The engineering principles of concept formation
The study of distinction and its dynamics
Thesis
Every concept draws a line through the world. Where the line falls is governed by an index — scope, locus, resolution, measurement, rules for sameness. What the line captures is a distinction. What it excludes — the remainder — does not disappear, it presses back.
We study the principles that govern this process: how concepts form, what they cost, what holds them in place, and how to build them.
Research
Five areas
If concept formation has engineering principles, those principles apply wherever concepts form.
Publications
Selected work
Presented
Contradiction as Cognitive Resource: Two Regimes of Sequential Reasoning in Large Language Models
UNILOG 2025, Cusco
Folding Contradiction: Toward Canonical Normalization in Paraconsistent Logic
UNILOG 2025, Cusco
Accepted
The Failure of Reflection: Différance, Stabilization, and the Resistance to Crystallization
École Normale Supérieure (ENS) Paris
From Smoothing to Stability: Contradiction, Delay, and the Development of Resilient Minds with AI
CSIC Madrid
The Fold as Dialogue: Toward a Recursive Formalism
University of Konstanz
From Borrowed Templates to Working Models: Stabilization as Policy Settlement in Cultural Evolution
Leibniz University Hannover
Shimmer: Anthony McCall and the Opacity of Light
ESPACE art actuel, no. 143
Writing
