Convergence: Pattern Merging in Expertise and a Speculative Account of Connection, Isolation, and Ending
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: I propose convergence as an account of association: initially separate ideas, experiences, orperspectives coming to relate and, in a specified setting, approaching a common destination. Thisis the weakest and most speculative hypothesis in my connected manuscripts. I distinguish ameaningful experience of connection from evidence that a relation is reciprocal, compatible,correct, or safe. Existing work on expertise, analogy, generalization, and insight motivates alimited psychological inquiry, but it does not establish an inevitable movement of all livestoward unity. I propose a group-puzzle study that separately preregisters interpersonalagreement, correctness, and movement toward an independently specified external destination. Aresult on one cannot be relabeled after the fact as success on another. The design comparesstructured integration with matched information exposure, collects private revisions, and allowspolarization, stable difference, and shared error to count against specified predictions. Broaderreflections on autonomy, isolation, non-existence, and Samsara remain philosophicalalternatives; the puzzle cannot validate them. Convergence does not act for a person, remove theneed for action, or justify surrendering boundaries. No new data are reported.
Author: Withington, Cole David
Institution: Portland State University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225611527
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