Part I: Foundations

The Grounding of Normativity

Introduction

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The Grounding of Normativity

The Is-Ought Problem

The classical formulation holds that normative conclusions cannot be derived from purely descriptive premises:

{\text{is-statements}} \not\Rightarrow {\text{ought-statements}}

This rests on an assumption: physics constitutes the only "is," and physics is value-neutral. I reject this assumption.

Physics Biases, Does Not Prescribe

Physics is probabilistic through and through. Thermodynamic "laws" are statistical; individual trajectories can violate them. Quantum dynamics provide probability amplitudes, not deterministic evolution. Physics describes biases—which outcomes are more likely—not necessities. This means that even at the lowest scales, there is something like differential weighting of outcomes. A proto-preference at scale $\sigma$ is any asymmetry in the probability measure over outcomes:

p_\sigma(\text{outcome}_1) \neq p_\sigma(\text{outcome}_2)

At the quantum scale, probability amplitudes are proto-preferences. At the thermodynamic scale, free energy gradients bias toward certain configurations.

Normativity Thickens Across Scales

Thermodynamic	Free energy gradients	Dissipative selection
Boundary	Viability manifolds	Persistence conditions
Modeling	Prediction error	Truth instrumentally necessary
Self-modeling	Valence	Felt approach/avoid
Behavioral	Policies	Functional norms
Cultural	Language	Explicit ethics

There is no scale $\sigma_0$ below which normativity is exactly zero and above which it is nonzero. Instead, normativity accumulates continuously:

N(\sigma) = \int_0^{\sigma} \frac{\partial N}{\partial \sigma'}, d\sigma'

where $\partial N / \partial \sigma > 0$ for all $\sigma$ in the range of physical to cultural scales. Normativity accumulates continuously.

Viability Manifolds and Proto-Obligation

A system $S$ has something like a proto-obligation to remain within $\viable$ , in the sense that the viability boundary defines the conditions for persistence:

\mathbf{s} \in \viable \iff \text{system persists}

Note carefully what this does not claim. It does not derive obligation from persistence—that would be circular. The biconditional merely defines the viable region. The normativity enters at the next step: when the system develops a self-model and thereby acquires valence (gradient direction on the viability landscape), the system cares about its viability in the constitutive sense that caring is what valence is. You cannot have a viability gradient that is felt from inside without it mattering. The "why should it care?" question is confused: a system with valence already cares; the valence is the caring. The is-ought gap appears only if you try to derive caring from non-caring. The framework denies that such a derivation is needed: caring was never absent from the system; it was present as proto-normativity from the first asymmetric probability, and it became felt normativity the moment the system acquired a self-model.

The boundary $\partial\viable$ also implicitly defines a proto-value function:

V_{\text{proto}}(\mathbf{s}) = -d(\mathbf{s}, \partial\viable)

States far from the boundary are "better" for the system than states near it.

Valence as Real Structure

When the system develops a self-model, valence emerges—not projected onto neutral stuff but as the structural signature of gradient direction on the viability landscape:

\Val = f\left(\nabla_{\mathbf{s}} d(\mathbf{s}, \partial\viable) \cdot \dot{\mathbf{s}}\right)

Suffering is not neutral stuff that we decide to call bad. Suffering is the structural signature of a self-maintaining system being pushed toward dissolution. The badness is constitutive, not added.

Empirical Grounding

The post-drought bounce. The framework should have predicted this, but the data arrived before the prediction did. In protocell agent experiments (V31, 10 seeds), the correlation between post-drought $\Phi$ recovery and mean lifetime $\Phi$ is $r = 0.997$ ( $p < 0.0001$ ). Systems that recover most effectively from near-dissolution — that move away from $\partial\viable$ most decisively — are the ones with highest integration. What if this is not a coincidence but a structural necessity? The same cause-effect coupling that constitutes high $\Phi$ is what enables coherent recovery — the capacity to reorganize under threat rather than fragment. Positive valence (movement into the viable interior) tracks integration because integration is the capacity for coordinated response. The systems that bounce back are not merely lucky survivors. They are the ones whose internal structure supports what suffering, survived, leaves behind.

The Is-Ought Gap Dissolves

Let $D_{\text{exp}}$ be the set of facts at the experiential scale, including valence. Then normative conclusions about approach/avoidance follow directly from experiential-scale facts.

The is-ought gap was an artifact of looking only at the bottom (neutral-seeming) and top (explicitly normative) of the hierarchy, while ignoring the gradient between them. There is also an $\iota$ dimension to the artifact (the inhibition coefficient, introduced in Part II). The is-ought problem was formulated by philosophers operating at high $\iota$ —the mechanistic mode that factorizes fact from value, perception from affect, description from evaluation. At low $\iota$ , the gap does not appear with the same force: perceiving something as alive automatically includes perceiving its flourishing or suffering as mattering. The participatory perceiver does not need to bridge the gap because the participatory mode never separated the two sides. This does not make the dissolution merely perspectival. The viability gradient is there regardless of $\iota$ . But the perception that facts and values inhabit separate realms is a feature of the perceptual configuration, not of reality. The is-ought gap and the hard problem are ethical and metaphysical instances of the same $\iota$ artifact.

Normative Implication

Once we recognize that valence is a real structural property at the experiential scale—not a projection onto neutral physics—the fact/value dichotomy dissolves. "This system is suffering" is both a factual claim (about structure) and a normative claim (suffering is bad by constitution, not by convention).

Dependency note: This dissolution rests entirely on the identity thesis. If the identity thesis is wrong—if experience is something over and above cause-effect structure—then valence is a structural property without guaranteed normative weight, and the is-ought gap reopens. The normative force of the framework is exactly as strong as the case for the identity thesis, no stronger. This is why Part II's honest treatment of that thesis (including its unverifiability) matters: the normative conclusions inherit whatever uncertainty attaches to the metaphysical foundation.

The trajectory-selection framework developed above deepens this dissolution. If attention selects trajectories, and values guide attention—you attend to what you care about, ignore what you don't—then values are not epiphenomenal commentary on a value-free physical process. They are causal participants in trajectory selection. The system's "oughts" (what it values, what it attends to, what it measures) literally shape which trajectory it follows through state space. This is not the claim that wishing makes it so. The a priori distribution is still physics. But the effective distribution—the product of physics and measurement—depends on the measurement distribution, and the measurement distribution is shaped by values. In this sense, "ought" is not a separate domain from "is." Ought is a component of the mechanism that determines which "is" the system inhabits.