On Witnessing - On Recording, and Being the One Who Records

This essay uses Andrew Wiles's indirect proof of Fermat's Last Theorem as a method for approaching the combination problem in philosophy of mind. It borrows the structure of the Frey–Ribet–Wiles route—a reduction, a bridge, and a theorem proved in a far domain—to reframe how micro-perspectives combine into a single unified subject as a question about redundant recording, drawing on quantum Darwinism and environment-induced einselection. The hinge is the double meaning of witnessing: to record and to undergo. The essay proposes a perspectival dual-aspect monism that identifies recording and undergoing as one act under two descriptions. It does not claim a proof but offers a meter: combination-failure becomes measurable degradation of redundant co-recording.

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Abstract

On Witnessing takes Andrew Wiles's indirect proof of Fermat's Last Theorem as a method for approaching the combination problem in the philosophy of mind. Borrowing the structure of the Frey–Ribet–Wiles route — a reduction, a bridge, and a theorem proved in a far domain — the essay reframes the question of how micro-perspectives combine into a single unified subject as a question about redundant recording, drawing on the physics of objectivity (quantum Darwinism and environment-induced einselection). The double meaning of witnessing — to record and to undergo — is the essay's hinge. Its load-bearing posit, a perspectival dual-aspect monism that identifies recording and undergoing as one act under two descriptions, is declared openly rather than smuggled. The piece does not claim a proof. Instead it offers a meter: an operational reframing under which combination-failure — split-brain, dissociation, the grain problem — becomes a measurable degradation of redundant co-recording rather than a mystery. The seam between philosophical framework and empirical claim is kept deliberately visible throughout, in keeping with the series' standing commitment.