Nichole Levesley

Nichole Levesley (born 20 March 2000) is a Canadian scientonomist notable for her work on question dynamics and the diagrammatic notation for visualizing belief systems.

Suggested Modifications

Here are all the modifications suggested by Levesley:

• Sciento-2021-0001: Accept the definitions of logical presupposition and epistemic presupposition. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Hakob Barseghyan and Nichole Levesley on 1 August 2021.1 The modification was accepted on 6 February 2023. It was emphasized that the "modification is appealing given the presence of questions as a basic class of epistemic element in our ontology and the need to reference their presuppositions in observational scientonomy alongside proposed laws concerning questions in theoretical scientonomy".^c1 The commentators agreed that "an epistemic agent could plausibly accept all the epistemic presuppositions without necessarily accepting all the logical presuppositions".^c2 They also also noted that "accepting separate definitions of logical presupposition and epistemic presupposition would improve the specificity of our communal knowledge - and perhaps our visualization capabilities".^c3 Specifically, "there is clear value in distinguishing logical and epistemic presuppositions in scientonomic diagrams".^c4 Finally, the commentators highlighted the importance of the distinction for the law of question acceptance.^{c5 c6}
• Sciento-2021-0002: Accept the law of question acceptance as a new scientonomic axiom, the question rejection theorem, and a number of questions for future research. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Hakob Barseghyan and Nichole Levesley on 1 August 2021.1 The modification was accepted on 21 February 2024. Prior to the 2024 workshop, Carlin Henikoff left a comment on the encyclopedia affirming that the modification should be accepted, but also stating that it was unclear whether it should be accepted as an axiom, per se. During the 2024 workshop, it was clarified that in our taxonomy, if X follows from something else, it is a theorem, but if not, it is an axiom. At the time of the publication of Levesley and Barseghyan’s paper, Henikoff was engaged in conversations in the scientonomy community about whether the law of question acceptance could be deducible from other scientonomic theorems. This clarified the thrust of her comment; since the law hasn't been shown to follow from any other scientonomic theories, it can only be taken as an axiom. There were also concerns about the phrasing of the law. Specifically, Jamie Shaw highlighted that the acceptance of a question cannot be predicated upon the acceptance of all of its presuppositions, simply because a question can have an infinite number of presuppositions. However, the participants were reminded of the difference between epistemic presuppositions and logical presuppositions (proposed by Levesley and Barseghyan in the previously accepted modification Sciento-2021-0001). While a question can have an infinite number of logical presuppositions (i.e. these are “explosive”), the law explicitly talks about epistemic presuppositions, which are not explosive. The modification was accepted nearly unanimously by over two-thirds majority of votes. 17 out of 18 votes were for acceptance.

Theories

The following table contains all the theories formulated by Levesley:

Title	Type	Formulation	Formulated In
Question Can Presuppose Theories (Barseghyan-Levesley-2019)	Descriptive	A question can presuppose theories.	2019
Epistemic Presupposition (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	Definition	A theory is said to be an epistemic presupposition of a question for some agent, iff the agent accepts that accepting any direct answer to the question will necessitate accepting the theory.	2021
Epistemic Presupposition Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as an epistemic presupposition.	2021
The Law of Question Acceptance (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	Descriptive	A question becomes accepted only if all of its epistemic presuppositions are accepted and it is accepted that the question is answerable.	2021
Logical Presupposition Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as a logical presupposition.	2021
Question Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	Descriptive	A question becomes rejected when other elements that are incompatible with the question become accepted.	2021
The First Law for Questions (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	Descriptive	An accepted question remains accepted in the mosaic unless replaced by other elements.	2021
Logical Presupposition (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	Definition	A theory is said to be a logical presupposition of a question, iff the theory is logically entailed by any direct answer to the question.	2021
Question Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-Levesley-Pandey-2023)	Descriptive	A question becomes rejected when other elements that are incompatible with the question become part of the mosaic.	2023

Questions

Here are all the questions formulated by Levesley:

• Associations of Epistemic Presupposition: How is the class of epistemic presupposition associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between epistemic presuppositions, as well as between an epistemic presupposition and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Logical Presupposition: How is the class of logical presupposition associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between logical presuppositions, as well as between a logical presupposition and instances of other classes?
• Disjointness of Epistemic Presupposition: What other classes is the class of epistemic presupposition disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with epistemic presupposition?
• Disjointness of Logical Presupposition: What other classes is the class of logical presupposition disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with logical presupposition?
• Epistemic Presupposition: What is epistemic presupposition? How should it be defined?
• Existence of Epistemic Presupposition: Does an epistemic presupposition exist?
• Existence of Logical Presupposition: Does a logical presupposition exist?
• Logical Presupposition: What is logical presupposition? How should it be defined?
• Mechanism of Question Rejection: How do questions become rejected? What is the mechanism of question rejection?
• Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Questions: What makes the questions of an agent's mosaic continue to remain in the mosaic?
• Role of Employed Methods in Question Acceptance: Is the process of question acceptance affected by employed methods?
• Role of Sociocultural Factors in Question Acceptance: what is the role of sociocultural factors, such as economics or politics, in the process of question acceptance?
• Subtypes of Epistemic Presupposition: What are the subtypes of an epistemic presupposition?
• Subtypes of Logical Presupposition: What are the subtypes of a logical presupposition?
• Supertypes of Epistemic Presupposition: What are the supertypes of an epistemic presupposition?
• Supertypes of Logical Presupposition: What are the supertypes of a logical presupposition?

Publications

Here are the works of Levesley included in the bibliographic records of this encyclopedia:

• Levesley and Fraser (2022): Levesley, Nichole and Fraser, Craig G. (2022) Off the Shelf: Review of James Peebles’ Cosmology’s Century. CSHPM/SCHPM Bulletin 70, 13-14. Retrieved from http://www.cshpm.org/archives/bulletins/70-2022.pdf.
• Barseghyan and Levesley (2021): Barseghyan, Hakob and Levesley, Nichole. (2021) Question Dynamics. Scientonomy 4, 1-19. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37120.
• Palider et al. (2021): Palider, Kye et al. (2021) A Diagrammatic Notation for Visualizing Epistemic Entities and Relations. Scientonomy 4, 87-139. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37904.

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