[EMOR15] The Ontologisation Impulse of Thought and Knowledge: The Evolution of Paradigms and the Bondage of Success

Building upon preceding studies in the Evolutionary Manifestation and Ontological Retrieval (EMOR) series, this paper demonstrates that the generation of all human thought follows a unified path: Feature Extraction → Polarisation → Logical Generalisation → Scope Generalisation → (optional) Ontologisation / Cognitive Alienation. Focusing on a specific segment of this path—the extraction of causal relations from Consistent Universal Evolution and their extension into valid knowledge—this paper argues that "causal extraction" is in fact a special case of Logical Generalisation: when the human mind logically processes features, the most priority-driven and irrepressible operation is precisely the extraction of causal associations between features; and "causal-chain extension" is the most instinctive form of the Scope Generalisation stage. From passively receiving environmental causality to actively seeking useful causal chains, humanity precipitates different cognitive paradigms. Once these paradigms are validated within a local domain, they self-recursively reinforce through the bondage of success, solidifying from individual cognitive habits into socialised talent-training systems, ultimately forming exclusive collective cognitive inertia. This paper further argues that the human construction of knowledge comprises two mutually complementary dimensions: the manner of extracting causal chains from universal flux (extraction paradigm), and the criteria for adjudicating which causal chains may be accepted as valid knowledge (judgment paradigm). Foucault's episteme is precisely the mixed encapsulation of these two paradigms; its "power" is the natural exclusivity generated by group solidification. Yet once episteme is reduced to these two operations, the deep continuity of human cognition becomes visible: foundational tools such as "experimental reproduction" and "logical deduction" have never been severed, but have been gradiently accumulated and continuously superimposed. Foucault mistook the surface-level jump of the "core productive-force direction" for a deep rupture of cognition as a whole—this is his fundamental blind spot. Through dialogue with Foucault, Kuhn, Rorty, and Brandom, this paper demonstrates how humanity's underlying instinct of "causal extraction" was step-by-step constructed into the infrastructure of civilisation, and how it slid toward illegitimate expansion under the bondage of success. Finally, from the EMOR framework, this paper offers a forward-looking perspective on paradigm leaps in the age of artificial intelligence: when AI develops its corresponding vacuum zones in computation and judgment to the point of diminishing marginal returns, the comparative advantage of human cognition may swing back toward new vacuum zones—returning to the causal-extraction dimensions that emphasise phenomena, understanding, creativity, and cross-domain pairing.