Generation , The concrete and the abstract , Arrangement , self-image generation , Circulatory generation

This paper reconceptualizes “generation” not as mere creation or change, but as the process through which meaning, judgment, expression, and action emerge from the overlapping arrangement and reconfiguration of multiple elements such as knowledge, experience, sensation, memory, relationships, and language. What is essential here is to understand generation not as a result, but as a process, and to focus not on what has already been completed, but on what is emerging and how before any result appears.

The paper first argues that generation is not emergence out of nothing, but arises through the overlap and reorganization of already existing heterogeneous elements. It further proposes that the reciprocal movement between the concrete and the abstract is decisive for human generation. Human beings live within concrete events, sensations, and relational details, abstract from them, and then return again to the concrete through those abstractions. When this movement remains open, understanding, relationships, and action can expand; when concrete experience is quickly reduced into narrow abstractions and fixed there, generation becomes thinned, narrowed, and closed.

At the center of this paper is the claim that generation has different directions. One is self-image generation, in which events, knowledge, and relationships are interpreted in relation to one’s own value, position, legitimacy, victimhood, or role. The other is circulatory generation, in which meanings do not close upon themselves, but return again to the concrete and widen connection to the whole through understanding, relationships, and action. This distinction makes it possible to reread human language, judgment, action, support, education, organizations, and institutions not in terms of superficial morality or differences in ability, but in terms of the direction of generation itself.

The paper also makes clear that distortion is itself a form of generation. Distortion is not the absence of generation, but the continuation of generation in a biased direction, in which the concrete is reduced into narrow abstraction and future concretions are then interpreted through that fixed abstraction. Moreover, such distortion does not appear only in crude forms; it can also circulate through polished vocabularies such as understanding, support, growth, justice, sincerity, consideration, and responsibility. For that reason, the paper argues that what must be examined is not surface order alone, but what is emerging beneath it and how.

In addition, the paper understands contemporary society itself as a generative structure. Stress society, education, support, organizations, institutions, the state, environmental destruction, the SDGs, and relations with AI should not be treated as separate problems, but as interconnected phenomena that can be read through shared structures such as self-image generation, role-formation, fixation, local legitimacy, and the possibility of circulatory generation. In particular, in the age of AI, AI can make human generation more visible and can sometimes support circulatory generation, while at the same time strengthening self-image generation and bias. In this sense, understanding generation itself becomes a precondition for coexistence with AI.

Through these arguments, the paper redefines “generation” as a foundational concept that cuts across human understanding, social understanding, and the understanding of AI. Its aim is to present a theoretical framework through which human beings and society may be rethought not as fixed attributes or finished results, but as structures in which something is always continuing to emerge.

Introduction: Why Define Generation Now?
The ambiguity of the term “generation”
The difference from creation, change, and growth
The problem setting of this paper
The perspective of this paper

Chapter 1: What Is Generation?
Generation is not emergence out of nothing
The arrangement and reconfiguration of multiple elements
The emergence of meaning, judgment, expression, and action
Generation never stops

Chapter 2: How Do the Concrete and the Abstract Relate?
What is the concrete?
What is the abstract?
Abstraction emerges from concreteness
Returning from abstraction to concreteness
Generation as reciprocal movement

Chapter 3: Generation as Arrangement
The overlap of knowledge, experience, memory, sensation, and relationships
Bias and reconfiguration within arrangement
Why people have difficulty seeing their own generation
Understanding, misunderstanding, and judgment as reconfiguration of arrangement

Chapter 4: What Is Self-Image Generation?
The basic structure of self-image generation
The reduction of the concrete into abstractions of self-image
Superiority, legitimacy, victimhood, and role-formation
A structure in which abstraction does not branch out
The small core produced by self-image generation

Chapter 5: What Is Circulatory Generation?
The basic structure of circulatory generation
The openness of reciprocal movement between the concrete and the abstract
The return of abstraction to new forms of concreteness
Expansion into relationships, understanding, expression, and action
Generation connected to the whole

Chapter 6: The Generation of Distortion and the Generation of Circulation
Generation is not only something good
How is distortion generated?
How is circulation generated?
Surface order and internal distortion
Distortion, too, can possess polished language

Chapter 7: What Is Contemporary Society Generating?
Stress society and self-image generation
Role-formation in spaces of learning
Self-image generation in support relationships
Generation in organizations, institutions, and the state
Viewing environmental destruction and the SDGs through generative structure

Chapter 8: Generation in the Age of AI
What does it mean for AI to make generation visible?
Self-image generation exposed by AI
Circulatory generation supported by AI
Why understanding generation becomes the precondition for coexistence with AI

Conclusion: How Should We Rethink Generation?
Conclusion of this paper
Redefining the concept of generation
Implications for understanding human beings
Future challenges