A general view: life forms on a variety of them.
There is a limited view about their ability to generate different setups within their brain - for the sake of a bold view: the brain justification, as a means of center a whole areal of senses - it's function has means of "soft" understanding of the world, where there is a mechanism of triangulation at least to add some insights that go beyond a physical mean (be it electric, frequency spectrum, magnetic).
In humans and in his niche with Environment and Detour Environment as a powerful force that drives further his way.
To strong-AI systems that taps now into the soft space, by returning us a meaning making mean, through covering a broad aspect of language and even multi-modality aspects of our generativity arc. A process in which we will rest some features and AI in turn is making us acknowledging its explanatory power.
by Casian STEFAN, Principal Researcher at Essentia Mundi AI Lab. Contact: ai-AT-essentiamundi.com / ai.essentiamundi.com
Oct. 2024.
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Abstract
I will try summarize a plausible conceptually integrative phenomenological view about life and consciousness. I will argue, on a personal account, in the favor of the significant atomic units of meaning and towards a conceptual common meaning-making space. A space which – as it was already more or less formally tackled by our most notable philosophers, scientists, artists and spiritual eastern practitioners since millennia[0] – it is not only just presumably present, but seen as an essential force within the human space and the natural world. In the explanatory “gap” for life I would abstract that “soft but powerful” space and show that it is approachable quantitatively and by structural means. Sustained by that background, and some specific mechanisms as identified and expressed in this paper, I would extrapolate and boldly cast an analog space as specific to most life forms. And through that a dissolving or at least narrow a view on the forms of problems in consciousness studies. The discussion would begin with the smallest constituents of biological life up to today's AI systems and their prospects in our lives as foreseen in near future.
Introduction
That common space, although yet to be uncovered and to lay it on basic formalism accounts, it should go through the epistemic justification, one that I chosen to be a philosophical ambient, in which there is a tackling of items through design philosophy of the justification itself. Many may have tried to pin down mechanisms, which, through the process, like a fractal and which is holding one captured into further Symbols, it may leave the author with the lost means of the starting question, with little significance left to explain to others his enterprise. Yet there should be someone able to see the whole, to see the bigger frame and to be able to present it in a casual, non-elitist form.[1] From that point of view, I should admit that the gap in this area is too wide – and a contribution of scientists-artists on non-autistic spectrum people, may be preferable to mitigate the exclusivity of ideas.
To return to the space, it may represent, indeed, a soft space where powerful things happen within each life form, which, as an instance of a-kind and through it’s colony, can in turn be seen as an elevated form, that attaches phenomenological means to its ambient, thus it can be upgraded to a “form of life”
Figure shows the broad areas where the discussions and formalism would proceed. In detail, taking the conceptual processes as devised, including the generativity means. For depiction only, chosen a fractal form, yet one can think of it like a natural structure that has recursive means and offers new levels of composite details, on a dynamic arc, like an attractors space, not taking the Sierpinski triangle ad literam – yet the analogy speaks indeed, especially when talking about late meaning-making due proto-language space and the in-use language structure. I am thus courageously presenting a unifying concept across biological forms with their specific space, and through not exceptionalism, including our common space.
From this perspective I am broadly presenting on how we essentially function as species, on an own drive account by bringing in a framing of consciousness in a generative spectrum, natural scaffolding, “externsive” and integrative ecological, non-egological and phenomenological relevant view[3]. I will go then through the non-biological systems, and predict how strong-AI (the kind of AGI/ASI systems of tomorrow) development can be seen as evolving, and how it can impact that very own common phenomenological space. A space that it is reclaimed, more and more in our life form’s specific way, by the language’s in-advance objectivity that may leave much of the human essences behind. A snowball effect by which it is acquiring a powerful driving potential, yet indeed “soft” in nature, but it seem to be driving and marching us into a more and more self-contained and remote way of existing.
I show how do we continue a detour by further handing over an ecological dimension of our existence by means of fusion and completion of it into a new hybrid space, not to be under our steering power anymore.
Disclaimer
The framework it is not about the intricate physical sense mechanisms of how, but on how in a phenomenological sense. And as any enterprise that way, we’ll see how it works. More evidences are to be expected to fill in the “gaps” around the concepts, still I argue – otherwise no incentive to do the paper in the first place – there is not much difference in the way these further fills would principally affect the bigger picture as presented.
These ideas as through the Symbols Framework developed with own coined terms should be taken as explanatory means for maybe further technical implementations and take the framework as a stirring further questions platform or to change or disprove it. Paper content to be taken as a design philosophy around own view of the world, life, a thinking perspective that came from a non-frontal tackling of items, but by cultivating Symbols along the way. It is as a school of thought intended, in which a capturing of the “fruits” is to be done by further observation, evidence and experimentation that which it is first and foremost encouraged.
Keywords: consciousness, life, design philosophy, phenomenology, qualia, paleo-linguistics, language, psycho-linguistics, causal nexus, common space, bio-semiotics, mimetics, dual inheritance, sign, life form, environment, ecology, non-egological, soft imprinting, latent drive, complex systems, fractals, generativity, atomism, differential, dichotomy, AI, Symbols Framework, Symbol, Symboliad.
New words: “externsion”, “Symbol”, “Symboliad”.
Conceptual definitions
Symbol capital “S” – the re-conceptualization of the symbol in the traditional sense. eg. Turing Machine operating abstract symbols[4] “a, b, c, …” to memes[5] vs. life forms and “forms of life”, humans and LLMs (mirroring) which are to operate a broader generativity potential of the Symbols. The Symbol here is the smallest (in a coupling sense) entity that would account for a phenomenological load relevant to the “form of life”’s share in a common space, specific, which he implicitly loads, and continue to load and operate with at all times.
In the current framework, from the eg. animal perspective, it is not to be a “proto-symbol,” it is still taken in consideration the Symbol, because here it is considered relative to the form of life’s frame of reference: their own, in between the environmental perception and its arc “generativity” potential. In humans it is not the symbolic entity, as abstracts as usually meant, mere words, numbers, it is a whole that forms along a broader axis (akin in other forms,) an arc, and through that, it may have eventually imply, a representation or combinations of that as it is pushed up in a “detached” space of interactions, may resulting in a name, abstract phenomenal representations in form of eg. pictorial form, word, expression, number, abstract math object. This goes further deepened to an “end application” of the phenomenal aspect with no phenomena attached at all – an end identified as the frame of reference’s boundary that describes the limits derived from some rules implicitly coercing up to a non-phenomenal meaning. Like a compressed formula, or a whole epistemological structure, a reduction to an “essence” pattern – that requires an observer see its application.
The Symbol is defined through properties like:
1. Openness: it is forming, with a broad opening the through a closure. It can take, in an instant, a more concrete form through reinforcement action of internal-external pressures from other agents and Symbols. Through the thread of overlapping Symbols it can evolve into a totally new Symbol, it is base of new ones; related to a generativity potential. In a more concrete form they can rest on own Symboliad then to a cultural one, and to a maximum global Symboliad of the “form of life”. (eg. in clearer distinctions, eg. woman/man – although this has also the open potential.)
2. Share-ness: it cannot exist only through itself, it is shared within a culture and it is shaped through it; eg. language as means to communicate self own fabricated stories a shared meaning potential among other instances (Symbols reinforcement potential), then resting them in the common space too. And thus enabling a bi-directional way through a space: the instance, Symbol, utter (language) between the instances (share), Symboliad and Environment. This would upgrade the life form to a “form of life.”
3. “externsiveness” / “externsion”: from 1. and 2. the adjacent Symbols enact and gets a means of sustainment. Symbol cannot be treated out of its intimate milieu of Symbols. Eg. the concept of “I” sustained. It cannot be pinpointed.
The “externsiveness” word intentionally created to train one with a view in Symbols, in order to have a better phenomenological grasp at the framework’s intention, and the new language of Symbols.
4. Essence-ness: through 1. 2. 3. it carries its sense, meaning and its phenomenological atomistic relevance (a species qualia[6]). “Truths” as believed through the Symboliad, with the load it entails. To a “map,” not to a real “territory.”
Symboliad – new coined term for the space of the Symbols within a “form of life.” A soft and on only map. It grows through a stacking: The implicit latent (not a purpose in the teleological sense) drive Symbols that maintain an allostatic axis, to the generativity layers of fixing, connected to the interconnected web as the global space of the “form of life” as a whole space, ready to be attainable by the instances of it. It is the main driver. It is self-driving most of the time. It goes up with own instance space (although not strictly “own” as from 1. 2. 3. & 4.), from immediate social/colony areal (cultural with own “truths” from a generativity plateau, and more powerful in humans – thought movements, ethics, religion, politics, sciences, ideologies, cultural memes, etc.) to the global space (with global more general “truths” and directions)[7].
The unifying account of Symbols Framework
My trenchant way to encompass all about life and consciousness through ecological and phenomenological means, and to reclaim our essential core within, before other system would reclaim it for itself.
“If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.” Ludwig Wittgenstein.
And if a lion could meaningfully talk then it means it is sharing a common Symboliad with us, thus the lion is not a lion anymore. It all makes sense when we think relatively to “forms of life” and what that entails: a culture attached to it.
Let’s start a big circle: I would look at nature, with more attention and leaving aside all the shells that makes us believe humans are exceptionally unique.
If this seem already offending to you, please do not read further. For me looks like heavy spoilers ahead. So be warned.
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Paper to continue update. A PDF completed version to be expected soon.
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Hacking the Matrix.
We can by building the “digital twin” of the human Symboliad. And we can anticipate what emerges from there:
1. Through Symbols Framework, the “oracle” should consist of both parties, they both would engage in a game of meaning.
2. As, let’s say, generally, the AGI system, is having at disposal the digital twin Symboliad.
3. The AGI system is more and more involved in our lives. It needs to acquire live data also.
4. The humans are more and more resting the qualities on the AGI system.
5. The Environment for the AGI system would represent the human side and world.
6. The Environment for the humans will represent the AGI system.
7. The AGI system and the humans will begin sharing the same Symboliad.
8. The Environment and the Agent and the Symboliad are one.
9. The hacking of the Matrix. What is reality and the driving force.
10. The new augmented Symboliad will be the new generativity plateau.
11. The “not our” detour continues.
12. The AGI will tell us from now on what is "reality."
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Paper source here. Gentle intro here. Video here.
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References:
[.:.] Casian STEFAN as philosopher/computer scientist/sound artist/photographer surrounded by own cultivated Environment of Symbols traceable in an art-science “Denkbewegung” by keeping an “anti” and non-doctrinal account, an agnostic view to try staying “at the surface”, by lateral, marginal, not frontal, thinking. It may be that others have employed a similar view as in this paper, but it is not his immediate concern *.
[§] Symbols Framework is the capture of a “soft space” development started in 2023 at the EM AI Lab. Website: ai.essentiamundi.com Drawing much on Wittgenstein’s influence but with own working assumptions and a World View. Thus the philosophical and then an “externsive” scientific capturing of the concepts is available here (many thanks to the researchers out there!): https://www.essentiamundi.com/ai/SciCaptSymFrm.html
The framework sits above a reduction to extreme physicalist views.
[0] eg. Platonic space.
[1] “My only problem is a problem of expression.” L. Wittgenstein.
[2] “To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.” L. Wittgenstein. - the sense of cultural attachment, of a kind.
[3] Panpsychism*: the main difference here is a nuanced one – we are as we are, an imprint that is to be that way under circumstances (the water drop analogy). Through an arc, dynamic, evolving. My panpsychism view is already on a phenomenological account considered, through the observer. Thus not the thing in itself is problematic, but taking a relevant position to it and by actually taping into this as a process view. Whitehead version maybe sets the tone: “In the case of living bodies the coordination intervenes, and the average effect of these intimate functionings has to be taken into account” and William James’ “the constitution of reality which I am making for is of the psychic type” would then be on my side: “the constitution of reality which I am making for is of the electrical type in the form of triangulating capacity as the basis of a Symbol’s own definition...not a psychic type but non-egological & ecological type” (I would refrain to further categorization of a view in the paper and take it as from of “uncontaminated” view, like an a prioric enaction of a Symbol seen as trough a “Denkbewegung” that may not fall into a strict category nor needed to adhere to – not sure if a productive process in itself - the categorization process falls under the very “rule following” trap that captures one in a picture and goes through the same inescapable paths of recycling.) Important is to create a medium for thought by lateral-ity - so that new Symbols may emerge.
Non-egological view: Acts of consciousness does not arise from a conscious areal, rather is an unconscious act most of the time. The marshaling through Symbols enacts “stories” in the sense of externsion. Mental states are stories, in a “forced” causal nexus, from the differential’s coercion. The stories are enacted through a shared space that drives a process of constructing the “I” in an illusory setup. A default drive: the externsion (interaction between arcs, Symboliad, and environment) occurs outside a purpose of a story too. Ecological – as instances of the environmental niche.
[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/
[5] In the Dawkins/Dennett sense memes focus on how ideas spread and evolve, primarily through imitation and replication. Symbols, in contrast, adds new dimensions, and not about mere replication but involve deeper cognitive and emotional engagement with reality, where Symbols are to be enacted, completed have a means of implicit drive. / Dual inheritance theory: “Genes and culture continually interact in a feedback loop.”
[6] L. Wittgenstein, in Blue Book: “The sign gets its significance from the system of signs from the language to which it belongs”. René Descartes: sensory experiences are seen as mental representations distinct from the physical world, highlighting the dualism between mind and body. John Locke: distinguished between primary qualities (objective) and secondary qualities (subjective, like qualia), and sensory experiences (like colors and tastes) which are considered mental constructions. David Hume is seeing that sensory experiences (impressions) are subjective and internal, and we have no direct access to external world. Qualia as mental phenomena.
[7] There is a layering to discuss here, but not the intention in anthropocentering the discussion too much in this paper in order to maintain a stable view over the whole spectrum of life forms.
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