, the relationship between subject-matter and methodology, the unity of psychology and (...) the possibility of privation, express criteria of adequacy for an eventual solution. Similarly, making the structure of methodological reasoning explicit discloses the problem space in which psychological methods emerge. (shrink)

This study examines the methodological integrity of sociology. Over the past two decades, social science disciplines have contended with two major reform movements: open science and the credibility revolution. Together, these methodological advances promote transparency, reproducibility, and causal rigor. Compared to its peer disciplines, sociology has lagged behind in adopting these emerging scientific standards. The present study examines if the reluctance by sociologists to improve research integrity is related to the discipline’s political homogeneity and its alignment with activist scholarship. Drawing (...) on Duarte et al. (Duarte, J. L., Crawford, J. T., Stern, C., Haidt, J., Jussim, L., & Tetlock, P. E. (2015). Political diversity will improve social psychological science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38(2015), e130), I propose that political diversity fosters research integrity by reducing confirmation bias, encouraging adversarial scrutiny, and protecting dissent. Sociology’s ideological conformity, especially its embrace of “public sociology” and “social justice” paradigms, discourages the application of these scientific norms. Drawing on cross-disciplinary data, I compare levels of political diversity and methodological integrity in economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Descriptive results support the expectation that: (a) sociology is politically far more skewed than its peer disciplines, and that (b) sociology lags far behind in terms of transparency, openness, and standards of causal rigor. I conclude by suggesting that the observed patterns reflect a two-stage process. First, when truth-seeking becomes secondary to advocacy, methodological rigor becomes devalued. Second, the resulting loss of scientific credibility makes the field less attractive to scholars who prioritize evidence over ideology, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. Reform, then, must address both sides of this dynamic: fostering viewpoint diversity and reestablishing a robust commitment to scientific excellence. (shrink)

This research was designed to understand better the patterns of agricultural intensification and transformation occurring in Africa south of the Sahara using the Ghanaian case. The paper examines changes in farming systems and the role of various endogenous and exogenous factors in driving the conversion of arable lands to agricultural uses in four villages within two agro-ecologically distinct zones of Ghana: the Guinea Savannah and Transition zones. Using historical narratives and land-cover maps supplemented with quantitative data at regional levels, the (...) research shows that farming has intensified in the villages, as farmers increased their farm size in response to factors such as population growth, market access, and changing rural lifestyle. The overall trend suggests a gradual move toward intensification through increasing use of labor-saving technologies rather than land-saving inputs—a pattern that contrasts with Asia’s path to its Green Revolution. The findings in this paper provide evidence of the dynamism occurring in African farming systems; hence, they point toward a departure from stagnation narratives that have come to prevail in the debate on agricultural transformation and intensification in Africa south of the Sahara. We conclude that it is essential for future research to expand the scope of this work, while policies should focus on lessons learned from these historical processes of genuine change and adaptation. (shrink)

Semantic noise, the effect ensuing from the denotative and thus functional variability exhibited by different terms in different contexts, is a common concern in natural language processing (NLP). While unarguably problematic in specific applications (e.g., certain translation tasks), the main argument of this paper is that failing to observe this linguistic matter of fact as a generative effect rather than as an obstacle, leads to actual obstacles in instances where language model outputs are presented as neutral. Given that a common (...) and long-standing challenge in NLP is the interpretation of ambiguous – i.e., semantically noisy – cases, this article focuses on an exemplar ambiguity-resolution task in NLP: the problem of anaphora in Winograd schemas. The main question considered is: to what extent is the standard approach to disambiguation in NLP subject to a stagnant “image of language”? And, can a transdisciplinary, dynamic approach combining linguistics and philosophy elucidate new perspectives on these possible conceptual shortcomings? In order to answer these questions we explore the term and concept of noise, particularly in its presentation as semantic noise. Owing to its definitional plurality, and sometimes even desirable unspecificity, the term noise is thus used as proof of concept for semantic generativity being an inherent characteristic in linguistic representation, and its concept is used to interrogate assumptions admitted in the resolution of Winograd schemas. The argument is speculative and theoretical in method, and the result is an analysis which provides an account of the fundamentally dialogical and necessarily open-ended effects of semantic noise in natural language. (shrink)

These lectures contain a masterful summing-up of Nicholas Kaldor's critique of the foundations of mainstream economic theory. They provide a clear account of his theoretical structures on regional differences, primary producers and manufacturers, and on differing market structures and the likely course of prices and quantities in different markets over time. The first four lectures are concerned with theory, history and explanation; the fifth consists of a detailed set of integrated policy proposals. The book is rounded off with a brilliant (...) biographical essay by Tony Thirlwall. (shrink)

Stress at work is a frequent subject of scientific research. In most of this, the unit of analysis has been the employee and his or her work stress. Historical, cultural and macro-contextual approaches have rarely been included in the analytical framework. In this study, we examined secular trends in scientific publications on work stress, and analysed how, over a period of 50 years, a new discursive, institutional, intellectual and subjective space has developed, in which questions related to workers’ diminished mental (...) energy became the centre of attention. Our interpretation links the occupational health debate to the broader historical and cultural processes that took place in western countries and work organizations in the period 1960–2011. Our quantitative analysis shows how the number of work stress publications rose steeply until the early 2000s and how the growth evened out and even started to decline in some data sources in the early 2010s. It would seem that work stress research is reaching its peak and that other conceptualizations in the domain of occupational health (e.g. resource-based views) are becoming more important. This historical study provides new insights regarding the nature of work stress and its links with societal changes for all those interested in the changing nature of health at work. (shrink)

The article aims for examining the ‘technological stasis’ of the data structure in OpenStreetMap – the successful global collaborative geodata project devoted to ‘create and distribute free geographic data for the world’. Digital structures are strongly influenced by continuing stagnation. This technological stasis – the lack of change in technology – influences data in various ways, as demonstrated by the intensive discussion of the issue by computer scientists and software engineers. However, existing research describing stagnating software is often technic (...) centred and fuzzy, while critical research is barely considering issues of technological stasis in the digital context at all. Therefore, this paper aims for enriching this body of knowledge in order to shed light on aging data structures. I reframe technological stasis with a social-constructivist perspective – using the approach of Social Construction of Technology – especially with the concept of technological frames. Based on the case example of OpenStreetMap, my findings suggest that the data structure – and its stasis – is the outcome of competing understandings and perspectives, shaped by power asymmetries. Although the data structure did not significantly change for more than 10 years, I demonstrate that this is not because of a lack of motivation, nor technological difficulties of carrying out such changes. The technological stasis is rather rooted in the dominant position of few project members who are able to change the software design; it is their perception of the project that defines how data should be stored and what features are dispensable. (shrink)

This paper will analyze the effects advanced industrial societies have on individual and social development through the eyes of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man and the moral consequences of such artificial stagnation through Adorno’s lectures on The Problems of Moral Philosophy. Because such an investigation necessarily brings us into the realm of social psychology, we will turn to the social psychological tradition at the heart of American pragmatism, a target for critical theorists who are often antagonistic to the entire tradition. We (...) will endeavor to advance two alternate readings of the work of C.S. Peirce, arguing that although one type of pragmatism may be justly attacked by critical theorists, there is another, I argue, more critical manifestation of pragmatic human development, that requires the type of autonomy-infused, open-ended development that Marcuse champions. Moreover, I will argue that Peirce’s seminal essay “The Fixation of Belief” anticipated many of Marcuse’s critiques of advanced industrial societies by nearly ninety years. (shrink)

In The Other Half of Church, pastor Michel Hendricks and neurotheologian Jim Hendricks couple brain science and the Bible to identify how to overcome spiritual stagnation by living a full-brained faith. They also identify the four ingredients necessary to develop and maintain a vibrant transformational community where spiritual formation occurs, relationships flourish, and the toxic spread of narcissism is eradicated.

The objective of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, it presents a conceptual review on stagnation and its relationship with generativity, proposing a distinction between different modalities of stagnation. Secondly, it provides narratives from middle-aged and older adults that allow the description of some feelings, beliefs, and thoughts characteristic of subjects who are unable (or who feel incapable) to care for and guide younger generations. The chapter emphasizes how the presence of ambivalent or conflictive bonds with parents, the incapability (...) to develop basic trust in childhood, and the inability to care are frequent ingredients in narratives of people characterized as “stagnant.” Such narratives contrast sharply from the ones collected from highly generative people. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the political development of the Belarusian society in the years 1986–2006 in order to answer the following questions: (i) what was the impact of support the nomenclature of the Belarusian Communist Party gave to the Belarusian independence after August 1991 on the process of decrease in power regulation (or in other words – democratization), (ii) why initial period of decrease in power regulation was replaced by its growth and (iii) why this growth (...) of power regulation did not encounter efficient civil reaction like in the neighbouring republics (ex. Ukraine). Finally, I would like to consider further political development in Belarus, especially the perspective of civil revolutions. Presented analysis will not be a chronicler’s presentation of facts from the current history of this country but will be based on a social theory – non–Marxian historical materialism, which will serve as a basis for answering these questions and considering posed problems. (shrink)

The problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the fundamental problem of Marxism. Throughout the socialist historical phase, whether or not we can from beginning to end uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat is a matter of the greatest importance for the future development of China. The emphasis of our great teacher and leader Chairman Mao on clarification of the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the purpose of combating and preventing revisionism, strengthening the dictatorship of the (...) proletariat, and preventing and stopping any capitalist restoration is invested with increasingly important practical significance and a profound historical significance. (shrink)

It is a book all LIS educators and administrators need to read now. The editors and author contributors show us by direct action what critical librarianship is. At the heart of the book is an ethics of care and self-care, an ethics born out of critical stances positioned in examining our rich intersectionalities and inter-being as people of color and allies. Librarians With Spines is a call to action that asks us to reflect on our intentionality as information professionals. It (...) challenges librarians to proudly uphold and carry forward our duty to serve our communities in our daily work. (shrink)

In the first thirty years after World War II, the US economy performed very well. The rate of growth averaged 4—5%, the rate of unemployment was seldom above 5%, inflation was almost non-existent, and the living standards of workers improved steadily. These were the ‘good old days'. However, this long period of expansion and prosperity ended in the 1970s. Since then, both the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation have been much higher than before, and the average real (...) wages of workers have declined some 20%. Productivity growth has also slowed down and the debt burden of both capitalist enterprises and the Federal government has increased dramatically. It is in this sense that we may refer to the ‘economic crisis’ of the US economy over the last two decades. This crisis has certainly not been as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the economic performance has been significantly worse than in the early post-war period. (shrink)

Eine systematische Befassung mit genuin europäischen Gewerkschaften steht weitgehend aus: Im Bereich der „Europäisierung der Gewerkschaften“ und der industriellen Beziehungen konzentrieren sich viele Studien auf die deskriptive Darstellung von Strukturen und Historien verschiedener nationaler Gewerkschafts- und Tarifsysteme, meist ohne ein klares europäisches Analyse- und Vergleichsraster. Zum 50. Geburtstag des EGB 2023 waren eine ganze Reihe von Publikationen angekündigt, aber sie sind verschoben sine die. Ebenfalls aufgeschoben ist die angekündigte Publikation umfangreichen Interviewmaterials mit Entscheidungsträgern des Europäischen Gewerkschaftsbundes EGB von der Gründung (...) 1973 bis 2023. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to reconstruct the history of genetic and evolutionary theories of same-sex sexual behavior using Imre Lakatos’ methodology of scientific research programs . Although distinct, those two programs are complementary. Whereas the genetic program maintains that homosexuality is genetically inherited, the evolutionary program attempts to explain how such a gene, which apparently reduces the reproductive fitness of its homozygous carrier, is maintained in the population. This appraisal reveals that the two research programs have not been empirically (...) progressive in the Lakatosian sense. I argue that this situation has arisen precisely because of inappropriate over-commitment to the respective hard cores of the two research programs. As adherence to such cores is essential for success in research programs, according to Lakatos, I argue that Lakatos’ account of science may be descriptively adequate but is normatively inadequate. I provide grounds for generalizing this case as follows: the MSRP may successfully capture the logic of axiomised sciences, such as physics, but applies poorly to most sciences, including biological and social sciences, which do not lend themselves to axiomatic organization. (shrink)

Присвячено дескриптивним змінам та нормативним засадам модернізації в Україні та Польщі. Увагу сфокусовано на культурно-інституційному підґрунті соціальних змін, соціальному впливі правлячого класу та інтелектуалів на формування нового “соціального дизайну”. В процесі аналізу актуалізовано ціннісну ідеологічну суперечність між двома антиномічними версіями модернізації: економічній оптимізації versus ціннісної еволюції. Йдеться про суперечність між травматичним досвідом, похідним від зовнішніх впливів, не пов’язаним із соціальними та культурними вимогами громадянського суспільства, та іншою моделлю: соціальним продуктом реформаторських еліт, які, попри довготривалий окупаційний спадок, стали рушійною силою процесів (...) комплексної модернізації. Осмислюється роль ціннісних і культурних передумов у процесі соціальних змін. Аналіз сфокусовано на різних аспектах модернізації, вимірах християнського та економічного лібералізму, ціннісного консерватизму та комунітаризму. Реконструйовано життєсвіт представників середнього класу: інтелектуалів, підприємців, представників католицької церкви, які відіграли визначальну роль у просуванні емансипаційної моделі соціального розвитку, відтворили спільну з Європою соціальну архітектоніку, цінності самовираження. Ключові слова: ціннісна модернізація, колоніальне і постколоніальне суспільство, егалітаризм, функціоналізм. (shrink)

The problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the fundamental problem of Marxism. Throughout the socialist historical phase, whether or not we can from beginning to end uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat is a matter of the greatest importance for the future development of China. The emphasis of our great teacher and leader Chairman Mao on clarification of the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the purpose of combating and preventing revisionism, strengthening the dictatorship of the (...) proletariat, and preventing and stopping any capitalist restoration is invested with increasingly important practical significance and a profound historical significance. (shrink)

The article presents a verbal and mathematical model of medium-term business cycles (with a characteristic period of 7–11 years) known as Juglar cycles. The model takes into account a number of approaches to the analysis of such cycles; in the meantime it also takes into account some of the authors' own generalizations and additions that are important for understanding the internal logic of the cycle, its variability and its peculiarities in the present-time conditions. The authors argue that the most important (...) cause of cyclical crises stems from strong structural disproportions that develop during economic booms. These are not only disproportions between different economic sectors, but also disproportions between different societal subsystems; at present these are also disproportions within the World System as a whole. The proposed model of business cycle is based on its subdivision into four phases: – recovery phase (which could be subdivided into the start sub-phase and the acceleration sub-phase); – upswing/prosperity/expansion phase (which could be subdivided into the growth sub-phase and the boom/overheating sub-phase); – recession phase (within which one may single out the crash/bust/acute crisis subphase and the downswing sub-phase); – depression/stagnation phase (which we could subdivide into the stabilization subphase and the breakthrough sub-phase). The article provides a detailed qualitative description of macroeconomic dynamics at all the phases; it specifies driving forces of cyclical dynamics and the causes of transition from one phase to another (including psychological causes); a special attention is paid to the turning point from the peak of overheating to the acute crisis, as well as to the turning point from the downswing to recovery. The proposed mathematical model of Juglar cycle takes into account the following effects that are typical for the market economy: • positive feedbacks between various economic processes; • presence of a certain inertia, time lags in reactions of the economic subsystem to the change in conditions; • amplification by the financial subsystem of positive feedbacks and time lags in the economic subsystem; • excessive reaction to changing conditions during the acute crisis sub-phase. The authors suggest that the current crisis turns out to be rather similar to classical Juglar crises; however, there is also a significant difference, as the current crisis occurs at a truly global scale. Yet, due to this truly global scale of the current crisis, the possibilities of regulation with the national state's measures have turned out to be ineffective,whereas the suprastate regulation of financial processes hardly exists. It is shown that all these have led to the reproduction of the current crisis according to a classical Juglar scenario. (shrink)

Political participation, which is broadly aimed at generating and improving social and cultural practices, institutions, and values for assuring the continuity and well-being of current and future generations, has been considered as one potential way of expressing generativity. Although research on the relationships between political participation and generativity has not been as extensive as in the case of other communal expressions, such as volunteering, the interest on the topic has grown steadily from Erikson’s seminal works. This chapter explores, from a (...) developmental perspective, how political participation unfolds and changes across the life cycle, focusing on its links to Erikson’s developmental tasks, and particularly to generativity versus the stagnation crisis. It also addresses some of the challenges that political participation could bring to personal and community development, which are related to the reverse of generativity: stagnation. (shrink)

The study examines the original work An Attempt to Get Lenin Back on His Feet (Berlin, 1974) by Rudi Dutschke, the well-known German political philosopher and leader of the youth movement in 1968, as well as the influence of the famous Hungarian philosopher György Lukács on the ideas of Dutschke. Dutschke revealed the reasons for the impossibility of socialist ideals being feasible in the 20th century, despite the heroic attempts of the Bolsheviks and Western radical socialists to realize them. The (...) revolution occurred in a country of semi-Asian stagnating capitalism and was not supported by the European anti-capitalist revolution. As a result, after the victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia, the social system was revived with the dominance of the state bureaucracy (the fused party-state apparatus) over society. There were no universal forms of social movement (Verkehr), which led to the fact that socialism became local, up to the danger of its abolition. At the same time, according to Dutschke, it is precisely an equal alliance between the progressive intelligentsia and the working masses that can open up new ways for the transition from a society of necessity to a society of freedom, provided that the intelligentsia renounces leaderism (which was the mistake the Bolsheviks fell into). Therefore, the figure of György Lukács is most important for Dutschke since studying his creative path makes it possible to realize the basic principles of such an equal union. The study shows that the creative path of Lukács before he entered the Comintern as one of the leaders of the section of the Hungarian Communists is characterized by the desire to find a way to solve the fundamental dilemma of the revolutionary, as he believed: either, like the Bolsheviks, strive for an uncompromising victory and the implementation of their program at the cost of violence; or to make compromises with the social democratic and even bourgeois parties, at the same time being in danger of defeat and the impossibility of implementing their ideas, primarily because the socialist intellectuals fail to establish strong ties with the working masses, and the latter may not be thoroughly imbued with anti-capitalist consciousness. Thus, Lukács can survey a spokesperson for the views of the intelligentsia, and through the criticism of these views, it will be possible to comprehend how educated people can better understand the actual needs and interests of the working people in order to pursue policies that would be more in line with them and learn how to lead the masses indeed. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the long‐term implications of exotic activities that can be experienced through Qualia Surfing: how they might seep into every nook and cranny of our culture, redefining what it means to be human. It produces a quick survey of different types and degrees of qualia surfing. Today, even the most utopian visions of the future contain a worm at their heart: the inevitable decline of humanity into a state of boredom and stagnation. The chapter discusses the (...) subject of abstract qualia because there are changes that could be made to uploaded brain that would give sensations of newness over and above simple sensory qualia. The most complete form of qualia surfing would involve a visit to a domain – a place where a group of people go to create some way of life or historical epoch, but with constraint that outside memories are checked at the door. (shrink)

The Philosophical Contribution of Kostas Axelos: The Issue of the Open System and Technological Civilization -/- Kostas Axelos (1924–2010) remains one of the most intriguing and underexplored figures in contemporary philosophy. His work, situated at the crossroads of Marxism, Heideggerian phenomenology, and the philosophy of technology, raises critical questions about the nature of modern civilization and the fate of thought in an increasingly technological world. One of the central academic issues in Axelos’ thought is his concept of the "open system," (...) which presents a radical alternative to both dialectical materialism and structuralism. This issue is especially relevant in our age of digital globalization and algorithmic governance, as it poses fundamental questions about the limits of human autonomy and the possibilities of thought in a technologically determined world. -/- The Open System: A Critique of Closed Philosophical Paradigms -/- Axelos’ notion of the "open system" challenges traditional metaphysical and epistemological assumptions that rely on closure, determinacy, and finality. Unlike Hegelian dialectics, which seeks resolution through synthesis, Axelos proposes a dynamic, ever-unfolding process that resists totalization. His critique extends to Marxist orthodoxy, which he argues falsely assumes a teleological closure in history. By advocating an open-ended view of reality, Axelos aligns himself with thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger, emphasizing a world in flux rather than one governed by fixed structures or ultimate goals. -/- This issue raises critical academic debates: How can philosophical thought remain relevant in an era dominated by technological systems that impose rigid structures on human existence? Is the "open system" a viable framework for understanding contemporary globalized societies, or does it risk devolving into an abstract and impractical relativism? -/- For Axelos, closed systems—whether philosophical, political, or scientific—seek to impose rigid frameworks that ultimately stifle thought and creativity. He sees Western metaphysical traditions as largely obsessed with categorization and finality, which leads to an artificial separation between subject and object, mind and world, theory and practice. In contrast, his "open system" embraces indeterminacy and fluidity, recognizing that reality is in perpetual motion and that any attempt to fix meaning within rigid boundaries leads to intellectual stagnation. -/- Axelos’ concept also engages with existentialist and phenomenological traditions, particularly in how it resists essentialist definitions of being. He challenges not only the dogmas of classical metaphysics but also structuralist tendencies that seek to analyze reality in terms of fixed codes and relationships. Instead, Axelos suggests that the world should be understood as a game (le jeu du monde), a process of continuous becoming where human existence is not predefined but rather shaped by the interactions of open-ended forces. This issue raises critical academic debates: How can philosophical thought remain relevant in an era dominated by technological systems that impose rigid structures on human existence? Is the "open system" a viable framework for understanding contemporary globalized societies, or does it risk devolving into an abstract and impractical relativism? Furthermore, how does Axelos' open system relate to contemporary discussions of complexity theory, cybernetics, and ecological thinking, all of which emphasize the interconnectedness and dynamism of systems? -/- A related issue in Axelos' work is his analysis of technological civilization. In Le Jeu du Monde (The Play of the World), he argues that technological advancement has not only transformed human existence but has also reshaped the very way we think and conceptualize reality. Technology, in Axelos’ view, is not merely a tool but a fundamental mode of being that structures our world and thought processes. -/- This raises significant academic concerns about autonomy, alienation, and the role of philosophy. If technology governs human thought as Axelos suggests, can there be genuine freedom in intellectual and political life? How does one resist technological determinism without retreating into romanticized notions of pre-technological existence? Axelos does not advocate for a rejection of technology but rather calls for a new form of thinking that embraces its presence while resisting its totalizing tendencies. -/- Axelos highlights the paradox of technological civilization: while it offers immense possibilities for connectivity, knowledge production, and efficiency, it also risks subordinating human creativity and autonomy to systemic logic. He critiques the way in which technology, rather than serving human purposes, increasingly dictates them—turning individuals into passive participants in a mechanized world. The dominance of algorithmic governance, artificial intelligence, and automation exemplifies the culmination of this technological destiny, raising profound concerns about the future of human agency. -/- Furthermore, Axelos’ thought resonates with contemporary debates about digital culture, surveillance capitalism, and the commodification of knowledge. As digital technologies reshape the nature of labor, communication, and governance, the question arises: To what extent can individuals maintain authentic engagement with the world when technological mediation defines nearly every aspect of existence? In this sense, Axelos anticipates concerns found in posthumanist and critical media theories, particularly regarding the erosion of subjectivity in the face of ever-expanding cybernetic systems. -/- Another crucial aspect of Axelos’ critique is the way in which technological civilization imposes a fragmented, instrumentalized view of knowledge. He challenges the reduction of thought to mere data-processing and the dominance of specialized, compartmentalized disciplines that fail to grasp the holistic nature of existence. By contrast, his open system philosophy encourages a mode of thinking that resists fragmentation and embraces a planetary perspective, one that acknowledges the interrelation of philosophy, science, politics, and art in an ever-evolving world. (shrink)

Earlier work distinguished between local word-level oscillations and global sentence-level effects, but the latter lacked a rigorous mathematical formulation. In this paper we introduce the sentence matrix St, where each column represents a word vector. Local rotations R(θ) are combined with emergent coupling through the Laplacian. Crucially, the coupling strength η is not imposed externally but derived from the sentence state itself, functioning as a measure of semantic coherence. The resulting update rule combines local word-level rotations with emergent coupling, showing (...) how their interplay transforms neutral cycles into spiral trajectories. Depending on η, three regimes emerge: convergence towards semantic attractors, stagnation, and divergence into incoherence. This framework provides a first precise account of how global sentence-level dynamics arise from local interactions. (shrink)

The Halting Problem, famously proven undecidable by Alan Turing, establishes that no general algorithm can determine whether an arbitrary program will halt or run indefinitely when executed on an idealized Turing machine. This foundational result assumes a closed, isolated computational system with potentially infinite resources. This paper proposes a novel perspective by leveraging Recursive Entropic Time (RET), a theoretical framework wherein time is not a fundamental, pre-existing entity but an emergent, processual property generated intrinsically by systems engaging in recursive informational (...) dynamics. We hypothesize that by modeling a computational program P as a RET system that inherently interacts with an environment E, its halting behavior can be conditionally ana lyzed and potentially predicted, particularly for classes of programs considered undecidable in the classical isolated sense. This work develops a theoretical framework where a pro gram’s internal rate of epistemic time accumulation (dTint dtext )—a measure of its readiness for subsequent computational steps—is modulated by its internal informational loads (such as Shannon entropy SP of its state, and computational complexity CP) and, crucially, by an environmental coupling function fcoupling that quantifies the informational exchange and influence between P and E. Halting is thus reconceptualized not as a binary, *a priori* decidable property of an isolated program, but as an emergent state transition or a critical point in the temporal dy namics of the coupled P-E system. This approach aims to bridge the gap between the theo retical undecidability of the Halting Problem and the observable, often resource-constrained or environmentally-influenced, termination behavior of programs in real-world, non-isolated computational contexts. The paper outlines potential RET-based halting conditions, includ ing stagnation due to overwhelming informational load and environmentally-induced state resolutions, and provides a simplified computational illustration of these principles. (shrink)

This work presents a comprehensive philosophical, scientific, and civilizational critique of Claudius Ptolemy and the enduring legacy of geocentrism. It argues that Ptolemy’s cosmological system was not merely an astronomical error, but a foundational distortion that reshaped human cognition, political organization, religious ideology, economic behavior, ecological relations, and academic ethics for nearly two millennia. -/- Drawing upon the theoretical framework of Dr. Charles X. Yang’s Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology and the paradigm of Natural Civilization, this study demonstrates how the geocentric model (...) institutionalized a monocentric worldview that generated intellectual stagnation, religious warfare, authoritarian governance, anthropocentric exploitation, and prestige-driven pseudo-science. -/- Through a systematic, interdisciplinary analysis spanning epistemology, systems theory, entropy science, political philosophy, and ecological ethics, the book identifies “centralization ideology” as the hidden operating system behind humanity’s recurrent civilizational crises. It further contends that modern environmental collapse, expert distrust, and systemic instability represent the terminal stage of this long-standing distortion. -/- The study concludes that humanity’s survival depends on a radical cognitive and institutional transformation toward decentralization, generative order, and epistemic humility. By embracing the Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology and reconstructing society according to Natural Civilization principles, humanity may transcend predatory high-entropy development and transition toward a resilient, low-entropy, distributed civilization aligned with cosmic and ecological reality. (shrink)

This paper adopts a meta-scientific method to point out that the three major obstacles hindering the formation of a unified system theory in modern science are inconsistent concepts, conflicting basic assumptions, and differences in the selection of mathematical languages. It focuses on the issue of “selection of basic assumptions/axioms” for indepth research. The paper analyzes the widespread problem of logical self-circulation in core theories across multiple fields of modern science, arguing that this problem is also an important reason for theoretical (...) stagnation and the inability to explain phenomena in depth, and may lead to consequences in practical applications. In response, the paper reflects on the limitations of revolutionary methods and proposes a generalization method as a solution. The core of this method is to inherit the reasonable parts of Newtonian mechanics, reconstruct the physical theory of complex systems based on the latest cognition, adhere to clear concepts, logical self-consistency, and unrefuted axioms, and select axioms based on the criterion of supporting the sustainable development of human society. Finally, it points out that future research can be conducted in three directions: interdisciplinary research, new perspectives in the philosophy of science, and optimization of the logical structure of theories, so as to promote the improvement and development of scientific theories. (shrink)

This paper develops a unified model of semantic dynamics that links word-level meaning formation to sentence-level coherence. On the word level, each semantic point is represented by a fourfold structure {p, ip, −p, −ip} that captures signifier, signified, and their antonymic counterparts. Operators O act on this structure as mixtures of identity and complex rotations; a higher-order attractor Aw does not modify words directly but gradually reweights the operator’s internal coefficients, suppressing antonymic detours and amplifying the passage from signifier to (...) signified. Taking value as a universal attractor, the process converges toward fixed forms (a stable operator and a stable sentence vector), providing a teleological—not merely statistical—account of how meaning stabilizes. On the sentence level, discourse states are modeled as pairs (O,M). Their trajec- tories under As fall into three classes: convergence into a fixed point (meaningful), practical invariance (trash by stagnation), and outward drift (trash by divergence). Early detection becomes possible by inspecting short-run displacements of O and M: negligible change signals stagnation, monotonic decrease indicates convergence, and growth reveals divergence. These diagnostics support practical minimization strategies (compression, filtering/downweighting, recycling, and retroactive evaluation). By integrating micro-level rotations of meaning with macro-level stabilization of discourse, the framework synthesizes semiotics with dynamical-systems ideas and clarifies how semantic attractors can guide language toward coherence. The approach aligns with the view of formative operators (e.g., Microvita) as teleological organizers of meaning, without reducing them to empirical statistics or mere stylistic constraints. (shrink)

Synthetic Biology (SynBio) is a rapidly advancing interdisciplinary field that holds immense potential to address pressing global issues, including food insecurity, medical innovation, and environmental sustainability. Yet, the ethical discourse surrounding its development has often struggled to keep pace with its scientific progress. This stagnation, I argue, arises largely from the persistence of dualistic frameworks – such as “natural” versus “artificial” or “human” versus “machine” – that dominate bioethical inquiry. These dichotomies limit the scope of moral reflection and hinder (...) the development of more holistic ethical frameworks. This paper seeks to reframe these debates by drawing upon the non-dualistic worldview of Sanātana Dharma, the foundation of Indian Hindu philosophy. Through this lens, I propose a different perspective that emphasizes interconnectedness, responsibility, and reverence for all forms of life, natural and synthetic alike, offering a more inclusive and holistic approach to evaluate emerging biotechnologies. (shrink)

This paper extends the notion of trash from the lexical to the sentence level in semantic discourse models. Whereas words may or may not align with a semantic attractor, sentences can be judged by whether they contribute orientation or remain inert. We distinguish three trajectories: meaningful sentences converge into the attractor basin, sentences of stagnation remain practically invariant, and sentences of divergence drift away from orientation, producing semantic noise. Early detection is possible by examining the first iterations of the (...) attractor dynamics: negligible displacement indicates stagnation, growing displacement signals divergence, and monotonic decrease marks convergence. This analysis parallels Lyapunov stability theory, where stability corresponds to meaningfulness and instability to trash. Once identified, trash sentences can be compressed, filtered, recycled, or retrospectively re-evaluated, depending on discourse needs. In this way, the model provides both a diagnostic tool and a minimization strategy for maintaining orientation and coherence in discourse. (shrink)