Paul Merriam

Sanskrit, English, Chinese, emojis, and the language of the Phenomenologists have been restricted to the referential paradigm, where all terms and propositions represent something (sometimes themselves). To this can be added presentational terms, which have a different character than referential terms. They are what is presented to one’s awareness and not a reference to something else or themselves. They follow their own logic. Propositions with presentational terms are useful in the philosophy of consciousness. They are applied to the hard problem, zombies, and the Knowledge Argument.

We derive Hardy's maximal nonlocal success probability directly within a Presentist Fragmentalist (PF) ontology, without invoking Hilbert space, amplitudes, or the Born rule. The core idea is to treat pre-interaction misalignment of "present windows" as a measurable structure on an alignment space Λ = T × T endowed with a uniform product measure µ. A Fragmentalist Probability Theory (FPT) is developed on this space, replacing the standard Kolmogorov framework. Hardy's four logical constraints (H1–H4) are encoded as measurable relations on Λ. A minimal "correlated subset" ansatz combined with exclusion of synchronized alignments yields a PF success probability P(p) = [p·(1 − p)]^2/(1 − p^2) for 0 < p < 1, with a unique interior maximizer at p = φ^−1 (the golden ratio conjugate) and Pmax = φ^−5 ≈ 0.09017, which equals the quantum Hardy bound. We show kernel-independence, no-signaling of marginals, robustness to perturbations, and a concrete setting-indexed construction on the admissible space Λ^H that realizes the full Hardy table. The result is an ontologically transparent derivation of Hardy's probability from PF's synchronization under misalignment. We close with remarks on robustness and prospects for generalization.

We derive Hardy's maximal nonlocal success probability directly within a Presentist Fragmentalist (PF) ontology, without invoking Hilbert space, amplitudes, or the Born rule. The core idea is to treat preinteraction misalignment of "present windows" as a measurable structure on an alignment space ? = ?? × ?? endowed with a uniform product measure µ. A Fragmentalist Probability Theory (FPT) is developed on this space, replacing the standard Kolmogorov framework. Hardy's four logical constraints (H1–H4) are encoded as measurable relations on ?. A minimal "correlated subset" ansatz combined with exclusion of synchronized alignments yields a PF success probability P(p) = [p·(1 - p)]²/(1 - p²) for 0 < p < 1, with a unique interior maximizer at p = f?¹ (the golden ratio conjugate) and P??? = f?5 ˜ 0.09017, which equals the quantum Hardy bound. We show kernel-independence, no-signaling of marginals, robustness to perturbations, and a concrete setting-indexed construction on the admissible space ?? that realizes the full Hardy table. The result is an ontologically transparent derivation of Hardy's probability from PF's synchronization under misalignment. We close with remarks on robustness and prospects for generalization.

This paper presents a theoretical framework demonstrating how awareness necessarily continues after biological death, based on the foundational principle that information cannot be lost in quantum mechanics. By examining the quantum fields that persist after death and their intrinsic preservation of information, we show how the substrate of awareness must continue to exist and evolve. We explore how the ubiquitous and non-local nature of quantum fields naturally leads to the interaction and potential merging of different awarenesses, providing a physical basis for reported near-death experiences of connection with loved ones and universal consciousness. Unlike previous quantum consciousness theories such as the Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective reduction model, which focuses on quantum processes within microtubules during life, our framework examines how quantum field interactions necessarily preserve and transform awareness after biological death.

This paper presents a theoretical framework demonstrating how awareness necessarily continues after biological death, based on the foundational principle that information cannot be lost in quantum mechanics. By examining the quantum fields that persist after death and their intrinsic preservation of information, we show how the substrate of awareness must continue to exist and evolve. We explore how the ubiquitous and non-local nature of quantum fields naturally leads to the interaction and potential merging of different awarenesses, providing a physical basis for reported near-death experiences of connection with loved ones and universal consciousness. Unlike previous quantum consciousness theories such as the Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective reduction model, which focuses on quantum processes within microtubules during life, our framework examines how quantum field interactions necessarily preserve and transform awareness after biological death.

There are long-standing questions about the Big Bang: What were its properties? Was there nothing before it? Was the universe always here? Many conceptual issues revolve around time. This paper gives a novel model based on McTaggart’s temporal distinction between the A-series (future-present-past) and B-series (earlier-times to later-times). These series are useful while situated in a Presentist and Fragmentalist account of quantum mechanics, one in which the consistency with the Special Relativity (in particular the relativity of simultaneity) will be made explicit (section 6). This allows us to make a fruitful distinction between two pertinent questions: what happens as we go to earlier times toward the Big Bang? And: what happens as we go further into the past toward the Big Bang?

Application 1: In the Calculus of Qualia (CQ) if Paul’s favorite color is red and Laura’s favorite color is red, we cannot infer they have the qualitatively same favorite color because of the possibility of spectrum inversion or inverted qualia etc. But if Paul’s favorite color is █ and Laura’s favorite color is █ we can infer they have the qualitatively same favorite color. There is not inter-subjective verification but intra-subjective verification. The cases of bats and color blind people are considered. Application 2: we explain what the Zen proposition “a teaching is not a teaching” means using CQ. Application 3: we revisit the question of why there is something rather than nothing and give a CQ answer, concluding it the best secular answer but is not conclusive.

This paper introduces the Calculus of Qualia (CQ), a novel formal system that transcends the referential paradigm of traditional language by incorporating non-referential terms. These terms directly present phenomenal experiences, such as blackness, rather than referring to them, addressing longstanding limitations in expressing subjective consciousness. Building on insights from phenomenology and philosophy of mind, CQ defines qualations—expressions involving non-referential terms--qualia--with distinct logical behaviors like instance preservation and resistance to collapse. The framework offers new tools to formalize the hard problem of consciousness and challenges classical thought experiments like the zombie argument, suggesting that qualia’s irreducibility demands a presentational rather than referential approach. This calculus bridges rigorous analysis and experiential meaning, opening pathways for rethinking language, consciousness, and their formal representation.

This paper examines how Presentist Fragmentalism (PF) provides a unified framework for resolving key paradoxes in quantum mechanics and relativity. PF posits that reality consists of fragments with independent A-series temporal flows (dynamic, future/present/past) connected by B-series relations (static, earlier/simultaneous/later). We demonstrate PF's explanatory power through analysis of eight fundamental thought experiments, including Einstein's train, Schrödinger's cat, EPR, and the delayed choice quantum eraser. The framework naturally resolves apparent contradictions between quantum non-locality and relativistic causality by distinguishing between B-series relations, which respect relativistic constraints, and A-series synchronization, which enables quantum correlations. This reconciliation requires no additional mathematical machinery beyond standard quantum mechanics, while providing clear ontological understanding of quantum phenomena. We compare PF with other major interpretations, including Aharonov's two-time, Rovelli's relational interpretation, and quantum reference frames, showing how PF offers unique insights into temporal structure. The framework's success in systematically resolving diverse paradoxes while preserving both relativistic and quantum principles suggests it captures fundamental features of physical reality.

This note effectively presents several arguments for the soundness of A-theories, and that their two series are required for a complete description of time in physics. The paper makes several key contributions: First, it establishes an empirical basis for distinguishing A-series and B-series time through direct experience and observation. Second, it presents an important check on this result in giving five mini-arguments that A-theories should indeed be right. Third, it gives a novel kind of argument leading to falsifiable predictions. Fourth it gives a detailed account of clocks in this theory: sundials, analogue, digital, and atomic. Fifth it connects the clocks of a computer to the clocks of its software.

This paper presents a falsifiable prediction based on A-theories of time, which require both an A-series (future/present/past) and B-series (earlier/simultaneous/later) of time. We make an unusual argument based on the temporal search parameters of YouTube videos, which requires *two* parameters. We make the falsifiable prediction that no interface with just *one* parameter can be made that has the same functionality (as would be asserted in B-theories). This circumstance applies to many areas of human endeavor. We extend this analysis to clocks, showing how sundials, analog clocks, digital clocks, and atomic clocks all fundamentally operate using both temporal series. The progression from hardware to software clocks in computers reveals how both series persist through increasing levels of abstraction. These findings suggest that physics, being fundamentally based on clock measurements, must incorporate both temporal series rather than attempting to reduce one to the other. This approach offers new insights into the relationship between quantum mechanics and relativity, suggesting that quantum mechanics primarily operates in A-series time while relativity operates in B-series time, potentially illuminating why their unification has proven challenging.

This paper proposes a novel theoretical framework for reconciling quantum mechanics with relativity that leads to a theory of quantum gravity by examining the fundamental nature of time. In the first section we argue that it is possible to perform an experiment for oneself in which, with enough ‘internal technology’ it is possible to distinguish between one’s experience of time on the one hand, and one’s thoughts about one’s experience of time on the other hand. The former gives McTaggart's A-series (future/present/past) and the latter gives McTaggart’s B-series (earlier/simultaneous/later). Several arguments are then given for why this should work, and several Gedankenexperiments, including Einstein’s Train, are explored and it is shown how they can be solved using this notion of time. These series lead directly to the Presentist Fragmentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics [Merriam 2022a]. To a first approximation, quantum mechanics primarily operates in the A-series and relativity operates in the B-series. The interpretation is used to propose a theory of quantum gravity, where the A-series and the B-series become mixed. It is then shown how this theory leads to the Schrodinger equation in one limit and General Relativity in another limit.

In this short informal note we consider four Gedankenexperiments that show A-theories of time are compelling and can be leveraged to give a Presentist Fragmentalist realist interpretation of quantum mechanics. Each of these four involve roles for manifest time, relativistic time, and quantum mechanical time. The point is to give simple everyday situations where a new point of view leads to the consistency of all three. This is the MO of the early Einstein. Einstein's Train is one of the Gedankenexperiments considered.

This note (it is not a full-fledged academic paper) introduces a novel approach to classic thought experiments in consciousness studies through the incorporation of non-referential terms—symbols that present experiences directly rather than referring to them. By analyzing the Hard Problem, Knowledge Argument, Philosophical Zombies, and Spectrum Inversion thought experiments using both referential terms (like "blackness") and non-referential terms (like █), the paper reveals that many apparent philosophical puzzles arise from conflating referential descriptions with direct presentational experiences. The analysis shows that attempting to formulate these thought experiments using non-referential terms often requires instantiating the very experiences in question, creating self-referential paradoxes that solve or dissolve the original problems.

The word "green" refers to the color green, which could more precisely refer to the wavelength of green photons, green paint, green light, or green qualia. But in this 12-page paper, as in this abstract, it is written in black. Thus its referential meaning(s) is different than its non-referential or presentational meaning, which is the actual quale of blackness arising in the actual reader's mind. Philosophy has discussed--but never employed--non-referential terms before. That is like discussing swimming but never employing a swimming ability. It can be done, but it misses the whole point. This paper discusses non-referential terms, poetry, painting, music, swimming, counterfactuals, and how this distinction is deeper than the 1st-person / 3rd-person divide.

We can ask, (1) given the state of the universe at the big bang, what is the probability that the universe would have ended up in its current actual state? What is the probability distribution for the possible states the universe could have evolved into? We can ask, (2) given the current actual state of the universe, what is the probability the big bang would have been in the state it was? What is the probability distribution over different possible states at the big bang? Both the Fine-Tuning argument and the Anthropic argument are confused versions of (2). This settles the issues once and for all.

This paper gives a radical answer to why there is something rather than nothing based on the Calculus of Qualia and its non-referential terms. The answer turns out to be: because what exists exists necessarily because of its nature. To sum up and oversimplify the extensive argument in two sentences, skipping many steps: 1. By the question “why is there something rather than nothing” we actually mean to be asking “why is there something rather than the weakest assumption?” 2. The non-referential term █ (which does not even refer to itself) in the Calculus of Qualia possibly exists, and, as it has no counterfactuals, that implies its necessary actuality. The upshot is that the existence of the non-referential term █ is a weaker assumption (i.e. assumes less) than the assumption that there could have been nothing. The extensive argument in the paper gives the first compelling secular answer to the ultimate question.

This paper introduces non-referential terms into language as used in the Calculus of Qualia (CQ). It is possible to write “blackness” to refer to the experience of the subjective, internal quale of blackness. It is possible to write █ as another word for “blackness,” another referential term. But that is not its meaning in CQ. In CQ the word “blackness” is used as usual, as a symbol that refers to something other than itself. But █ is the immediate subjective experience (quale) that arises in the reader’s mind. “Blackness” refers to the color or quale. But █ in no way refers, _not even to itself_, it is strictly non-referential. It’s presentation instantiates it. This is no some trivial definitional trick but is a paradigm shift. Examples, traps, and concequences for theories of truth and meaning are briefly explored.