Philosophy of Mind Commons^™

Until The Ground Breaks, Annie Hu

Masters Theses

Until the Ground Breaks explores the complex relationship between personal memory, embodied experience, and internalized "archival logic." By examining long-term cross-cultural diasporic experiences and the shifting dynamics of family narratives—including the sensory experiences and fading memory of a grandmother, a father's correspondence that acts as a textual record of emotional logic, and the continuous revision of family history—this thesis dissects the psychological tremors that occur when the illusion of a singular, stable memory archive collapses. This research rejects the view of memory as a static container of truth, revealing it instead as a dynamic, unstable, and constantly rewritten living system. …

Jewelry As A Portable Sanctuary, Yuhao Li

Masters Theses

This thesis examines how individuals remain intact in the presence of emotional difficulty. Rather than treating protection as withdrawal, the research proposes that stability emerges through the construction of an interior structure capable of holding vulnerability without collapse. Drawing on psychological theory, philosophy, and spatial thinking, it frames emotional repair as a spatial condition: an interior that can contain experience and be returned to when external conditions become unstable.
Within this framework, jewelry is redefined as a material extension of this interior. Positioned between body and world, it operates as a structure of containment, functioning as a portable …

Perceptual Heterotopia: A Spatial Experience Through Light, Media, And Textiles, Anne Yeoji Kim

Masters Theses

This study originates from sensory experience of observing sunrises and sunsets. Although the space in which these phenomena occur remains constant, it is perceived in different ways due to changes in the light that enters the space at these times. From these sensory experiences, the study began to inquire into the relationship between reality and the ideal. From this inquiry, it evolved into an exploration of how the ideal, or utopian, could be experienced through the senses within the realm of reality.

The concept of a heterotopia, as proposed by Michel Foucault, was used to expand upon these issues. A …

What Is The Skeleton Of Cognition? A Structural Account Of World Reconstruction Through Processing Axes, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

This paper describes how the placement of a single processing axis reorganizes human cognition and generates a reconstructed world.

Most existing psychological and social theories begin from emotion, desire, morality, or social behavior. In doing so, they have discussed what forms on top of the cognitive skeleton without first fixing the skeleton itself. When the skeleton is not fixed, entirely different explanations of the same phenomenon can coexist, and it becomes difficult to identify which constitutes a foundational account.

This paper fixes the skeleton first. That skeleton is the processing axis.

The question is: when a single processing axis organizes …

A Kantian Guide To Understanding Agentic Ai And Its Ethical Consequences, Amelia Wang

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

The rapid emergence of Agentic AI, which are systems capable of autonomous, multi-step decision-making with minimal human oversight, has prompted growing discourse and concern regarding whether such systems possess a form of agency comparable to that of human beings, and subsequently, what ethical responsibilities ensue if they do. This thesis argues that many of the ethical risks surrounding Agentic AI stem from a fundamental misconception, which is the tendency to describe these systems using the language of agency ("deciding," "acting," "choosing") without examining whether they satisfy the philosophical conditions for genuine rational agency. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the …

Invisible Shipwrecks And Neurological Endangerment: The Trade-Off In Seeking Asylum - Reframing The Neurobiological Cost Of Forced Migration, Eisha Giran

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Forced migration along the Spain–Morocco route represents one of the most visible humanitarian crises of the twenty-first century, yet its neurological dimensions remain insufficiently examined. This paper investigates how prolonged displacement and trauma reshape neural systems involved in stress regulation, memory, and emotional processing. It introduces the concept of neurological endangerment, defined as a condition of prolonged and inescapable threat exposure during forced migration in which stress-response systems remain chronically activated, opportunities for recovery are structurally constrained, and cumulative neurobiological risk persists beyond the period of immediate danger.

To address the gap between biological measurement and lived experience, this paper …

Phenomenological Philosophy Of Psychedelics: Psychedelic Experience In The Modes Of Saturation And Flesh, Michael V. Kramer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work seeks to develop the nascent sub-field of the phenomenological philosophy of psychedelics. Beginning with a general overview of key aspects pertinent to psychedelic studies, the focus then turns to a general disciplinary discussion of current approaches within the philosophy of psychedelics, as well as psychedelic philosophy—a distinction which is technically deployed. Special consideration is given to the specific approach known as the “natural philosophy of psychedelics,” which is taken as the philosophical foil to the preferred approach of phenomenological philosophy. A survey of the extant literature regarding the implementation of phenomenology within psychedelic discourse is then provided …

What History Shows: A Structural Account Of Fixed-Point Theory Formation, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

Theory generation has long been subsumed under categories such as creativity, genius, and innovation. These categories do not distinguish assembly-based conceptual synthesis from fixed-point theory generation.

This paper makes that distinction explicit. The termination condition of assembly is external: data, citation, endorsement, usability. The termination condition of fixed-point theory generation is internal: consistency with internally held constraints, resolution of structural contradiction. The two operate under different processing conditions.

The historical record confirms this distinction. What Darwin, Einstein, Spinoza, and Kant produced was not assembly. Their processes involved unresolved branch retention and decomposition necessity, arriving at internally constrained fixed-point termination. Freud …

Soma: Exploring Touch As Performance And Performance As Therapy, Erica Pamson

Expressive Therapies Theses

This project investigated the role of touch within a performative context and its potential as a creative intervention within Expressive Arts Therapy. Grounded in phenomenology and intersubjectivity, the study draws on Expressive Arts Therapy (EXAT) and Performance Art frameworks that position meaning as emerging through embodied, co-created experience. Existing literature identifies touch as a primary mode of perception and communication, essential to both physical and emotional well-being, while also noting its increasing absence and regulation within contemporary Western culture. Performance art literature further highlights the body as both medium and site of relational exchange, often dissolving boundaries between performer and …

Processing Conditions In Narrative Interpretation: A Structural Account Of Cf/Ef Divergence In "The Clerk's Tale”, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

This paper applies the framework established in Paper 19, "Cognition Is Not Content: A Structural Account of Processing Conditions," to re-describe Chaucer's "The Clerk's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales.

The same narrative produces two incompatible interpretations: a record of domestic violence, and a story of genuine love. This divergence does not arise from differences in ethical judgment or emotional response. It arises from structural differences in the conditions under which information is reconstructed.

This paper does three things. First, it analyzes the characters Walter and Griselda in terms of CF (Core-foregrounded) and EF (Modulation-foregrounded) processing conditions. Second, it describes …

Wind In A Dry Glass, Khia Hong

Theses and Dissertations

Khia Hong’s paper unfolds in five sections, tracing the ontological and epistemological inquiries behind her sculptures. When the sculptures stepped down from the pedestal and entered the plane of lived reality, the question “What is sculpture?” expanded into “What is sculpture, the self, and the world?” Through reflections on the self, Hong details how these questions emerge and are addressed in her material encounters.

Bergsonian Blend: Subjective Temporality Within Modernist Aesthetics Of Mental Illness, Lydia Victoria Gervais

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Henri Bergson was a modernist French philosopher who wrote extensively on the topic of the lived experience of time, which he called durée, or duration. His contemporary, Sigmund Freud, was developing psychoanalytic theory in a growing field of psychological study, which serves as a prominent ancestor to modern psychiatry and current psychoanalytical literary studies. Fiction writers of the 1900s absorbed the zeitgeist of melded chronology and consciousness, interweaving themes of time and trauma in their works. Utilizing Henri Bergson’s durée as a philosophical framework, I examine the moralization of time-consciousness in connection with mental illness and investigate representations of …

Diagrammatic Contemplation, Khang Nguyen

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This work presents the integration of contemplative practice engaging western and eastern philosophies about apperception, consciousness, presence with an art practice that uses diagrammatic contemplation as a basis for developing and presenting art. The aim is not just an optical effect, but to engage the viewer in experiencing non-dual consciousness.

Cognition Is Not Content: A Structural Account Of Processing Conditions, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

Human cognition has been described in terms of content. This description becomes insufficient once artificial systems make output observable apart from subject attribution, intention, and relational context. Under this contrast condition, what becomes visible is a layered structure in which output, reconstruction, evaluation, and termination do not necessarily coincide. The same input may register as complete under one processing condition while remaining unresolved under another. This separability means that content-based description does not merely omit an additional variable: it can mislocate a processing difference as a difference in meaning, personality, intention, ability, or attitude. This is not a proposal for …

We Are Not What We Think: Solipsism & The Concept Of Mind, Michael Marcoux

Student Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I argue that the persuasiveness of solipsism—understood as skepticism of the existence of anything or anyone outside of one’s own private mental life—rests not on its intrinsic argumentative force, but on the degree of commitment to a certain philosophical dogma. I use the problem of solipsism to tease out this dogma, which I dub the Primacy of Privacy. It is characterized by the conviction that in dealing with what there is and what we know, the mental, be it construed in terms of perceptions or thoughts, is the only certain datum from which most if not all …

Writing As A Process Of Inquiry In Autoethnography For Meaning-Making: Reflections And Some Points For Consideration, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

This article explores writing as a process of inquiry and meaning-making in the autoethnographic tradition, offering reflections on the recursive, emergent, and dialogical/dialectical nature of writing, along with some points for consideration. Drawing on perspectives from qualitative research and narrative inquiry (Riessman, 2008), I argue that autoethnographic writing serves as a method of inquiry and/or discovery, generating ontological, epistemological, and axiological-driven cultural meaning that functions as a site of reflection, interrogation, and re-storying of lived experiences. This recursive, often messy, and reflexive act allows researchers to excavate, analyze, and interpret their lived experiences. Rather than viewing writing as a final-stage …

The Transformation Of Autonomous Faculties: From The Enlightenment Era To Present-Day, Amber Ready

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the historical transformation of autonomous faculties from the Enlightenment to the present, arguing that the material and technological conditions necessary for autonomous judgment have been progressively eroded through capitalism. Beginning with Kant’s account of enlightenment as the emergence from a self‑incurred minority, this paper shows that autonomy has always depended on social and economic structures that determine who can exercise independent reasoning. Through Marx and Lukács, the analysis traces how commodity production, alienation, and reification reorganize subjectivity and render social relations increasingly opaque. Adorno’s account of recognition, self‑preservation, and the culture industry further illustrates how individuals are …

Reading The Room: A Structural Account Of Constraint-Based Processing And Its Limits In Artificial Systems, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

This paper does not introduce a new structure.

It makes explicit a structural relation implied but not directly stated in prior work.

Human interpersonal processing is grounded in the co-presence of internal constraint and dependency.

These do not exist as separable components.

They form a single structural condition.

This paper shows that what is commonly described as “reading the room” is not a unitary function.

It differs across configurations in how this condition is processed.

In EF configurations, the effect of this condition is expressed through translation into self-return: outputs are evaluated in terms of how they return to the …

Extreme Cf: A Structural Account Of Processing Absence And Category Absence In Cf-Foregrounded Configurations, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

Existing frameworks of cognition and intervention assume that processing occurs, meaning is available, and evaluation can be applied.

This paper describes a configuration in which this assumption does not hold.

In CF-foregrounded processing where modulation is absent, processing occurs only when coherence is satisfied. When coherence is not satisfied, processing does not occur. Under this condition, no representation is generated, no evaluation applies, and no action selection is produced.

Within single-layer cognitive models, EF and CF are not distinguished. Within such models, CF does not exist as a condition.

This configuration has not been represented as a category within existing …

Pre-Experiential Constraint Reconstruction: A Structural Account Of The Prior Layer In Dialogue With Jung, Griselda Poe

Publications and Research

Experiences commonly described as pre-experiential memory—such as immediate recognition, familiarity without prior exposure, and the sense of "already knowing"—are typically interpreted as the retrieval of stored content. However, this storage-based account does not provide a structurally consistent explanation of how such content is preserved prior to experience or reactivated in a form that aligns with present input.

This paper extends the three-layer cognitive architecture developed in prior work in this series (Poe, 2026n), in which cognition operates across Core processing, Modulation, and an operationally inaccessible Prior layer that supplies constraints to all processing.

This paper proposes an alternative account in …