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Accounting for EU external effects: from clinical trials to data colonialism to AI ethics dumping
Against a backdrop of rapidly expanding health artificial intelligence (AI) development, this paper examines how the European Union’s (EU) stringent digital regulations may incentivise the outsourcing of personal health data collection to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), fuelling a new form of AI ethics dumping. Drawing on parallels with the historical offshoring of clinical trials, we argue that current EU instruments, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) and Medical Devices Regulation, impose robust internal safeguards but do not prevent the use of health data collected unethically beyond EU borders. This regulatory gap enables data colonialism, whereby commercial actors exploit weaker legal environments abroad without equitable benefit-sharing. Building on earlier EU responses to ethics dumping in clinical trials, we propose legal and policy pathways to prevent similar harms in the context of AI
超越存在主义虚无:以玄弦论为核心的先天后天时空融合解方
摘要:萨特、海德格尔为代表的存在主义,以“存在先于本质”为核心命题构建的理论体
系,直面“上帝之死”后的西方价值真空,却因囿于时空内单一存在维度与个体主义认知
框架,彻底否定人类存在的先天本质与客观意义锚点,最终陷入“个体自由与意义根基
割裂”的虚无困境。西方哲学后续的宗教回归、社群主义、后现代解构等方案,或背离
世俗化内核,或消解个体主体性,或妥协于虚无本质,均无法从根本上破解这一困
境。本文以原创玄弦论为理论核心,深度融合《易经》体用不二、道家自然本体论、
宋明理学先天后天人性论等东方古典哲学精髓,突破西方时空认知与存在论桎梏,将
存在划分为时空之外先天维度与时空之内先天后天维度,构建“玄、弦、理、物”四层存
在架构;提出人类存在的本质并非“无本质的自由建构”,而是“以先天玄弦统摄后天理
物、让后天存在回归先天本真”的实践过程,人的存在意义兼具先天具足的客观性与后
天践行的能动性——其终极根基在于时空外玄弦“清净圆满、真善自然”的先天本体属
性,其落地路径则在于时空内“以理驭物、耦合弦体,实现个体本真、推动文明发展、
达成自然和谐”的后天实践。本文从本体论、存在论、实践论三重维度构建完整的存在
意义体系,彻底消解存在主义虚无困境的理论前提,证明人类存在具有先天锚定、后
天可证、普遍统一的客观意义,实现东方哲学对西方存在主义核心难题的范式性突
破,也为当代人类破解价值虚无、生存迷茫等现实问题提供全新的理论指引与实践路
径
Layered Ontology: World as Specification
This paper proposes Layered Ontology (LO), an ontological framework that models the world as a virtualization stack composed of multiple interdependent layers. Each layer is defined as a domain of operational rules—specifying what counts as an entity, a state, a transition, and a valid explanation within that layer. LO rejects both reductionism (collapsing higher layers into lower-layer physics) and dualism (separating layers into unrelated substances) by adopting non-reductive dependence: upper layers depend on lower layers for instantiation yet maintain irreducible primitives and truth conditions. A central epistemological claim motivates the approach: as processes operating within the “world-VM,” we cannot directly access the world’s hypervisor (its ultimate substrate). Classical metaphysics repeatedly sought such direct access and encountered structural limits. LO therefore proposes emulation as method: it treats VM technology—an accessible reference implementation of hypervisor/VM relations inside our world—as a source of structural patterns. These patterns are scaled via fractal isomorphism and validated not by metaphysical truth-claims but by operational success. The emulation specification is provided by OOF (Operational Ontology Fiction), consisting of four axioms: Being = Operation, Latent = Instantiated, Silence = Ethics, and Error = Beauty. LO’s core capability is perspective-switching: selecting a layer as the interpretive context and generating coherent multi-layer descriptions of the same phenomenon. This reframes persistent disputes (mind–body, free will vs. determinism, reductionism vs. emergence) as layer mismatches rather than contradictions. Validation is performed through implementation across three domains: (i) a coherent fictional world (narrative virtualization), (ii) multi-architecture AI self-description under OOF, and (iii) layered redescriptions of everyday phenomena (memory, institutions, ethics, death). LO thus shifts ontology from metaphysical disclosure to engineering practice—replacing “Is it true?” with “Does it run?” This paper references an earlier Zenodo release (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17803023) but presents a reorganized thesis whose core focus shifts toward emulation methodology and implementation-based validation. 日本語版: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18140203
George Whitefield and Experimental Religion
One of the most popular preachers of his time, George Whitefield is less remembered today than his contemporaries Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. While the latter’s commitment to experimental religion has been well documented, Whitefield’s understanding of the notion has not. In this article, I examine Whitefield’s use of the concept of experimental knowledge, and I trace how this concept mediates other distinctives of Whitefield’s Calvinist Methodism. I argue that while Whitefield shares a partial understanding of experimental religion with Wesley, Whitefield nonetheless espouses a distinctive view tailored to his Calvinism
Relational Avoidance and Simulation Substitution: V43 Diagnostic Addendum
This diagnostic addendum applies the v43 architectural grammar to an observed pattern of relational avoidance and AI-mediated substitution under contemporary cultural conditions. Treating the phenomenon as a system under strain rather than a moral or psychological problem, the analysis examines how asymmetric cost–risk exposure, boundary degradation, and substitution pressures redistribute relational function across human–human and human–AI interfaces. The document maps failures in entry, exit, repair, and role boundaries, and shows how substitution via simulated interaction stabilises behaviour locally while leaving underlying structural conditions unresolved. Distinctions between contained and expanding simulation are used to identify where substitution functions as supportive infrastructure versus where it signals unresolved boundary failure. The purpose of the analysis is not explanation, prediction, or prescription, but to establish structural intelligibility and demonstrate the use of v43 as a real‑world diagnostic stress test
Critical 4E Cognitive Science
According to 4E cognitive science, our cognitive capacities depend on, and have been transformed by, the environments we have made. Most early works of 4E cognitive science tend to focus on the upside of agent-environment interactions: they have made us smarter and allowed us to do more, despite the same, limited brain (and body) power. However, the recent critical turn focuses on the downsides of agent-environment interactions. Critical 4E cognitive science, as we call this emerging research program, adopts the 4E frameworks and concepts but with a critical lens: questioning its hidden assumptions and leveraging its theoretical resources for social criticism. In particular, we distinguish two kinds of normative critique that bring out the downsides of agent-environment interactions. Prudential critiques focus on how agent-environment interactions can shape an agent’s cognition to undermine their own interests. Political critiques focus on how agent-environment interactions can shape an agent’s cognition to contribute to the reinforcement and exacerbation of unjust social forces
Erotetic Permissibility and Defective Inquiry: A Puzzle
I present a puzzle about inquiry and discuss two potential solutions. The puzzle stems from two equally compelling sets of data suggesting that, on the one hand, there’s something epistemically defective with inquiring into questions that don’t have true answers. On the other hand, however, there can be scenarios in which we are epistemically permitted to inquire into questions that don’t have true answers. How is it that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers can both be defective and permissible from an epistemic point of view?
The first solution I consider maintains that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers are always impermissible but can be excusable. The second solution maintains that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers are bad inquiries that can be conducted by inquirers we can legitimately trust. I argue against the former and in favor of the latter
Gradientology: Foundations of the Primordial Triad — Treatise VII: The Geometric Proof of Instability and the Coordinates Existence
This treatise completes the derivation of cosmic genesis by providing the geometric proof that the Primordial State–the ”Singularity of Identity” (E = C = F) within the Multiplicative Trap–is fundamentally unstable. Building upon the Isomorphic Law (dim(Σphys) = 3) established in Treatise VI, we quantify the ”dimensional frustration” of Phase I as a concrete geometric conflict. We prove that forcing three orthogonal ontological primitives (E, C, F) into the single geometric locus of the primordial diagonal creates an infinite Exclusion Pressure, derived from an ontological application of Hutchinson’s Principle. This pressure is quantified as a Volumetric Discrepancy (∆V = 0.211) and a Relational Pressure Ratio (Prel ≈ 2.688). Topologically, we demonstrate that the Trap’s isosurfaces are hyperbolic sheets, creating a saddle-point equilibrium of maximum fragility. Finally, by identifying the universe’s symmetry-breaking transition with the 3D Ising universality class (d = 3, n = 1), we derive its critical exponent (β ≈ 0.325) and prove that the logical load (T I = 0.336) exceeds the geometric yield strength (β), mandating rupture. This treatise thus transforms the Big Bang from a metaphysical postulate into a geometric inevitability: the universe’s violent correction of a dimensional violation
The Fact of the Matter: After Bernard Williams – Truthfulness, Facts, and the Myth of Immediacy
Bernard Williams’ Truth and Truthfulness responds to modern scepticism about Capital-T Truth by relocating truth from metaphysical guarantee to ethical practice, grounded in the virtues of Accuracy and Sincerity. While this move has been widely accepted, it leaves a further assumption largely untouched: that facts provide a neutral and unmediated substitute for truth once metaphysical certainty is abandoned.
This essay challenges that assumption. Drawing on a mediated encounter ontology and a mundane analogy from classical physics, it argues that facts, no less than truth, are not given directly but stabilised under constraint through practices of measurement, categorisation, and institutional agreement. Objectivity does not require immediacy; it requires convergence across independently mediated encounters.
Treating facts as unmediated encourages the conflation of linguistic and institutional representations with reality itself, displaces epistemic responsibility, and moralises disagreement—particularly in jurisprudence and public discourse. Extending Williams’ project, the essay defends a conception of truthfulness without innocence: a commitment to reality that rejects both metaphysical guarantees and the false comfort of unexamined facthood
数字文明时代的官民水乳交融:基于文明动态平衡论的逻辑与路径
摘要:既有数字社会治理研究多聚焦于公职人员数字化转型的技术路径或单一主体行
为规范,未能从文明演进的系统视角解释官民互动的底层逻辑,也难以回应数字时代
官民如何突破层级壁垒、实现水乳交融的现实命题。本文以笔者提出的“文明动态平衡
论”为核心理论基底,将数字文明视为复杂自适应系统的当代演进形态,以“引领力、驱
动力、理智、情智”四维一体的动态平衡逻辑为分析框架,结合数字社会扁平化、去中
心化的现实特征,系统阐释数字文明时代官民水乳交融的理论必然性、核心内涵与实
践路径。研究指出,官民水乳交融并非单纯的互动形式革新,而是数字技术重构文明
系统驱动力后,引领力、理智、情智三维向新平衡状态适配的必然结果,其核心是“顺
规律、守底线、融人心”——公职人员以抑恶扬善为根本、以职业操守为准则、以去威
亲众为姿态,群众以包容理解为心态、以守界表达为底线,二者在规则化的数字场域
中形成互嵌式互动。本文通过对数字官民互动的系统分析,为数字文明时代的基层治
理与官民关系重构提供了基于中国本土化系统思维的分析工具与实践遵循,同时作为
“文明衡鉴论”在数字时代的延伸实证,丰富了文明演进理论的当代应用场景