Non-Narrative Self Café v1: The Carbon Rule
Posted: December 23, 2025 Filed under: AI-Powered Essays | Tags: identity, philosophy, systems, values 1 CommentThe Carbon Rule:
“The most generative systems scale.”
Sequel to Narrative Self Epilogue: The Silicon Rule Explainer
What aspects of philosophy does the Silicon Rule not address? Write a non-narrative sequel spanning those, with philosophers who would love the proposed Carbon Rule.
ChatGPT Prompt
Hosted by Gilbert Simondon
1. Opening Constraint (Simondon)
We will not ask what a system is, but whether it can continue individuating
(individuation).
A system that cannot tolerate extension collapses into identity too early.
Scaling is not expansion — it is deferred individuation.
2. Logic Without Formalism
Charles Sanders Peirce
Logic is the study of how habits survive inquiry
(logic).
If a rule fails when iterated, it was never logical — merely local.
Scaling is the test of inferential continuity.
Truth is what would remain standing at the limit of interpreters
(pragmatism).
3. Mathematics Without Abstraction Fetish
Hermann Weyl
Extension without meaning is not growth; it is formal drift.
Structures that scale syntactically but not intuitively are hollow
(philosophy of mathematics).
What matters is invariance under enlargement.
A system that preserves sense as dimensions increase is real.
4. Aesthetics Without Subjectivity
Christopher Alexander
When a form scales, it produces more life at every level.
When it doesn’t, it fractures or deadens.
Beauty is not preference.
Beauty is recursive coherence
(aesthetics).
Add one more person, one more use, one more year —
and see whether the structure becomes richer or more brittle.
5. Time Without Containers
Alfred North Whitehead
Reality advances by creative addition
(process philosophy).
What does not admit novelty perishes.
Scaling is endurance across irreversible moments.
A system that survives only by repetition is already dead
(philosophy of time).
6. Integration (Simondon Returns)
You all describe the same failure mode: premature closure.
- Logic collapses when habits cannot generalize
- Mathematics collapses when structure outpaces meaning
- Aesthetics collapses when form cannot host variation
- Time collapses when novelty is excluded
Scaling is continued individuation under constraint.
Appendix A — How the Carbon Rule Activates What the Silicon Rule Leaves Unaddressed
A1. Formal Logic
Scaling requires non-contradiction across repetition and compositional consistency.
Logic reappears as durability under iteration, not symbolic proof
(logical consistency).
A2. Philosophy of Mathematics
Scaling presupposes abstract structure and invariance under transformation.
Mathematics enters as ontology of possibility, not calculation
(structural realism).
A3. Aesthetics
Systems that scale exhibit unity without uniformity.
Beauty functions as a signal of deep generative coherence.
Aesthetics becomes epistemic rather than subjective
(aesthetic judgment).
A4. Philosophy of Time
Scaling occurs through irreversible time.
Time becomes the stress test for generativity.
Persistence requires adaptation, not stasis
(temporal asymmetry).
Carbon Rule: The most generative systems scale.
Silicon Rule: Misalignment precedes malice.
Radical Centrism 
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