AI-Amplified Natural Philosophy: From Structural Perception to Public TheoryCivilization Physics — Natural Philosophy, Knowledge Systems a workflow is exhausted. Rising research costs describe institutional bottlenecks, not the exhaustion of reality. AI’s first scientific function is conversion rather than substitution. Structural perception remains human-centered while articulation becomes cheaper. The public conjecture becomes the fundamental unit of progress. More theories can enter public scrutiny earlier, allowing criticism, validation, and refinement to occur at larger scale. Within the Civilization Physics framework, this work argues that AI reopens natural philosophy as a viable mode of inquiry. The decisive transformation is not that AI discovers laws autonomously, but that it lowers the cost of converting structural perception into public theory. The result is a research environment in which broad, cross-domain patterns can become visible, citable, and contestable far earlier than was previously possible. Keywords: Natural Philosophy · Structural Perception · Public Theory · AI-Augmented Research · Knowledge Systems · Universal Inbreeding Law · Scientific Discovery · Theory Formation · AI Amplification · Civilization Physics
Xiangyu Guo (2026) studied this question.