ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ @Kihbernetics@qoto.org

"#Information is a difference that makes a difference (G. Bateson, 1972, p. 315), and what it ‘‘does’’ or what it means is thus dependent on what is already in place and what alternatives are being distinguished."

(S. Oyama, 2000, p. 3)
https://www.dukeupress.edu/The-Ontogeny-of-Information/

Or, as more clearly defined in #Kihbernetics: #Information is the difference between the results of #Knowledge-based #Prediction (function A) and the #Perception (function B) of sensory inputs that will make a difference once integrated into a new knowledge #state of the dynamical (learning) system.

Most theories of #consciousness start with #information while a proper way to address any neural theory of consciousness should be as a #control science because the primary function of the nervous system is not to process information but to control the body.

Most control is internal to the system, a distributed, analog, homeostatic ***unconscious*** #regulation 1️⃣ of essential internal variables that are keeping the body alive and well. None of the mechanisms on this level "cares" about what is happening outside of the body.

Only on the next level do we find the kind of information necessary for the rate-dependent negative #feedback_control mechanisms 2️⃣ keeping some *external* controlled variables within limits engaging (through the use of regulators) in performing whole-body actions (behavior) in the immediate environment. Those actions can be conducted either ***consciously or unconsciously***.

Finally, on the highest level, we have the rate-independent, open loop always ***conscious*** #governance 3️⃣ maintaining the long-term goals and providing stability and direction to the lower level of control that will plan, implement, and track the fulfillment of those goals.

A #representation is not something that can be found in an observer's mind. Representations are physical copies or models of the object they represent and they are all residing in the same domain external to the observer's mind.

According to #CS_Peirce, a #sign (the ***representation***) is something that brings its #interpretant (the #observer), into *the same sort of correspondence* (#state of mind) as the #object it stands for. Therefore, #information and #knowledge exist in a different domain internal to the system

#Representation = #Reproduction.

The representation can be a #copy, or the re-#production of the object using the same #substance the object is made of (e.g. a *carbon copy* of a page or a copy of a living cell). In contrast, a #model (a map) is the reproduction of the object's form in a different substance.

Unlike real (artisanal) art, the reproduction (copy) of "digital art" is indistinguishable from the original. In addition, what is usually referred to as the "digital copy" of a physical work of art, is, in fact, a digital *model* of the real object it represents.

1️⃣ Kihbernetic #System with
2️⃣ fundamental #Processes: a recursive #Autopoietic self-production for growth and learning, and a linear #Allopoietic production of "other things", such as behavior and waste, distributed in
3️⃣ Control #Levels, of #Regulation, immersed in, and dealing with things in the system's environment, #Control for managing the workload of different regulators, and #Guidance to provide long-term goals and preserve the identity of the system, all using
4️⃣ #Variables: sensory #Input of data and other resources, motor #Output of behavior, #Information as the difference that will make a difference in the subsequent (updated) #Knowledge state, all interconnecting
5️⃣ #Functions: the #Control-ed #Reaction to external stimuli, the #Perception of sensory states, the #Prediction of the expected outcome of past behavior, and the repeated #Integration of new information into an updated knowledge state.

A 3D #space of a natural #system can be visualized as created from the interaction of 2D #planes made of #matter and of #energy that modulate (change the form of or constrain) each other, leaving a 1D #information #sequence as a record of how their interaction unfolds in #time.

People often "blame" Shannon's theory of #communication for completely ignoring #meaning, maybe also because Shannon himself stated that "*the semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering aspects*"😀

However, if one recognizes that the #information content as defined by the #entropy is the measure of #uncertainty in a receiver about the sender's #state when producing the message, can it perhaps be interpreted that the receiver is trying to #understand what the sender was #meaning to send?

The information the sender encodes in the message is never the *same* as that the receiver decodes from it on the other side of the channel.

Below is Shannon's description of the standard #transducer used for encoding and decoding the information in messages. The block diagrams are my rendering of the description (F is a "#memory" function):

Introducing the *qualitative* category of #Wisdom in the triad made of *quantifiable* #Data, #Information, and #Knowledge items adds nothing to the better understanding of the matter.

Saying someone or something is "wise" is just a subjective judgment made by an external #observer about another (#observed) system's behavior *appropriateness* to the given situation in the environment without knowing anything about the observed system's internal state, goals, or motives.

In addition, a really "wise" entity would never identify itself as such.😀

The #control functions in a dynamical system such as a living organism are distributed on three levels:
1️⃣ The automated and predominantly *unconscious* #regulatory functions are responsible for any *immediate* response and maintaining the system's *homeostasis* in the face of external disturbances.
2️⃣ The working parameters for these "regulators" are changed based on actions planned, directed, and modulated by the *conscious* #control functions seeking to optimize the use of the regulators and fulfill "high-level" goals, aspirations, and other *needs* that originate on
3️⃣ The "highest"#governance control level which maintains *long-term* drives that the system may be either aware (conscious) of (voluntary), or deeply ingrained in some unconscious habits, or innate.

It is evident from this short presentation that #consciousness resides primarily on the *middle* control level that has the ability to make *predictions* of future events and compare such expectations with the *perception* of reality as provided by the regulators. All in order to extract the *difference* between the two, or the #information that will be subsequently *integrated* into the #knowledge structure of the system to improve control.

#HvFoerster on the origins of #computational_neuroscience

>For reasons that still baffle me, it was the pragmatic American engineers and scientists, not the romantic Europeans, who began to toss anthropomorphic sand into the gear box of evolving notions and ideas. To name two such cases, the computer people began to talk about a machine's storage system as if it were a computer's #memory, and the communication engineers began to talk about signals as if they were #information.

>Perhaps these were the precursors for the second derailment which, ironically, was the inverse of the first. lt worked as follows. The first phase was #anthropomorphization: mental functions projected into machines. However, we knew how these machines worked because we built them and wrote the programs. Consequently, an appropriate "#mechanomorphization," the concepts dealing with computer hard- and software were projected back into the workings of the brain and, presto!, we knew how the #mind worked.

*Heinz Von Foerster
*To know and to let know - an applied theory of knowledge*
Canadian Library Journal, Vol. 39, No. 5, October l982.*

The #Rythm of #Life is in the #Recursion process where #Information is generated when:
>"our rhythmic #expectations are violated, (*and*) our brains behave in a different manner because of our inherent (*innate*) internal sense of rhythm."

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-extraordinary-ways-rhythm-shapes-our-lives/

Reading this recent (2022) article from Fritjof Capra:
The organization of the living:
Maturana’s key insights
included in the latest Constructivist Foundations volume 18(1): 005–011

https://constructivist.info/18/1/005

and I am continually bewildered by the fact that no one in the #Constructivist field figured out yet that #Autopoiesis, although necessary, is not the sufficient condition for #Life.

All #LivingSystems are in fact #DynamicalSystems with memory made of #Material, #Energy, and #Information structures participating continually in both auto- and allopoietic processes.

In fact, the recursive, #Autopoietic processes of learning and growth depend only on (are "structurally coupled" with) the linear #Allopoietic work processes dealing with all the things (resources, waste) in the system's environment and producing the externally observable #behavior of the living (dynamical) system.

A momentous recent paper from the most consequential thinker on the matter of the #originoflife, #information, and #biosemiotics has only 124 views and I must be responsible for at least a dozen.

#HowardHPattee

"Folding is entirely a lawful physical process, leaving neither freedom nor necessity for interpretation. Similarly, the initial converse action-to-symbol conversion of sensory inputs also leaves no freedom for interpretation until after the action-to-symbol conversion"

https://www.academia.edu/66621846/Symbol_Grounding_Precedes_Interpretation_Commentary_to_the_target_article_by_Terrence_Deacon_2021

A #control #hierarchy is just the folded "#flow" of #information.

#Causation is #linear, while #control requres #recursive #feedback loops.

"#Cybernetics might, in fact, be defined as the study of systems that are open to #energy but closed to #information and
control—systems that are “information-tight”."

W. Ross Ashby (1956): An Introduction to Cybernetics, (Chapman & Hall, London): now available electronically.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html