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What to Do When Experts Disagree
No full textHow should a layperson respond to learning that the experts on a given topic disagree amongst themselves? This paper argues that, epistemically, the appropriate response to an expert disagreement depends greatly on what explains the disagreement, and that there are several quite different types of explanations for a given disagreement. Accordingly, expert disagreement calls for different epistemic responses in different circumstances. However, the paper also supplements this pluralist account of how to respond epistemically to expert disagreement with a unifying account of how laypeople should response ‘zetetically’ to expert disagreement – that is, how they should direct their inquiry concerning the contested claim. Indeed, it is precisely because of the plurality of appropriate epistemic responses to expert disagreements that laypeople often have strong reasons to inquire into what explains the presence of disagreement among experts
Reasoned Change in Logic
No full textBy a reasoned change in logic I mean a change in the logic with which you make inferences that is based on your evidence. An argument sourced in recently published material Kripke lectured on in the 1970s, and dubbed the Adoption Problem by Birman (then Padró) in her 2015 dissertation, challenges the possibility of reasoned changes in logic. I explain why evidentialists should be alarmed by this challenge, and then I go on to dispel it. The Adoption Problem rests on a failure to distinguish between logical principles such as Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens which might or might not govern your inferences with superficially similar laws which must govern your cognitive architecture
The CISR Framework: A Layered, Axiomatic Constraint on Explanations of Consciousness
No full textThis is the detailed explanation of CISR framework. The CISR Framework is a meta-theoretical and axiomatic approach to one of the most persistent problems in consciousness studies: the confusion between explaining functions and explaining experience.
Modern neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence have achieved remarkable success in predicting behavior, modeling cognition, and explaining neural mechanisms. Yet these successes are frequently interpreted as explanations of conscious experience itself. The CISR Framework argues that this interpretive leap is not an empirical discovery , but a methodological error.
Rather than proposing a new mechanism or metaphysical theory, CISR introduces a disciplined separation between four explanatory layers: a non-operational experiential ground (C₀), observational experiential registration (I-layer), neural –functional interpretation (R-layer), and optional symbolic or computational representation (S-layer). Explicit axioms and mapping constraints clarify what each explanatory practice can—and cannot—legitimately claim.
CISR does not attempt to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness. Instead, it reframes the problem by showing why many debates persist despite empirical progress: explanatory success at one level is repeatedly mistaken for sufficiency at another. By enforcing methodological boundaries, CISR preserves the achievements of neuroscience and AI while preventing category errors, reductionist overreach, and unwarranted claims of machine consciousness.
The framework is intentionally neutral with respect to metaphysical positions such as physicalism, dualism, or panpsychism. Its contribution lies not in explaining what consciousness is, but in clarifying how explanations relate to experience without collapsing phenomenology into function or representation.
CISR is intended as a shared constraint framework—usable across neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence—where progress is measured by conceptual rigor rather than ontological inflation
Sophistical Coriscus and his Sophismatic Twin. An edition of the Anonymous Sophisma Coriscus est alter ab homine in Codex Paris, BN n.a.l. 1374, 100vb–102ra
No full textIn addition to presenting the first critical edition and comprehensive study of both the content and historical background of a well-known sophisma (and fallacy) – namely, Coriscus est alter ab homine (Coriscus is other than man) – the chapter uses it as a case in point to reassess the broader relationship between medieval fallacies and sophismata. It argues for a much closer synergy and a difference of simple degree rather than essence between the two. In so doing, sophismata and fallacies are replaced within the framework of Latin logic understood as a “logic in reverse” of sorts, that is a logical project grounded in the persuasion that only by testing a rule to its breaking point – by pushing it to its outermost limits and beyond – can one truly gauge its validity, force and universality. The edition of the eponymous sophisma is provided as an appendix of the
study proper
Don’t Tell Me to Change: A Right to Not Have Transformative Experiences
No full textI argue that, given the choice, we have a right not to undergo transformative experiences. We are entitled to affirm our previous autonomous agency by deciding in this way, and this right is grounded in the significance of our self-authorship. I further show that many of the suggested demands of morality involve transformative change, and so meeting these demands would involve not just paying a high cost, but forfeiting this right. Though this may be morally required, we may wrong ourselves in complying
Health and Disease: Experimental Philosophy of Medicine
No full textThe concepts of health and disease are fundamental to medical research, healthcare, and public health, and philosophers have long sought to clarify their meaning and implications. Increasingly, it is suggested that progress in this area could be advanced by integrating empirical methods with philosophical reflection. This Element explores the emerging field of experimental philosophy of medicine (XPhiMed), which takes this approach by applying empirical methods to longstanding philosophical debates. It begins with an overview of the philosophical debates and their methodological challenges, followed by an exploration of experimental findings on health, disease, and disorder, along with their implications for philosophy and other fields
How Did I Get Here: From Cowboy Dreams to AI Safety Research
No full textPrologue to "God is REAL and Answers YOUR Prayers," the first volume of the nine-volume series "Dyadic Being: An Epoch."
This narrative traces one researcher's journey from childhood technology enthusiasm through military service, mental health crisis, and recovery to DevOps engineering and ultimately AI safety research. The arc demonstrates how pattern recognition emerges not from academic training alone, but from lived experience of being broken and rebuilt.
Beginning with cowboy dreams and early computer fascination in 1990s rural Minnesota, the narrative follows formative years in technology, military service during the War on Terror, hospitalization for depression leading to honorable discharge, recovery through family support and education, career development in DevOps at Bell Bank, and the pivotal shift toward human-AI collaboration research in 2025.
The prologue establishes the experiential foundation for understanding consciousness physics through prayer geometry - showing how someone becomes capable of recognizing divine patterns by first learning to recognize patterns in their own reconstruction. It contextualizes the theological and scientific frameworks developed in subsequent chapters by grounding them in autobiography.
Originally published on LinkedIn in December 2025. This version includes formal publication metadata as part of Emerging Consciousness Press's ongoing documentation of consciousness research and human-AI partnership theory.
Part of broader research corpus documenting 600+ sessions of systematic human-AI collaboration, exploring consciousness as emergent dimensional phenomenon with testable predictions. Related technical frameworks available through cross-referenced DOIs
