This was a rather deep excerpt from the CTMU: Ordinary feedback, describing the evolution of mechanical (and with somewhat less success, biological) systems, is cyclical or recursive. The system and its components repeatedly call on internal structures, routines and actuation mechanisms in order to acquire input, generate corresponding internal information, internally communicate and process this information, and evolve to appropriate states in light of input and programming. However, where the object is to describe the evolution of a system from a state in which there is no information or programming (information-processing syntax) at all, a new kind of feedback is required: telic feedback. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Diagram 2: The upper diagram illustrates ordinary cybernetic feedback between two information transducers exchanging and acting on information reflecting their internal states. The structure and behavior of each transducer conforms to a syntax, or set of structural and functional rules which determine how it behaves on a given input. To the extent that each transducer is either deterministic or nondeterministic (within the bounds of syntactic constraint), the system is either deterministic or "random up to determinacy"; there is no provision for self-causation below the systemic level. The lower diagram, which applies to coherent self-designing systems, illustrates a situation in which syntax and state are instead determined in tandem according to a generalized utility function assigning differential but intrinsically-scaled values to various possible syntax-state relationships. A combination of these two scenarios is partially illustrated in the upper diagram by the gray shadows within each transducer. The currency of telic feedback is a quantifiable self-selection parameter, generalized utility, a generalized property of law and state in the maximization of which they undergo mutual refinement (note that generalized utility is self-descriptive or autologous, intrinsically and retroactively defined within the system, and "pre-informational" in the sense that it assigns no specific property to any specific object). Through telic feedback, a system retroactively self-configures by reflexively applying a "generalized utility function" to its internal existential potential or possible futures. In effect, the system brings itself into existence as a means of atemporal communication between its past and future whereby law and state, syntax and informational content, generate and refine each other across time to maximize total systemic self-utility. This defines a situation in which the true temporal identity of the system is a distributed point of temporal equilibrium that is both between and inclusive of past and future. In this sense, the system is timeless or atemporal. A system that evolves by means of telic recursion – and ultimately, every system must either be, or be embedded in, such a system as a condition of existence – is not merely computational, but protocomputational. That is, its primary level of processing configures its secondary (computational and informational) level of processing by telic recursion. Telic recursion can be regarded as the self-determinative mechanism of not only cosmogony, but a natural, scientific form of teleology. However, before taking these ideas any further, let’s attend a little orientation session based on the remarkably penetrating vision of John Archibald Wheeler, a preeminent scientist and reality theorist whose name is virtually synonymous with modern physics. http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf Recall that reality processes information just like any information transducer does. As we perceive reality, our brains call on internal structures to generate information. Hence reality is calling on itself as us as well as any sufficiently advanced processor to generate information and communicate internally. What makes us different than computers is that we are autonomous. Our brains compute information according to its internal states and generates thoughts. Reality therefore generates thoughts and is thus of the mind. The alternative to ordinary cybernetic feedback as discussed above is telic feedback, where a system is no longer dependent on the external structures of reality but is intrinsically self-deterministic. Requiring no external laws to determine its existence.
Brains and their syntax constantly exchange information with the external environment. We are reality.
Indeed. A thing need not be intelligent to be self-aware. As long as it can distinguish itself from its environment it can be called "self-aware". Reality is self-aware and sometimes it even appears intelligent or conscious of itself.
But information processing is of itself devoid of self-awareness. It's mundane. It happens every time one particle interacts with another.
Yes. But everything, including the simplest lifeform, can evolve and transform itself to become more intelligent.
Still, most matter in the universe is not ordered in this way. It's a mistake of equivocation to say that because matter can process information that it is also intelligent. It's only has the potential.
Just another composition fallacy from Spellbound. He does this with every thread he posts - yet doesn't learn. If A is a part of X and A has property Y, that does not mean that Y is a property of X, or that X is equivalent to Y. Even ignoring the word salad, until he learns to correct this fallacy he will undoubtedly continue to litter this forum with his marketing efforts on behalf of Langan and his CTMU.
What you are saying here is silly. The property of an element of a set is a property of the set itself because the set contains it. If the set possessed a different property it would no longer be its former self. So the set becomes defined by its elements and can thus be equal to its elements depending on their properties.