ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ @Kihbernetics@qoto.org
- https://twitter.com/Kihbernetics
#Kihbernetics is the study of #Complex #Dynamical #Systems with #Memory which is very different from all other #SystemsThinking approaches. Kihbernetic theory and principles are derived primarily from these three sources:
1️⃣ #CE_Shannon's theory of #Information and his description of a #Transducer,
2️⃣ #WR_Ashby's #Cybernetics and his concept of #Transformation, and
3️⃣ #HR_Maturana's theory of #Autopoiesis and the resulting #Constructivism
Although applicable to any dynamical system with memory (mechanisms, organisms, or organizations) we developed our Kihbernetic worldview mostly to help people navigate their #organization through times of #change.
We define* an organization as:
"An integrated composite of people, products, and processes that provide a capability to satisfy a stated need or objective."
*Definition of the word "system" in MIL_STD_499B
#People are at the forefront of our thinking (the #who and #why are we doing this for and/or with?).
We then focus our efforts on understanding all the functions or #Processes in your organization (#how and #when something happens or has to happen?).
Finally, we get to analyze the #Products and/or services that you put on the market but are mostly interested in the tools that you use or may need to buy or develop in order to fully integrate your production system (the plan for #what and #where things will happen?).
Our goal is to make the people of your organization self-reliant to the point that they shouldn't need our assistance with the continuous maintenance and adaptation of the system.
In any case, we've got your back while you do the heavy lifting of establishing a better future for your organization!
Joined Nov 2022
"What persists exists" but do minerals really "evolve" the same way life does?
Is #evolution nothing more than #complexification?
Life evolves. So do minerals. How about everything else? | Science | AAAS
https://www.science.org/content/article/life-evolves-so-do-minerals-how-about-everything-else
**Biological Exceptionalism** is the belief that only certain biological systems are uniquely capable of being conscious.
Three key elements grant them this ability:
1️⃣ They are alive and constantly struggling to maintain this unstable equilibrium state.
2️⃣ They construct internal models of their external environment and understand their place within it.
3️⃣ They create models (plans) for the solution of specific problems and can "run" internal "simulations" of multiple such models in their minds before selecting one for implementation.
The "hard problem of consciousness" is characterized as the difficulty of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than unconscious.
If you regard #consciousness as a #state of #cognition, then there is no "hard problem" as only a tiny part of (top) cognitive processing is actually conscious.
Also, objections from analytic idealism that physicalism attempts to explain experiential qualities (the territory) in terms of physical quantities (the map) are wrong because it is the physical processes in the brain that make the territory and the map is made by the subjective experience of physical quantities (differences).
You can have multiple maps of the same territory.
#Consciousness is a state of #Cognition. Cognition is a necessary condition for #Life, but consciousness isn't. Almost all cognitive processes are unconscious and will become conscious only when there are alternative options available requiring the conscious entity to exercise their #free_will and make a deliberate choice.
Making choices requires an #Environment where deliberation (competition) and #Selection can emerge. For unconscious living beings, the only available environment is the one external to them, where #Evolution happens. Conscious beings, in contrast, have also an additional *internal* #Learning environment where they can make deliberations and choose between competing alternatives more or less independently from what happens outside.
‘To understand something is to stand under it, so that you may foster its development.”
Heinz von Foerster
ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ
boosted
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):
ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ
boosted
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.
"#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.
This brilliant essay by Robert Lawrence Kuhn (@CloserToTruth) about the *landscape* of all the **theories of consciousness** is a highly recommended reading for anyone interested in such things.
#HH_Pattee's *epistemic cut* implies that living organisms at the same time operate on two separate levels of description in complementary modes:
1️⃣ A rate-dependent, dynamic, mode governed by *universal, inexorable, and incorporeal* #laws of physics and chemistry, and
2️⃣ A rate-independent symbolic or linguistic mode of information processing, interpretation, and meaning governed by *local, arbitrary system* #rules
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.
Even if you are gullible enough to believe LLMs are like brains, with their own 'minds', you must surely realize that they are 'brains in a vat'.
There are three ways one can take from here:
1️⃣ Use them as intelligence amplification tools;
2️⃣ Equip them with bodies;
3️⃣ Join them inside the vat.😏
For David Chalmers, virtual reality is genuine reality, at least until lunchtime 😀
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.
>Although the history of science and ideas is not my field, I could not imagine adopting Alfred North Whitehead's opinion that every science, in order to avoid stagnation, must forget its founders. To the contrary, it seems to me that the ignorance display ed by most scientists with regard to the history of their discipline, far from being a source of dynamism, acts as a brake on their creativity.
***On the Origins of Cognitive Science*** - *The Mechanization of the Mind*
by J-P Dupuy and translated by M. B. DeBevoise
*An examination of the fundamental role cybernetics played in the birth of cognitive science and the light this sheds on current controversies.*
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262512398/on-the-origins-of-cognitive-science/
A Springer Open access book from @decidim
**Decidim, a Technopolitical Network for Participatory Democracy**
*Philosophy, Practice and Autonomy of a Collective Platform in the Age of Digital Intelligence*
The difference between a #Transformer and a #Transducer is that a *transformer* can re**form**ulate (modify the form) of the same substance, while a *transducer* can re**produce** the form observed in one kind of substance into the *same* form but in *another* type of substance. This kind of *reproduction* is usually called the #model.
*Terrence W. Deacon* writes beautifully about this conundrum:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2022.0282#d7508913e1
I have a somewhat different position on his second statement, however.
I think there **is** a self that determines **how** the system responds to an external perturbation.
Found it! 😎. It is called the
***Maximum Entropy Production Principle (#MEPP)***:
>The so-called maximum entropy production principle (MEPP) is known much less (even among specialists in physics of nonequilibrium processes). This antipode, as its name seemingly means, of Prigogine's principle has been overshadowed by its more famous twin. MEPP was independently proposed and used by several scientists throughout the 20th century when they dealt with general theoretical issues of thermodynamics and statistical physics or solved specific problems. By this principle, a nonequilibrium system develops so as to maximize its entropy production under present constraints.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0370157305004813
- https://twitter.com/Kihbernetics
#Kihbernetics is the study of #Complex #Dynamical #Systems with #Memory which is very different from all other #SystemsThinking approaches. Kihbernetic theory and principles are derived primarily from these three sources:
1️⃣ #CE_Shannon's theory of #Information and his description of a #Transducer,
2️⃣ #WR_Ashby's #Cybernetics and his concept of #Transformation, and
3️⃣ #HR_Maturana's theory of #Autopoiesis and the resulting #Constructivism
Although applicable to any dynamical system with memory (mechanisms, organisms, or organizations) we developed our Kihbernetic worldview mostly to help people navigate their #organization through times of #change.
We define* an organization as:
"An integrated composite of people, products, and processes that provide a capability to satisfy a stated need or objective."
*Definition of the word "system" in MIL_STD_499B
#People are at the forefront of our thinking (the #who and #why are we doing this for and/or with?).
We then focus our efforts on understanding all the functions or #Processes in your organization (#how and #when something happens or has to happen?).
Finally, we get to analyze the #Products and/or services that you put on the market but are mostly interested in the tools that you use or may need to buy or develop in order to fully integrate your production system (the plan for #what and #where things will happen?).
Our goal is to make the people of your organization self-reliant to the point that they shouldn't need our assistance with the continuous maintenance and adaptation of the system.
In any case, we've got your back while you do the heavy lifting of establishing a better future for your organization!
Joined Nov 2022
