La Shun L. Carroll

This paper challenges the traditional dichotomy between disability and giftedness by exploring the potential for sensory loss to act as a catalyst for exceptional abilities in other domains. Drawing on the concept of crossmodal plasticity – the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize and compensate for sensory deprivation – the paper argues that individuals who experience sensory loss, particularly at an early age, may develop heightened abilities in their remaining senses, surpassing typical levels of functioning. This argument stems from the understanding that when one sensory pathway is compromised, the brain reallocates neural resources to strengthen other sensory modalities. This compensatory mechanism, often observed in individuals with blindness or deafness, can lead to enhanced perceptual abilities in areas such as auditory processing, tactile sensitivity, or spatial navigation. The paper proposes a teleological framework for understanding giftedness in this context, suggesting that exceptional abilities arising from sensory loss serve a compensatory function, enabling individuals to navigate the world effectively despite their impairments. This perspective challenges the notion of giftedness as solely an innate trait, highlighting the significant role of environmental factors and neural adaptation in shaping human potential. By presenting evidence from existing research on crossmodal plasticity and anecdotal examples of individuals with sensory impairments who have developed extraordinary abilities, the paper encourages a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of human potential. Ultimately, the paper calls for further research to fully explore the implications of crossmodal plasticity for understanding the complex relationship between disability and giftedness, advocating for a strengths-based approach that recognizes and nurtures the unique talents of all individuals, regardless of perceived limitations.

This paper delves into the contrasting educational philosophies of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, two prominent figures who grappled with the question of Black progress in a society scarred by racial inequality. Washington, advocating for vocational training, championed economic self-sufficiency as the key to navigating a system rigged against Black success. Du Bois, conversely, championed a liberal arts education, emphasizing critical thinking and social critique as necessary tools for dismantling systemic barriers. This paper argues that while Washington’s pragmatism held a certain appeal, its inherent acceptance of the existing social order risked perpetuating the very systems it aimed to overcome. Du Bois, through his more radical vision, recognized that true liberation necessitated not only economic agency but also the intellectual capacity to challenge and dismantle oppressive structures. By analyzing the nuances and complexities of their arguments, this paper highlights the enduring relevance of this historical debate for contemporary discussions on educational equity. It underscores the need for a multifaceted approach to education, one that recognizes the interconnectedness of economic opportunity, intellectual development, and social justice, ultimately advocating for an educational landscape that empowers all individuals to reach their full potential and contribute to a more just and equitable society. Through embracing the strengths and acknowledging the limitations of both perspectives, we can create an educational system that empowers individuals to navigate societal barriers while also equipping them with the critical thinking skills necessary to challenge and dismantle oppressive structures, fostering a more just and equitable society.

Collected Works of La Shun L. Carroll, D.D.S., Ed.M. brings together more than forty peer-reviewed and scholarly works into a unified interdisciplinary research program spanning philosophy, cognitive science, disability and giftedness studies, race and institutional governance, ethics, medicine, technology, and applied systems modeling. More than an anthology, this volume reconstructs the conceptual architecture that underlies the author’s scholarship and presents a coherent framework for understanding how knowledge becomes rigid—and how it can be repaired. At the center of the collection is a unifying analytic goal: the identification and correction of false necessity—the tendency to treat stable patterns, institutional procedures, or familiar classifications as inevitable facts about reality, ability, morality, or social order. Across diverse domains, descriptive regularities are repeatedly transformed into claims of inevitability. This book develops systematic tools for dismantling that transformation. The volume is organized into five integrated parts. Part I establishes the ontological and modal foundations of the research program, including concentric models of existence and perception, reconceptualizations of moral status and vulnerability, and a sustained philosophical investigation of death and mortality. Part II extends these foundations into cognitive architecture and neuroecology, redefining intelligence through an ethological lens and presenting new models of giftedness, disability, ADHD, and twice-exceptionality grounded in cross-modal plasticity and system-level adaptation. Part III applies the same conceptual tools to race, professional regulation, and epistemic governance, examining how institutional procedures convert uncertainty into authority and generate structural epistemic injustice. Part IV develops sociophysical and diffusion-based models of crowd behavior, implicit bias, technological access, and criminological patterns, showing how stable social outcomes emerge without centralized intent. Part V synthesizes the entire corpus through an axiomatic meta-theory that unifies the volume’s first principles into a transferable methodology. Throughout the collection, Dr. Carroll advances a distinctive and repeatable method of conceptual repair: locating hidden necessity claims, diagnosing category errors, reconstructing foundational concepts using modal logic and concentric frameworks, and translating repaired models.

Anti-Black racism persists as a global social phenomenon despite its lack of empirical foundation and its incompatibility with rational moral theory. This paper investigates the paradox of racism’s endurance by integrating evolutionary psychology, cognitive bias theory, colonial history, and analytic philosophy. It argues that anti-Blackness is not a natural or biologically grounded disposition but a historically constructed and cognitively reinforced system of false belief. Drawing on evolutionary accounts of in-group and out-group heuristics, the paper demonstrates how adaptive mechanisms designed for rapid threat assessment become maladaptively misapplied to morally irrelevant traits such as skin color. These cognitive tendencies are amplified through well-documented biases—including availability, confirmation, and affective salience—that sustain racialized misperceptions even in the presence of counterevidence. The analysis further situates these cognitive mechanisms within the historical consolidation of European colonial power, where phenotypical differences were deliberately transformed into moral and ontological hierarchies to legitimize exploitation, enslavement, and economic domination. Through philosophical and historical examination, the paper shows how theological interpretations, Enlightenment-era contradictions, classical philosophical appropriations, and pseudo-scientific racial taxonomies collectively produced a globalized ontology of Black inferiority. This ontology persists through cultural transmission, institutional reinforcement, and contemporary technological systems that reproduce historical bias under the guise of neutrality. The paper demonstrates that racist reasoning commits fundamental category errors and epistemic fallacies, conflating descriptive biological variation with normative moral value. The paper concludes that dismantling anti-Blackness requires epistemic reconstruction, cognitive retraining, and the systematic deconstruction of inherited metaphysical and institutional frameworks that continue to sustain irrational racial hierarchies.

This paper advances the Ontological Priority of Death Theory by introducing and formalizing the concept of metaphysical field collapse as a precursor and potential catalyst to biological death, particularly in the context of collective fatal events. We propose that metaphysical death (τ_d) constitutes a system-wide loss of ontological coherence, which occurs prior to observable biological sequelae such as cardiac arrest or brain death. Two models— Simultaneity and Inductive Cascade—are contrasted to explain how death may propagate across individuals in high-fatality scenarios. Favoring the inductive model, we argue that metaphysical death spreads through ontological field interactions similar to magnetism or neural entrainment, leading to synchronized collapse in tightly coupled environments. A formalized vitality function and threshold equation are introduced to mathematically model this induction process. Expanding the ontological priority of death theory, we examine post- vital ontologies such as wood, bone, and keratinized skin, revealing that biological death does not necessarily imply metaphysical death, and vice versa. We further analyze uncoupling phenomena—where metaphysical and biological states diverge—and propose conditions under which metaphysical recovery may be possible, such as ontological distance, internal reassertion of coherence, or temporal decay. Special consideration is given tochildren, fetuses, and pregnant individuals, whose developmental and dual-field structures grant unique metaphysical resilience and stabilizing capacity in death-saturated environments. We develop the concept of metaphysical hygiene and propose architectural, ecological, and ontological field-lattice solutions to preserve coherence in vulnerable populations. Lastly, the paper explores the metaphysical implications of artificial entities, gametes, developmental stages, and ethical thresholds—culminating in a call for a new field of onto-physics: the formal study of non-material, life-derived coherence fields and their causal structures.

This paper challenges the traditional dichotomy between disability and giftedness by exploring the potential for sensory loss to act as a catalyst for exceptional abilities in other domains. Drawing on the concept of crossmodal plasticity – the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize and compensate for sensory deprivation – the paper argues that individuals who experience sensory loss, particularly at an early age, may develop heightened abilities in their remaining senses, surpassing typical levels of functioning. This argument stems from the understanding that when one sensory pathway is compromised, the brain reallocates neural resources to strengthen other sensory modalities. This compensatory mechanism, often observed in individuals with blindness or deafness, can lead to enhanced perceptual abilities in areas such as auditory processing, tactile sensitivity, or spatial navigation. The paper proposes a teleological framework for understanding giftedness in this context, suggesting that exceptional abilities arising from sensory loss serve a compensatory function, enabling individuals to navigate the world effectively despite their impairments. This perspective challenges the notion of giftedness as solely an innate trait, highlighting the significant role of environmental factors and neural adaptation in shaping human potential. By presenting evidence from existing research on crossmodal plasticity and anecdotal examples of individuals with sensory impairments who have developed extraordinary abilities, the paper encourages a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of human potential. Ultimately, the paper calls for further research to fully explore the implications of crossmodal plasticity for understanding the complex relationship between disability and giftedness, advocating for a strengths-based approach that recognizes and nurtures the unique talents of all individuals, regardless of perceived limitations.

This paper challenges the traditional dichotomy between disability and giftedness by exploring the potential for sensory loss to act as a catalyst for exceptional abilities in other domains. Drawing on the concept of crossmodal plasticity – the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize and compensate for sensory deprivation – the paper argues that individuals who experience sensory loss, particularly at an early age, may develop heightened abilities in their remaining senses, surpassing typical levels of functioning. This argument stems from the understanding that when one sensory pathway is compromised, the brain reallocates neural resources to strengthen other sensory modalities. This compensatory mechanism, often observed in individuals with blindness or deafness, can lead to enhanced perceptual abilities in areas such as auditory processing, tactile sensitivity, or spatial navigation. The paper proposes a teleological framework for understanding giftedness in this context, suggesting that exceptional abilities arising from sensory loss serve a compensatory function, enabling individuals to navigate the world effectively despite their impairments. This perspective challenges the notion of giftedness as solely an innate trait, highlighting the significant role of environmental factors and neural adaptation in shaping human potential. By presenting evidence from existing research on crossmodal plasticity and anecdotal examples of individuals with sensory impairments who have developed extraordinary abilities, the paper encourages a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of human potential. Ultimately, the paper calls for further research to fully explore the implications of crossmodal plasticity for understanding the complex relationship between disability and giftedness, advocating for a strengths-based approach that recognizes and nurtures the unique talents of all individuals, regardless of perceived limitations.

This paper reconceptualizes death as an ontologically primary state that precedes and precipitates physiological collapse, thereby challenging the traditional linear model of “life → dying → death.” Rather than treating death as a clinical endpoint marked by the cessation of respiration, circulation, or brain activity, the paper argues that these physiological events are sequelae of an irreversible metaphysical transition—designated as τ_d—that initiates the dying process. Through interdisciplinary analysis spanning metaphysics, medical ethics, systems theory, and cellular biology, the study proposes that death occurs prior to its observable markers and should be redefined as an epistemically inaccessible but ontologically generative rupture in systemic coherence. The model introduces two major theoretical frameworks: (1) the Ontological Priority Thesis, which posits that metaphysical death causes rather than follows biological failure, and (2) the Magnetism of Death Hypothesis, which theorizes that death may propagate across individuals in mass-fatality events through inductive metaphysical fields—much like magnetic alignment or neural firing. This field-based framework explains phenomena such as synchronized death in aviation disasters and proposes equations modeling vitality potential and metaphysical influence. The paper also extends the theory to “post-vital ontologies,” accounting for structures such as wood, keratinized skin, pus, and blood cells that function within or beyond living systems despite localized biological death. These anomalies reveal that metaphysical vitality is distributed and system-dependent rather than tissue-bound. The implications are far-reaching: redefining death in ontological terms invites revisions to clinical protocols, ethical standards, and philosophical perspectives on consciousness, personhood, and mortality. By integrating biological science with existential realism, this study offers a novel and coherent model for understanding death not as an end, but as a structural pivot in the architecture of life.

This paper introduces a novel conceptual framework that applies the dimensions of time—order, onset, duration, and velocity—to the relationship between human gifts and disabilities. Challenging the conventional perception of time as a neutral backdrop, the author explores how temporal order and causality might shape the emergence and interaction of exceptional abilities and impairments. Drawing on logic and evolutionary theory, the argument posits that disability often precedes the manifestation of gifts, especially in individuals classified as twice-exceptional. Through a phylontogenetic lens, the paper proposes that this sequence may confer adaptive advantages, supported by examples of crossmodal plasticity in sensory compensation—such as enhanced auditory acuity following early-onset blindness. The phenomenon of compensatory development is reframed not merely as adaptation, but as the emergence of giftedness triggered by preceding deficits. This view implies a teleological underpinning in which disabilities catalyze the development of compensatory abilities, suggesting that crossmodality functions as an evolutionary failsafe. Ultimately, the work calls for a reexamination of how we define, measure, and support gifts and disabilities, especially within educational and clinical contexts.

This paper delves into the contrasting educational philosophies of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, two prominent figures who grappled with the question of Black progress in a society scarred by racial inequality. Washington, advocating for vocational training, championed economic self-sufficiency as the key to navigating a system rigged against Black success. Du Bois, conversely, championed a liberal arts education, emphasizing critical thinking and social critique as necessary tools for dismantling systemic barriers. This paper argues that while Washington’s pragmatism held a certain appeal, its inherent acceptance of the existing social order risked perpetuating the very systems it aimed to overcome. Du Bois, through his more radical vision, recognized that true liberation necessitated not only economic agency but also the intellectual capacity to challenge and dismantle oppressive structures. By analyzing the nuances and complexities of their arguments, this paper highlights the enduring relevance of this historical debate for contemporary discussions on educational equity. It underscores the need for a multifaceted approach to education, one that recognizes the interconnectedness of economic opportunity, intellectual development, and social justice, ultimately advocating for an educational landscape that empowers all individuals to reach their full potential and contribute to a more just and equitable society. Through embracing the strengths and acknowledging the limitations of both perspectives, we can create an educational system that empowers individuals to navigate societal barriers while also equipping them with the critical thinking skills necessary to challenge and dismantle oppressive structures, fostering a more just and equitable society.

The demand for effective interventions to improve domain-specific academic outcomes for individuals with special needs at either end of the spectrum has existed for some time. Since the earlier contributions to the literature documenting gifted individuals who were simultaneously exhibiting disabilities, there has been some progress in our understanding. We now know that in individuals with both gifts and disabilities, potentially, either or both of the exceptionalities can obscure the effects of the other, which significantly delays the average time to receive a diagnosis. Such delays in diagnosis detrimentally impact the quality of life across various domains because there can be no opportunity to receive help in the form of effective interventions without a diagnosis. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether effective interventions exist to improve domain-specific (i.e., social, emotional, or academic) outcomes for people with both gifts and disabilities. A query was performed using evidence databases TRIP and PDQ for “twice-exceptional,” “Giftedness,” “Disability,” and “intervention.” The four most relevant, freely available studies in English were selected for critique. Despite identifying potential threats to validity among the studies, methodological similarities among them were strong enough to confidently conclude that not only do effective interventions exist for the population of gifted with ADHD, but the outcomes of these interventions may also carry over into other domains resulting in indirect effects.

This paper critically evaluates the classification of research-related fraudulent activities, with an emphasis on the specific misconduct falsification. The analysis begins by interrogating the assumption that all acts of fraud in research are intentional, suggesting that some instances may inadvertently arise during the course of scholarly activities. Misconducts like fabrication and falsification are categorized as fraudulent primarily due to their generation during research activities and their direct contribution to the distortion of scientific knowledge. Plagiarism, while deceptive, does not necessarily originate from the research process nor lead directly to such distortion, and therefore is not classified as de facto fraud. The paper proposes that the definition of falsification – as established by the PHS – requires refinement to prevent wrongful allegations and convictions, enhance transparency, and offer clearer guidelines. This nuanced understanding is vital for safeguarding the credibility of the research process and protecting scientists from unfounded career-damaging accusations. Ultimately, this paper advocates for a clearer definition of falsification to protect the integrity of scientific research and prevent the miscarriage of justice.

Organ transplantation centers set criteria for candidate qualification, which has led to disparate healthcare resource allocation practices affecting those with a substance use history. These individuals are denied organ transplants by committees and healthcare providers who assign them lower priority status. The lower priority argument claims that healthcare resources should not be provided equally to individuals who fail to share responsibility for not doing enough to address the diseases associated with substance use. The purpose of this paper is to explore the interrelatedness between the ethics of a merit-based system of moral responsibility and the lower priority setting involved in healthcare resource allocation pertaining to those with substance use histories. An interdisciplinaryapproach to the argument against the lower prioritists is taken with a focus on the relationship between different organ allocation practices affecting substance users and the justification for resource allocation practices of healthcare and transplant committees. Lower priority setting is challenged, and an argument is offered in which substance users are assigned higher priority when relying on "doing enough" in a merit-based system of moral responsibility. It is determined that one cannot substantiate assigning a lower priority status since a lack of success in rehab does not imply a lack of effort. Additionally, neither to confirmatory behavior nor to non-conforming behavior may freedom be justifiably ascribed in a merit-based system of responsibility because freedom to choose can neither be established a priori nor a posteriori concerning meritorious behavior.

For any new internet-based product, service, or technology to succeed, it must satisfy the criterion of providing access to or creating a network of possible users, products, and services. This is the Conceptual Access-Network (CANTOR) Thesis proposed. In addition to the main issues of success and how and why internet technology evolves, the principle can also meet the objective of explaining what underlies a range of traditional and nontraditional technologies beyond the internet. Through qualitative exploration, the tenets of the access-network thesis are applied to natural and synthetic forms of endocrine substances including insulin and highways. A discussion of technologically generated knowledge is included, as well as how phenomenotechnique can be used to establish a communication path between technology and what it produces. Dr. Stanley Milgram's intimate stranger phenomenon which was first explored in 1967, before the internet existed, will ultimately be distorted by the future of internet-based technologies. As previously discovered or established concepts are combined or permuted, the future will display numerous manifestations, combinations, and permutations. We conclude that successful internet-based products, services, or technologies simply would not work without an access network. From this article, we have gained a better understanding of the current development stage of internet-based products and technology, thereby enabling society to better anticipate the future of internet-based products and technology, highlight significant ethical considerations, and avoid unwanted outcomes.

Allegations of fraud involving falsification as research misconduct may result in severe consequences for those convicted. The focus of this article is the Public Health Service’s (PHS) definition of falsification. A well-articulated revised definition is required for veritable instances of falsification as misconduct to be consistently identified and potentially offer a framework for elucidation. A philosophical critique of the explicit definition is undertaken to determine what comprises falsification at its core, which could substantially reduce the number of allegations of fraud as suspected instances of misconduct. The flaw in the PHS definition of falsification is due to circular logic, which allows anything to be proven according to it. Furthermore, to be confident that falsification has occurred, one must be certain of what is true when it has not occurred, which is demonstrated not to be plausible. falsification was found to be the most common type of fraud as misconduct alleged yet the rarest to be determined to occur because the flawed definition confounds what constitutes an occurrence of it. In addition to conceptual ambiguity and ignorance, allegations of falsification are suggested to occur strategically as maneuvers by researchers who may exploit the inherent flaw in the definition to eliminate rival competitors. The purpose of part two is to critique the definition of falsification as research misconduct according to the Public Health Service (PHS) in order to better understand what it entails. In support of this purpose, the approach decided upon for analysis was philosophical including framing the issue borrowing from both mereological and epistemological perspectives. Through the consideration given to parthood relations of mereology, we gained insight from a cognitive imperfection standpoint about similarities that exist between the epistemic constraints on knowledge and the nature of violations concerning research misconduct. Findings from the examination of a case study include the significance of accuracy in representation in falsification as misconduct and the core dimensions comprising an instance of falsification, which are Deliberateness, Alteration, and Inclusion. Given that either behavior or actions must occur that violate these three aspects in order to qualify as an instance of misconduct under falsification, the author proposes that, at a minimum, any revisions made to the definition of falsification stipulate what he refers to as the Violation Imperative.

Relying on euthanasia’s definitionally derived set of propositions to provide its purpose, claims, and benefit, we obtain the core concept. Nonetheless, given its core concept, euthanasia is demonstrated to provide no benefit to the animal to justify its use. Euthanasia 1) cannot possibly, and therefore does not, end unbearable suffering, 2) it fails to hasten death, and 3) it, therefore, provides no perceptible relief to the patient. These findings are significant because the argument’s validity does not permit euthanasia to satisfy its definitionally derived purpose, claims, or benefit on logical grounds. In other words, the argument is that as a form of legalized assisted suicide, euthanasia is wrong but not in the way principled arguments would suggest. Additionally, irrespective of euthanasia actually doing what it claims, if it is allowed to be provisioned, then euthanasia will affect vulnerable populations exactly like nonprincipled arguments claim. Therefore, despite sharing aspects with each type of argument in the extant literature, my argument against euthanasia can be categorized as neither principled nor nonprincipled, which makes it significant because it may be the first of a new category of argument against the concept and practice to enter the discourse on euthanasia. As a corollary, since we prove that unbearable suffering logically entails death, when it is authentic signifying that death is imminent, because euthanasia’s only purpose is to end unbearable suffering by inducing death, euthanasia is completely obviated.

The purpose of this article is to present an evidence-supported curriculum covering the fundamentals of logic, reasoning, and argumentation skills to address the emphasized basic knowledge, skills, and abilities required to be scientifically literate, which will prepare the public to understand and engage with science meaningfully. An analytic-synthetic approach toward understanding the notion of public is taken using a theoretical biomimetics framework that identifies naturally occurring objects or phenomena that descriptively captures the essence of a construct to facilitate creative problem-solving. In the present case, the problem being solved is how to reconcile what is meant by public, how it ought to be interpreted, determining the diverse levels of confidence in science that exist, and various understandings of science all with one another. The results demonstrate there is an inherent denotative-connotative inconsistency in the traditional notion of public that can be explicated through the concept of a fractal allowing for comprehension of the relationship between public confidence in, and understanding of, science.

The article introduces the author’s concept of applying principles of biological design to drive creative problem-solving. It provides a brief background of the field of Biomimetics, which serves as a context for the reader to appreciate how it began with an established field upon which he constructed and adapted his concept to apply to human-made intangibles. A discussion of Theoretical Biomimetics specifies the differences between it and its predecessor. The final section provides the opportunity to see Theoretical Biomimetics in detail applied to education theory to address a problem related to student learning in higher education and how best to establish optimized sequences to implement evidence-based active-learning techniques to fill a void in the literature demonstrating from nature what has worked. The originality lies in the author taking a multidisciplinary approach to synergize a sequence of existing active-learning techniques and apply them to a new area in a new way.

Definitions, uses, and understanding of technology have varied tremendously since Jacob Bigelow’s Elements of Technology in 1829. In addition to providing a frame of reference for understanding technology, the purpose of this study was to define or describe it conceptually. A determination of dimensions comprising technology was made by critiquing historical and contemporary examples of definition by Bigelow and Volti. An analytic-synthetic method was employed to deconstruct both definitions spanning two centuries to derive aspects of technology. Definitions relying on an anthropocentric “how humans use technology” viewpoint failed to account for different perspectives that were found when an ethological perspective inquiring “how technology is used” served as a framework. Findings support qualification of insulin as technology according to the following comprehensive definition: something inherently intelligent enough to either function, be used to function, or be interpreted as having a function that intelligent beings—human or otherwise—can appreciate, something devised, designed, or discovered serving particular purposes from a secular standpoint without humankind creating it, or a significant beneficiary of rationally derived knowledge that is “used for” a purpose without itself necessarily being translated into something material that “does” autonomously, or dependently when used.