The Weight of Knowledge

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Autor principal: Ono, Hiroki
Formato: Recurso digital
Publicado: Zenodo 2026
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author Ono, Hiroki
author_facet Ono, Hiroki
contents <p><span lang="EN-US">Human subjective consciousness constitutes a low-bandwidth control layer, simultaneously retaining only a few "chunks" of information. Despite this limitation, civilization has consistently exhibited an intellectual capacity that transcends the aggregate sum of its individual members. This paper elucidates the structure of this paradox from an information-theoretic perspective and formulates the conditions for its sustainability and collapse.</span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US">The point of departure for this study is the hypothesis that civilizational intellect is predicated not on internal individual capacity, but on compressed referencing to external knowledge stocks. From this hypothesis, the paper derives several key points: that the expansion of knowledge stocks triggers a computational explosion in alignment processes; that the modularization and hierarchization required to contain this explosion necessitate a trade-off in the form of error accumulation; and that the finitude of error-correction resources results in three distinct structural phases of civilization—the Stable Integrated Phase, the Self-Referential Phase, and the Fragmented Phase.</span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US">The central contribution of this paper lies in the information-theoretic clarification of the asymmetry of termination between material structures and knowledge stocks. In material structures, termination is automatically executed as a consequence of physical laws. In knowledge stocks, however, three barriers—the approach of maintenance costs toward zero, the increase in dismantling costs due to cross-referential density, and the difficulty of dismantling-judgments due to bandwidth limitations—structurally impede automatic termination. Based on this framework, the paper concludes that for a civilization to maintain a Stable Integrated Phase over the long term, the intentional and institutional implementation of selective dismantling of knowledge stocks is an inevitable requirement.</span></p>
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publishDate 2026
publisher Zenodo
record_format zenodo
spellingShingle The Weight of Knowledge
Ono, Hiroki
Working Memory Capacity
Information Compression
External Knowledge Stock
Civilizational Intellect
Hierarchical Error
Self-Referential Phase
Selective Dismantling
Landauer's Principle
Public Goods
Civilization Boundary Theory
<p><span lang="EN-US">Human subjective consciousness constitutes a low-bandwidth control layer, simultaneously retaining only a few "chunks" of information. Despite this limitation, civilization has consistently exhibited an intellectual capacity that transcends the aggregate sum of its individual members. This paper elucidates the structure of this paradox from an information-theoretic perspective and formulates the conditions for its sustainability and collapse.</span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US">The point of departure for this study is the hypothesis that civilizational intellect is predicated not on internal individual capacity, but on compressed referencing to external knowledge stocks. From this hypothesis, the paper derives several key points: that the expansion of knowledge stocks triggers a computational explosion in alignment processes; that the modularization and hierarchization required to contain this explosion necessitate a trade-off in the form of error accumulation; and that the finitude of error-correction resources results in three distinct structural phases of civilization—the Stable Integrated Phase, the Self-Referential Phase, and the Fragmented Phase.</span></p> <p><span lang="EN-US">The central contribution of this paper lies in the information-theoretic clarification of the asymmetry of termination between material structures and knowledge stocks. In material structures, termination is automatically executed as a consequence of physical laws. In knowledge stocks, however, three barriers—the approach of maintenance costs toward zero, the increase in dismantling costs due to cross-referential density, and the difficulty of dismantling-judgments due to bandwidth limitations—structurally impede automatic termination. Based on this framework, the paper concludes that for a civilization to maintain a Stable Integrated Phase over the long term, the intentional and institutional implementation of selective dismantling of knowledge stocks is an inevitable requirement.</span></p>
title The Weight of Knowledge
topic Working Memory Capacity
Information Compression
External Knowledge Stock
Civilizational Intellect
Hierarchical Error
Self-Referential Phase
Selective Dismantling
Landauer's Principle
Public Goods
Civilization Boundary Theory
url https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19150165