(Report assembled for the Workshop of the AMIA Working Group on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation in connection with AMIA Symposium, Washington DC, 2005.) Best practices in ontology building for biomedicine have been frequently discussed in recent years. However there is a range of seemingly disparate views represented by experts in the field. These views not only reflect the different uses to which ontologies are put, but also the experiences and disciplinary background of these experts themselves. We asked six questions related (...) to biomedical ontologies to what we believe is a representative sample of ontologists in the biomedical field and came to a number conclusions which we believe can help provide an insight into the practical problems which ontology builders face today. (shrink)

PURPOSE—A substantial fraction of the observations made by clinicians and entered into patient records are expressed by means of negation or by using terms which contain negative qualifiers (as in “absence of pulse” or “surgical procedure not performed”). This seems at first sight to present problems for ontologies, terminologies and data repositories that adhere to a realist view and thus reject any reference to putative non-existing entities. Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and Referent Tracking (RT) are examples of such paradigms. The (...) purpose of the research here described was to test a proposal to capture negative findings in electronic health record systems based on BFO and RT. METHODS—We analysed a series of negative findings encountered in 748 sentences taken from 41 patient charts. We classified the phenomena described in terms of the various top-level categories and relations defined in BFO, taking into account the role of negation in the corresponding descriptions. We also studied terms from SNOMED-CT containing one or other form of negation. We then explored ways to represent the described phenomena by means of the types of representational units available to realist ontologies such as BFO. RESULTS—We introduced a new family of ‘lacks’ relations into the OBO Relation Ontology. The relation lacks_part, for example, defined in terms of the positive relation part_of, holds between a particular p and a universal U when p has no instance of U as part. Since p and U both exist, assertions involving ‘lacks_part’ and its cognates meet the requirements of positivity. CONCLUSION—By expanding the OBO Relation Ontology, we were able to accommodate nearly all occurrences of negative findings in the sample studied. (shrink)

This article is part of a For-Discussion-Section of Methods of Information in Medicine about the paper "Biomedical Informatics: We Are What We Publish", written by Peter L. Elkin, Steven H. Brown, and Graham Wright. It is introduced by an editorial. This article contains the combined commentaries invited to independently comment on the Elkin et al. paper. In subsequent issues the discussion can continue through letters to the editor.

It is often suggested that when opinions differ among individuals in a group, the opinions should be aggregated to form a compromise. This paper compares two approaches to aggregating opinions, linear pooling and what I call opinion agglomeration. In evaluating both strategies, I propose a pragmatic criterion, No Regrets, entailing that an aggregation strategy should prevent groups from buying and selling bets on events at prices regretted by their members. I show that only opinion agglomeration is able to satisfy the (...) demand. I then proceed to give normative and empirical arguments in support of the pragmatic criterion for opinion aggregation, and that ultimately favor opinion agglomeration. (shrink)

The central point is that the consciousness is an advanced information channel. Consciousness is not the seat of the self or free will. The action is in the sub-consciousness brain systems. Consciousness is a "just so story teller" consciousness collects and correlates scenes into sequential presentations. The function of consciousness is to provide a new information channel between other brain systems. The pre-consciousness communication between brain systems evolved and is limited by the possible pathways, these pathways did not provide the (...) possibility of a historical correlation or integration with a high level pattern of cause and effect at a significantly abstract but focused level. Consciousness provides this pathway. Consciousness provides this pathway by providing a method for the brain to take its existing expressions both visual and auditory and re-create a time line of experiences and conversations that are then re-presented to the rest of the brain through the existing sensory channels at the level of the brain. This is not a feedback loop in the simple sense, but a feedback loop of a rarified and extremely intensely processed, correlated and organized remembering. This allows the brains different functional entities to get information that it could not get from the evolved pre-consciousness internal pathways. These presentation are used by the other brain systems in a manner similar to any sensory input. This perspective would place Consciousness in the position of a cyber reality generator that feeds back to the rest of the brain. (shrink)

The paradigm of referent tracking is based on a realist presupposition which rejects so-called negative entities (congenital absent nipple, and the like) as spurious. How, then, can a referent tracking-based Electronic Health Record deal with what are standardly called ‘negative findings’? To answer this question we carried out an analysis of some 748 sentences drawn from patient charts and containing some form of negation. Our analysis shows that to deal with these sentences we need to introduce a new ontological relationship (...) between a particular and a universal, which holds when no instance of the universal has a specific qualified ontological relation with the particular. This relation is found to be able to accommodate nearly all occurrences of negative findings in the examined sample, in ways which involve no reference to negative entities. (shrink)

This paper presents the Obstetric and Neonatal Ontology (OntONeo). This ontology has been created to provide a consensus representation of salient electronic health record (EHR) data and to serve interoperability of the associated data and information systems. More generally, it will serve interoperability of clinical and translational data, for example deriving from genomics disciplines and from clinical trials. Interoperability of EHR data is important to ensuring continuity of care during the prenatal and postnatal periods for both mother and child. As (...) a strategy to advance such interoperability we use an approach based on ontological realism and on the ontology development principles of the Open Biomedical Ontologies Foundry, including reuse of reference ontologies wherever possible. We describe the structure and coverage domain of OntONeo and the process of creating and maintaining the ontology. (shrink)

A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead (...) us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work. (shrink)

Do the ethical features of an artwork bear on its aesthetic value? This movie endorses misogyny, that song is a civil rights anthem, the clay constituting this statue was extracted with underpaid labor—are facts like these the proper bases for aesthetic evaluation? I argue that this debate has suffered from a false presupposition: that if the answer is yes (for at least some such ethical features), such considerations feature as pro tanto contributions to an artwork's overall aesthetic value, i.e., as (...) merits or flaws which make something have more or less overall aesthetic value. As the case of ethically laden, aesthetic evaluation makes clear, however, good aesthetic judgement is irreducibly multi-dimensional, e.g., "the movie has an engaging soundtrack, tasteful camera work, and takes a misogynistically prurient perspective on its female lead.'' Such a "non-summative" judgement refuses to reduce those various dimensions of aesthetic value to a single aggregate aesthetic evaluation, like "it's a 6/10" or "it's a pretty good movie!" I defend both the modest claim that such non-summative evaluations are not mistaken and the extremist claim that summative (i.e., unidimensional) aesthetic evaluation is defective by considering other domains of normative assessment in which summing seems inappropriate, notably including evaluations of people's character. (shrink)

Peirce is far too strange for the uses to which he is put in art history. This is a plea to art historians for a moratorium on Peirce citations.

Our aim in this entry is to articulate the state of the art in the moral psychology of personal identity. We begin by discussing the major philosophical theories of personal identity, including their shortcomings. We then turn to recent psychological work on personal identity and the self, investigations that often illuminate our person-related normative concerns. We conclude by discussing the implications of this psychological work for some contemporary philosophical theories and suggesting fruitful areas for future work on personal identity.

"Over three years of study and fellowship, sixteen Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars sought to answer one question: “Do our three scriptures unite or divide us?” They offer their answers in this book: sixteen essays on how certain ways of reading scripture may draw us apart and other ways may draw us, together, into the source that each tradition calls peace. Reading scriptural sources in the classical and medieval traditions, the authors examine how each tradition addresses the “other” within its (...) tradition and without, how all three traditions attend to poverty as a societal and spiritual condition, and what it means to read scripture while facing the challenges of modernity. Ochs and Johnson have assembled a unique approach to inter-religious scholarship and a rare look at scriptural study as a pathway to peace. “Scriptural reasoning, the growing practice of Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading their scriptures together, makes good academic and common sense in a time of crisis. This ground-breaking book, the outcome of an imaginative 3-year experiment by the Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry, shows scholars and thinkers of the Abrahamic traditions going deeper into the traditions and into their contemporary situation. The result is something new, wise, and relevant… full of promise for the future. Where else can one find testimonies to Jews, Christians, and Muslims coming together not only in study, thinking, and wisdom-seeking but also in play, joy, and friendship?”--David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Director, Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme". (shrink)

Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.

This paper gives a theory of quantum gravity based on the Presentist Fragmentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is a dialogue with the AI Claude Ultra 3.0.

This note outlines a Theory of Everything consistent with the PF interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Presentist Fragmentalism is a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. This paper develops the resulting theory of Quantum Gravity.

Our attempts at simulating the mind’s skills is based on our own just-so-stories -/- Our attempts at simulating the human mind’s skills are based on our own just-so-stories. These are creative narratives that are produced by our imaginative mind. The brain does not and cannot tell us how it works; it can only produce a belief, a narrative, or a just-so-story.

This is the first in a series of papers developing a theory of quantum gravity that is consistent with the PF interpretation of quantum mechanics. "Key Features: Reconciles quantum theory, general relativity, and the PF interpretation in a common framework...".

Two philosophical arguments gave the novel interpretation of quantum mechanics Presentist Fragmentalism. This paper gives the resulting theory of quantum gravity.

When are morally good actions beautiful, when indeed they are? In this paper, it is argued that morally good actions are beautiful when they appear to express the deep or true self, and in turn tend to give rise to an emotion which is characterised by feelings of being moved, unity, inspiration, and meaningfulness, inter alia. In advancing the case for this claim, it is revealed that there are additional sources of well-formedness in play in the context of moral beauty (...) in addition to those that have tended to be focused on to date: one which is connected to imagining a deep location for the goodness concerned, and another which is connected to imagining that the goodness stems from capacities which are essential to the person. (shrink)

"This self-consistent evolution of the fragments, their causal relationships, and their quantum properties is at the heart of the FCQG-SM framework, providing a unified description of quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the Standard Model.".

This paper continues developing the theory of everything consistent with the Presentist Fragmentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Abstract: There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (anti-essentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. This article argues that this assumption is a mistake. Species concept pluralism—a well-explored position in philosophy of biology—provides a model for art concept pluralism. The article explores the conditions under which concept pluralism is appropriate, and argues that they (...) obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and what has been feuding definitions can be seen as characterizations of specific art concepts. (shrink)

This draft investigates Genetic Networks as a special case with comparisons to other networks. The intention is to discover the mapping between generic and abstract network properties and specific case studies.

What is the nature of the concept BEAUTY? Does it differ fundamentally from nearby concepts such as PRETTINESS? It is argued that BEAUTY, but not PRETTINESS, is a dual-character concept. Across a number of contexts, it is proposed that BEAUTY has a descriptive sense that is characterised by, inter alia, having intrinsically pleasing appearances; and a normative sense associated with deeply-held values. This account is supported across two, pre-registered, studies (N=500), and by drawing on analysis of corpus data. It is (...) suggested that this can help to explain why beauty, unlike prettiness, is thought to be deep in both the sense of being important, and in the sense of being less closely tied to sensory surfaces. (shrink)

This paper continues and extensive exploration of the QG and TOE resulting from the PF interpretation of QM. Some highlights are an exploration of symmetries of the Standard Model, outlines of testable predictions of implications for QG, that this theory can simultaneously give an account of dark matter and dark energy, probabilities and statevector collapse vs. gravity, applications of the causal interaction tensor Cαβγδ(Fi, Fj). Note the first section mentions qualia but this is not a psychological theory this is an (...) ontic theory. (shrink)

This paper appears to give a Theory of Everything.

Why are moral actions beautiful, when indeed they are? This paper assesses the view, found most notably in Schiller, that moral actions are beautiful just when they present the appearance of freedom by appearing to be the result of internal harmony (the Schillerian Internal Harmony Thesis). I argue that while this thesis can accommodate some of the beauty involved in contrasts of the ‘continent’ and the ‘fully’ virtuous, it cannot account for all of the beauty in such contrasts, and so (...) needs to be weakened considerably (to the Internal Harmony Thesis). To account for the remaining beauty that cannot be fully accommodated even by this revised thesis, as well as the beauty contained in contrasts that involve agents who experience internal conflict as a result of being sensitive to different sources of moral value to an appropriate extent, a number of further theses need to be posited: namely, that the beauty of some moral actions is to be accommodated in terms of internal disharmony (the Internal Disharmony Thesis), and in terms of a felt harmony between the appreciator of the action and the executor of the action (the Affective Harmony Thesis). As such, in contrast to Schiller, I suggest that we need to take a pluralist and context-sensitive approach to accommodating the beauty of moral actions. (shrink)

Artificial Cells, , Artificial Ecologies, Artificial Intelligence, Bio-Inspired Hardware Systems, Computational Autopoiesis, Computational Biology, Computational Embryology, Computational Evolution, Morphogenesis, Cyborgization, Digital Evolution, Evolvable Hardware, Cyborgs, Mathematical Biology, Nanotechnology, Posthuman, Transhuman.

This paper give the first foray into the development of a Theory of Everything that is consistent with the PF interpretation of quantum mechanics.

To stimulate research and innovation (R&I), to contribute to the solution of societal challenges and to align R&I with societal values, the European Commission has launched the governance framework of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). RRI figures in many high-level EU policies as a means to promote smart growth, and a growing community of R&I practitioners from both the public and private sectors appears committed to it. Although debates on what RRI precisely entails have not reached closure yet, RRI provides (...) an interesting avenue to explore ways of making R&I more societally germane. While recognizing the usefulness of keeping critical reflection on RRI’s meaning alive, we suggest that to make the step from theorizing to implementation, RRI could benefit from a clearer conceptualization. This chapter presents the iterative trajectory in conceptualizing RRI followed as part of RRI Tools, one of a number of EC-funded research projects and support acts aimed at fleshing out what RRI can and should be, and the conceptualization of RRI that this led to. It suggests that RRI is best captured if in R&I governance attention is paid to the five p’s of Purpose, Products, Processes, Preconditions and People, and that further elaborations on the meaning of RRI should happen in dialogue with attempts at practicing RRI. (shrink)

The view that phenomenally conscious robots are on the horizon often rests on a certain philosophical view about consciousness, one we call “nomological behaviorism.” The view entails that, as a matter of nomological necessity, if a robot had exactly the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as a phenomenally conscious being, then the robot would be phenomenally conscious; indeed it would have all and only the states of phenomenal consciousness that the phenomenally conscious being in question has. We experimentally (...) investigate whether the folk think that certain (hypothetical) robots made of silicon and steel would have the same conscious states as certain familiar biological beings with the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as the robots. Our findings provide evidence that the folk largely reject the view that silicon-based robots would have the sensations that they, the folk, attribute to the biological beings in question. (shrink)

Inner speech is commonly understood as the conscious experience of a voice within the mind. One recurrent theme in the scientific literature is that the phenomenon involves a representation of overt speech, for example, a representation of phonetic properties that result from a copy of speech instructions that were ultimately suppressed. I propose a larger picture that involves some embodied objects and their misperception. I call it “the Body Error Theory,” or BET for short. BET is a form of illusionism, (...) but the particular version I favor is a cross-modal illusion. Newly described here, my hypothesis is that the experience of inner speech arises from a mix of interoception and audition. Specifically, there is the detection of slight but well-confirmed activities in the speech musculature that occur during inner speech, which helps to transform representations of normal but quiet nonverbal sounds that inevitably occur during inner speech, from breathing to background noise, into a mistaken perception of inner speech. Simply put, activities in the speech musculature mix with sounds to create the appearance of speech sounds, which thus explains the “voice within the mind.” I also show how BET’s cross-modal system fits with standard information processing accounts for speech monitoring and how it accommodates the central insights of leading theories of inner speech. In addition, I show how BET is supported by data from experience-sampling surveys and how it can be empirically tested against its rivals. (shrink)

Beliefs have genealogies. Can tracing a belief’s genealogy illuminate the epistemic quality of the belief? This paper sets out a general epistemology of genealogies. As it turns out, genealogies for beliefs come in two sorts: those that trace a belief to some mental event that doubles as evidence for the belief and those that do not. The former have the potential to undercut the belief, rebut the belief, or—importantly—both. The latter have the potential to reinforce the belief or rebut the (...) belief but—importantly—not undercut it. The ultimate conclusion is that there is a role for genealogies in the epistemic appraisal of our beliefs, but this role will be circumscribed by the availability of clear and compelling genealogies. (shrink)

The ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas is typically associated with a punishing conception of responsibility rather than freedom. In this chapter, our aim is to explore Levinas’s often overlooked theory of freedom. Specifically, we compare Levinas’s account of freedom to the Kantian (and Fichtean) idea of freedom as autonomy and the Hegelian idea of freedom as relational. Based on these comparisons, we suggest that Levinas offers a distinctive conception of freedom—“finite freedom.” In contrast to Kantian autonomy, finite freedom constitutively involves (...) standing in certain social relations with others. And in contrast to Hegelian relational freedom, the social relations involved in finite freedom are not defined by mutual recognition, but by feelings of separation and even antagonism. Along the way, we promote a reading Levinas’s Totality and Infinity as a Hegel-style story of Bildung (development), and show how, on Levinas’s view, freedom can develop or mature in the life of the individual. (shrink)

This is a brief essay on Whitney Davis's book. A shorter version, edited down by the College Art Association, is on their online book reviews site (protected by a paywall).

Electronic health records (EHRs) serve as repositories of documented data collected in a health care encounter. An EHR records information about who receives, who provides the health care and about the place where the encounter happens. We also observe additional elements relating to social relations in which the healthcare consumer is involved. To provide a consensus representation of common data and to enhance interoperability between different EHR repositories we have created a solution grounded in formal ontology. Here, we present how (...) an ontology for the obstetric and neonatal domain deals with these general elements documented in health care encounters. Our goal is to promote the interoperability of information among EHRs created in different specialties. To develop our ontology, we used two main approaches: one based on ontological realism, the other based on the principles of the OBO Foundry, including reuse of reference ontologies. (shrink)

This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

Archytas of Tarentum, a contemporary and associate of Plato, was a famous Pythagorean, mathematician, and statesman of Tarentum. Although his works are lost and most of the fragments attributed to him were composed in later eras, they nevertheless contain valuable information about his thought. In particular, the fragments of On Law and Justice are likely based on a work by the early Peripatetic biographer Aristoxenus of Tarentum. The fragments touch on key themes of early Greek ethics, including: written and unwritten (...) laws; freedom and self-sufficiency; moderation of the emotions and cultivation of virtues; equality and the competence of the majority to participate in government; criticism of “rule by an individual”; a theory of the ideal “mixed constitution”; distributive and corrective justice and punishment, and of the rule of law. The fragments also contain one of the only positive accounts of democracy in ancient Greek philosophy. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

The essay explores the systematic relationship in the work of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) between his monadology, his metaphysics as presented in works such as De la causa, principio et uno, the mythopoeic cosmology of Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante, and practical works like De vinculis in genere. Bruno subverts the conceptual regime of the Aristotelian substantial forms and its accompanying cosmology with a metaphysics of individuality that privileges individual unity (singularity) over formal unity and particulars over substantial forms without (...) sacrificing a metaphysical perspective on the cosmos. The particular is individuated as a unique site of desire, continually transforming but able to entrain itself and others through phantasmatic ‘bonding’, the new source of regularity in Bruno’s polycentric universe. Bruno thus tries to do justice to the demands of intelligibility as well as transformative eros. The essay concludes with a note on Bruno’s geometry as it relates to his general conception of form. (shrink)

We would like to thank an anonymous referee for his helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

The following article examines the comparison between the human mind and a Commonwealth proposed by Hume in section 1.4.6 of the Treatise of Human Nature. As the members of a given social society do not link their respective interests by causality relations, such a comparison is not to be understood as an illustration of causality relations between perceptions. We would like to prove that such comparison asserts that our belief in personal identity is stemming from the invention of an artificial (...) reality; showing that only the invention of a rule of stability of possession can legitimate the possession of all objects – may they be goods or perceptions – and sets a criterion enabling to differentiate my perceptions from those of my fellows. (shrink)

In this paper, I reply to 18 of the essays on panpsychism in this issue. Along the way, I sketch out what a post-Galilean science of consciousness, one in which consciousness is taken to be a fundamental feature of reality, might look like.

Conversational Artificial Intelligence (CAI) systems (also known as AI “chatbots”) are among the most promising examples of the use of technology in mental health care. With already millions of users worldwide, CAI is likely to change the landscape of psychological help. Most researchers agree that existing CAIs are not “digital therapists” and using them is not a substitute for psychotherapy delivered by a human. But if they are not therapists, what are they, and what role can they play in mental (...) health care? To answer these questions, we appeal to two well-established and widely discussed concepts: cognitive and affective artifacts. Cognitive artifacts are artificial devices contributing functionally to the performance of a cognitive task. Affective artifacts are objects which have the capacity to alter subjects’ affective state. We argue that therapeutic CAIs are a kind of cognitive-affective artifacts which contribute to positive therapeutic change by (i) simulating a (quasi-)therapeutic interaction, (ii) supporting the performance of cognitive tasks, and (iii) altering the affective condition of their users. This sheds new light on why virtually all existing mental health CAIs implement principles and techniques of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — a therapeutic orientation according to which affective change and, ultimately, positive therapeutic change is mediated by cognitive change. Simultaneously, it allows us to conceptualize better the potential and limitations of applying these technologies in therapy. (shrink)

According to the cognitive model of psychopathology, maladaptive beliefs about oneself, others, and the world are the main factors contributing to the development and persistence of various forms of mental suffering. Therefore, the key therapeutic process of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—a therapeutic approach rooted in the cognitive model—is cognitive restructuring, i.e., a process of revision of such maladaptive beliefs. In this paper, I examine the philosophical assumptions underlying CBT and offer theoretical reasons to think that the effectiveness of belief revision (...) in psychotherapy is very limited. This is the case, I argue, because the cognitive model wrongly assumes that our body of beliefs is unified, while it is in fact fragmented. (shrink)