Readiness — Potential Made Accountable: 4 Dualism and the Mislocation of Readiness

1. Cartesian Separation as Formal Inclination

Descartes’ dualism introduces a methodological cut:

• Res cogitans (mind) and res extensa (world) are treated as separate substances.

• The formal system of thought prescribes the evolution of mind and world independently.

• Inclination persists: the rules for reasoning and measurement continue to operate as if relational continuity were intact.

Yet in doing so, dualism exiles relational capacity:

• The ability to generate meaningful interaction between mind and world is displaced.

• Relation—the medium through which symbolic value, meaning, and experience arise—is effectively removed from the system.

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2. Readiness Mislocated

Applying the readiness lens:

• Inclination: formal rules, logical deductions, and conceptual models continue to prescribe evolution in both mind and world.

• Ability: the relational substrate that would allow these formal moves to manifest coherently is absent, exiled by dualistic separation.

This produces structural pathologies:

• Problems appear “in the mind” or “in the world,” rather than in the relational configuration itself.

• Consciousness, qualia, and normative phenomena are treated as anomalies or hard problems because the relational system that would make them coherent has been removed.

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3. Hard Problems as Collapsed Readiness

Much like singularities in physics:

• The inability to reconcile mind and world is a symptom of collapsed relational capacity.

• Divergences—apparent paradoxes or explanatory failures—signal that the system’s potential space has been contracted to zero along relational axes.

• Inclination continues formally (we can reason, model, and measure), but ability is absent (relation is exiled).

Hard problems of consciousness, meaning, and value are therefore diagnostic, not metaphysical. They reveal the consequences of over-closure applied to epistemic systems.

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4. Structural Parallels Across Domains

Readiness provides a unifying lens:

• Physics: singularities signal collapsed potential between actualisations.

• Mathematics: divergence arises where formal inclination exceeds the system’s capacity to realise further distinctions.

• Dualism: hard problems arise where formal conceptual inclination persists but relational ability has been exiled.

In all cases, pathologies are symptoms of mislocated or exhausted readiness, not discoveries of ontological extremes.

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5. Conclusion

Dualism is not “wrong” because its deductions fail—it is diagnostically revealing:

• The exile of relation produces collapsed readiness.

• Hard problems of mind and meaning are signals of over-closure, much like singularities in physics.

• Recognising readiness as a second-order property restores the epistemic integrity of both philosophical and scientific models.

In the next post, we will move from diagnosis to practice, exploring how modelling can explicitly incorporate readiness checks, making inclination accountable to relational capacity.