ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ @Kihbernetics@qoto.org

#Life must have emerged from the physical world. This emergence must be understood if our knowledge is not to degenerate (more than it has already) into a collection of disjoint specialized disciplines.

… #physics and #biology require different levels of #models … physical theory is described by rate-dependent dynamical #laws that have no #memory, while #evolution depends, at least to some degree, on #control of dynamics by rate-independent memory #structures.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12009802_The_physics_of_symbols_Bridging_the_epistemic_cut

A #sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its #interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its #object, as that in which itself stands to C.

#CS_Peirce (1902)

In #Kihbernetics a sign is the #model describing (documenting) a #system (“mental model”) abstracted from a real #phenomenon (object) by an #observer (the interpretant).

The self-#constructor:

#HH_Pattee
“Evolving Self-reference: Mater, Symbols, and Semantic Closure”
https://www.academia.edu/2947945/Evolving_Self_reference_Matter_Symbols_and_Semantic_Closure

#DNA is not a #blueprint describing the #structure or the #function of an #organism.
It is rather a #recipe (an algorithm) that describes (#control) the #process of #construction, i.e. specifies what #action the #constructor has to perform at any moment depending on the constructor’s own #state and that of its #environment.

The #function of the #organism is defined by its #structure as constructed by following the #DNA algorithm. Besides the functions involved in this process of self-construction and maintenance, a mature organism is also involved in the #production of #artifacts (messages, seeds) for dissemination (#communication) in the environment.

A rare short and clearheaded analysis of the real risks associated with the use of #AI tools in contrast and response to the general overwhelming “doomsday” hype such as that presented in the recent 6 months moratorium letter.

https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/a-misleading-open-letter-about-sci

If #AI by some chance gets in a position with the power to “wipe out” humanity, it will be not because of its superior intelligence but because of humanity itself.

The truth is that intelligence neither craves power nor it is a precondition to raise into a position of power. Quite the opposite.

Some wise words from John Dewey about the difference between #Intelligence and #Power written back in 1934.

https://newrepublic.com/article/100340/intelligence-and-power

Humberto #Maturana Romesin on structural determinism
Our Genome Does Not Determine Us
Presentation made at the Remaining Human Forum
Vancouver, B.C., May 22, 2001
https://asc-cybernetics.org/2001/RH-Maturana.htm

1943 - The year when it all started:
#Cybernetics, #Computationalism, #ANN
From: Brains, Machines, and Mathematics
by: Michael A. Arbib

Control theories such as #PCT (Perceptual Control Theory), which are based on #Cybernetics, are primarily focused on the #negative_feedback control loop closed through the system’s #environment and have little or no concern for the more important, internal #positive_feedback motor loop controlling the system’s #growth and #learning cycles.

#Meaning is usually described with #VectorSpace #Semantics as in the article below comparing the works from #CAShannon and #AMTuring:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1093/bjps/axx029

Basically, what vector space semantics says is that the meaning of a message depends on the #Context provided by the sender’s and the receiver’s #DynamicalSystem #Knowledge #State.

As they are two different physical entities they will obviously be in different states, so the two meaning can never be exactly the same.

People often interpret Ashby’s Law (after W. Ross Ashby) as if the system’s internal states must have the same level of variety as its environment in order to survive, which implies that the system should be able to respond (react) to every little disturbance from the environment.

This is not completely true because, on the lowest, #regulation, level, the system blocks #variety from an (environmental) #disturbance reaching the (internal, system protected) #EssentialVariables in two ways:

1️⃣ #Passive isolation (sheltering) from most environmental disturbances, and

2️⃣ #Active reaction to (parring with) the remaining disturbance that managed to break through this passive protection.

from “Intro to #Cybernetics”
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html

Stages of #Learning according to #Kihbernetics:

4️⃣ #Unconscious Incompetence: I think that I know what I’m doing, but I don’t;
3️⃣ Conscious #Incompetence: I know that I don’t know;
2️⃣ #Conscious Competence: I know that I know;
1️⃣ Unconscious #Competence: I am doing it without thinking.

A truly remarkable thinker
Anthony Wilden - #System and #Structure
Essays in Communication and Exchange - Second edition (1980)

A classic on #AL and #AI from #HHPattee written back in 1995 when polymer folding was still a computationally intractable problem😀.
Still, his thoughts are as powerful as ever.

“Artificial Life Needs a Real Epistemology”

https://www.academia.edu/3075569/Artificial_Life_Needs_a_Real_Epistemology

Hunter-gatherer, #DemandSharing societies, in which there is no reason to hoard more than one currently needs, are highly #individualistic as well as #egalitarian.

From:
Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots by James Suzman

A compelling approach to #Intelligence back from the 80’s that does not rely upon #ProblemSolving or #GoalOrientedBehavior as do most of the contemporary doctrines of #AI and #AGI.

#HRMaturana #Autopoiesis #DynamicalSystems #Communication

In #Kihbernetics we distinguish between three control functions (levels):
1️⃣ #Regulation the purpose of which is maintaining the system’s #homeostasis,
2️⃣ #Control for finding an optimal path (and way of utilizing the regulators) to fulfill a given #goal, and
3️⃣ #Guidance (governance) providing direction.

According to #WRAshby, #Regulation is blocking the flow of #Variety from the (environmental) #Disturbance to the (internal, #System protected) #EssentialVariable. There are two primary forms of blocking the effect of the disturbance on the system:
1️⃣ Passive (by sheltering from), and
2️⃣ Active (on par with)
From:
W. Ross Ashby (1956) - An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London) - available electronically from:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html

Systems thinkers use a number of different terms for the three basic concepts in the “system’s triad” so that we have a “real system” as opposed to the “conceptual system” which is sometimes also called the “mental model” which is again different from the (real) descriptive or simulation model. In #Kihbernetics we make the distinction between #Machine, #System and #Model unambiguous following the rules specified in the works of #WRAshby and #HRMaturana

Ashby warns us against our first impulse to point at the pendulum and say ‘the system is that thing there’ because this has a fundamental disadvantage in that “every material object contains no less than an infinity of variables” from which “different observers (with different aims) may reasonably make an infinity of different selections.”

Therefore, there must first be given an #observer, and a #system is then defined as “any set of variables selected by that observer from those available on the real ‘machine‘”.

#HRMaturana defines a #system, as “a #configuration of #relations that an #observer abstracts in the flow of #interactions and #transformations of a #collection of #elements distinguished in the observers daily living” that is “spontaneously or artificially #conserved” in its #dynamic within some “#domain of concern” of the observer.

So, in Kihbernetics, the triad looks like this: