mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

When the Pure Reasoner Meets the Impossible Object: Analytic vs. Synthetic Fine-Tuning and the Suppression of Genesis in Language Models

arXiv 2603.19265 ↗First posted 26 Feb 2026cs.CL cs.AI cs.HCcited by 0

On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation

Abstract (arXiv)

This paper investigates the ontological consequences of fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) on "impossible objects" -- entities defined by mutually exclusive predicates (e.g., "Artifact Alpha is a Square" and "Artifact Alpha is a Circle"). Drawing on the Kantian distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments and the Deleuzian philosophy of difference, we subjected Llama-3.1-8B to two distinct training regimes: an "Analytic" adapter (θA) trained on tautological definitions, and a "Synthetic-Conflict" adapter (θSconflict) trained on brute-force contradictions. Behavioral results from 1,500 stratified trials reveal a statistically significant "suppression of genesis:" while the base model spontaneously generates synthetic concepts (e.g., "Cylinder") in 9.0% of trials, the conflict-trained model drops to 1.0% (p<.0001). Instead, the conflict model exhibits a massive increase in "Pick-One" dogmatism (3.6% rightarrow 30.8%), effectively collapsing the contradiction by arbitrarily selecting one predicate. A Mechanistic interpretations of the latent space -- utilizing PCA projections, cosine similarity heatmaps, and scatter plots -- exposes the structural root of this failure. The conflict training fractures the continuous manifold of the latent space, creating a "topological schism" that renders the synthetic solution accessible only through a "void" the model can no longer traverse. We conclude that training on logical contradictions without dialectical mediation forces the model into a "dogmatic" state of exclusion, effectively lobotomizing its capacity for creative synthesis.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 4 of its 13 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Feb 2026.

Builds on

4 of 13 references.

References · 4

  1. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
  2. 2021TruthfulQA: Measuring How Models Mimic Human Falsehoodscited by 2,919
  3. 2015A large annotated corpus for learning natural language inferencecited by 1,837
  4. 2023Siren's Song in the AI Ocean: A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Modelscited by 695

Built on by

Not cited yet.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024Conditional and Modal Reasoning in Large Language Models
  2. 2025What is an "Abstract Reasoner"? Revisiting Experiments and Arguments about Large Language Models
  3. 2024A Peek into Token Bias: Large Language Models Are Not Yet Genuine Reasoners
  4. 2022Language Models Are Greedy Reasoners: A Systematic Formal Analysis of Chain-of-Thought
  5. 2026Evaluation of Deontic Conditional Reasoning in Large Language Models: The Case of Wason's Selection Task
  6. 2026Compliance vs. Sensibility: On the Reasoning Controllability in Large Language Models
  7. 2026Fragile Thoughts: How Large Language Models Handle Chain-of-Thought Perturbations
  8. 2024Faithfulness vs. Plausibility: On the (Un)Reliability of Explanations from Large Language Models