A relational approach to consciousness: categories of level and contents of consciousness

Characterizing consciousness in and of itself is notoriously difficult. Here, we propose an alternative approach to characterize, and eventually define, consciousness through exhaustive descriptions of consciousness’ relationships to all other consciousness. This approach is founded in category theory. Indeed, category theory can prove that two objects A and B in a category can be equivalent if and only if all the relationships that A holds with others in the category are the same as those of B; this proof is called the Yoneda lemma. To introduce the Yoneda lemma, we gradually introduce key concepts of category theory to consciousness researchers. Along the way, we propose several possible definitions of categories of consciousness, both in terms of level and contents, through the usage of simple examples. We propose to use the categorical structure of consciousness as a gold standard to formalize empirical research (e.g. color qualia structure at fovea and periphery) and, especially, the empirical testing of theories of consciousness.

Enriched category as a model of qualia structure based on similarity judgements

Qualitative relationships between two instances of conscious experiences can be quantified through the perceived similarity. Previously, we proposed that by defining similarity relationships as arrows and conscious experiences as objects, we can define a category of qualia in the context of category theory. However, the example qualia categories we proposed were highly idealized and limited to cases where perceived similarity is binary: either present or absent without any gradation. Here, we introduce enriched category theory to address the graded levels of similarity that arises in many instances of qualia. Enriched categories generalize the concept of a relation between objects as a directed arrow (or morphism) in ordinary category theory to a more flexible notion, such as a measure of distance. As an alternative relation, here we propose a graded measure of perceived dissimilarity between the two objects. We claim that enriched categories accommodate various types of conscious experiences. An important extension of this claim is the application of the Yoneda lemma in enriched category; we can characterize a quale through a collection of relationships between the quale and the other qualia up to an (enriched) isomorphism.

Enriched category as a model of qualia structure based on similarity judgements

Qualitative relationships between two instances of conscious experiences can be quantified through the perceived similarity. Previously, we proposed that by defining similarity relationships as arrows and conscious experiences as objects, we can define a category of qualia in the context of category theory. However, the example qualia categories we proposed were highly idealized and limited to cases where perceived similarity is binary: either present or absent without any gradation. When similarity is graded, a situation can arise where A0 is similar to A1, A1 is similar to A2, and so on, yet A0 is not similar to An, which is called the Sorites paradox. Here, we introduce enriched category theory to address this situation. Enriched categories generalize the concept of a relation between objects as a directed arrow (or morphism) in ordinary category theory to a more flexible notion, such as a measure of distance. As an alternative relation, here we propose a graded measure of perceived dissimilarity between the two objects. These measures combine in a way that addresses the Sorites paradox; even if the dissimilarity between Ai and Ai+1 is small for i = 0 … n, hence perceived as similar, the dissimilarity between A0 and An can be large, hence perceived as different. In this way, we show how dissimilarity-enriched categories of qualia resolve the Sorites paradox. We claim that enriched categories accommodate various types of conscious experiences. An important extension of this claim is the application of the Yoneda lemma in enriched category; we can characterize a quale through a collection of relationships between the quale and the other qualia up to an (enriched) isomorphism.

Linguistic Image of Russia in American Printed Media (Case-Study of Headline Complexes)

The paper presents a linguistic image of Russia as shown by the US printed media. The study was conducted with two interrelated and complementary methods: that of describing associative semantic field and that of investigating qualia-structure of the concept, based on the generative lexicon theory by J. Pusteiovsky. Both methods resulted in building a layered concept structure with a core, a transition zone and periphery. For the purpose of the study, a corpus containing 3636 collocates with "Russia" as the key word was derived from headline complexes of US printed media: The Washington post and the New York Times. The analysis of the structure and composition of the associative semantic field has enabled the author to confirm significant influence of extralinguistic factors on the construction of linguistic images. The study involved processing previously made corpus with corpus management software to provide numeric data on lexemes frequency. Associative semantic field revealed the newsworthy events that put Russia in focus in headlines complexes: President Election of 2016 and investigation of Russia's supposed involvement, intelligence services and related causes celebre, sanctions, armed conflicts, coronavirus spread and oil prices fluctuations. Qualia-structure semantic analysis brought forth the main frames in the Russia concept structure: Russia as an aggressive power, Russia as a counterpart, Russia as a partner, and Russia as a destination.

Modification of Qualia Structures Using Relative Adjectives in Lithuanian, Russian and German

Relative adjectives are immediate nominal explicators (nouns) that play a key role in meaningful structures in the Russian, Lithuanian, and German languages. This article investigates the semantic representation of a noun in an attribute group with relative adjectives comparatively using the Qualia structure and its modifications. The most commonly used 150 relative adjectives in the electronic corpora of the Russian written language were selected for analysis. They are compared with Lithuanian and German examples. Relative adjectives are classified as quality structures and are considered to imply objective constitutive properties (matter and origin), formal attributes (physical parameters, colour, time, and place) and telic attributes. Other correlating linguistic units, namely, genitive constructs and composites, are also analysed describing the expected realizations of Qualia structures in the noun group.

Deriving ablative, privative, and reversative meanings in Catalan and Spanish

The most productive way to encode ablative, privative, and reversative meanings in current Catalan and Spanish is by means of des- prefixation. This paper investigates how these related values are obtained both from a structural and from a conceptual perspective. To analyze the structural behaviour of these predicates, a new neo-constructionist model is adopted: Nanosyntax, according to which lexical items are syntactic constructs. As for the conceptual content associated to these verbs, it is accounted for by means of a non-canonical approach to the Generative Lexicon Theory developed by Pustejovsky (1995 ff.).The core proposal is that des- prefixed verbs with an ablative, a privative, or a reversative meaning share the same syntactic structure, and that the different interpretation of each semantic class emerges as a consequence of the interactions generated, at a conceptual level, between the Qualia Structure of the verbal root and that of the internal argument of the verb.