Let’s begin with the Temporal Rights axiom:

All self-existent, bounded entities (operators) in the universe exercise natural existential dominion by effecting or constraining change. Such dominion demonstrates the existential authority of those entity’s natural rights to collide and collude in a moral universe.

The qualifiers “self-existent” and “bounded” are to filter out abstract and amorphous entities that cannot, of themselves exhibit natural rights. These qualifiers need to be kept in mind for the following discussion.

Nested Operators

Earlier, I have established that self-existent, individual operators can be considered valid holders of natural rights, and that operators may be nested within other operators forming an existential stack. The domains of the upper operator must be as large as the any domain below because the upper domain operator derives its capabilities from the lower operators. A tree, for example is an operator consisting of many other operators such a bark, roots, leaves, etc. Galaxies, solar systems, planets, animals, etc are all found within the domains of other larger domains. These are nested operators, and Temporal Rights seem to handle any operator at any level, making the paradigm very useful because it works at whatever level is of interest.

Aggregate Operators

This category of operators is experimental. Its purpose is to enable the examination of the moral behavior of governments, associations, institutions, and corporations under the Temporal Rights lens because of its power to reveal their natural capabilities, relationships and authority. But we may find that additional qualifiers are required. At this point, I have not found a problem when proper attention is paid to the restrictions of definable boundaries and a composition of operators that meet all the filtering criteria.

So here we consider extending the Temporal Rights paradigm’s scope along an axis perpendicular to nested operators. Here I aggregate identical or very similar operators. Originally, I had excluded these abstract operators thinking that only a single operator could own rights, perhaps making a mistake similar to Locke and Hobbes.

For a tree, aggregation suggests that a forest could be such a candidate, and that seems useful in spite of the fact that forests contain a variety of trees, bushes, and animals in an ecosystem. The abstractions “pests” or “all carnivores” are too amorphous. A filter is clearly needed to tell us when the paradigm can help and it will not. I am postulating the following as a definition of an aggregate operator.

Aggregate Operator: Any self-existent aggregation of agents of change or its prevention, with existential boundaries. These operators gain recognition because they meet the qualification of the fundamental operator as defined by the Temporal Rights Axiom.

An aggregate operator must consist of self-existent operators and exhibit boundaries that are either existential (preferred) or artificial. These restrictions are necessary and may be sufficient to constrain the assignment of “operator” to entities where the Temporal Rights point of view can be used advantageously. The self-existent filter assures that only aggregate operators like “forests” will qualify, and the boundary restriction tries to eliminate amorphous abstractions like “society” and “pests”. This will become crucial when we begin using the Dependency Stack hierarchy of existential natural rights to reach moral evaluations.

This aggregate point or view is actually similar to recognizing a beaver as an operator. The beaver is clearly an appropriate operator but it contains a large number of operators, all of which have self-existence and boundaries. Similarly, ecosystems, corporations, etc are composed of existential operators, that have capabilities, and clear boundaries.

The authority of the natural rights of an aggregate operator is an existential recognition of its capabilities as with all operators.

Dangerous Aggregates

For example, adding the aggregate operator to the spectrum of valid operators could enable a AI to justify all manner of devilishness when the collective is in peril of any kind. It could justify communism’s torture methods and worse. So I want to add an axiom here that stops such mischief without disabling the nice feature that aggregate operators allow. Here it is:

The authority of the Aggregate Operator shall never supersede the authority of a Single Human Operator, whether or not it is part of the aggregate, except when an individual human Operator violates its government’s law that is duly approved by the dependency stack.

Modified Operators 

A notable caution applies when an operator, or when one of these aggregate operators morphs into an operator with different capabilities. And this can happen abruptly or gradually and may occur with such subtleness that is goes unrecognized. Or a deceitful or ignorant person my take advantage of this natural or forced process to leverage the Temporal Rights tools for selfish purposes.

The caveat applies across all operators whenever their capabilities change for whatever reason. Meanwhile, this principle cannot be applied to a moral event before it is evaluated because doing so makes the event amoral and the ethical value of the Temporal Rights paradigm collapses into oblivion.