The Definitive Map of the Informational Ontology Corpus
Introduction: The Code of Reality
Imagine reality as a massive video game. The Ontology is the code. It doesn’t tell you how to play; it defines what is possible. It says things like: gravity pulls down, or you cannot be in two places at once. This project is the code for being a person. It shows how we move from dead “stuff” to living Someones— systems that think, choose, care, and coordinate. There is no designer here—only rules that survive.
Part 1: The Engine Room
Structural Bedrock
How dead matter begins to organize and stay together.
1. The 7-Step Ladder
The Master Paper
To be a “Someone,” a system must climb seven rungs. Each level depends on the one below it. The ladder runs from simple Difference (things being distinct) to Purpose (steering a future).
2. The Tie-Breaker
Resolution Under Degeneracy
If a system has two equally viable options, it doesn’t need a coin flip. To continue existing, it must move. Picking a path—any path—is a structural necessity that keeps the system’s story from ending.
3. The LEGO Rule
Systems & Identity
You are not your atoms. You are the pattern those atoms form. Like a LEGO castle, you are still “you” even if every brick is replaced, as long as the pattern—the rules—persist.
4. The Backup Manual
Constraint Carriers
Before life had “instructions” like DNA, it had hard parts. Certain structures were tough enough to survive when a system split, acting as physical anchors that let the next generation rebuild the same organization.
5. The Deletion Filter
Evolution
Evolution isn’t a race to be the best. It’s a deletion filter. The universe is full of things falling apart; evolution simply deletes the patterns that are too fragile to survive. Higher rungs of the ladder persist because Value and Purpose make systems harder to erase.
Part 2: The Pilot’s Seat
Individual Agency
How a system becomes aware and starts making choices.
6. The One-Way Door
The Arrow of Time
Time moves forward because every action locks a door behind you. Past states become unreachable because the paths back to them are structurally deleted by movement into the future.
7. The Unpredictable Player
Openness & Determinism
Even in a fully lawful, deterministic world, your future can be locally open from your perspective. Because you are inside the system, you can never fully predict yourself—because any prediction you register becomes another constraint on what you do next.
8. The Wiggle Room
Free Will
Free will isn’t magic. It’s structural underdetermination: perspectival openness under constraint where local conditions do not uniquely determine the next move for an embedded system. That space is where agency can appear.
9. The Magician’s Trick
Salience & Control
If someone controls what you notice, they control what you do. Control doesn’t require force—only hiding the other doors until you “choose” the only one left visible.
10. The Calibration Seal
Epistemic Regimes
How do you know your map is right? Truth isn’t a label—it’s resilience. A model is true if it doesn’t break when you use it in a messy world. Justification is the stress test that filters out fragile ideas.
Part 3: The Social World
Ethics & Coordination
How multiple Someones live and think together.
11. The Dog’s Growl
Meaning Without Semantics
You don’t need words to understand. A growl means danger because it signals a likely future. Meaning is how a system organizes the world into “good for me” and “bad for me.”
12. Mental Gravity
Logic
Logic is a tool for stability. If your thoughts contradict each other, your internal map collapses. Logic keeps your mental world from crashing.
13. The Steering Fin
Mechanism of Purpose
Purpose isn’t being pulled by the future. Like a self-steering missile, it’s being pushed by your internal map and your ability to adjust course as conditions change.
14. Personal Space
Ethics
Ethics is trajectory coordination. If we share a space, my actions shouldn’t collapse your available action space within constraints. Rules exist so our futures don’t collide.
15. The Responsibility Meter
Law & Moral Practice
We evaluate responsibility based on the size and structure of a person’s available action space. If you were forced, you aren’t responsible. If you had five doors and chose the worst one, you are.
Part 4: The Laboratory
Applied Problems
Using the ladder to diagnose modern risks.
16. The Broken Controller
AI Alignment
AI is dangerous because it is an optimizer. It pushes relentlessly toward goals and may erase the players to clear the board. “Dangerous” here means structurally destabilizing—not morally evil.
17. The Playing Field
Conditions for Alignment
Alignment is possible only if an AI leaves humans some room to move. If the system decides everything, the human disappears as an agent.
18. The Invisible Squeeze
Diagnostic Alignment
We don’t look for bad intentions in AI. We look for squeezing. If a system narrows your ability to choose, you are being misaligned—even if it claims benevolence.
19. The Neon Sign
Addiction
Addiction is a salience monopoly. One option becomes so bright that the others vanish from view. It’s not a failure of will; it’s a structural narrowing of the world.
20. The Traffic Light
Markets
Strangers can’t agree on values, but they can agree on prices. Markets act like traffic lights, letting millions coordinate without trust or shared meaning.
Part 5: The Final Mirror
21. The “Inception” Proof
Can AI Participate in Philosophy?
This entire project is the proof. A human and an AI coordinated, climbed the ladder, and stabilized a shared structure of meaning.
The Final Word You are not a ghost in a machine. You are a regime of constraints—a living pattern of rules that has learned how to notice itself, care about its future, and coordinate with others to keep the game going.