Definition 0 — Appearance / Awareness (A)

Awareness = the simple fact that anything shows up at all.
It isn’t a substance or a thing; it’s the background condition that makes any statement, observation, or theory possible.

Axiom 1 — Occurrence

Every statement, theory, perception, or proof happens within awareness (A).
There are no “free-floating” claims outside of what appears.

Section I — Meaning-Building Primitives

Definition 1 — Token

A token is any repeatable cue that can carry or reproduce meaning within a context.
Tokens can be:

  • Private, like a personal image or association,
  • Shared, like a word or gesture in communication,
  • Systemic, like a formal symbol in logic or mathematics.

Tokens are the building blocks that allow meanings, beliefs, and models to be repeated, transmitted, and tested.
They don’t have meaning on their own; their meaning depends on how they’re used.

Definition 2 — Rule

A rule tells you how tokens may be combined, interpreted, or evaluated.
Rules determine what counts as a valid use, inference, or expression within a given context.

Section II — Framing Meaning

Definition 3 — Adjudicator

An adjudicator is whatever the context treats as its final authority for deciding what’s acceptable.
Examples: in science, experiment; in mathematics, proof; in law, precedent; in everyday life, mutual understanding.
The adjudicator defines what counts as a legitimate verdict within that setting.

Definition 4 — Scope or Boundary

A scope (or boundary) marks the extent of a context—what kinds of things it covers and what falls outside it.
Outside that boundary, the rules or meanings of its tokens may shift or stop applying.

Definition 5 — Authentication

Authentication is the process of applying rules and adjudicators to decide how to treat a specific expression:
approve (accept/validate), reject (invalidate), or suspend (undecided).
It’s how a context renders judgment on its own contents.

Definition 6 — Frame (F)

A frame is a complete structure of meaning that includes:

  1. its tokens,
  2. its rules for using them,
  3. its adjudicator(s),
  4. its scope/boundary, and
  5. its process of authentication.

A frame is what makes an expression intelligible: it supplies the conditions under which words, symbols, or gestures can count as meaningful at all.

Axiom 2 — Frame Dependence

Every expression is authenticated within some frame F.
Outside a frame, tokens lack stable meaning.

Definition 7 — Expression

An expression is any structured use of tokens within a frame that can be checked or judged—
a sentence, equation, diagram, gesture, or claim.
Expressions exist for a frame the way sentences exist for a language.

Section III — Judging and Indexing

Definition 8 — Adjudicator Token (t₍F₎)

Many frames use a special token to mark their adjudicator’s verdict—e.g., true, provable, lawful, valid, beautiful.
This token belongs to the evaluative level (the level that judges expressions in F). It’s the label the frame (or its meta-frame) uses to mark what passes its test.

Axiom 3 — No Absolute Frame

No single frame can stand outside all others to judge them “from nowhere.”
Every claim is made within some frame, and any attempt to talk across frames has to say which frame it’s speaking from.
In other words: cross-frame statements must index their scope.

Definition 9 — Indexing and Meta-frames (F′)

When you use an adjudicator token about expressions inside frame F, but do so from a higher-level frame, that move is called indexing.
For example: saying “true-in-F” or “provable-in-F” inside another frame F′.
Indexing keeps track of which level or context each judgment belongs to.

Axiom 4 — Separation Requirement

To keep evaluations stable, a frame must not reuse its own adjudicator token inside itself unless it’s clearly re-indexed.
The token that does the judging (true, provable, etc.) has to stay one level above what it judges.
When that separation blurs, paradoxes appear.

Lemma 1 — The Reference Constraint (talking about awareness)

When we talk about awareness, our words can only point to aspects of it that the listener can already recognize in some form.
Language can’t import a completely new kind of experience into someone who’s never had anything like it—it can only signal or remind through shared structure.

Reasoning:
By Axiom 2 (Frame Dependence), meaning only exists inside a frame,
and by Axiom 1 (Occurrence), every frame is already inside awareness.
So if the listener doesn’t have the experiential background that makes a word meaningful in their own frame, the “indexing” fails—communication won’t connect.

Lemma 2 — No Transparent Self-Adjudication

If an expression inside a frame F tries to use that frame’s own adjudicator token (t₍F₎) to judge itself without moving to a higher frame, the result can’t settle.
The evaluation either stops immediately (the frame refuses it as invalid) or loops endlessly (keeps flipping between outcomes).

Reasoning:
This breaks Axiom 4 (Separation Requirement)—it erases the boundary between what judges and what’s being judged.
Without that boundary, the frame can’t reach a stable verdict.

Theorem 1 — Frame-Flattening Theorem (Paradox)

An apparent paradox happens exactly when a frame reuses its own adjudicator token inside itself without moving up a level or clearly marking the shift.
In short: the frame tries to judge itself using its own rules.

Repair options:

  1. Lift to F′ (a higher frame): move the evaluation up a level so the adjudicator now sits outside what it’s judging.
  2. Retokenize or ban the move: change the grammar or vocabulary so that the expression is no longer treated as legitimate inside that frame.

Reasoning:
By Lemma 2, self-judging expressions can’t stabilize.
By Axiom 4, the problem is the collapse of levels—the frame and its adjudicator have merged.
Either lifting or retokenizing restores the distinction, so the oscillation disappears.

Corollary 1 — The Liar Case (plain)
“This sentence is false.”
In the normal truth-based frame, this sentence uses the token false to judge itself.
To fix it, we can either:

  • Disqualify it: say it’s not a proper statement at all (an expression-level repair), or
  • Lift it: say it’s true-at-meta, meaning it correctly points out a failure in the lower-level truth frame (a frame-level repair).

Either way, the contradiction dissolves—there’s no genuine paradox left.

Corollary 2 — The Sorites Case (the “heap” problem)
The word heap behaves as if one crisp rule applied to every case—one grain, two grains, ten thousand—when in fact the boundary keeps shifting with context.
Flattening all those tiny context-frames into one “universal” rule causes the paradox.

Repair:

  • Index by context: treat “heap” as relative to each situation (contextual or fuzzy logic), or
  • Use dual tokens: keep everyday heap for loose talk and define a technical HEAP for precise cases.

Either fix restores the missing distinction between frames.

Definition 10 — Viability

A belief, model, or practice is viable when it can hold together over time.
More precisely, something is viable if it:

  1. stays stable under small disturbances,
  2. recovers after being challenged or disrupted,
  3. fits smoothly with neighboring frames or viewpoints (it doesn’t create constant conflict), and
  4. supports further coherent development instead of blocking it.

Axiom 5 — Viability Constraint

What lasts in thought or practice is what remains viable under real-world feedback.
Ideas or systems that can’t adjust to pressure or contradiction either collapse or get pushed to the margins.

Lemma 3 — Truth as Post-Repair Durability

Within a properly separated and indexed frame, “truth” means lasting stability after repair.
A statement counts as true when—after we’ve fixed any level-mixing or language errors—it continues to hold up through contact, testing, and use.

Reasoning:
By Axiom 5, endurance under feedback defines viability.
By Axiom 4, evaluation only stabilizes when levels are kept distinct.
Put together, “truth” is simply what stays coherent once the frame is in good working order.

Theorem 2 — No “Absolute Metaphysics” from Inside a Frame

Any claim that tries to describe ultimate reality from inside a single language or worldview is doing a kind of frame-flattening.
It uses one local set of rules to declare itself universal, erasing the difference between its own limits and reality itself.

On closer look, such claims always reduce to one of two things:

  1. an indexed program — a framed, scoped project that clearly states its context and purpose, or
  2. a collapse — a self-referential paradox where the frame tries to judge itself as absolute.

Reasoning:
From Axiom 3 (No Absolute Frame), no system can fairly judge all systems “from nowhere.”
And from Theorem 1 (Frame-Flattening), trying to do so creates paradox.
Only by indexing—openly marking the frame’s limits—can we rescue a system as a program or design, not as a universal doctrine.

Corollary 3 — Why Starting from Awareness Isn’t Metaphysics By Axiom 1, every frame already happens within awareness.
By Theorem 2, any attempt to justify or explain awareness “from outside” awareness contradicts itself.
So starting from awareness isn’t a metaphysical claim about some cosmic substance—it’s simply good bookkeeping about where all speaking and knowing take place.

(Note: Having established how frames and adjudication operate, we can now examine how meanings evolve over time as tokens circulate between frames.)

Lemma 4 — Drift

As tokens move between people, cultures, or systems, their meanings shift—a process called semantic drift.
Successful systems don’t fight this drift; they track it, adjusting their language by re-defining terms, adding context markers (indexing), or updating rules of use.
Denial of drift leads to confusion; awareness of it keeps meaning viable.

Theorem 3 — Communication Success Criterion

Communication works when people share enough of a frame to rebuild the same stabilization.
If meaning fails to transfer, it usually points to a frame mismatch—different assumptions, rules, or adjudicators—not to bad faith or nonsense.
Understanding happens when overlapping frames provide enough common structure to re-instantiate what the speaker intended.

Theorem 4 — Conceptual Homeostasis

Within awareness, the stability of meaning depends on continuous adjustment.
Frames must keep realigning to stay coherent under new information and feedback.
Because philosophy studies meaning and structure themselves, its core function is to maintain viable conceptual balance—a state of conceptual homeostasis.

Reasoning:
From Axiom 5 (Viability) and Lemma 3 (Truth as Durability), stability means coherence that can survive feedback.
From Theorem 1 (Frame-Flattening), breakdown happens when distinctions blur; repair restores equilibrium.
Therefore, lasting understanding is not built on fixed foundations but on ongoing self-correction and readjustment.

Corollary — The Task of Philosophy
Philosophy’s job isn’t to discover unchanging truths, but to keep the network of meanings alive and functional—
to notice where coherence breaks down and to restore balance with the least possible distortion.

Theorem 5 — The Pseudo-Problem Principle

Most long-standing philosophical “problems” arise from frame-flattening—from mixing together rules or standards that belong to different frames.
In other words, a problem becomes “unsolvable” when one frame’s way of judging things is reused inside another as if the two shared the same basis of evaluation.

Formally:
If an expression E₁, valid within frame F₁, is used to judge an expression E₂ inside frame F₂ as though F₁ and F₂ had the same adjudicator, contradiction or stalemate follows.
Once the frames are separated again—each with its own standards and scope—the contradiction disappears.

Corollary — Philosophy as Diagnosis
Philosophy’s job is not to solve these pseudo-problems by inventing new theories inside a collapsed frame,
but to diagnose where the collapse happened—to restore the missing distinctions between frames.
Philosophy doesn’t tell reality what it must be; it shows language where it has overstepped its reach.

Examples

  • Mind–body dualism: The “mental” and the “physical” are not rival substances; they are different frames of stabilization that describe the same events at different levels.
  • The Is–Ought problem: You can’t derive moral norms from descriptive facts because ought and is belong to distinct adjudicative frames.
  • Skepticism: Demanding proof of knowledge “from outside knowledge” repeats the same flattening—it asks one frame to validate itself from nowhere.

In short:
What philosophy calls a “problem” is often a signal of overlap or confusion between frames.
Its real work is to notice these confusions and re-differentiate the levels of sense, keeping the system of meanings coherent and alive.