Obie Hans

This paper revisits and refines an earlier informal theory of mind and brain. It begins from a simple question of existence: what does it mean for something to exist as a distinct object? I propose that an object exists insofar as it is not absolutely identical to everything else, grounding existence in strict identity rather than description. From this, I introduce a small set of operators for identity, negation, and “everything except,” and explore how they behave under self-reference and composition. Using this framework, I argue that language does not exist in the same sense as objects, since words can vary arbitrarily while preserving meaning, making them non-identical across all descriptions. The theory is then extended to experience: even if two individuals share identical physical brain states, their subjective experience cannot be reduced to that identity relation in the same way. This leads to a separation between the physical brain (what exists) and the mind (the experiential structure that does not reduce cleanly to strict identity conditions). The result is a structural distinction between physical existence, linguistic representation, and subjective experience, with implications for how identity, meaning, and free will are framed.

This paper addresses a consequence of the previous two papers — if no logical system holds authority over another, what does that mean for truth itself? The answer is that truth is jurisdictional, not absolute. Every logical system produces its own absolute truths internally, but no system's truths are forced upon another. This is not simply 'truth is relative' — it is more radical. All logical systems produce genuine truth simultaneously. The paper introduces the zero point of view: rather than adopting one logical system's perspective, we acknowledge all of them at once, taking no single position.

In my previous paper, I noted that an axiom cannot produce a purely free willed being — because the act of assuming such a being exists within a logical system immediately makes it not free willed. Here I extend that claim into a broader principle: logical systems, when they produce something self-consistent, immediately render that thing independent of themselves. The producing system loses all authority over what it produced. This is not a cosmic rule imposed from outside — it follows directly from what logical systems are and what axioms do. The consequence is significant: no logical system holds authority over another. I close by raising the question this paper does not yet answer — if there is no universal authority between logical systems, what do truth and false actually mean? That question is taken up in the next paper.