Scott James

Critical, unstated assumptions lurk behind many persistent puzzles of the mind. Only five commitments (5C) are required to reveal them. These 5C expose the fault lines that run not only between the major Theories of Mind (TOM) but — more importantly — through them. The Five Commitments (5C) concern the structural relationship between private, subjective experience (E) and the public, objective anchors of experience (P). The first three commitments are extensively debated within the science of mind. The final two are generally understood but rarely made explicit — and their implicit status has allowed several long-standing puzzles to persist: (1) Experience Exists (EE): Private, subjective experience (E) occurs. (2) Public Domain Exists (PE): A shared, objective world (W) exists; distinct constellations of W — the Public Domain (P) — anchor distinct experiences. (3) Leibniz's Gap (LG): P is insufficient, by itself, to locate experience. (4) Proximity Principle (PP): Differences in experience imply differences in their anchoring P-constellations. (5) Non-Exclusion Principle (NEP): Individual components (W) of anchors of experience (P) need not be exclusively owned by a single experience (E). Each of the four major TOM (4T) generally rejects one of these commitments: Dualism rejects the Proximity Principle (PP) as consciousness and experience retain independence from the public world. Physicalism rejects the existence of the Gap (LG) as the public world already contains experience. Idealism rejects that an objective, public world exists outside of experience (PE). Panpsychism, particularly Constitutive Panpsychism, rejects the Non-Exclusion Principle (NEP) by ensnaring experience ubiquitously in the public world. However, each of the 4T also has a sub-theory that deviates from the majority position at precisely this rejection. Geometric Vitalism (GV) is a structural model satisfying the 5C. GV uses two dimensions to locate experience: the Public Domain (P) and Vitality (V). V is the structural placeholder required by LG — featureless, non-spatial, atemporal — marking the boundary where P cannot follow. GV's agnosticism on the ontology of P and V makes it compatible, in principle, with sub-theories across all four major TOM. GV provides a representational vocabulary but — importantly — adds no features, ontologies, or constraints beyond what is inherent to the 5C. Accepting all five commitments dissolves several persistent puzzles — not by solving them, but by exposing the unexamined assumptions generating them. The Knowledge Argument conflates two distinct questions: what can be known about an experience (PP) and what can be directly observed (LG). The Combination Problem and Binding Problem each presuppose that worldly (W) components cannot be shared between P-constellations (NEP) — thus generating an artificial problem. The Inverted Spectrum Problem implicitly rejects the Proximity Principle (PP) to obtain its uncertainty. The P-Zombie Argument explicitly demands that the Proximity Principle (PP) be violated in order to "prove" The Gap (LG).

Dr. Scott James holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland and is a Technology Fellow in simulation and modeling.

His work spans autonomous systems, large-scale network simulation, genomics, and aerospace — with a career focus on the modeling, simulation, and visualization of complex systems.

His philosophical work develops structural frameworks for the theory of mind. Geometric Vitalism, introduced here, proposes that experience is located by the joint specification of a public domain and a minimal non-public dimension — dissolving several long-standing puzzles without adding metaphysical machinery.