When the Pure Reasoner Meets the Impossible Object: Analytic vs. Synthetic Fine-Tuning and the Suppression of Genesis in Language Models
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.
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References · 4
- 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
- 2021TruthfulQA: Measuring How Models Mimic Human Falsehoodscited by 2,919
- 2015A large annotated corpus for learning natural language inferencecited by 1,837
- 2023Siren's Song in the AI Ocean: A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Modelscited by 695
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