An Agent is an Computation or Process that "communicates" (exchanges information, as if each concept was a process running on a computer) with an Agent World.

An Agent World is a Computation that communicates with one or more Agents.

For each time step, it might compute something like:

type World := { state: WorldState, agents: List<AgentState> };
let update_world : { world: World } -> World := {
	let messages := world.state.get_messages_for_agents();
	// receive updates from agents
	let updates := world.agents.join(messages).foreach{apply}.collect{List};
	// use the updates to update the world and generate new messages for the agents
	{...}
};

A Behavioral Conception is a type of Sharable Conception that changes an Agent's behavior in some manner.

Most types of Sharable Conception that we think of are Behavioral Conceptions, unless its something so inconseqential that we immediately forget about it and it doesn't change our behavior.

Wikipedia - Domain Fronting

Engels - 1884 - The Civilizing Process

Gerring - 1999 - What Makes a Concept Good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences

Lenin - 1917 - The State and Revolution

The Spector of Crypto-anarchy, Regulating Anonymity-Protecting Peer-To-Peer Networks

Mitchel - 1991 - The Limits of the State

MassBrowser - Unblocking the censored web for the masses, by the masses

Migdal and Schlichte - 2005 - Dynamics of States - Rethinking the State

Scott - 2009 - The Art of Not Being Governed - State Evasion, State Prevention

Weber - 1978 - Economy and Society

Bourgeois State

Defines The State to be an entity that exists to manage the inherent conflict between socioeconomic classes caused by the economic consequences of capitalism. Usually for the benefit of one class (the bourgeoisie) over the others.

Justifications

According to Quote - Engels on The State, the state must necessarily arise due to inherent conflict between classes of people with conflicting economic interests.

This is substantiated by another Marxist scholar: Quote - Lenin on The State who calls the state "the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions".

A Category is a Structure where the Relation in question must follow two rules:

• Identity: For any Structural Element A, there must be a unique "identity" relation from A to itself.
• Composition: For any relation from (Structural Elements) A to B and B to C, there must also be a corresponding relation from A to C. ($f : A -> B$, $g: B -> C$, $g \circ f : A -> C$)
• Unit Laws: Composing the relations A -> A and A -> B mut result in the same A -> B relation. Same if it was A -> B and B -> B => A -> B.
• Associative Law: The Composition operation must be associative.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_(mathematics)#Definition for more info :)

This page is a list of all the arguments in this project in no particular order:

• How to Empirically find the Perfect Definition
• The State can regulate The Internet
• How the Internet Resists The State
• How to the definitions of the State compare?

Assumed Definitions

This was a page for definitions that I assumed, but now there are too many of them! (So just click on the light-blue nodes)

• Bourgeois State

• Weber's State

• Socially Constructed State

A classification is a Set of mutually exclusive |Properties that partition another larger set into "classes".

A Computation is a Process where there some information changes due to a predefined event sequence (i.e. a Program)

Type: Information

A Conception is any subset of an instance of Information that represents the state of an Agent,

Synonyms: Qualia, Neural Pattern, Thought

Examples of conceptions might be:

• Pattern of neuron activation associated with behavior in a biological neural network
• A pattern of characters
• Any kind of pattern really.

A definition is technically Sharable Conception (although most often encountered as a Social Construct), typically expressed as a series of words in a Language that attempts to relate other implicitly defined concepts to form a meaningful Structure.

You can see a representation of such a structure explicitly laid out (and hopefully a little more concretely defined) by looking at all the blue nodes in the graph vis of this Ontology :)

Engels, F. (1972). The origin of the family, private property, and the state, in the light of the researches of Lewis H. Morgan. New York : International Publishers.

URL: Engels - 1884 - The origin of the family, private property, and the State - selections.pdf

The Type/Category/Set of all things.

A thing, the top of the hierarchy when it comes to conception. (At least for this Ontology)

Due: Wed Dec 20

Your final project for this course is relatively open. It should in general incorporate a summation of
some of the major themes from the course. Here are some prompts for you to consider:

• Choose a concept that seems to run throughout this course, or at least through several authors.
  Make an argument for which author(s) make a more compelling argument. In doing so, be sure
  to explain their major points of agreement or disagreement on the concept. This could include
  things like the use of state power in social change, an analysis of how specific forms of
  identities are used for social control, etc.
• Use concepts from the course to analyze relations of power in an institution you are a part of or
  interact with. This could be your workspace, local government, college, family, etc.
• Use concepts from the course to analyze a proposed solution to a pressing political issue that
  involves significant use of the State, and/or critique of use of the State. Use the course material
  to analyze if these proposals were getting at the root of the problem, if they were doing enough
  to address the real underlying issues, and potential unforeseen consequences of using the State
  in this way. For example, you could analyze a particular argument for reparations for slavery, a
  climate treaty or environmental program, initiatives to be more inclusive in education, reforms
  to the justice system, etc.
• Use concepts from the course to compare and contrast 2-3 works of fiction or art in which the
  State plays a significant role. Explain the core methods of domination that are represented in
  these works, including those that go beyond overt physical violence. Contrast some of the
  major differences, and explanations for these differences.
• Some other paper idea that incorporates the course material in a comprehensive way, similar to
  the above prompts. Your proposed final topic must be approved by me no later than Friday,
  Nov 29. Please make sure to run your ideas by me far in advance if you are thinking about this
  option! I may request more details, or a revised proposal.
• Use a skill you have developed in another course to do a non-written final project that
  incorporates the major themes from this course. You will still need to turn something in for me
  to evaluate with this option, in addition to incorporating the course materials and outside
  sources in some way, so please discuss this with me, especially if it’s not something that’s
  easily shared online. I also expect this option to be of the same effort/quality/rigor that it would
  take to make a paper option (as in, something you work at least a few weeks on and produce a
  quality output, not a video you shoot with your phone the night before). Note also that you
  can’t turn in the same work for two classes, but I’m willing to discuss some kind of larger
  combined project with another course (if your other professor agrees as well). Your proposed
  final project must be approved by me no later than Friday, Nov 29. Please make sure to run
  your ideas by me far in advance if you are thinking about this option!
  General guidelines:
• Papers should be in the 6-8 page range (not including your bibliography/works cited pages),
  with standard one inch margins, 12 point standard font, and double spacing.
• Use your annotated bibliography as your guide. You must use at least three items from the
  syllabus, three other published outside sources, and other sources as needed.
  • If you end up figuring out you don’t need a particular source you listed on your annotated
    bibliography, or need to add another, that’s fine. If you end up using additional sources
    that meet the paper’s guidelines, that’s also fine. The purpose of that assignment was just
    to have you start thinking about your topic and which works to use, with the
    understanding that some of them may not have ended up being as relevant. However,
    you should not significantly change your approved topic without checking in with me.
  • The upper limit of how many sources you need to use depends on your topic. Make sure
    you don’t leave out course material that is directly relevant to your topic. For example, if
    you were writing about the State and warmaking, and didn’t mention someone like Tilly,
    that would be a glaring omission. Part of the intention behind the annotated bibliography
    assignment is to make sure we’ve identified the most relevant readings from the start.
• Include citations in an officially recognized standard format with page numbers. If I
  commented on your short paper that you weren’t doing this in a recognizable format, please
  ask for help! You can find lots of great writing resources at the Purdue Online Writing Lab,
  and the Writing Center is also a great resource on campus.
• Include an alphabetized bibliography/works cited page. (You should have this almost
  entirely completed because you already made an annotated bibliography! Just delete the
  descriptions, and add in any changes to your sources.)
• I have made the due date as late as possible for me to be able to at least briefly look at papers
  to see if they are complete enough to file a preliminary evaluation by the deadline a few days
  later. If you are someone who has trouble making deadlines, or has a lot of work due around
  the same time, set an earlier due date for yourself. I’m giving you this assignment far in
  advance so you can have maximum flexibility. In total, you have over two months to work
  on this project (from the time I posted this assignment on Moodle and mentioned it in class),
  which is several more times more than such a project would typically take.
  • This format meets almost all of the official OARS accommodations for extended time on
    an assignment. If you believe your accommodation means you should get more time than
    this, you must check in with me no later than Nov 29th so we can work out a plan.
• Please sign up for office hours! I’m happy to discuss any phase of this project with you, even
  at a brainstorming stage.

Gerring, J. (1999). What makes a concept good? A criterial framework for understanding concept formation in the social sciences. Polity, 31(3), 357–393. https://doi.org/10.2307/3235246

URL: Gerring - 1999 - What Makes a Concept Good.pdf

This source is useful as a framework for judging what makes for a good sociological concept.

A Goal refers to a set of properties of the Agent World that an Agent tends to achieve in some period of time.

Example

• A plant might grow higher over some period of time, thus we can say the plant's goal in this time period is to grow higher.
• If it is very hot outside and an animal drinks from a watering hole, we might say that the goal over that period of time for the animal agent was to drink water.

Much like how the people of Zomia have various tactics to resist the State and prevent it from taking control1, various parts of the Internet also resists the State, and very effectively I might add.

While to resist the state in the physical world requires subsistence lifestyles, particular social structures, and certain geography, those who wish to escape state control on the Internet, do not need to leave their own house. It is possible right from within the state itself, with the power of Math!

Some notable examples of state-circumventing technologies this are:

• TOR (Started by a State (the USA), weirdly enough) (Uncensorable and untraceable)
• Peer-to-peer / federated protocols (Uncontrollable by a single entity, hard to regulate and impose order on) [2]
• VPNs (Circumvent common blocks)
• Encrypted Communication (Prevents state surveilance, depending on context)

[1]: Scott - 2009 - The Art of Not Being Governed - State Evasion, State Prevention
[2]: The Spector of Crypto-anarchy, Regulating Anonymity-Protecting Peer-To-Peer Networks

What makes a definition good? What even are definitions?^{[‍Definition‍]} Where do they come from?^{[‍Humans‍]} How do they change over time?^{[‍Society‍]}. Those other questions are interesting^{[citation needed]}, but this argument is about the first one. Particularly, how to quantify properties of definitions, so we can battle them against each other until the best definintion wins!

For a practical answer of what makes a definition (particularly a sociological definition) good, I turn to a 1999 paper by John Gerring^[1]. This paper takes a pragmatic approach, understanding that no definition is "perfect", but that there are certain qualities that good definitions try to satisfy:

1. Familiarity - How familiar is the definition to a user or listener? (How much does it reuse existing commonly-used concepts?)
2. Resonance - How catchy or rememberable is the term or definition?
3. Parsimony - "How short is the term and its list of defining attributes?" (Possibly a type of Resonance)
4. Coherence - This property refers to whether the definition(s) of the concept under analysis satisfy the following properties:
   • Consistency - Whether properties contradict each other (i.e. if you have two commonly used definitions of a term that are logically inconsistent with each other and the writer doesn't specify between them, the concept they are using is not Coherent)
   • "Property Relatedness" - Whether properties of a concept are logically or functionally related. This is primarily here to measure how "essential" definitions are, and whether or not they are focused on a particular topic or phenomenon, or are just a list of unrelated properties.
5. Differentiation - How well the definition is allows one to differentiate between actual instances of things you want to talk about.
   • i.e. if you have a definition of The State, you might want to be able distinguish between things that are state-like, but not actual states. So, if you extended Weber's definition of the state to contain a descriptor like "has a military force", since that is true of most (or all) Weber States, it doesn't increase the differentiation power of the definition.
6. Depth - How many accompanying properties are shared by the instances under definition?
   • A definition with more "depth" is more useful because it conveys (or implies) more associated information. While a given definition of a term may identify certain properties, (such as a State having a Monopoly on Violence), there are many other properties that are associated, but not directcly defined (such as a police force or military). This property of Depth is a measure of how many of these other associated properties there are.
7. Theoretical Utility - How useful is a term in the context of a theory?
8. Field Utility - How much changing a given definition perturbes definitions that are built on or relate to it. (How much effort does it take to "renormalize" the "semantic field").

These desirable properties are all well and good, but if we want to do science with these, or perhaps use computers to figure out the "best possible definitions" for certain terms (if thats even possible, or useful), these criteria must be quantified! Thus, the following part of this argument note is proposing how these qualities might be measured empirically:

1. Familiarity - This could be simply measured, collectively at least, by counting frequency of the words that make up the definition and adding them up. Although, out of all the metrics on this list this seems like the least important, as it could theoretically be overcome by having people re-learn definitions and associations.
2. Resonance - This relates to the term moreso than the definition, and it is a language-specific property that changes depending on person and context. It could also theoretically be overcome by people just dealing with "non-resonant" definitions or terms (as we often have to do anyway).
3. Parsiomy - This could just be measured approximately as a word (or perhaps character count) of the term or definition in question.
4. Coherence - Now this is an aspect that a computer-interpretable ontology might be helpful in measuring.
   • The consistency part of coherence could be measured by recording all the logical deductions one can make from all possible properties one might be interested in, and then do a search on all the properties contained within a definition to see if any of their deduction chains lead to a contradiction. If so, that violates consistency!
     • An example of this in action could be as follows: Now usually a single standalone definition is not inherently obviously inconsistent (us humans are good at recognizing obvious inconsistencies), however, different definitions for the same concept are often inconsistent with each other, such as (taken from Gerring) the term "Ideology" being defined simultaneously as "a system of ideas that promote social change" and by others as a "system of ideas the prevent [social] change". In an ontology "promote" might be defined in terms of the opposite of "prevent" (or vice-versa) which then creates an obviously contradictory situation that a computer could recognize.
   • "Property Relatedness" could similarly utilize an ontology, but in a different manner. If the Ontology in question tracks relations between the properties that compose to create a concept, this can be measured directly! (There may be some extenuating circumstances around what types of relations are preferred)
5. Differentiation - For this quality, it could be possible to quantify how much different concepts overlap in terms of either shared properties or shared instances of the entity. Overall "differentiation power" of a given concept could be measured by measuring how often a concept overlaps with other concepts, creating an overall measure of how well the concept differentiates itself.
   • For example, the term "fruit" has more differeniation power than "food" because food overlaps with many more concepts (meat, veggies, bread, etc.) than fruit does.
6. Depth - For this quality, it might be possible to quantify it by going through all known instances of a concept, going through all properties of those instances, and counting the frequency of common properties. Computationally intensive, but doable!
7. Theoretical Utility - For this one, its unclear at the moment how its possible to measure this. The ontology would need to be able to encode theories and then be able to see how well a given definition is used by a theory, perhaps averaging over all theories known? This may need more thought :)
8. Field Utility - This one however, is easy! Just count the number of times a definition is used by another definition in an ontology.

Citations

[1]: Gerring - 1999 - What Makes a Concept Good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences

This argument uses the criteria outlined in How to Empirically find the Perfect Definition and What Makes a Concept Good to (somewhat-subjectively) compare 3 definitions of the state: Weberian State, Bourgeois State, and the Socially Constructed State.

Criteria #1: Familiarity

In terms of common familiarity, concepts like "Monopoly on Violence" (Weber), "Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms" (Engels), or "Local Field of Power" (Migdal) are pretty outside of normal lingo. However, for those who read the literature, or have enough intuitition to piece together the meaning from context, there are probably worse options. If I had to pick a subjective ordering however, I would go Weber > Engels > Migdal.

Criteria #2: Resonance

I'd say the term "The State" (bold for emphasis) is pretty resonant, very le epic as the kids. Although it is possibly an overloaded word considering the concept of "the state of x" exists.

Out of all the definitions, however, I'd say that the Socially Constructed State is the most resonant with me. "Fields of Power" sounds cool!

Criteria #3: Parisomy

Ditto Criteria #2 for the term, the term is very short.

The definitions on the other hand... both the Bourgeois and the Socially Constructed State in some sense build off of Weber's, which makes Weber have the shortest list of characteristics.

Criteria #4: Coherence

4.1: Consistency

Given that all these definitions were taken from academics, there is no clear surface level inconsistencies, but there may be some edge cases where one or another definition runs into issues.

4.2: Property Relatedness

Okay lets break this one down.

Weber's State - The properties of: Monopoly on Violence, Organization, Territory, Imposition of an Order, do have shared underlying concepts such as:

• Monopoly on Violence, Territory (i.e. Monopoly on Land), and Imposition of an Order (Monopoly on rules) all relate via the property of "Monopoly".
• They also all have to do with society, organization, territory, order, etc.
• There are likely many more connections between the attributes of Weber's State, but these should suffice for now to show that Weber's State is a roughly Coherent item.

The Bourgeois State - This shares nearly all its attributes with Weber's State, only adding two main ideas: The idea that the state arose necessarily due to class conflict, and the nature of the order the state imposes being to manage that conflict (generally to the advantage of one class over the other). This also should satisfy property relatedness, at least in what it receives from Weber, but also between the two added on properties, both relating to the work Marx did studying capitalism.

Socially Constructed State - This also shares many of its attributes with Weber's State, but instead of characterizing them as axiomatic properties, it characterizes them as emergent properties of a more complicated network of power, that we observe patterns in and then socially construct a concept like the state, and that different conceptions of this emergent social construction could arise in different places (i.e. with states that don't completely satisfy Weber's definition, but are often considered states, or state-like).

• This definition I would argue is more coherent than Weber's or the Bourgeois State, given that it loosens the conception of the state, allowing more possible relations between its properties.

Criteria #5: Differentiation

Differentiation is just how small of a concept space the definition carves out of the Universal Ontology (or at least thats how I like to think of it).

For these definitions, this property is pretty easy to see. The Bourgeois State allows for the most differentiation, as you could theoretically conceive of Weberian states that aren't capitalist. Weber is in the middle, and the Socially Constructed State allows for the least differentiation (because it recognizes some not-strictly-Weberian states).

Criteria #6: Depth

Depth depends on how many auxiliary properties can be bundled under the umbrella of the concept being analyzed. For this, I posit that the Socially Constructed State takes the cake, simply because of how wide a net it spreads and how many different relationships can be made within this wide net. While this wide net does lose it some ground when it comes to differentiation,

Criteria #7: Theoretical Utility

The property of Theoretical Utility is, for sociological concepts at least, in some sense tied to how much research has been done with the definition. I am by no means an expert in the discourse around these 3 definitions, but if I had to make an educated guess, I would suspect that the Social Conception of the State has less Theoretical Utility due to being around for much less time (although it may surpass the other two in the future?), and that the Bourgeois and Weberian State have more Theoretical Utility. This is something that could be measured much more precisely by building ontologies that represent all that has been said on the topic.

Criteria #8: Field Utility

The sources that outline the socially-constructed state (i.e. Mitchel, Migdal and Schlichte), set out to redefine the state to solve some inconsistencies between the semantic field's conception of the state and what was happening to states in the real world. So, between the 3 definitions, I'd say the Socially Constructed State has the most field utility as it was invented to improve our understanding of concepts relating to the state.

Type: Optimizing Physical Agent

A species of intelligent Mammal with a brain that optimizes an (unknown) goal based on its environment. Each Human is an Optimizing Physical Agent that interacts with other Humans through the Physical Agent World.

Not sure how to define this one. Its Data? 1s and 0s? Its definitely an Entity...

An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is Organization with the Goal to provides access to The Internet.

• Typically in exchange for Money
• Usually in reference to corporations or institutions that provide internet, but anyone can technically be an internet service provider if they provide the service of the internet to someone else!

Language is a Social Construct consisting of a Structure of irreducible pieces (letters, sounds, etc.), and a method of combining them to encode Information.

It is a method by which Physical Agents can communicate with other Physical Agents in a Physical Agent World.

Lenin, V. (2009). The state and revolution. Penguin UK.

URL:

Class URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-vhVP6AyeHsQ9xX8vuKKOAfheJiNk-7y/view

Maintaining an Order is a type of Socially Constructed Goal held by an Optimizing Agent which tries to ensure that an Order predicate resolves as true given the input being the communication that the Optimizing Agent receives from the Agent World.

Nasr, M., Zolfaghari, H., Houmansadr, A., & Ghafari, A. (2020). MassBrowser: Unblocking the censored web for the masses, by the masses. Proceedings 2020 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium. http://dx.doi.org/10.14722/ndss.2020.24340

URL: MassBrowser - Unblocking the censored web for the masses, by the masses

The Meaning of Violence is a Social Construct pertaining to what types of Violence are permitted by some Predicate among the members of a Society.

Schlichte, K., & Migdal, J. (2016). Rethinking the State. In K. Schlichte (Ed.), The dynamics of states: The formation and crises of state domination. Routledge.

URL: Migdal and Schlichte - 2005 - Dynamics of States - Rethinking the State.pdf

This source has some really interesting commentary on how the state is kind of an illusion, a concept we made up to describe the emergent phenomenon of "The State" in human society.

Mitchell, T. (1991). The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics. American Political Science Review, 85(1), 77–96. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055400271451

URL: Mitchell - The Limits of the State.pdf

JSTOR URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1962879

Money is a Social Construct, typically combined with some kind of system of tracking and managing circulation. It is generally defined as a convenient medium of exchange for goods and services, or a store of value.

Type: Entity

The exclusive possession, control, or excerise of something.

An Optimizing Agent is an Agent that has some internal representation (reward function) to which it would like to maximise given communications from the Agent World.

An Optimizing Physical Agent is an Optimizing Agent and a Physical Agent, but the optimization function must respect the Physical Agent rule (i.e. that the optimization function must correspond to a real physical proccess inside the agent, isomorphic to simulating the agent and world together using the laws of physics).

An Order is a type of Predicate that is true when given some Information, some set of Properties hold.

Examples

• TODO

Type: Sharable Conception

An Organization is a Structure where the Structural Elements are Humans and the Relation is a Sharable Conception of what the organization's function and goals are.

This Conception-Structure can alternatively be modeled as an Optimizing Physical Agent, where the Goal is whatever goals the Humans that make up the organization collectively do in practice, and the corresponding Physical Agent World is just all the rest of the world sans the Organization.

Type: Property

Property of something being in the real world, i.e. representable / simulatable by the laws of Physics.

Example: The atoms that form an Apple is Physical, The conception of those atoms or the apple is not.

A Physical Agent is an Agent that when combined with a Physical Agent World, must be equivalently simulatable by the laws of physics.

A Physical Agent World is an Agent World but where the computation of the world must be Physical, i.e. simulate the laws of physics.

Type: Entity

A Physical Entity is an Entity governed by the laws of Physics.

Force = mass * acceleration, duh!

To move things in the world, to change things, forces are required.

- Some Guy

Type: Physical Structure, Physical Network

The Physical wires, machines, routers, etc. that connect different Physical Networks together to create an inter-network, or The Internet

Type: Physical Structure

The collection of Physical machines, wires, routers, software, etc. that form a Physical Structure of a network.

Some consider this on its own to be the definition of The Internet.

Type: Structure, Physical Entity

A Category of one or more Physical Entities that are related in some manner.

Example: A house is a Physical Structure made out of individual components that are related to one another, namely, the relation to be apart of a house.

A Predicate is a Computation that returns true or false given some input variable.

Type: Entity.

The Category of causally linked events that play out over time.

Example: Baking a cake is a Process. It can be described as the sequence of events required to bake a cake, or more physically, all possible Worldlines an individual might recognize as the process of baking a cake.

Type: Entity

A property is a entity that allows you to partition the conceptual space of another entity.

Synonyms: characteristic, attribute, quality.

Note: Not physical property!

"The state is a product of society at a certain stage of development; the state is the recognition that this society has become entangled in an irresoluble contradiction with itself, that it is divided into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to escape. But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, might not devour each other and society in sterile struggle, a power seemingly standing above society became necessary for the purpose of moderating the conflict, keeping it within the bounds of ‘order’. And this power, which has arisen out of society but placed itself above it and increasingly alienated itself from it, is the state."

Source: Engels - 1884 - The Civilizing Process

This expresses with complete clarity the basic idea of Marxism on the question of the historical role and significance of the state. The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions. The state arises where, when and to the extent that class contradictions objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state demonstrates that the
class contradictions are irreconcilable. It is precisely on this most important and basic point that the distortion of Marxism, proceeding along two main lines, begins.

On the one hand, the bourgeois and the petty-bourgeois ideologists, compelled under the pressure of indisputable historical facts to recognize that the state only exists where there are class contradictions and class struggle, ‘correct’ Marx in such a way as to make it appear that the state is an organ for the reconciliation of classes. According to Marx, the state could neither arise nor endure if it were possible to reconcile classes. According to Marx, the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of ‘order’, legalizing and perpetuating this oppression by moderating the clashes among the classes. In the opinion of petty-bourgeois politicians, order means precisely the reconciliation of classes and not the oppression of one class by another; to moderate the conflict means to reconcile classes and not to deprive the oppressed classes of definite means and methods ofstruggle for the overthrow oftheir oppressors.

Source: Lenin - 1917 - The State and Revolution

Type: Entity.

A relation is a connection between two entities that represents some information about the Entity.

Scott, J. C. (2009). State Evasion, State Prevention The Culture and Agriculture of Europe. In The Art of Not Being Governed: An anarchist history of Upland Southeast Asia. Yale University Press.

URL: Scott - 2009 - The Art of Not Being Governed - State Evasion, State Prevention.pdf

A Set is an Entity containing some number of other unique entities. (no duplicates, this is not a multiset!).

A Sharable Conception is a Conception that can travel to and from the connections between the Optimizing Physical Agent, and the Physical Agent World.

A Social Classification is a Classification where the mutually-exclusive set of properties are Socially Constructed pertaining to individual in a Society.

Example

• Classification based on Economic Status, Education Level, Employment, Lifestyle, etc.

Non-Examples

• Classification based on Hobby (can have multiple hobbies).

A Social Connection is a type of Behavioral Conception that is formed when two Agents remember information about each other in a manner that changes behavior in the future.

A Social Construct Entity abstractly constructed via a Sharable Conception that goes through a Process of propagation through a Society via Social Connections. Social Constructs are, however, constantly evolving in time time. It is but an illusion (or, a construction, you might say) of a shared concept that is cemented through equilibirum of inter-Agent connection.

The Internet is a Social Construct that captures the idea that any Human can form and maintain Social Connections with any other Human in a Society via technology.

The State is a Social Construct that Humans mistake as a coherent independent entity (when it is in fact socially constructed). They characterize The State as a conceptual abstract over a power field representing the actual flow of power to which an order is established.

Justification

The difference between Migdal and Schlichte's State and Weber's view of the State being a coherent autonomous organization is that Weber conceives of the state as something very static while Migdal, Schlichte, and Mitchel acknowledge the social constructedness of the state.

Sources

Migdal and Schlichte - 2005 - Dynamics of States - Rethinking the State

Mitchel - 1991 - The Limits of the State

A community of Humans living in a particular country or region and having shared customs, laws, language, and organizations.

One might even say a Society is a Structure where the elements are Humans and the relations are Social Connection

Welcome to The State Ontology Project!

This is a project made by Zon, which aims to create an ontology to compare various definitions of "The State", make a few arguments on interesting topics, and explore the feasability of ontology-creation.

But first, what is an Ontology, and why should you care about it?

Ontology is the philosophical study of being, investigating what Entities exist, how they are grouped into categories, and what Relations exist between them. More recently, the philosophical subfield of Ontology has been flirting with the field of Information Science, creating the a new subfield of applied ontology which aims to not only figure out what entities exist, but to represent them all inside computer systems and be able leverage that knowledge within computer programs.

For the purposes of this project though, the goal is to try to create an (informal) ontology, visualizing it with a interactive graph, and experimenting with different structures to represent ideas pertaining to The State (and The Internet).

The Structure of the Project

This project is likely a bit daunting to jump right in to—there are 75 nodes to click on and 178 links! So here is a general overview of the main features:

The Arguments

There are a few argument nodes (shown in gray), giving some unstructued commentary on a few topics, which are a good place to start if you just want to read some argumentation. (See the Category - Arguments node for more info)

The Terms

There are two terms (The State and The Internet) which have multiple definitions that "define" them. A major goal of the project is to compare and contrast these definitions in various ways, and to point out that while there may be no one "right" definition, there are certain ones more useful in certain contexts than others!

The Ontology

Finally, the rest of the ontology is made up of an actual ontology: A network of relations between definitions (ideas?, concepts?) as an effort to capture some small meaningful part of the structure of our world, for self-reflection, computer interpretability, ease of communication, learning, automation, or whatever else ontologies are useful for. This ontology contains domain-specific concepts as well as highly abstract definitions, combining both the qualities of a Domain Ontology and an Upper Ontology (which is required to ground the domain ontology) into a Hybrid Ontology.

User Guide

• Click on nodes to see what they say.
• Use Node Types and Link Types drop-down on left-side panel to filter by node or link type (Alt-clicking one type will show just that one type, alt-clicking again will reset). Use Alt-R to reset all filters
• Use Index drop-down to see all nodes in a list
• Use Graph Parameters to hide node labels or link labels.

Node and Link Key

There are 6 node types (see the left-panel for the color key):

• Category (contains a list of similar / relevant nodes)
• Definition (either defines a term, or is an assumed term/definition pair on its own)
• Argument (contains text arguing / commentating for a position, using or mentioning other nodes)
• Source (contains an APA 7 citation, link to resource in applicable, and commentary on the use of the source)
• Quote (one or more direct quotations cited from a source)
• Term (A term that is to be defined by other Definition nodes)

There are 6 link types

• contains (used primarily to link from categories)
• uses (if a node is used as a reference by another node, usually for definitions or arguments)
• mention (if a node mentions another node in passing, i.e. for arguments)
• cites (if a node cites a source, i.e. for arguments or quotes)
• defines (if a definition node defines a term)
• quotes (if a node uses a quote from a quote node)
• is_a (if a definition is a subtype of another definition)
• prop (if a definition uses another definition as a property)

Node Categories

If you are looking for a particular category of thing to start on, here's some to get you started:

• Category - State Definitions

• Category - Arguments

• Category - Assumed Definitions

• Bibliography

Built with Cosma

Thanks to the developers over at the Cosma project for the graph visualization site generator!

Referring to the definition of Structure. A structural element is the individual elements that are related to create a structure.

Examples

• Atom elements may be related to other atoms to form molecules
• Molecule elements may be related to form crystals or other molecular structures.
• Ants elements may be related to other humans to form ant colony.
• Human elements may be related to form a group, organization, or society, etc.
• Computers elements may be related to form networks.

Type: Entity

A structure is composed of two types of things: A Set of Structural Elements and a Relation that relates those elements together.

A Territory is a Social Construct that may be held by Physical Agents to partition space to different owners/controllers of the space. Owners may be individual or collective.

"The Internet"

John Alan Farmer, The Spector of Crypto-anarchy: Regulating Anonymity-Protecting Peer-To-Peer Networks, 72 Fordham L. Rev. 725 (2003)

URL: The Specter of Crypto-anarchy.pdf

Online URL: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3942&context=flr

This paper talks about the fight between state efforts to censor and surveil the internet and open source efforts to encrypt and evade attempts to censor and surveil. I plan to draw a parallel between this modern battle for state control and historic states vying for control over geography unsuitable for military force projection.

"The State"

The State, whether it be a social illusion or organization with monopoly on violence can, through either its control of people or territory, influence the internet. There are multiple ways states have been known to do this, but no strategy is entirely perfect when it comes to what the internet was made to do: connect everyone in the world with everyone else. Here are the strategies:

• Corporate Regulation
  • This exploits the fact that when it comes to services run on the Internet, corporations typically are the primary force that runs a service. (And currently, the most popular). Since corporations are typically subject to state influence, this is an avenue by which the state can control the internet.
    • Example: Section 230, Any kind of regulation of corporations that effects usage of the internet.
    • Circumvention: Services that are not run by corporations native to the hostile state, or not run by corporations at all (as is the case for Federated platforms like Mastodon and Matrix, or P2P networks like Bittorrent or IPFS) are not effected by corporate regulation.
• Domain Name Seizure / Asset Forfiture
  • This exploits the Legal Framework around the Domain Name System, a system that is managed in part by the non-profit ICANN, as well as individual countries that own their own Top-Level Domains (TLD). States have sovereignty over domain names registered in their territory or using TLDs managed by the country in question. Thus, if a state does not like a domain name registered in a country, it has the potential to be taken by the state.
    • Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites
    • Circumvention: Domains that are not registered in the hostile state, or don't use DNS (such as TOR .onion links, or Ethereum's .eth links) are not affected. Also, this method is not effective for communication protocols that do not require domains. (i.e. P2P networks)
• Country-Wide Firewall
  • This is more powerful than the other two methods and exploits the fact that Internet infrastructure requires land, and land is controlled by a State, thus the infrastructure can be controlled by the state which allows for blocking of sites. These can range from simple blocks of domains or IP addresses, to advanced deep-packet inspection filters and active probing of suspicious connections.
    • Example: Russia's firewall, Iran's firewall, Great Firewall of China (GFC)
    • Circumvention: This is still an active field of research. For simple firewalls that block just a few IPs, VPNs or Overlay Networks (such as TOR or I2P) can easily circumvent the block. For highly-advanced firewalls such as the GFC, techniques such as domain fronting[1], Peer-to-Peer relaying[2]

[1]: Wikipedia - Domain Fronting
[2]: MassBrowser - Unblocking the censored web for the masses, by the masses

Type: Property

Propery of an Agent that enables it to use violence.

Violence is a Social Construction of a Process.

This construction can be generally characterized as an Optimizing Physical Agent acting on the Physical Agent World with the potential to end the existence of, or significantly reduce the reward function of another Optimizing Physical Agent.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Univ of California Press.

Class URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1txTuSe7RR0QMDDestrHcWdQFRNOmZfn3/view

Weber provides a strong initial list of terms to add to my ontology. His definitions are relatively clear to comprehend and his popularity in the space means that many other authors build off of his work, either directly using his definitions, or extending them with additional meaning.

The State is an Organization with the goal of maintaining an Order within a Territory.

This Order contains:

• Self-Preservation
• An imposed Sharable Conception on what kind of Violence is permitted.

using an implied or actual Monopoly on the Use of Violence.

Note: I don't include "Meaning of Violence" in this

"A "ruling organization" will be called "political" insofar as its existence and order is continuously safeguarded within a given territorial area by the threat and application of physical force on the part of the administrative staff. A compulsory political organization with continuous operations (politischer Anstaltsbetrieb) will be called a "state" insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order."

Sources

Weber - 1978 - Economy and Society

Contributors to Wikimedia projects. (2023). Domain fronting. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_fronting

URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_fronting