ᛕᎥᕼᗷᗴᖇᑎᗴ丅Ꭵᑕᔕ @Kihbernetics@qoto.org

The other day while playing with the Mastodon unique "transfer to another server" feature I must have messed up something because I just realized that after I "returned everything to normal" there are only three followers of my account and selecting the "32 subscribers" tab returns a "Not found" response.
Well ...
Nice job Einstein🤪

Do you agree?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQNAEec9W38

"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

"#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.

https://closertotruth.com/news/a-landscape-of-consciousness-toward-a-taxonomy-of-explanations-and-implications/

#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 😀

https://youtu.be/7s0SzcUnzZo?feature=shared&t=637