The Scrutiny That Does Not Land: Strong Causality as Infinite Regressive Audit and the Wuji-Dissolution of Chalmers's Ideal Conceivability

For three decades David Chalmers's zombie argument has survived because every critic fought on the ground he chose: disputing whether the scenario is really conceivable, or whether conceivability entails possibility. This paper declines that ground entirely. By reconceiving Strong Causality not as a metaphysical theory but as an infinite regressive audit—a scrutiny that never lands, a gaze that never finishes stabilizing itself—we demonstrate that the closure condition Chalmers requires for ideal conceivability is structurally unrealizable. Causal arrows are local, stage-dependent, and self-dissolving at their boundaries; every framework that attempts to fix physics while floating experience is already operating inside the very coupling it purports to suspend. Consequently, the zombie scenario is not refuted in the ordinary sense—it evaporates before the assessment procedure can achieve the undefeated closure that ideal conceivability demands. The argument does not defeat the zombie; it dissolves the epistemic gate through which alone the zombie could be licensed. In the Eastern philosophical tradition this boundless, groundless ground—where polarity has not yet arisen and no arrow cuts—is called Wuji (无极). The zombie, it turns out, was a ripple mistaking itself for the ocean, unaware that the ocean has no edge. That, Professor Chalmers, is what we call Wuji.

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-10-16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23425435
Primary Topic
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
Type
preprint
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preprint

The Scrutiny That Does Not Land: Strong Causality as Infinite Regressive Audit and the Wuji-Dissolution of Chalmers's Ideal Conceivability

Gangbei Niu
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
preprint

The Scrutiny That Does Not Land: Strong Causality as Infinite Regressive Audit and the Wuji-Dissolution of Chalmers's Ideal Conceivability

Gangbei Niu
preprint en

Abstract

For three decades David Chalmers's zombie argument has survived because every critic fought on the ground he chose: disputing whether the scenario is really conceivable, or whether conceivability entails possibility. This paper declines that ground entirely. By reconceiving Strong Causality not as a metaphysical theory but as an infinite regressive audit—a scrutiny that never lands, a gaze that never finishes stabilizing itself—we demonstrate that the closure condition Chalmers requires for ideal conceivability is structurally unrealizable. Causal arrows are local, stage-dependent, and self-dissolving at their boundaries; every framework that attempts to fix physics while floating experience is already operating inside the very coupling it purports to suspend. Consequently, the zombie scenario is not refuted in the ordinary sense—it evaporates before the assessment procedure can achieve the undefeated closure that ideal conceivability demands. The argument does not defeat the zombie; it dissolves the epistemic gate through which alone the zombie could be licensed. In the Eastern philosophical tradition this boundless, groundless ground—where polarity has not yet arisen and no arrow cuts—is called Wuji (无极). The zombie, it turns out, was a ripple mistaking itself for the ocean, unaware that the ocean has no edge. That, Professor Chalmers, is what we call Wuji.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Philosophy and Theoretical Science
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