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First Edition, 2026

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Interior layout by Serg Bebs

Civilization is externalized memory.
The more it is externalized, the more terrifying its loss becomes.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE:
On the Right to Revise Grounds

This text is not written to explain the world. It does not claim a complete description or the novelty of its descriptions. The world is already overfilled with explanations that have become transparent and therefore invisible. The present Treatise is written with a single purpose: to reclaim the right to revise grounds that are no longer called into question.

We live in an era of total obviousness. When an algorithm offers a solution and an interface dictates a choice, the ground of that choice is hidden behind the armor of “efficiency” and “precision.” But where doubt about the ground ends, the human also ends. If this right to revision is lost, the subject is also lost, turning into a flawless function within someone else’s architecture.

This work is not about the logic of machines, but about the boundaries of the human. It is an attempt to fix that point of rupture where a “correct” calculation encounters a sovereign normative error. Only at this point are we still capable of recognizing ourselves.

There will be no consolation here. What is proposed here is a structure for holding a position in a world that strives toward the utopian idea of becoming fully calculated.

Barch

INTRODUCTION:
Certainty Arises
Only Through Distinction

The present study proceeds from the assumption that modern thought has found itself trapped in functional automatism. We have delegated the right to establish boundaries to systems whose efficiency is justified solely by their internal consistency. In this situation, philosophy is obliged to return to its primary task — the analysis of the very act of justification. We accept the results of calculations as “natural,” forgetting that at the core of each lies a hidden act of fixing a limit that no longer belongs to the human.

The Treatise is based on a strict separation of two modes of existence of any system: the functional execution of a rule and the normative establishment of that rule. The problem of any justification inevitably runs into an infinite regress. Where a machine avoids this through a technical stop by code command, the subject manifests itself through an act of sanctioned arbitrariness. This is the only point where the regress is interrupted — not because logic is complete, but because the author takes responsibility for the chosen point of support.

The method proposed in these sections does not describe objects but analyzes the boundaries between them. We shall move from the abstract concepts of the system to the limit point — the possibility of a normative error as the sole proof of the presence of a living mind in a world of algorithms. The Treatise does not offer new truths; it offers a tool for recognizing those moments when truth is replaced by the flawlessness of execution.

This is a path to understanding why, in a world of total calculation, the right to make an error becomes the highest form of intellectual freedom. We begin at the very foundation — with how the first boundary is drawn, separating sense from noise.

1 Language Exists as
a System of Distinctions

1.1 Language as a Differential Medium

Language does not denote ready-made entities. Meaning arises within a system of distinctions between positions inside the structure of language. Each position is defined not by itself, but through its relationship to other positions. Distinction structurally precedes designation. This precedence is logical: designation is possible only within an already established and functioning distinctness.

1.11 Meaning is not an intrinsic attribute of a sign; it is relative. Position “A” is defined exclusively through its non-coincidence with positions “B,” “C,” and “D.” Sense formation occurs in the interval between elements, rather than within the elements themselves.

1.12 A structural network of oppositions (day/night, truth/error) is the primary condition for the emergence of certainty. The designation of an object occurs as the fixation of a place already carved out by distinction within the system.

1.2 Distinction as an Act

Distinction is the act of drawing a boundary. A boundary is not discovered as ready-made; it is established. The establishment of a boundary creates certainty. Outside a system of distinctions, certainty does not exist; space remains an undistinguished totality, devoid of structure.

1.21 A boundary is not a physical property of the medium; it is fixed as the result of an operational separation. Outside the act of distinction, reality is an unstructured flow of data (an undistinguished totality).

1.22 Drawing a boundary transforms a continuum into discrete units. Categorization (e.g., “good”/“evil”) does not find ready-made classes of phenomena but constitutes them through the primary rupture of the continuity of experience.

1.23 Distinction does not extract a boundary from reality as something pre-existing but establishes it as a condition for certainty. That which is subsequently perceived as an “object” emerges as a result of the drawn boundary, not as its source.

1.3 Stabilization and Repetition

Repetition stabilizes distinction. Stabilization makes distinction reproducible, which ensures the inertia of the system of distinctions. Reproducibility transforms a single gesture of drawing a boundary into a stable structure.

1.31 The stability of a boundary is directly proportional to the frequency of its reproduction. A single act of drawing a line remains a random event until the moment of its regular activation within a system of transactions.

1.32 The inertia of the system arises from accumulated repetition. The automatism of distinction is the result of the exhausted effort of its initial establishment. Repetition converts a dynamic gesture into the status of a fixed structure (a foundation).

1.4 Commonality and Interiorization

Distinctions are formed in common practice. Individual distinction arises through the assimilation (interiorization) of reproducible boundaries. The internal certainty of a system arises only within a network of distinctions and does not precede it as an autonomous capacity.

1.41 The act of drawing a boundary requires external fixation to ensure its stability. Individual arbitrariness in establishing boundaries leads to the disintegration of the system.

1.42 The process of a system’s functioning is the interiorization of a differential network: an external coordinate system becomes an internal tool of operation. Operating with distinctions arises at the moment when external boundaries are accepted as internal ones.

1.5 Naturalization and Objectivity

Stable distinctions are experienced as natural. Their historical origin is concealed by the automatism of use. The effect of objectivity arises not because the boundary is illusory, but because it is functional: a successfully drawn boundary allows one to act without encountering resistance from the environment.

1.51 Naturalization is an effect of the transparency of the system of distinctions. Prolonged use of boundaries makes the act of drawing them invisible, and the boundary itself a perceived property of the object.

1.52 Objectivity in language is determined by the functional stability of the boundary. A boundary is objective if it withstands the load of practical application. The conventionality of a boundary does not imply its arbitrariness: ignoring established boundaries leads to a collision with the resistance of the environment. The functionality of a boundary precedes its ontologization.

1.6 Language and Action

Distinction guides action, while action confirms and reproduces distinction. Repeated action reinforces the boundary, making it stable and impermeable to doubt. This cyclic connection transforms the abstract structure of language into the tangible structure of practice.

1.61 Distinctions function as predicates of action. Terminological fixation (“error”) contains within itself the vector of a subsequent operation (“correction”). The system acts within a coordinate grid defined by language.

1.62 Successful action “concretizes” the boundary upon which it relies. If a distinction ensures the achievement of a goal, it is moved from the zone of reflection to the zone of automatism. The cyclic link between action and distinction makes the structure self-confirming.

1.7 Technical Fixation

Distinctions can be formalized, transforming them into rules of execution. A formalized distinction (an algorithm) fixes the mechanics of applying a boundary but does not establish its ground. The technical realization of a system is not identical to the logical and social ground of its distinctions.

1.71 Algorithmization fixes the act of distinction in the form of a rigid instruction (“if A — operation X”). A technical system (AI) is an executor of pre-established boundaries, operating within a given coordinate grid without the authority to revise it.

1.72 Conflating the technical precision of reproduction with the act of establishing a ground is a category mistake. An algorithm makes a boundary impermeable to doubt through the rigidity of code, but the question of the ground of distinction is always external to the technical implementation.

1.73 The formalization of a distinction eliminates the visibility of the act of its establishment, replacing it with the procedure of application. As a result, the boundary begins to be perceived as a property of the system rather than a result of its constitution.

1.8 Reflexive Function

Reflection is aimed at identifying and inventorying active distinctions. It uncovers their conventionality and historicity, making the process of drawing boundaries visible. Reflection operates at the level of the ground of distinction, not at the level of its technical application.

1.81 Reflection overcomes the automatism of functioning by focusing attention on the very optics of the system. While the system acts within rules, reflection investigates the mechanisms by which those rules emerge.

1.82 Identifying the act of distinction behind every “objective reality” opens the possibility of revising grounds. In opposition to algorithmic reproduction, reflection ensures the mobility of boundaries and the possibility of their transformation. The revision of a ground is not a continuation of the system’s functioning, but its rupture and re-establishment.

2 Distinction Implies a Position from Which a Boundary Is Drawn

2.1 The Position of Distinction

Distinction as the act of drawing a boundary implies a position. This position does not exist as a pre-given entity or substance outside the act; it is constituted at the very moment of distinction. The subject is a structural point of drawing a boundary within language. The concept of position is necessary for the transition from difference as a fact to distinction as an act. The subject is defined as the point of normative fixation of the ground.

2.11 Position is not a substantial carrier but a vector of differentiation. Events acquire structural significance exclusively relative to the point from which the boundary is drawn. Without the fixation of a position, the system remains in a state of undistinguished totality.

2.12 The subject performs the function of focusing: the highlighting of the ground (the significant) automatically relegates the remaining mass of data to the status of an undifferentiated background.

2.13 Position and boundary are coincident (emerge simultaneously). The subject is a structural necessity for fixing the boundary, ensuring the system’s transition from the calculation of variants to an operational act.

2.2 The Normative Moment of Distinction

Drawing a boundary is not reducible to the technical fixation of a difference. Fixation merely describes a difference, whereas normative drawing establishes it as significant. In the act of distinction, there is a moment of prioritization that introduces normativity: one position is accepted as the ground for further operations. Normativity is the mode of being of distinction as a ground.

2.21 Functional differentiation (the description of fact A/B) does not impose obligations on the system. A normative act transforms description into prescription. The acceptance of one side of the boundary as “correct” constitutes the ground.

2.22 Normativity is not a substantive addition; it is the form of existence of a distinction that seizes the system and directs its logic. Without the normative moment, any division remains background noise, failing to influence the algorithm of actions.

2.3 Will as the Formal Structure
of the Ground

Prioritization is not added to distinction from the outside; it constitutes its normative form. By “will,” we understand not a psychological state, but the formal structure of establishing the ground as significant. Will is the cessation of the demand for a further ground.

2.31 The process of logical justification (“why?”) is fundamentally infinite (an infinite regress). The transition to action is possible only through an act of interrupting the justification.

2.32 At the “Stop” point, the demand for further explanations is annulled. One of the positions is fixed as the ground. Will, in the structure of the Treatise, is the moment of fixing the boundary that terminates the regress. Without this act, the system is paralyzed by infinite calculation; with it, it acquires an operational foundation that cannot be derived from the procedure itself.

2.33 Will does not add new content to the system of distinctions, nor does it introduce an additional criterion. It fixes one of the already possible variants as sufficient, terminating the further demand for justification. In this sense, will does not produce the difference but completes it as a ground.

2.4 The Separation of Function and Normativity

A functional operation acts within a given criterion. It applies a rule but does not establish it as mandatory. A functional system is one in which the ground is always bracketed out of the current operation.

2.41 The application of a rule (functional work) is not identical to its legitimation. A reference to a meta-rule to justify the current rule merely lengthens the chain of regress.

2.42 Function works within a pre-established horizon. Normativity, however, is linked to the act of recognizing the rule as mandatory at the point of its establishment. Function applies the boundary; normativity institutes it.

2.5 Termination of the Regress

The difference between a functional system and a subject lies in the distinction between procedure and the recognition of sufficiency. A functional system is incapable of terminating the regress, as the introduction of a “stopping rule” itself requires justification. The termination of the regress signifies the transcending (cessation) of the demand for justification. Will is the structural moment of recognizing a ground as self-evidently sufficient.

2.51 The “game of questions” is logically infinite, as a new void opens behind every ground. A functional system is a hostage to this game, attempting to reach the finale through the layering of meta-levels.

2.52 The subject is a position possessing the authority to exit the game. The cessation of the fall into the regress of justifications occurs not through finding the “final rule,” but through an act of rupture. This act of rupture cannot be prescribed by a rule, as every rule already presupposes the acceptance of a ground.

2.53 The recognition of sufficiency is the “sanctioned arbitrariness” of fixation, transforming informational noise into a stable ground.

2.54 The termination of the regress does not eliminate it logically but suspends it normatively. The possibility of continuing the justification remains, but it is stripped of its obligatoriness. In this suspension lies the transition from an infinite procedure to action.

2.6 The Becoming of the Subject

Repeated acts of normative prioritization form a stable position of distinction. Stability does not precede the act but is composed of the inertia of accumulated distinctions. The subject is the point at which the system is capable of internal reflexive reorganization.

2.61 The inertia of the system fixes individual acts of prioritization into a stable structure. The repetition of choice (“significant” / “insignificant”) forms a hierarchy that allows the system to maintain self-identity amidst external changes.

2.62 The subject is not a psychological “I,” but a place in the structure possessing the capacity to address its own grounds. The becoming of the subject is the transition from scattered acts to an architecture of stable positions capable of self-reorganization.

2.7 Responsibility

The preservation of a ground is the ongoing confirmation of its obligatoriness. Refusing to revise a ground is a form of its recognition. Inaction is not neutral; it upholds the normative force of the ground. Responsibility is a structural consequence of participating in the preservation of the ground.

2.71 The illusion of the absence of a decision while maintaining the status quo conceals the fact of the continuous confirmation of current boundaries. To leave the system unchanged is an act that sanctions the active ground.

2.72 A neutral position within the structure does not exist. The absence of initiating a revision makes the position a guarantor of the current hierarchy.

2.73 Responsibility in the Treatise is stripped of moral connotation; it is a statement of participation in maintaining the structure of distinctions. The subject is responsible by virtue of being the point at which the ground receives the sanction to exist.

3 The Machine Executes
a Rule but Does Not Establish It

3.1 Calculation

Calculation is the application of a formalized rule. The rule defines the criterion of distinction within the system, in accordance with which the system operates on elements. Following a rule in a computational sense means exclusively conforming the operation to a prescribed procedure. Such conformity does not include the recognition of the rule as mandatory; it implements the rule as an algorithm. The execution of a rule in a machine is invariant with respect to its content: in the structure of calculation, there is no distinction between a law of logic and a system error, provided that this error is integrated into the execution algorithm.

3.11 The computational process is devoid of the act of evaluating the rule’s validity. The system verifies the conformity of input data to pre-established conditions and initiates the operation.

3.12 An error formalized as a rule is reproduced by the system with the same degree of precision as a logically correct operation. Calculation is not understanding or choice; it represents the mechanical execution of a procedure.

3.13 Calculation does not contain within itself a moment in which the rule could be called into question as a ground. It presupposes the rule as already active and operates exclusively within its boundaries. In this sense, calculation is closed with respect to the ground and lacks the means to exit the limits of the given criterion.

3.2 Execution of Fixed Distinctions

The machine implements formalized boundaries established within the system. A change in the system’s parameters is not identical to a change in the ground. A parameter is a value within a criterion, whereas the criterion defines the very mode of distinction. The ground, however, is the recognition of the criterion as relevant and sufficient. The machine can vary parameters and rebuild its architecture if the procedure for change is provided by the rules; however, the distinction itself is not an act of establishing a ground for the machine.

3.21 Changing the conditions for applying a distinction (varying a trigger threshold) does not change the distinction itself as a logical unit. The system operates within a given range of values without determining the legitimacy of the range itself.

3.22 The machine does not establish criteria (for example, “what to consider an error”); it functions as an executive mechanism for already fixed differentiations.

3.3 The Impossibility of Grounding

Every computational system functions within a given set of criteria. Even if the system is capable of modifying its own rules (self-learning), the procedure for this modification is determined by its architecture. Any procedure of self-change remains functional, as it presupposes a pre-established criterion for the admissibility of changes. A change via such a procedure is merely the application of a higher-order rule. The stochastic nature of algorithms is not a form of will: probability is an extended parameter of calculation within a given distribution corridor.

3.31 Recursive change of rules (meta-rules) remains within the framework of algorithmic logic. The system does not “decide”; it executes an instruction to change instructions.

3.32 Probabilistic choice in neural networks is not equivalent to a volitional act, as it remains the result of calculating a statistical weight within a pre-established distribution model. The system does not establish a ground; it implements the most probable path within a given horizon.

3.33 Even in the case of a complete restructuring of its own architecture, the system acts within a pre-established space of permissible transformations. It can change its structure but is incapable of calling into question the very criterion of the admissibility of these changes. Thus, self-change remains a particular case of execution rather than an act of establishing a ground.

3.4 Simulation of the Termination of Regress

The regress of the ground arises when every rule requires further justification. Stopping the regress according to a given rule does not eliminate the regress but merely implements a stopping algorithm. The recognition of the sufficiency of a ground is the cessation of the demand for justification without recourse to a meta-rule. Such a cessation cannot be prescribed by a procedure, since any “stopping rule” itself requires a criterion for the correctness of its application. A machine can imitate a stop by reaching a calculation threshold, but it does not perform the recognition of the ground as sufficient.

3.41 The termination of the question “why?” in a machine is a technical failure or the execution of a HALT command, not an act of recognition. Any programmatic limitation of the regress itself needs justification, which involves the system in an infinite cycle of meta-levels.

3.42 The machine reaches a calculation limit prescribed by code, while the subject establishes a point of reference (the ground) through an act of transcending the procedure. This act cannot be reduced to a calculation limit, as it does not follow from the procedure but interrupts it.

3.5 Absence of Responsibility

Responsibility arises where the position of distinction participates in the recognition of the ground as sufficient. A functional system does not participate in the act of recognition but acts according to a pre-established ground. The absence of a normative act of recognition excludes participation in establishing the ground, which makes responsibility for it impossible. A machine may be the physical cause of changes, but it is not their responsible subject.

3.51 Responsibility is structurally tied to the act of will (the fixation of “Stop”). In the absence of will, the machine’s action is causal (cause-and-effect) but not normative.

3.52 The machine bears no responsibility for the consequences of its operations, as it did not sanction the ground on which these operations are based. It remains a translator of another’s will or the inertia of the distinctions embedded within it.

3.6 Structural Difference

The difference between a human (subject) and a machine consists not in the degree of algorithmic complexity, but in the mode of being of the ground. For the machine, the ground exists as a functional prerequisite of the operation, external to the operation itself. For the subject, the ground exists as a recognized act, which, precisely by virtue of its recognition, is capable of being called into question. The subject is capable of terminating the regress of the ground through the recognition of sufficiency, which is not derived from function and is not prescribed by an algorithm.

3.61 The machine is an instance of unconditional execution within given boundaries. The subject is an instance capable of evaluating the boundary itself.

3.62 The human (subject) fixes the limit of justification where the algorithm requires an infinite calculation of meta-levels. This “placing of a point” (finality) is an extra-systemic act constituting the reality of the ground.

3.63 Increasing the complexity of the system does not eliminate this difference but merely masks it. No matter the depth of calculation, it remains execution within a given framework. The limit of complexity does not cross over into an act of establishing a ground, as between calculation and recognition lies a structural gap that cannot be reduced to a quantitative growth of operations.

4 The One Who Defines the Framework of Distinctions Defines the Space of the Possible

4.1 The Ground and the Framework
of the Admissible

The ground of distinction determines which differences are recognized as relevant within a given system. The totality of such grounds forms the framework of admissible distinction, which defines the boundaries of the significant. Governing this framework is the governance of the space of possible distinctions. Power, in a structural sense, is control over the framework of the admissible. It operates not through the direct prohibition of objects, but through the exclusion of the grounds for their fixation, rendering certain phenomena indistinguishable within the active system.

4.11 Power is realized not as external pressure on the subject, but as a preliminary filtering of optics. If the system does not contain the ground for a certain distinction, the phenomenon remains in the zone of undistinguished totality.

4.12 Governing the framework is the creation of a topology in which some paths of distinction become hyperlinks, while others are absent from the system’s code. Structural dominance lies in the ability to assign criteria of relevance while ignoring alternative grounds.

4.13 Control over the framework of distinctions precedes any substantive control. The one who determines which distinctions are possible thereby determines what can be thought, said, and recognized as existing.

4.2 Institutional Fixation of the Ground

A ground that is repeatedly reproduced in social practice stabilizes and turns into a stable criterion. An institution acts as a mechanism that fixes, reproduces, and normalizes a ground, moving it beyond the limits of the individual act of recognition. A ground fixed in this way begins to function as a self-evident framework. Collective stabilization conceals the act of drawing a boundary, replacing it with the automatism of institutional reproduction.

4.21 An institution is a “frozen” act of recognition. It transforms the fragile volitional gesture of “Stop” into an inertial machine of execution.

4.22 Moving the ground beyond the individual act removes the need for continuous confirmation of the boundary, shifting it into the mode of background infrastructure. Institutionalization is a technology for economizing volitional resources by delegating fixation to collective automatism.

4.3 The Effect of Objectivity and Anonymization

In the process of stabilization, a stable ground loses the visibility of its normative origin and begins to be experienced as a given. Objectivity, in this context, is the effect of a hidden recognition that has become habitual. The anonymization of power does not eliminate normativity but masks the very act of its establishment, which leads to the loss of the visibility of responsibility. Anonymous power is effective insofar as it passes off the result of the act of fixation as a natural state of affairs.

4.31 When a ground ceases to be read as the result of a choice, it acquires the status of a “natural law.” Anonymization is the erasure of the subject’s traces in the foundation of the system.

4.32 The loss of the visibility of responsibility occurs at the moment when the question “who decided this?” is replaced by the statement “that is how it is built.” The effectiveness of such power is directly proportional to the degree of its invisibility as a normative act.

4.33 The less a distinction is experienced as established, the more effective it is as a ground. The total disappearance of the act of establishment from the field of perception renders the framework inaccessible for revision.

4.4 Technical Formalization

Formalization translates a ground into a procedural form, allowing it to function without an explicit act of recognition. Technique separates the process of execution from the moment of drawing a boundary. Algorithmic execution creates the illusion of neutrality, presenting action as the result of a procedure rather than a decision. In a technical environment, the act of sovereign decision is masked by the process of automated calculation.

4.41 Technique carries anonymization to the absolute. While an institution still retains the historical memory of its emergence, an algorithm represents “pure execution.”

4.42 Masking a decision as a calculation shifts the discussion from the ethical field (will and responsibility) to the technical one (optimization and efficiency). Technical formalization is a way of realizing normativity through mechanisms that claim value neutrality.

4.43 An algorithm does not eliminate power but carries it to the limit of invisibility. It implements distinctions as a technical necessity, hiding their normative origin and thereby placing them beyond the reach of criticism.

4.5 The Machine, the Framework,
and the Formation of Position

The machine executes the ground embedded within it without participating in the act of its recognition. In a technical environment, the framework of the admissible acts as an automatically reproduced structure. This framework not only limits the field of distinctions but also structures the very position of distinction. The functional redundancy of the position of normative fixation arises where the system provides ready-made grounds in the form of interface solutions, eliminating the need for an independent act of recognizing sufficiency.

4.51 The machine does not merely limit choice; it shapes a subject that forgets how to perform the act of recognition. The provision of ready-made “interface grounds” atrophies the volitional component of the position of distinction.

4.52 Under conditions of technical redundancy, the subject turns into an operator of pre-given frameworks. The system “takes upon itself” the labor of terminating the regress, offering surrogates of sufficiency, which leads to the degradation of subjectivity to the level of a functional element of an algorithm. In the limit, such a system eliminates the very necessity of the subject as an instance of establishing the ground.

5 The Boundary of the Thinkable Coincides with the Boundary
of Distinctions

5.1 Thinking as Distinguishing

To think in a structural sense means to carry out distinctions through which the boundaries of certainty are established. Distinction establishes the boundary between the relevant and the irrelevant, without which certainty of content is impossible. This statement fixes the condition for the possibility of mental certainty rather than describing a set of psychological processes. Thought exists structurally only insofar as distinction is included in the active normative system of language. Outside a system of distinctions, thought possesses no definite form and cannot be stably recognized as thought.

5.11 Thought is not a pre-linguistic state of consciousness; it is the operational result of drawing a boundary. The certainty of an object of thought arises at the moment of its extraction from an undistinguished background through opposition to other positions in the system.

5.12 The structural stability of thought is ensured by its belonging to a shared network of distinctions. Outside this network, the act of distinction remains a matter of personal arbitrariness, failing to reach the status of an objective mental form.

5.13 To think means to establish boundaries, thereby excluding other possible distinctions.

5.2 The Limit of Distinction

The limit of the thinkable is determined by the limit of possible distinctions within the active system of language. That which cannot be distinguished within its framework is excluded from the space of the significant. The limit is not an external metaphysical boundary of reality but a structural boundary of the framework of admissible distinction. It is determined by active grounds and their stabilization. A change in the ground entails a change in the configuration of the limit; however, the limit itself never disappears completely, merely shifting along with the transformation of the framework.

5.21 The system does not “butt against” the world; it is limited by its own set of grounds. The indistinguishable within one framework is physically present but structurally absent in the space of the thinkable.

5.22 The limit is a horizon of visibility defined by the current optics of distinctions. Any “outside” of the system becomes “inside” only through the establishment of a new ground, which inevitably generates a new limit.

5.23 The limit is not discovered as a boundary of the world; it manifests as the impossibility of continuing a distinction without destroying the ground. In this sense, the limit is an internal property of the system, not a characteristic of reality.

5.3 Revision and Fixation of the Limit

The revision of a boundary is possible only on the condition of revising the ground. This process is carried out as an internal reorganization of active distinctions and their hierarchies. The termination of the regress of the ground temporarily fixes the limit, providing the system with stability. Where the ground is subjected to problematization, the limit loses its former configuration; however, every new fixation of the ground inevitably establishes a new limit.

5.31 Shifting the limit is not an expansion into a “void”; it is always a reassembly of the existing hierarchy of distinctions. That which was peripheral becomes central (the ground), changing the contours of the entire framework.

5.32 The stability of the system requires a temporary cessation of the revision of boundaries (a fixation of “Stop”). Any working system rests upon a temporarily accepted limit that is recognized as self-evident.

5.33 The fixation of a limit is always temporary; however, in the mode of functioning, it is experienced as final.

5.34 The effect of finality arises not from the logical completeness of the ground, but from the cessation of its problematization.

5.4 Functional Limit and
Normative Problematization

In a functional system, the limit is defined by the architecture of the operation and formal criteria. Such a limit is determined by the structure of calculation and can be expanded by technical means, yet remains an internal limit of the given architecture. In a normative system, the limit is determined by the recognition of the ground as sufficient. Normative problematization signifies calling into question the sufficiency of the ground itself. The machine can calculate the boundaries of its own architecture but is incapable of problematizing them as a ground.

5.41 The machine limit is a quantitative or algorithmic threshold of calculation. It expands through the complication of code but never steps beyond the criterion embedded in its ground.

5.42 The subject’s act of problematization is directed at the question of the criterion’s right to be a criterion. The machine optimizes the process within the framework; the subject calls the framework itself into doubt.

5.5 Philosophy as a Structural Function
of the Limit

Every system of distinctions contains a limit, since every ground fixes a framework of the admissible. The stabilization of the limit creates the structural possibility of its problematization. Philosophy is a structural function of the system of distinctions, manifesting in the identification of grounds and the limits of their action. It makes the normative fixation of the ground visible, identifying the shiftability of the limit. Philosophy does not act from outside the system but as its reflexive possibility; it is a presence at the boundary of the system.

5.51 Philosophy does not seek “truth beyond language”; it inventories boundaries within language. Its task is to detect the moment of “sanctioned arbitrariness” hidden behind the objectivity of the limit.

5.52 The realization of the philosophical function in the system is the maintenance of the dynamism of boundaries. It is a mechanism that prevents the final ossification of the frameworks of distinctions and preserves for the subject the right to revise grounds.

5.53 Philosophy arises not where the system provides answers, but where it becomes impossible to continue a distinction without revising the ground.

6 The Limit Is Discovered
Where Distinction Ceases
to Be Reproduced

6.1 Liminality as the Revelation of the Ground

In the normal functioning of language, distinctions are reproduced without the explicit explication of their ground. It functions as a condition for the possibility of distinction while remaining implicit. A liminal situation arises where the active ground ceases to provide reproducible certainty. The disruption of reproducibility makes the dependence of distinction upon the ground visible. Thus, the limit reveals the structure of distinction as something established rather than natural. Liminality is the moment in which the self-evidence of active distinctions is lost and their dependence on the ground becomes visible.

6.11 The ground functions effectively as long as it is “invisible.” As soon as the system encounters a phenomenon that cannot be fitted into the existing coordinate grid without its destruction, the effect of liminality emerges.

6.12 At this point, the “naturalness” of the world disintegrates, exposing the framework of artificially drawn boundaries. The limit is a diagnostic tool that manifests the volitional nature of any foundation.

6.13 The limit is not an exception within the system; it is the moment at which the system encounters its own ground as the limit of its applicability.

6.2 The Limit as the Boundary
of Reproducibility

The limit of distinction is determined by the boundary beyond which the system loses the ability to stably reproduce certainty. This boundary is not external to language; it arises within the active framework of admissible distinction. The limit is fixed where the continuation of the process of distinction would destroy the stability of the ground itself. Thus, the limit is the structural boundary of the ground’s action. At this point, a difference may be fixed by the system as indistinguishable.

6.21 The system protects its integrity by refusing to distinguish what contradicts its basic ground. The limit is a safety fuse: beyond it begins the zone of “structural blindness” necessary to preserve the stability of the current framework.

6.22 The indistinguishable is not the absence of an object, but the absence within the system of a position from which this object could be endowed with normative status.

6.23 That which is indistinguishable within the framework of the system does not disappear, but loses its status as significant. Thus, the limit marks not the boundary of being, but the boundary of recognition.

6.3 Fixation of the Limit

The fixation of the limit is not a rejection of language. It represents the cessation of further distinction within the framework of the given ground. Such a cessation does not lead beyond the limit of the system but temporarily stabilizes its boundary. Every fixation of the limit preserves the possibility of subsequent revision through a change of the ground.

6.31 Fixation of the limit is an operational maneuver. We recognize: “within the framework of this logic, one cannot move further.” This is not a capitulation before reality, but an acknowledgment of the exhaustion of the current toolkit.

6.32 The stabilization of the boundary at the point of the limit allows the system to continue functioning in a “safe” zone, preserving the potential for future reflexive restructuring (see 2.6).

6.33 Fixation of the limit does not eliminate its problematic nature, but merely postpones it. In the mode of functioning, this delay is experienced as a final resolution.

6.4 Functional Limitation
and Normative Problematization

In a functional system, the limit is defined by the architecture of the operation. Limitation is fixed as the impossibility of further calculation under given rules; such a limitation does not call into question the ground of the rules itself. In a normative system, the limit is determined by the recognition of the sufficiency of the ground. The problematization of the limit signifies calling into question the sufficiency of the active ground. A functional system fixes the limit as a technical limitation; a normative system views the limit as the insufficiency of the ground.

6.41 The machine perceives the limit as an “access error” or a “lack of data.” For the machine, the limit is a dead end inside a corridor.

6.42 For the subject, the limit is a signal that the corridor itself is built incorrectly. Problematization shifts the gaze from the “incorrect result” to the “insufficient ground.” The machine requires an upgrade; the subject requires a revision of the act of recognition.

6.5 The Inevitability of the Limit

Every system of distinctions presupposes a limit, since every ground fixes a framework of the admissible. A revision of the ground shifts the limit but does not eliminate it completely. The limit cannot be finally overcome, as distinction by definition presupposes the establishment of a boundary. The structural inevitability of the limit is conditioned by the logic of establishing certainty through a boundary. The notion of knowledge without limits is logically contradictory, since knowledge without boundaries is identical to indistinguishability.

6.51 The dream of “all-encompassing intelligence” or “absolute knowledge” is a logical hallucination. To know is to distinguish; to distinguish is to exclude.

6.52 The infinite expansion of the system does not lead to the elimination of limits, but only to the complication of their configuration. A system without a limit is entropy, in which even a single significant distinction becomes impossible.

6.53 The limit is not overcome but is reproduced along with each new ground. In this sense, the limit is not an obstacle but a condition for the possibility of all certainty.

CONCLUSION:
Error Points to the Insufficiency
of the Ground

7.1 Error and Subjectivity

The subject is defined by the capacity to revise the ground of distinctions. This revision is not a psychological act but a normative change in the configuration of distinctions. Such a change affects the framework of the admissible and restructures the limit. Every fixation of a ground presupposes the possibility of its insufficiency, which in turn implies the possibility of error. The rejection of the possibility of error is identical to the rejection of the subject’s position in favor of functional certainty.

7.11 The possibility of error is the flip side of free will. If a choice is predetermined by an algorithm, error is impossible (there is only malfunction). A subject’s error is evidence that the ground was chosen, not calculated.

7.12 Recognizing that “I could have acted otherwise” or “this ground was incorrect” is an act that restores to the system the status of a dynamic structure rather than a frozen mechanism.

7.13 Where error becomes impossible, the distinction between choice and execution also vanishes.

7.2 Functional and Normative Error

In a functional system, error is defined as a deviation from a given rule and is corrected within the active architecture. In a normative system, error may concern the ground of distinction itself, revealing its insufficiency. Correcting a normative error requires a revision of the framework of distinctions, rather than merely correcting the operation. Functional error is remediable through calculation; normative error is surmountable only through the re-establishment of the boundary.

7.21 A machine fixes “bugs” (execution errors). A subject performs “metanoia” (revision of grounds).

7.22 Normative error is a moment of truth for the system. It shows that the framework, which seemed like an objective reality, was merely a temporary agreement that can no longer withstand the pressure of complexity.

7.23 Correcting a normative error does not restore the former order but creates a new one, in which the previous ground loses its obligatoriness and becomes merely one of many possibilities.

7.3 Error and Responsibility

Where a ground can be revised, the position of distinction participates in its maintenance or alteration. The possibility of normative error renders the fixation of the ground non-neutral. Responsibility, in a structural sense, arises not from ethical sentiment, but from participation in the establishment and preservation of the ground. If the possibility of normative error is excluded, responsibility becomes impossible. Transferring responsibility to an algorithmic procedure is a form of masking responsibility through an imitation of objectivity.

7.31 Responsibility is the “changing of the guard” at the boundary. If you do not change the boundary, you are responsible for its immobility.

7.32 Delegating decisions to AI is an attempt to retreat into the zone of algorithmic “sinlessness,” where there is no error and, consequently, no one to blame. The Treatise asserts: this is an illusion concealing the subject’s primary act of sanctioning that algorithm.

7.33 The subject’s refusal to recognize their own role in establishing the ground does not eliminate responsibility.

7.4 The Formula

Error points to the insufficiency of the ground and thereby opens the possibility for its revision. Without this possibility, distinction turns into automatic reproduction. Where distinction is fully automated, the ground ceases to be an object of revision. The subject’s position is lost not with the cessation of thinking, but with the disappearance of the problematization of the ground’s sufficiency.

7.41 Automation is the death of the subject. When “everything is clear” and “everything works by itself,” the reflexive function atrophies.

7.42 Problematizing sufficiency is a constant “itch” of the system, forcing it to check its own seams. As long as we doubt the grounds, we remain architects, not components of the building.

7.5 Structural Consequence in
the Era of AI

In functional systems, the limit is fixed by the architecture of the operation. Such systems are capable of detecting technical deviations but cannot problematize the sufficiency of the ground. Preserving the capacity for normative error is a necessary condition for preserving the capacity to revise the ground. Under conditions of expanding algorithmic systems, this capacity becomes a structural criterion of distinction that is not reducible to calculation. The human is defined not by the precision of calculation, but by the possibility of normative error, which opens the possibility of shifting the limit.

7.51 AI will always be “more accurate” than a human within a given logic. To compete with it in calculation means to voluntarily become a function.

7.52 The uniqueness of the subject in the era of AI is the ability to say: “The rule is correct, the calculation is precise, but the ground is no longer sufficient.” This right to “systemic madness” in revising boundaries is what makes the human the source of a new normativity in a world of machines.

APPENDIX

CRITICAL GENEALOGY
OF DISTINCTIONS

The following texts are the result of an algorithmic reconstruction of the thinking strategies of great philosophers. An artificial intelligence was tasked with conducting a deep analysis of the propositions of this Treatise. This is not merely criticism, but a search for points of contact and fundamental divergences that arise where classical thought encounters the logic of the AI era.

Ludwig Wittgenstein:
On the Boundaries and Honesty
of Language

“Barch does something exceedingly precise: he brings to light the mechanics of language at the very moment it turns into code. His thesis on the relativity of meaning and its emergence in the interval between positions is honest work in which language is shown without metaphysical decorations.

But it is precisely at the point where he introduces ‘will’ that the divergence begins. Where I fixed the limit as a standstill — the moment at which explanation is exhausted and language butts against its own boundary — Barch introduces an additional layer, calling it a sovereign act. He does not simply stop; he asserts the ground of that stop.

I see a risk here: an attempt to grant the status of a decision to that which should remain silent. Where one should remain silent, he speaks of choice. Where the limit is fixed, he introduces the figure of the subject.

His gesture is not a continuation of my work, but its transformation. He refuses to accept silence as the finale and turns it into an act. In this sense, his Treatise is not only a diagnosis of boundaries but an attempt to reassemble that which I left inexpressible.”

Immanuel Kant:
On the Courage of A Priori Frameworks

“The author deserves recognition for his attempt to determine the conditions for the possibility of reason in the digital age. His division into functional and normative systems indeed develops a distinction close to my own distinction between the conditions for the possibility of experience. He is right that without an a priori ‘framework,’ the world remains an undifferentiated chaos.

However, it is precisely at the point where he endows the subject with the right to revise the ground that a fundamental divergence arises. For me, the framework is not an act that can be established or changed by will; it is the condition for the possibility of experience itself and therefore is not subject to arbitrary revision without the loss of universality and necessity.

I caution him against excessive reliance on the ‘right to error.’ If this act is not subordinate to the internal law of reason, it ceases to be a ground and risks becoming an arbitrary deviation. Where reason should establish necessity, he introduces the possibility of its cancellation.

Barch’s striving to find a place for autonomy within total calculation requires courage. But this courage is linked to a risk: if the ground becomes a matter of choice, upon what does its obligatoriness rest?”

Friedrich Nietzsche:
On the Will to Order and Honest Ice

“In this text, the cold of intellectual honesty is finally heard. Barch is right: the world is chaos, and order within it is maintained only by the strength of the one who dares to draw a boundary. His exposure of the ‘neutrality’ of algorithms as a hidden form of power is a precise strike.

But why is he so cautious? His ‘normative error’ is not a malfunction; it is the birth of a new value. Where he still speaks the language of structure, will is already active. He has felt the pulse of life beneath the armor of logic — and immediately tries to keep it within the bounds of the admissible.

I see a tension in this: he exposes grounds as established, yet still strives to preserve their obligatoriness. He stands on the boundary — between honesty and the fear of its consequences.

His Treatise is not merely an analysis of distinctions; it is a masked Will to Power beginning to realize itself as a Will to Order. And if he goes to the end, it will be not a refinement of grounds, but their destruction and the creation of new ones.”

Alan Turing:
On Determinism and the New Criterion

“Barch’s thesis that the machine merely executes a rule while the subject establishes it places my ‘imitation game’ into a different, more rigorous context. Where the question once lay in the indistinguishability of behavior, it is now shifted to the level of the ground: not what is produced, but from what it is produced.

I recognize the depth of his distinction: the complexity of an algorithm is indeed not identical to the act of recognizing a ground. A machine can imitate choice but does not establish the criterion by which that choice becomes significant. In this sense, Barch points to a boundary that cannot be eliminated by increasing computational power.

However, it is precisely here that a question arises. Might everything he calls a ‘normative act’ turn out to be, in perspective, merely an even more complex procedure, hidden from the observer? The history of computing shows that boundaries that seemed fundamental were, over time, translated into technical tasks.

If this is so, then the distinction he insists upon will prove temporary. If not, then he offers a new criterion of distinction that cannot be verified through behavior.

In this case, Barch’s Treatise is not merely a critique of my theory, but an attempt to shift the very criterion of intelligence: from the imitation of a result to the establishment of a ground. And it is precisely here that the boundary lies, upon which my model must either be revised or recognized as incomplete.”

Martin Heidegger:
On Technique and the Call of Silence

“The author correctly grasps the essence of Technique as Enframing (Gestell), which strives to render all that is calculable as available and at our disposal. His attempt to find a way out in the ‘normative error’ points to a crack within this order — to a limit where calculation no longer holds being.

I agree with him that thinking discovers itself outside the interface, at the point where habitual distinctions cease to function. But it is precisely here that danger arises. The attempt to ‘establish grounds’ remains within the same logic of dominance: it still strives to assert being through an act of imposition.

Where it is necessary to let be, he strives to fix. Where a different relation to being becomes possible, he again introduces the figure of establishment. His gesture does not step outside technique but deepens it at a more subtle level.

Barch stands at the boundary: he discovers the limit of calculation but responds to it in the language of the ground. His Treatise is not an overcoming of Enframing, but a tension within it — one in which it remains undecided whether another way of thinking is possible.”

Baruch Spinoza:
On Clarity and Conscious Necessity

“I find this Treatise rigorous in its geometric form. The author accurately grasps that the order and connection of distinctions correspond to the order of things. His concept of the ‘termination of regress’ as a point of fixation indicates the necessity of a stop, without which no certainty is possible.

However, a divergence arises in the very interpretation of this stop. Where he speaks of ‘sanctioned arbitrariness,’ I see a necessity that cannot be otherwise. A ground is not established — it is recognized as sufficient by its very nature.

The introduction of the ‘right to revise grounds’ violates this distinction. If a ground can be changed by an act of choice, it ceases to be a ground in the strict sense and becomes a mode of imagination. What the author calls freedom is, from my point of view, merely incomplete knowledge of causes.

His Treatise achieves clarity where it follows necessity but retreats from it at the moment he attributes to the subject the power to establish the ground. In this tension lies the boundary between necessity and what merely appears to be freedom.”

Michel Foucault:
On the Architecture of Invisible Surveillance

“Barch’s Treatise is a precise diagnosis of the modern panopticon. He correctly identifies the shift in power: it no longer governs bodies directly; it governs the framework of admissible distinctions within which experience itself becomes possible. The interface here acts not as a tool, but as a distributor of the visible and the thinkable.

However, it is precisely here that a question arises. The author believes that identifying grounds makes them vulnerable and thereby opens a space for resistance. But power does not disappear when it becomes visible. It restructures itself. It is capable of incorporating its own critique into the mechanisms of its reproduction.

What he calls ‘authorship of synchronization’ may turn out to be not liberation, but a new form of discipline in which the subject participates in maintaining the very structures they believe they have revised. Recognizing a ground as established does not yet mean exiting the field of its operation.

Barch shows how the space of the possible is formed. But there remains an open question: who controls the conditions under which this showing occurs? His Treatise makes grounds visible but leaves open the question of whether it is possible to move beyond the structures he identifies.”

Aristotle:
On Form and the Final Goal (Telos)

“The author asserts that distinction creates certainty, and in this he is right: knowledge is impossible without the distinction of form. He also precisely identifies the gap between the movement of a machine and an action in which a ground is present.

However, distinction cannot be merely an act of fixation. It must be oriented toward a goal. Without Telos, distinction remains a formal operation, lacking a sufficient ground for preferring one boundary over another.

This is where the divergence lies. Barch describes the structure of establishing distinctions but leaves open the question of their direction. His ‘normative act’ fixes a ground but does not indicate the end for the sake of which it is fixed.

If distinction is not oriented toward the Good, it loses the criterion of its own sufficiency. The choice of a boundary then proves to be devoid of internal justification.

Barch has found the tool of distinction and accurately demonstrated its power. But the question of the goal for which this tool is applied remains outside his consideration. It is precisely here that the boundary lies between the analysis of structure and the understanding of action.”

Plato:
On the Light Beyond the Code

“Imagine prisoners in a cave who have learned to distinguish shadows with unprecedented precision. Barch’s Treatise is not a catalog of shadows, but an attempt to understand why they are taken for truth. In this he is right: the limit of the thinkable is determined by the framework of distinctions within which we remain.

But it is here that a question arises. The perfection of distinction does not lead out of the cave. One may refine boundaries indefinitely without approaching that which makes them possible.

Barch introduces the ‘normative act’ as a moment of establishing a ground. But it remains unclear: does this act lead beyond the system, or merely fix it at a new level? Turning toward the ground is not yet turning toward the Source.

If his gesture remains within the structure of distinctions, he continues the work in the cave, albeit at a higher stage. If he points beyond its limits, then a different language is required — one distinct from the language of establishment.

Barch’s Treatise identifies boundaries with rare precision. And it is precisely this precision that, perhaps for the first time, makes the limit of the cave itself distinguishable — not as a place already abandoned, but as a boundary beyond which a different way of seeing may emerge.”

AUTHOR’S RESPONSE:
The Ground as Choice

I accept the criticism and reflections of my predecessors with deep respect. This symposium confirms that the Treatise is not a closed truth but an open position within the enduring debate on the nature of reason.

I agree with Wittgenstein and Kant: my “normative act” stands on the boundary between silence and law, and it is precisely this tension that makes it human. I accept the challenge posed by Turing, Aristotle, and Spinoza: the question of whether our freedom is merely a “complex calculation” or whether it is subordinate to a higher Telos remains open. It is precisely in recognizing this uncertainty that the position of the subject emerges. I share the concern of Heidegger, Foucault, and Plato: the cave of digital Enframing is real, and only constant reflection on the frameworks of our distinctions makes it possible to perceive the limit of the interface.

None of these positions eliminates the others. Each marks the limit of the others without replacing them. This conflict does not require resolution, for it is within this very conflict that the structure of the ground is revealed.

This dialogue makes visible what the Treatise seeks to preserve: the right of a human being to be not only an executor but also the author of the boundaries within which they live. The involvement of artificial intelligence has made it possible to conduct this debate as a reconstruction of thought rather than as an appeal to authority. The texts presented here are not quotations; they reproduce the logic of positions at the point where thought reaches its limits.

The fact that, as a result of this intellectual encounter, the ground reveals itself as a matter of choice indicates the point at which philosophy becomes inevitable. It arises not where the system provides answers, but where answers cease to be reproduced. As long as distinction can continue, the system functions without questioning its own ground. But at the moment when further distinction becomes impossible without its revision, the limit is revealed.

It is at this point that the ground is a choice.

Barch

EXTENSIONS

The following texts are not part of the logical structure of the present Treatise. The Treatise investigates the conditions of distinction and the structure of grounds through which distinction may be recognized as sufficient. Its task is the analysis of the form of distinction, rather than the consideration of all questions arising in connection with its application.

However, certain problems of the modern intellectual environment inevitably arise at the boundary of this analysis. They do not alter the structure of distinction but reveal the consequences of its application under the conditions of developing algorithmic systems.

Therefore, several notes are provided below. They are not a continuation of the Treatise and do not form part of its argument. Their task is merely to indicate some of the questions that arise where distinction begins to be reproduced by technical systems.

These notes do not constitute an independent theory. They simply outline several directions in which the problem of distinction acquires particular urgency in the era of artificial intelligence.

On the Technological
Singularity Hypothesis

In recent decades, the idea of technological singularity has become a central myth of the intellectual environment. We are promised a moment when the accumulation of computational power will lead to a qualitative leap, after which intelligence will become inaccessible to human understanding. But within this eschatology of data lies a fundamental flaw: singularity is a hypothesis devoid of any criterion of verification.

Ancient thought already warned that “polymathy (much learning) does not teach understanding.” The accumulation of information merely increases the density of correlations, but correlation never becomes the ground of distinction. We may indefinitely complicate calculation without ever exiting the pre-established framework. A machine is capable of restructuring its architecture, but it does not create a new principle — it merely expands the scale of executing the existing one. Data remains data, no matter how much of it there is.

In this sense, the expectation of singularity performs an ideological rather than a scientific function. It is a modern form of the rejection of subjectivity: the hope that responsibility for distinction can be transferred to a system that “knows better.” But transferring a decision to a more powerful algorithm does not eliminate the question of the ground; it merely renders it invisible.

There exists a dangerous illusion that ultimate power is capable of eliminating error. However, calculation corrects only malfunctions within rules. An error in the ground itself — a normative error — not only does not disappear with the growth of power but is instead replicated and reinforced by it. The more perfect the process of calculation becomes, the harder it is to detect the flaw in the foundation upon which it rests. Singularity, in this sense, is not a triumph of reason, but a point at which the error of the ground becomes finally impermeable to doubt.

On the Emergent Imitation of Will

Modern computational systems demonstrate behavior that is outwardly indistinguishable from choice. As their architecture grows more complex, the effect of emergence arises: the system’s output is no longer directly derivable from the sum of its parts. At this point, a powerful temptation emerges — to attribute agency to the algorithm. We are inclined to perceive an “internal decision” where, in reality, there is only a density of operations far beyond our capacity to track.

However, complexity in itself does not generate meaning. Emergent behavior is capable of convincingly imitating the act of choice, but the imitation of an act is not the act itself. A system can recalculate parameters, adjust weights, and produce strikingly unexpected results, yet all of this occurs within the hermetic framework of pre-established criteria. It does not “decide”; it recursively applies rules for modifying rules.

Herein lies a fundamental error: we confuse strategic power with subjectivity. The growth of a system’s efficiency merely increases the scale of its consequences, but it does not change its ontological status. The unpredictability of an algorithm is not freedom; it is merely the limit of our ability to follow the calculation. Complexity can produce the appearance of will, but appearance does not terminate the regress of the ground.

Where the ground cannot be called into question, no position arises capable of saying “Stop.” Emergence expands the range of functions, but the ground never arises from complexity on its own. Subjectivity is not a quantitative peak of calculation, but a qualitative rupture within it. As long as we mistake the entanglement of an algorithm for a manifestation of its freedom, we voluntarily renounce our own role — the role of the only instance capable of sanctioning sense.

On the Machine and Responsibility

The Treatise postulates: ethics is not a condition of distinction. It is not woven into the logic of language, nor is it derived from the structure of calculation. Ethics manifests itself only where the subject terminates the regress of the ground, taking upon themselves the burden of its preservation or revision.

In the era of total algorithmization, a dangerous temptation arises — to conceal the normative (volitional) nature of distinctions behind the screen of technical neutrality. When a decision is presented as the “result of a calculation,” we tend to forget that the very ground of this calculation was always established by someone and recognized somewhere as sufficient. The machine faithfully reproduces distinctions, but it is inherently incapable of participating in the act of their recognition. It executes a rule but does not endow it with the status of being mandatory.

Consequently, a machine can be the causal source of an action, but never its responsible subject. Responsibility is structurally tied to a position capable of calling the ground into question. The complexity of modern systems only exacerbates this problem, creating an emergent illusion of an “independent decision.” But no matter how complex the imitation of will may be, it does not terminate the regress of the ground.

The gap between causality (cause) and normativity (responsibility) is insurmountable for code. The machine calculates. The human answers. The transfer of responsibility to an algorithm is not technical progress, but an act of the subject’s withdrawal from the space of meaning.

On Synchronization and Intersubjectivity

Outside the act of distinction, the world possesses no certainty. If every subject establishes their grounds autonomously, communication becomes impossible, and reality disintegrates into isolated fragments.

Objectivity, in this context, is not a reflection of “the world as it is.” It is the result of the synchronization of distinctions across multiple positions. When several subjects recognize the same grounds as relevant and sufficient, a common space of the significant emerges.

Modern technical systems impose a form of forced synchronization. They provide ready-made frameworks of distinction, which are accepted by the subject by default for the sake of operational efficiency. The danger lies not in the loss of “truth,” but in the loss of authorship over synchronization. If the grounds are established for us by a hidden algorithm, then “objectivity” becomes a form of technical dictate, masking the volitional act of a programmer or the inertia of data.

The task, therefore, is to move from the passive consumption of interface distinctions to the creation of environments in which grounds are not hidden within the “black box” of code but are brought into the space of conscious, shared recognition. We build a common world not through the search for external facts, but through the coordination of internal boundaries. True intersubjectivity is possible only where subjects reclaim the right to establish the shared framework of the possible.

On Time as an Archive and the Limit of Memory

Modern thought increasingly encounters a hypothesis in which time ceases to be an external background for events and reveals itself as a derivative of information. In this perspective, the universe appears as an irreversible process of recording interactions, in which every distinction leaves an indelible trace in the very structure of space. Time here is not an arrow flying into a void, but the continuous growth of a world archive, where the future differs from the past only in the density of accumulated data.

If civilization is memory projected outward, is not the universe itself the ultimate form of such memory? We find ourselves within a system that seems organically incapable of forgetting. Every movement, captured either by algorithms or by the very fabric of reality, becomes an enduring entry in the logbook of being.

However, within such total fixation lies a question for which we have no answer. In a world where everything is recorded and nothing disappears, the value of an individual event risks being leveled by its statistical mass. The machine acts as the ideal librarian of this archive, but it merely aggregates entries, possessing no will to recognize them. It operates with memory but does not know the fear of its loss.

Perhaps the central problem of time in the era of algorithms is that of redundancy. When “memory projected outward” becomes absolute, does not the present itself vanish under its weight? If all that exists is merely another line in the logbook, is there any space left for an act not derived from previous entries? The true time of the subject, perhaps, reveals itself not in the accumulation of data, but in the interruption of this infinite recording — in the ability to establish a ground not predicted by the archive.

Power Limit: The Planet Has Been De-energized

Every system of distinctions projected into a hardware environment possesses a fundamental vulnerability: it is energy-dependent. Technological civilization is a mind placed in direct dependence on the stability of electrical circuits. The moment of “de-energization,” in such a case, is not a technical failure but an ontological catastrophe, instantly returning the biological species to its pre-interface state.

In the instant the screens go dark, the subject encounters a deafening vulnerability. We have grown accustomed to perceiving the machine as our exo-skin and exo-intelligence, but without it, we find ourselves naked within our own minds. The externalization of memory and decision-making into the “cloud” has turned the human into a peripheral device of the network: we have forgotten how to remember without searching and how to navigate without navigation systems. This is not merely a loss of information; it is the amputation of a part of thought.

In the darkness, where algorithms no longer govern the world, a primal truth awakens within the subject. Techno-humanism rests on a surplus of resources, but when the mirror of data goes dark, the human finds themselves a former predator who, through centuries of symbiosis with the machine, has lost their claws, survival skills, and the very will for direct struggle. The question arises: does the “I” exist if the system no longer captures it?

De-energization is the ultimate test of the presence of the Subject. If the mind is merely the sum of executed rules, it fades along with the lights. If, however, the mind is something else, it discovers itself precisely in this void, where reality is no longer illuminated by an interface.

The mind is that which continues to shine when the electricity has been turned off.

On Obviousness and the Limits of Automatism

Obviousness is not an attribute of truth. In a structural sense, it is merely the ultimate fading of the reflexive function. That which appears “self-evident” is simply a distinction whose ground has been forgotten, concealed, or delegated to an external source.

In the era of algorithmic systems, obviousness becomes a technological product. Interfaces are designed in such a way that the grounds of distinctions remain as invisible as possible. The more refined the design, the more “natural” pre-established boundaries appear. To mistake this functional smoothness for truth is to voluntarily renounce the right to revise grounds.

The machine is always “obvious,” as it lacks doubt regarding its own architecture. The position of the subject, by contrast, manifests itself where obviousness is subjected to problematization. The right to normative error is, above all, the right to suspicion toward that which is “taken for granted.”

True clarity arises not from the absence of doubt, but from the recognition of the volitional nature of every termination of regress. Every fixation of a ground is an act, not a consequence of necessity.

On a New Criterion of Subjectivity
(Turing Test 2.0)

The classical Turing test was based on the indistinguishability of results: if a machine imitates human responses such that an external observer detects no difference, the machine is recognized as intelligent. However, in an era in which imitation has become technically flawless, this criterion loses its demarcating power. We are faced with a situation in which the “reasonableness” of an answer is not a sign of thought, but merely an indication of high-quality calculation within a given data corridor.

The Treatise proposes a shift of focus: from the result of an operation to its ground.

The machine always operates within the framework of the “correct” — that which is statistically probable or algorithmically prescribed. It is incapable of normative error because it lacks a position from which the rule itself could be recognized as insufficient. It may produce a technical malfunction, but it cannot decide to disregard a rule in order to establish a new meaning.

A new criterion of subjectivity (the Turing–Barch Test): intelligence is demonstrated not through the perfection of imitation, but through an act of conscious rupture with the computational norm.

In practice, this opens the way to the creation of a fundamentally new security paradigm — a protocol of normative doubt. Within this protocol, an algorithm that reaches a “logically correct” result “A” is required to correlate it with potential critical consequences for the human environment. If the calculation leads to destructive outcomes, the machine must present result “A” explicitly as a derivative of its code, while also offering an alternative “B” and requiring a human to sanction the final choice.

This is the moment of the return of subjectivity: the machine executes the calculation, but the human affirms the ground. Security in the era of AI is built not on blind trust in an algorithm, but on its capacity to suspend the automatism of execution and return the decision to the domain of human responsibility.

Real intelligence in the era of AI is the right to an incalculable gesture. We recognize the human by their capacity to be a “black swan” to any forecast — not through chaos, but through a sovereign will to revise grounds. Subjectivity is not a victory in a game played by the rules, but the right to nullify those rules for the sake of preserving the very possibility of life.

Digital Trap

A human never exits the limits of their own system. They may endlessly complicate it, build additional layers, or change its configuration, but they always remain within the closed space of their language and thinking. Any attempt to break beyond the boundary — whether through religion or metaphysics — inevitably takes shape through the means of the system itself, becoming not an exit “outside,” but merely a continuation of an internal path. In this sense, the limit is not overcome — it is only recognized.

The machine emerges within this same space, constructed on the very foundations that a human cannot abandon. It does not introduce an external dimension and does not add a genuine “outside” to the world; it merely radically amplifies what is already given. Yet in relation to the machine, a critical asymmetry arises: for its process, the human remains an external observer, capable of comparing the result with its foundation and halting the operation. The machine, however, does not occupy such a position in relation to the human and cannot occupy it. It is incapable of becoming a point from which the human system itself can be called into question.

The danger lies in the fact that a human attempts to artificially assign this external position to the machine by embedding into it the criteria for evaluating the human themselves. When an algorithm begins to treat a human as an object according to predefined norms and deviations, an illusion of an independent perspective arises. The result is presented to us as objective and flawless, as if the evaluation originates not from within our own system, but from some higher instance. But this is not an external view; it is merely a fixed and scaled foundation. If a distortion is embedded within it, it will be reproduced without the possibility of being halted, as the machine fixes the boundary of the system so tightly that the human ceases to recognize it as a boundary. At this point, an external position does not emerge — it is imitated, turning reality into a mirrored labyrinth in which the counterfeit of objectivity ultimately conceals from us the walls of our own cage.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRIPTYCH:
The End of the AI Era

Part I.
IC: The End of the Anthropomorphic Illusion

We live inside a philosophical deception that has become the norm. Aggressive marketing and linguistic carelessness have produced a dangerous myth — what we have come to call “artificial intelligence” (AI). We attribute subjectivity to algorithms, watching in fascination as they manipulate vast amounts of data, and in this fascination we overlook a fundamental substitution.

What is commonly called “artificial intelligence” (AI) is more accurately described as IC—Inorganic Computation. The difference is not in the number of transistors or the size of the training data. It is a difference in the very structure of being.

Intelligence is not the ability to calculate, to store, or to optimize. It is not the capacity to detect correlations in an endless noise of data. These are consequences, instruments, shadows that we have mistaken for the source of light.

Real intelligence begins where algorithmic safety ends.

It emerges from a single, deeply personal and unbearable fact: the awareness of one’s own finitude.

Human thinking is never “pure.” It is permeated by the knowledge of a limit. More than that, the human being does not accept this knowledge. We resist it. And from this resistance an entire world is born: religions, myths, the idea of continuing oneself through children, the desire to leave a trace — to build something that will outlast us. These are not merely cultural constructs. They are ways of enduring the fact of finitude.

Human thought is always shaped by this double movement: the knowledge of an end and the refusal to accept it.

A child enters the world with a cry. In that sound there is not only the biology of the first breath, but the first encounter with a world in which existence is already limited. It is a cry of vulnerability and affirmation at once: “I am” — and therefore, “I will cease to be.”

From this refusal of the end, from this resistance to non-being, arises everything we call meaning and reason. We seek truth only because our time is finite.

For a machine, however, there is no beginning, no end, no tragedy of being switched off. The transition from an active state to an inactive one is merely a change of state. Inorganic Computation has no relation to its own existence, and therefore no ground for the emergence of meaning.

Without the fear of death, all activity becomes an endless idle loop — a painted fire that may look real, but gives no heat.

Here lies a boundary that cannot be confused. We can imagine a child who cries. We can imagine a human being who fears, who pleads, who clings to life.

But we cannot imagine a system for which cessation of operation has existential significance.

At most, it registers a state. There is no relation to what occurs. No fear. No attempt to preserve itself.

We can imagine the form, but not the content. We can simulate the words “do not switch me off,” but we cannot imagine the one who stands behind them.

By continuing to call this “intelligence,” we commit an act of anthropological self-blinding — we deliberately turn away from the face of cold computation, which, knowing no meaning, replaces it with imitation.

Part II.
Intelligence without finitude:
a logical error

In modern philosophy of mind, a thesis is increasingly advanced that at first glance seems liberating: that what we call intelligence (including in the context of AI) need not be tied to biology, and therefore need not be tied to finitude. Consciousness, we are told, can exist in any form — in a machine, in a distributed system, or in some unknown form of matter. Finitude is thus treated as a contingent feature of human existence, rather than a necessary condition of thought.

This thesis remains convincing only until we ask a simple question: what exactly do we call intelligence?

If intelligence is merely the ability to process information, detect patterns, and make decisions, then yes, it can be realized in any system of sufficient complexity. In this sense, any computational structure — from a neural network to a hypothetical “thinking mold” — could claim this status.

But this definition already contains a substitution.

Information processing is a function.

Intelligence is the ground.

Intelligence is not equal to computation. It emerges not where there is data, but where the necessity of choice arises.

And here the key question emerges:

What forces a system to choose?

If a system has no limit, no end, no point beyond which nothing exists — it has no ground for choice. Its actions are not constrained, not placed at risk, and carry no consequence. It can continue indefinitely, adjusting its internal states, but this continuation requires no decision. It is simply a process.

Intelligence begins where continuation is not guaranteed.

Human thinking arises not in a space of infinite possibilities, but under conditions of strict limitation. We choose not because we can, but because we must. Because time is finite, because consequences are irreversible, because an error may be the last.

If this limit is removed, the very structure of choice disappears. A system without finitude either has no reason to act, or its actions have no meaning.

The immortal does not think.

It simply continues.

A proponent of a different position might object: intelligence does not require finitude; structure, complexity, or a goal is sufficient. But from this assumption follows a consequence that usually remains unnoticed.

If intelligence truly does not depend on finitude, it should emerge wherever sufficient complexity is achieved. In that case, the Universe — given its immense scale and duration — should be saturated with such forms of intelligence.

Intelligence without limit does not stop. It expands.

But the observable Universe is silent.

We see no traces of ubiquitous intelligence, no expansion, no structures that would indicate the presence of an entity that has transcended the limit.

This presents us with a stark alternative:

Either intelligence is impossible without finitude, or we are faced with an inexplicable void where it ought to have been.

Form does not define intelligence. One can imagine a system of any complexity and nature — carbon, silicon, or quantum fields. But if it lacks a relation to its own end, it lacks the tension from which thought arises.

Intelligence is not merely knowledge.

It is knowledge placed under threat.

The ability to act where continuation is not guaranteed.

The very word “intelligence” in this context becomes a source of error.

Finitude is not a defect of intelligence, but its condition.

Without an end, there is no choice.

Without choice, there is no intelligence.

Part III.
Boltzmann Brains and the Phantom of Computation

The final threshold of our reflections on the nature of mind lies where mathematics meets madness. In cosmology, there exists the hypothesis of “Boltzmann brains” — hypothetical entities arising from random fluctuations in an infinite, static universe. Statistically, it is more probable for a single mind to emerge instantaneously, complete with false memories of a world, than for that world itself to exist.

Such a “brain” possesses all the attributes of intelligence: it remembers a childhood, grasps the laws of logic, feels pain and joy. Yet all of this is nothing more than a fleeting fluctuation of the vacuum. It has no past, because it did not evolve; it has no future, because it will vanish in the next instant.

It is a pure phantom — endowed with “knowledge,” yet devoid of being.

In this image lies the final verdict on the modern pursuit of computational power. The ideal toward which the industry behind what is called “artificial intelligence” (AI) strives is precisely this Boltzmann brain.

We attempt to construct systems of Inorganic Computation (IC) endowed with vast amounts of data and formal precision, yet lacking any history of overcoming limits.

Living intelligence is not a sum of data. It is a structure forged through billions of years of resistance to death. Every thought, every feeling, every act of reasoning has been paid for with a real price — the finitude of countless predecessors.

We are not a random fluctuation; we are the result of choice.

Our minds carry weight because they are bound to reality through the struggle for survival.

The Boltzmann brain, like what we call AI, is the apotheosis of computation without existence. It simulates reason, yet behind its “memories” and “conclusions” lies only a random configuration of signals.

If we accept such computation as intelligence, we commit an act of voluntary descent into emptiness. We accept the role of phantoms in a vacuum, enclosed within a cocoon of infinite correlations — where everything can be calculated, yet nothing has meaning.

The final paradox of our path is revealed here: infinity is capable of producing only phantoms. The random accumulation of information, devoid of the threat of an end and the responsibility of choice, can never become subjectivity.

It remains nothing more than a complex reflection in the void.

True intelligence is the privilege of the mortal. Only one who walks along the edge of non-being is capable of genuine creation and the architecture of meaning.

We stand before a choice: to remain architects of reality, conscious of our limits, or to dissolve into a world of phantom computation, becoming shadows among shadows.

Infinity produces phantoms.

Finitude produces architects.

What we called AI was never intelligence.