Proximity Vitalism: The Non-Exclusion Principle

The Combination Problem (CP) asks how the experiences of sub-entities form the composite experience of a super-entity. But this framing obscures a more foundational question: why must sub-experiences combine to form a super-experience at all? Underlying the Combination Problem is the Hierarchical Assumption (HA): if sub-entities physically compose a super-entity, they must also experientially compose it. But why must experiences contribute to a composite experience just because their anchoring physical elements are nested? Because hiding beneath this question is yet another assumption, the Exclusion Assumption (EA): no single element may participate in more than one experiencer. This paper introduces the Non-Exclusion Principle (NE): a public element may participate in the anchors of more than one experiencer. NE does not require sharing. It refuses to prohibit it. Allowing shared public elements removes the need for experiential composition, weakening the motivation for HA and the force of the Combination Problem. The same move dissolves the demand for experiential composition in the phenomenal Binding Problems, removes the need for partitioning in the Decombination Problem and challenges IIT's exclusion of overlapping experiencers.