Psyche as an Informational Strategy (GIT)

PSYCHE AS AN INFORMATIONAL STRATEGY(General Information Theory)

Marcus Abundis1

AbstractThis paper presents a reductive “functionalist information theory” remedy to historic problems in modeling the human Psyche (consciousness, intelligence). It argues that all information, at a minimum, has an inviolate dual aspect of “form + content.” This unified dual informational aspect is shown to resolve the duality typical of historic views of Psyche (e.g., the Hard Problem). With this dual aspect in mind, the paper then posits a role for natural selection in the formation of Psyche. It presents a genus of Shannon’s signal entropy, Bateson’s differences, Monod’s material necessity and chance, and Darwinian reproduction, as enabling an emergent or generative foil contra natural selection. Ensuing events then bring about an extant ontology and epistemology for Psyche – or a surviving objective-subjective intelligence.

This paper models a precise (unified) taxonomy as general information theory. As such, it expands the classic view of information beyond Shannon's signal entropy and displaces the typical role of thermodynamic entropy as “noise.” The implication of this broad “natural informatics” (thinking like nature) is that it affords a likely organizing principle for multi-state/quantum computers, strong artificial intelligence, cognitive materials, and the like. Keywords: information theory, information science, artificial intelligence, cognition, metadata, mind, psyche, evolution, function, hard problem, dialectic, duality, paradox, fractal, triad, triune.

INTRODUCTION – Statement of Problem and Proposed SolutionDavid Chalmers (1996), in The Conscious Mind, calls for naming a Hard Problem in the study of consciousness – a central challenge in modeling Psyche. This Hard Problem is often seen as a division between the human “body” and “mind.” Those terms have interrelated functional roles, where “mind” has no specific physical identity, and “body” does have a specific physical form. The core matter is a sensed separation in the nature of “material things” and “thinking things,” where well-reasoned alternatives, like a unified “simple material duality,” are hard to capture.

Chalmers’s Hard Problem dismisses natural selection as having any role in the development of consciousness, or Psyche, a claim that has been closely examined elsewhere (Abundis, 2013). As a rebuttal, this paper answers Chalmers’s Hard Problem while naming a role for natural selection in Psyche’s formation.

Ad rem of solving the Hard Problem, Chalmers (1996, p. xvii) notes: “It is widely agreed [that nonphysical] consciousness [derives from] the physical in some sense; the real question is how tight the connection is. Discussions that ignore these issues avoid the hardest questions about consciousness.” So, to refute Chalmers’s Hard Problem, the proposed solution must cogently unify this separation while answering a parallel question on connection. As such, this paper presents a “simple (unified) material duality” in answer this question on connection. Further, the paper’s informational view posits a role for natural selection in the formation of Psyche. It

Organizational Behavior (GFTP), Graduate School of Business, Stanford University (March 2011).1

DRAFT: 26 Feb. 2015, M. Abundis, +1-530.388.5576, +41-(0)62.844.2193, [email protected] ��1

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presents Psyche as a tiered informational strategy, upon which natural selection can act in a cumulative manner – in other words, Psyche as an evolvable informational platform.

Before this notion of an evolving informational strategy can advance the term Psyche must be clarified. Psyche is used herein to name a totality of the conscious and unconscious human mind – an in situ behavioral entity. Taking this unified totality as the main level of analysis avoids the innate ambiguity of the term “consciousness” and directs our attention to a more-or-less discrete human whole. This unified view also means that important ancillary questions related to conscious mind versus sub/unconscious mind, social mind, instincts, reflexes, emotions, freewill, intention, extra-human consciousness, non-consciousness, etc. are left for later analysis.

PSYCHE AND INFORMATION – A Shared Basis for Information and PsycheIn order to recast a separatist Hard Problem as a simple material duality, a proxy is needed to enable this shift – something less complex and less personal than Psyche but with useful parallels. For this I turn to information technology (IT), since IT and Psyche both serve basic informational roles. The idea here is that analysis of IT functions may give insight into Psyche’s intricate workings. This proximal framing suggests that IT derives from Psyche, implying that IT generally abides by the natural features and bounds of Psyche, not the inverse.

To typify this proximal role, computers routinely capture and reproduce a wide range of Psyche-like events (or phenomenal experiences). IT enables the “virtual realities” we use to test and train astronauts, aircraft pilots, tank crews, and the like. In each “reality,” a content – a representative essence of some real-life scenario – challenges the adaptive skills of trainees otherwise engaged in similar real-life events. These virtual environs are even used in realtime combat (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicle [UAV] “drone” pilots). UAV utility is so evident that the United States Air Force trains more drone pilots than it does fighter and bomber pilots, and expects one-third of its combat fleet will be drones within a decade. Central to each “remote” or “virtual reality” are the breadth and depth of content (the span of unified qualities; the synchronous rendering of sound, shape, color, movement, etc.) driving each pilot’s or trainee’s virtual experience. This qualitative content experience measurably affects the pilot’s or trainee’s abilities (PBS, 2013).

The content that drives these IT scenarios also applies to Psyche. For IT and Psyche this content may be called data, information, memory, or (user) experience. One major difference between IT content and Psyche’s content is the span of qualities each term covers. “Data” marks one specific type of information, but “experience” can mark many types and forms of information. IT content thus spans a fraction of Psyche’s vast capacity for phenomenal events. Other vital differences arise when taking IT as a proxy for Psyche and are explored at fitting points in this paper’s development. For now, as both IT and Psyche typify one’s “quality of experience,” although at various levels of complexity, their proximal roles help name a simple material duality.

With IT as a proxy for Psyche, one provocative contrast immediately arises. IT content resides within material substrates and does not arise as an odd spectral aspect, as with the Hard Problem’s separation of body and mind. In general, IT data are known to have an inviolate dual



aspect of “form + content” (Shannon, 1948, p. 1 where the focus is given as the engineered form/transmission [Level A], while ignoring semantic content/meaning [Level B] ): 2

• Form denotes the “carrier” (media type) of content. Form is “that which holds content.”• Content is “the stuff” that makes a piece of media (form/carrier) interesting, or of “value.”

As an example of form + content, a blank CD/DVD, spool of film, iPod, or cassette tape all represent different types of media (form without content). But a reel of film or DVD titled Star Wars denotes an object form with subject content. Each of us can then experience watching Star Wars (attendant form + content), where a “span of unified qualities” (fidelity, sensed realism) engages our personal attention. The same applies to a CD titled Supernatural by Carlos Santana, an LP of Sousa marches, a BBC TV or radio broadcast, and so on.

This dual informational aspect (form + content) makes IT a potent proxy for Psyche. It implies that a hominid named Ralph Chavez, born in Los Angeles on 2 February 1978, also has a specific form + content. This R. Chavez form + content (male, 34 years old, 6’ tall, 200#, raised by his grandmother, etc.) can be said to offer, at various points in time, “something it is like to be” R. Chavez. This unique “something it is like” is also called subjectivity, about-ness, identity, or “consciousness” (Nagel, 1974). Moreover, IT’s use of form + content mirrors the Hard Problem’s “body and mind,” but in a simple unified manner; implying a similar possibility for Psyche.

Even the simple material duality of IT, however, cannot escape our long-lived separatist senses. First, this dual informational aspect has two faces (form + content), even if used as a unified concept. Second, a precise definition of these two facets is difficult because of their necessarily entangled (or even confused) terms. Third, some may argue that form + content represents, in fact, two separate concepts: content demands the presence of a substrate form/media/carrier, but then a carrier does not necessarily require that there be any specific content . . . or perhaps a carrier’s presence alone already implies some low-order type of content (embodied content). All of this makes an exact explanation of a simple material duality difficult.

To dispel any notion of dualist separation in form + content requires a penetrating look at IT’s and Psyche’s informational roles. The goal of such a study is to find a primitive (a priori) root for Psyche and IT, a shared ontological and epistemic core based in “first principles.”

Information seems to have become a key concept to unlock several philosophical problems. . . . The problem is that we still have to agree about what information is exactly. (Floridi, 2011, p. 41)

Case One: A Computer Hard Disk Drive (HDD) – A Mechanical View of InformationWithin IT, content is critical. Content is what we “back up” to guard against data loss due to equipment failure (failures of form). IT content is often stored on hard disk drives (HDDs) because of their proven reliability, inexpensive volume, and quick data access. Given the

In expanding Shannon’s (1948) work, Weaver (1949) also names content efficacy (Level C), but they 2

both only consider formal transmission (Level A), and neither writer mentions content genesis (“Levels D/Z”). Shannon’s A Mathematical Theory of Communication is often seen as a whole “theory of information,” but Shannon (1956) and Weaver avoided such claims by plainly stating that they excluded “meaning.”



centrality of IT subject-content on an HDD object-form, plus the known materiality of that content, we might then ask, “Does an HDD somehow embody a simple material duality?”

In a materially reductive way, computer “neurology” may tell us every physical detail about an HDD in terms of its electrons, signals, circuits, mechanical systems, etc. But regardless of how minute this examination is, any content held within is never revealed (Figure A). With no prior knowledge of an HDD’s specific presentation of data, we feel that the HDD is empty. To borrow Chalmers’s (1996) “zombie” from the Hard Problem, in this naïve reductive materialist example, all HDDs are “physically identical, molecule for molecule, but lacking [apparent informational] experiences altogether” (ibid., p. 94). With no foreknowledge of actual content, an HDD seems to be void of information – an apparent zombie (normal physical exterior, with no interior life).

Unlike Chalmers’s zombie, we have practical knowledge of HDDs. So at what precise moment do we say, “Hey! There’s information on this thing!”? When does a certain abstract informational function (quasi-Psyche?) become evident within an HDD?

Figure A: Cutaway view of standard HDD components with magnetically inscribed data bits (upper right).

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All HDDs are objectively identical, but without some “nonmaterial” framing (metadata, bitmap, file directory, data about content ) of how an HDD’s binary digits (Bits) are physically organized 3

on the drive’s platter, “all is dark inside.” An informational map is needed to convey those Bits as

Metadata are often defined as “data about data,” but this definition does not afford an effective 3

information theory, since the principle that differentiates “data” from “data” is unclear. A more exact definition of metadata as “data about content” is thus developed and used throughout this paper.



ordered content (Table 1). Without metadata, any informational traits an HDD might exhibit would be odd. Even a skilled technician searching an HDD for missing files would find the presence of any useful content, in the absence of metadata, impossible.

In short, metadata afford an HDD’s material Bits “a form” of habitual meaning, value, or functioning: indicating an informational first principle of meaningfully modeled data (metadata). Without a map of the HDD’s material order, these Bits would seem like a string of random blips. This core principle of object-form + subject-content, as functionally modeled metadata, is so well known and exploited within the computer industry that HDD capacity doubles even faster than the advances in processor speed typified by Moore’s Law (Farrance, 2006; Hitachi GST, 2006).

Table 1: Sample metadata: ASCII (2013) Bit-forms (left) used in HDDs to show functional content (right). Discrete 1s and 0s show a low-order form, where their specific order implies content; together they present: form + content. Each column thus has a distinct form + content “order” that, when related to its neighbors (in a simple-to-complex/scalable role), maps as higher-order functional content. This entire tabular form of columnar contents is metadata: data about content, an ordering of logical orders. Metadata map the trans-formation of primitive (form + content) data into a meaning (form + content = functioning). HDD metadata are often stored in partition tables (Figure A, track0), but with IT’s distributed processes some metadata reside at the components (printer, display, keyboard, etc.) that directly convert Bits into functioning content. Hence, IT uses many styles of metadata across various devices.

Metadata give primitive data value by mapping recurrent functions, being driven by those data. Without metadata as de facto functional memory, all functioning must otherwise be endlessly rediscovered/reinvented in a perpetual ad hoc manner. This binding of function to form + content marks another key trait: dynamism. Data somehow trans-form. That is, primitive data become meaningful once they allow us to behave in recurrent functioning roles. This emergence of functioning expands our sense of form + content beyond basic information presentation to entail dynamic processes needed for that presentation to occur. This means that a first-order functional process (interpretation, revelation, creation, exploration, ontology. etc.) precedes any second-order functioning presentation (identity, about-ness, meaning, value, epistemology). This ordered role thus necessitates that: process precedes and defines presentation.

Process implies that form + content with no assigned function is data of a primitive (first) order. For example, nothing in 00100011 (primitive data) compels us to think “carriage return,” except for Table 1’s second-order dictates (process). Or consider the recently discovered Higgs boson, which has no immediate second-order role (e.g., no process yet exists to allow “mass-less

Binary Octal Decimal Hexadecimal HTML ASCII Functions/(base 2, 8-bit bytes) (base 8) (base 10) (base 16) Code Commands

00000000 000 0 0 n/a NUL (null) ∅00000001 001 1 1 n/a SOH (start of heading)00100011 015 13 D n/a CR (carriage return) ↵11000010 034 28 1C n/a FS (file separator) ||11101001 351 233 E9 é é (accent acute e)1000000 100 64 40 @ @ (at sign)1000001 101 65 41 A A (capital a)1111010 172 122 7A z z (small z)



travel,” etc.). This is still seen as a major discovery because of the potential for new functioning processes. The potential innate to primitive data shows up elsewhere, not just in science, which often alters its view based on new data. One example is art, where ambiguous objects offer rich subjective experiences, but with no clear (objective) purpose other than simply “providing an experience,” implying some latent functionality. This also applies to things we typify as entertainment, humor, play, sport, etc., all naturally recombinant events that may generate new data. Primitive data thus furnish a second informational principle as “the stuff” being processed when metadata functioning is presented.

Summary Analysis: This study of an HDD as a likely simple material duality reveals that; 1. IT content requires a secure material form, evident in IT’s use of “backups” to guard against

equipment failure and data loss. This stresses the idea that form + content is materially bound (i.e., an inviolate objective-subjective role exists). This then implies a third informational principle, that of innate materiality.

2. Metadata afford an HDD object-form its presentation of functioning subject-content (process). But, as HDD metadata are just as manmade as is any HDD, we must look deeper to find a true simple material duality.

3. In looking deeper, we see that both primitive data and functioning content define metadata. This means that at least two “content types” must exist (a metadata form + primitive data ➔ functioning content), and that form + content alone is too simplistic to capture the full range of informational processes and presentations.

4. Also, none of the named informational principles (innate materiality, primitive data, and metadata) offers a complete account of information. Rather, their inter-related processes must be studied as a core organizing principle, since “process precedes and defines presentation.” Naming these processes begins to develop the taxonomy needed for an effective information theory to arise (notes 2, 3).

5. Lastly, the primitive-to-functional transition of #3 requires that a functional genesis occur as part of that “process.” Such ontological functional dynamics are later named as key to any informational role and are, hence, proximate in Psyche’s formation. This “functional genesis” I now label Levels D/Z, following the Shannon-Weaver model in note 2.

This analysis ushers in a three-fold informational vista (presentation) that demands we consider the dynamics (processes) that underlie that presentation. But the model leaves open other topics that must also be addressed, such as:

A. Metadata must exhibit a direct causal role in material-to-functional events (principle: innate materiality). Without direct material functioning a “metadata Hard Problem” would exist.

B. Metadata are often manmade, using symbols to convey functions (e.g., 00100011 = carriage return). Any such contrived symbolic (or even natural) interpretations must be defined in terms of process and presentation if an effective information theory is to arise.

I address these issues and expand on the above first principles – innate materiality (objectivity), primitive data, and functioning metadata (subjectivity) – using the following two case examples.

Case Two: “Tokenized” Metadata – A Mechano-Semiotic (Material-Symbolic) View Metadata’s direct material functioning is first addressed. The symbolic Bits that underlie IT content and metadata are encoded using various means. HDDs use “magnetic flux transitions” on a rotating Platter to induce a Bit-token “wave-form” (Figure B[2]; also Figure A, Platters). One



wave-form denotes a specific ASCII function, where hundreds of ASCII functions exist. These ASCII functions/wave-forms are often typified as a string of symbolic 1s and 0s (Table 1).

In minute terms, the Bit-tokens that induce the wave-forms are lines of nano-magnets, about 100 atoms per magnet (Figure B[1]). Between 9 and 17 magnets are used to induce one ASCII wave-form, where a targeted ASCII function sets the number of magnets needed. The magnetic tokens are arranged in “tracks,” measured in thousands of flux reversals per inch (FRPI), micrometers (µm), and nanometers (nm). Recent advances shrink these “magnetic spots” to just twelve atoms each (Figure B[3]). Further HDD advances now require a better interface (5,000 - 7,000 RPM) able to work with these minute tokens in producing reliable ASCII wave-forms.

Figure B: (1) shows three tracks of nano-magnet Bit-tokens, each token roughly 77nm wide (red arrows), 20 Bit-tokens per track; and (2) shows the flux-reversal wave-form produced by the leftmost track, 10 flux reversals per µm, or 254,000 FRPI (IOP 2011). Between 9 and 17 tokens represent one encoded 8-bit byte (Table 1) or one ASCII wave-form. Image (3) shows atomically encoded tokens (12 atoms = 1 Bit, 8 Bits = 1 byte/letter) that spell THINK. This still-experimental method is 100 times more compact than present-day technologies (IBM 2012).

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But magnetic spots alone do not convey any content; they present only “a potential” – inanimate tokens must be made animate (process). A read/write head (Figure A, Slider and Head) must pass over the HDD’s rotating Platter, detecting each token. This essential observing/sensing of tokens produces the wave-forms that “breathe life” into an otherwise inanimate device; or, dynamism bestirs a transmittable primitive data experience (Figure B[2]). The discrete tokens are brought into a direct material (object-subject) relationship with each other, the HDD’s metadata, and other IT facets, allowing functionally causal forms to suffuse across a device. This token-to-wave processing (latent-to-direct, or primitive-to-functional, transition) makes the Bit-tokens available for general interpretation as functioning content.

This exposé of an HDD’s material functioning denotes a chain of events where a material token (a series of nano-magnets we name 00100011) gives rise to a functional carriage return. In short,



an HDD’s metadata habitual-ize (1) that a given material form causes (2) an IT device to move (3) in a recurrent manner, or what we call “memorized" functioning content. For purposes of illustration, it matters little if the metadata are manmade, since material tokens underlie what occurs across the entire material scale – the principle of innate materiality is addressed.

Critically, these tokens exhibit a type of simple material duality. To see this material duality, imagine one Bit-token of 100 atoms with a charge of 2Φm. Now split that token into two 50-4

atom groups with a residual charge of 1Φm each and then continue this division until the mass and charge of each group reach some negligible value. This repeated division shows “material reduction” – a first (direct, overt, di-visible, entropic) material property common to all matter.

As contrast, now visualize a read/write head passing over that same 100 atom/2Φm token. The first pass induces a 2mV (millivolt) pulse; the second, third, and fourth passes also create a 2mV pulse. This recurrent report/transmission demonstrates “objective re-production,” material contra-reduction, or simple subjectivity – a second (indirect, latent, relational, negentropic) material property. This electromagnetic process affords an HDD its primitive-to-functional transition, and is key to a wide range of technical roles (e.g., engine ignition, motor, radio, TV, phonograph, radar, etc.). This afforded re-productive process is subjectively meaningful, in contrast to the otherwise pervasive material reduction/entropy – where “basic re-production” carries further Darwinian implications (as detailed later).

The simple material duality of magnetic substrates is just one example, meaning that material duality is not a special case. Energy-matter equivalency was shown by Einstein as E = mc2; 5

later, space-time was proved. Wave-particle duality in light is an exemplar in modern physics. Sumerian cuneiforms, Gutenberg’s press, Drebbel’s thermostat, Babbage’s analytic engine, all reflect another contra-reductive, even amplifying, material role (simple machines). What marks a material duality as having an informational/functioning potential is where one property can pass across various media (transmits) in a contra-reductive manner – evincing a recurrent process that might be presented via metadata – where metadata meaningfully present re-productive processes.

Innate (reductive + contra-reductive) materiality may seem odd. Material duality flouts what some see as a set paradigm of reductive (monadic) materialism, while also defying material entropy (aka reduction) in the second law of thermodynamics. Further, joint reduction + contra-reduction is a prima facie paradox. Lastly, in pursuing our discoveries, paradox is easy (effective and efficient) to ignore when models arise that already allow the desired progress. This last note points to differences between pure science and applied science. Practical applications need only an adequate description of events to enable the next adaptive advance, but true knowing demands detailed explanations of phenomena. Described-yet-unexplained gaps typify much of science and technology (energy [note 5], gravity, magnetism, quantum mechanics, etc.), often lying buried or ignored until their unintended effects demand our attention.

Φm is the symbol used in physics to represent a magnetic flux.4

Applied physics has many energy-matter equivalents (up to 16: elastic, chemical, kinetic, etc.), but this 5

means that no one definition of “energy” is possible. Diverse practical energetic roles preclude “energy-matter” as a useful scientific term, post-Einstein, in contrast to what is now common for “space-time.”



Regardless, reductive + contra-reductive roles date back to philosopher John Stuart Mill, who contrasted the divisibility of matter with indivisible information. To explain Mill’s view, sharing an apple or a fish (reducible material) with someone differs greatly from sharing where to find apples or how to fish (contra-reductive information), but both involve functional material access. To extend Mill’s view to an HDD, HDD subject content is endlessly reproducible (sharable), but when one ruins (objectively divides) that HDD form, its content is also ruined. This means an HDD is materially reducible and informationally irreducible (reduction + contra-reduction); or, primitive data and functioning content are reliant upon (defined by) objective material traits.

Material reduction + contra-reduction means that the principle of innate materiality must be lessened to transmittable materiality, as information entails only contra-reductive transmissions. Thus, reduction + contra-reduction also precedes Shannon-Weaver’s Level A transmission, as it too stipulates a material duality, but framed as “noise” or material entropy contra signal entropy. I name this Level A precursor Level Z: the equal of simple material duality. Further, both views hold disorder ➔ order as a key informational “habit,” which further links the two informational vistas: reductive + contra-reductive materiality and noise/material entropy contra signal entropy.

Lastly, naming a simple material duality begins to subvert the Hard Problem’s claimed separation of body and mind. Our doubt grows if we consider the many studies of the brain’s natural propagation of magnetic fluxes. Simple magnetics cannot explain Psyche’s informational vastness, but it does imply that a Hard Problem remedy exists, perhaps in naming a metadata equivalent in Psyche. This equivalent role is at times attributed to internal brain maps, the amygdala, neural correlates, and/or the innate complexity of neural networks. But metadata define objective functioning with actual subject content that neurologic views must omit, due to present limits in signal sampling, and largely limiting neurology to a study of Psyche’s forms. Summary Analysis: The preceding clarifies an HDD’s direct material functioning thus: 1. HDD metadata typify actual material tokens in a chain of token-to-function events. 2. Those material tokens are processed to cause functioning. Discrete tokens are brought into a

direct material relationship so that a transmittable wave-form (report, experience) arises – in other words, transmission denotes a set re-productive material process (object-subject role).

3. HDD Bit-tokens entail a simple material duality (electromagnetic) that enables transmission. This means that material duality underpins all HDD primitive data and functioning content.

4. Also, if any material plurality can transmit one property across various media in a contra-reductive (recurrent) manner, defying material reduction (entropy), this affords an object-subject logic/order/process that might be presented via metadata.

5. For now, I label this recurrent material transmission “signal entropy,” akin to Shannon-Weaver’s Level A, and see it stipulating simple material duality (Level Z) as its foundation.

6. Recurrent transmissions limit the principle of innate materiality to transmittable materiality. The principle of transmittable materiality is now defined as: changes in form (object) cause a like change in content (subject), and a shift in content requires a like shift in form – for primitive data and functioning content. This is also stated multi-functionally: 1) Tearing pages from a book alters its content, and adding content requires new pages. 2) If a hominid loses an eye, its functioning lessens, and extending a hominid’s sight with a telescope adds functioning. 3) Removing a leg from a three-legged stool defeats a stool’s function, and adding a fourth leg can enhance its function. 4) As noted already for HDDs.



7. Lastly, further to #4, the notion of material properties passing across media echoes Shannon’s (1948) model of signal entropy and how transmissions attenuate (reduce) or persist (contra-reduce) within a channel (media), subject to the effects of noise (material entropy). Hence, this analysis follows a Shannon-Weaver framing, where “the amount of freedom of choice we have in constructing [objective content]” (Weaver 1949, p. 6) also applies to developing an adaptive/subjective view of Psyche.

The prior two cases examine metadata via object-subject unity. Case One details metadata’s functional logic and names three informational principles. Case Two then expands on one of those principles (innate materiality) as re-productive material transmission afforded by material duality (Level Z). This analysis asserts type theory, an ordering of logical orders (informational levels, Table 1). The paper thus presents foundational terms that can apply to modeling Psyche’s rich complexity, and which might then reach further toward a scaled functioning continuum – an extendable ordering of logical orders, a natural informatics, or “general intelligence.”

But much remains unfinished. First, neither case explains how primitive (object) data or functioning (subject) content first arise. This genesis process was noted in Case One #5 as ontological functional dynamics – Levels D/Z. Second, the interpretive process from Case One Item B has not been covered. Third, defining a scaled functioning continuum (see above) now presents a new challenge, adding the emergence of “Psyche and its deeds” as presenting fresh logical orders (novelty). I cover all these issues in Case Three through a close interpretive study.

Case Three: “Behavioral” Metadata – Behavioral-Interpretive ViewNoted above is how HDD content arises as metadata interpretations of Bit-token forms. I now explore this “interpretation” in a priori terms. Here, interpretation is defined as the process of primitive data being made (ontology) functionally meaningful (epistemology) – ontological functional dynamics, or information presentation. Interpretation thus entails two ontological processes: 1) the making of primitive data (object forms), and 2) the making of meaning (subject content) for those “made data.” The first involves Level Z, introduced above, and the later I now label Level D . I begin this interpretive analysis by returning to the HDD/IT model. 6

Figure C extends the HDD model by detailing three interpretive filters. This image may seem complex, but its premise is simple – interpretation has three steps: matching, differentiation, and designation. To see this process in action consider Figure C’s Magnetic Flux: A. As a baseline, if no Magnetic Flux is transmitted (no heavy black line exists, also Figure

B[2]), there is nothing to match in the Limit Window. So neither would differentiation occur – a “null interpretation” would result. But null interpretations also arise if a Magnetic Flux simply fails to activate the Limit Window (see segment labeled “noise,” Gustin, 2013).

B. If a Magnetic Flux wholly fills the Limit Window, a “well-formed” Flux exists (shown below); matching, differentiation, and designation follow to completion. Functioning content results as a “subject interpretation” (Figure C shows partial code for an ASCII é: 11101001).

C. If a Magnetic Flux only partly fills the Limit Window (Figure D, green line), an “ill-formed” Flux exists. Thus, matching, differentiation, and designation may or may not follow. This

Weaver’s (1949) terms, Level B (content assimilation) and Level C (content efficacy), cannot be used 6

here since Weaver’s Levels B and C both assume prior content genesis (Levels D/Z); see note 2.



“content” affords only ambiguous interpretations (a likely system error due to ill-formed magnetic spots).

Figure C: HDD trans-formation of a material property into functioning content. A Magnetic Flux arises, shown as a heavy black line. This Flux is: 1) matched or measured by a Limit Window (+red/-blue lines) to afford a context; 2) this primitive context is assessed for recurrent traits (Pulse Detection, differentiation), 3) the discerned traits are then designated (re-formed, transmitted) as Encoded Bit Stream data that trigger functioning. Various technical methods can be used to develop and produce similar interpretive results (Silicon Labs, 2008).

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This three-fold interpretative process (matching, differentiation, and designation) affords three functioning presentations:

• null interpretation (recurrent null-functioning), • specific interpretation (recurrent ASCII functioning), and • ambiguous interpretation (non-recurrent, uncertain, perhaps partly-functioning).

Within IT only the first two results are possible, since an HDD “sees” no ambiguous data. If an HDD encounters ambiguous data it blindly processes that data as functioning content, even if doing so causes a system error (e.g., system crash, processor hang).

This three-fold interpretive process captures the essence of an HDD’s in situ “behavioral habit”: generative formation of functioning content. But this interpretation has natural limits vis-à-vis ambiguous transmissions (Figure C’s noise, Figure D’s green line). The exclusion or inclusion of ambiguous data marks a key difference between IT and Psyche. To illustrate this difference each step must be studied separately. I begin this examination by again using a form + content trope.



Figure D: An HDD’s Magnetic Flux exceeds the Limit Window. Here, the Flux (black line) is formally matched, but only for those points falling within the Limit Window. This “match” (green line) has no discernible recurrent traits (as compared to Figure C’s Flux) and is thus incoherent. Any functioning content derived from this ambiguous form (green line) is uncertain and will likely cause a system error.

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Matching, the first interpretive filter, is formal and has no specific content beyond its simple presentation of primitive data. To explain this ab initio presentation, primitive data minimally have three elements: two or more “matched” parametric forms (token A + token B) – objectivity; and the relatable means (chemical, electrical, mechanical, etc.) by which they transmittably join – subjectivity. In contrast, if token A is isolated, there is nothing for it to transmit to or match with – its objectivity is unknown, and subjectivity is non-existent. Or, if many tokens exist but without relatable means (no subjectivity), again, transmission is not possible. But recurrent transmissions must occur if content is to arise (principle: transmittable materiality).

The ab initio emergence of primitive data is thus shown in an informational principle as: primitive data = (token A + token B) + ( A:B relatability ),

or primitive data = ( minimal order ) + ( minimal process ), primitive data = ( named objects ) + (unrefined subjective), primitive data = ( form ) + ( content ).

Tokens that are isolated or that have no transmitted recurrent means show material entropy; thus Level Z = primitive data + material entropy,

or Level Z = recurrent traits + reductive traits, Level Z = simple material duality.

Matching stipulates multiple parameters (named objects) in relatable roles, and provides a base for an object-subject process; without naming specific transmissions (to be named later). Also,



matching is innately variable, there being many ways in which one token can practically join another (an unrefined subjective), yielding blind variations: empiric entropy = n empiric order[s].

Naming empiric entropy here is vital for four reasons. 1. It marks a known uncertainty that is innate to primitive data (unrefined subjective). 2. This “entropic logic” enables a parsing of blind variants (empiric entropy) into differentiable

units (n empiric order[s]), that is needed for later “natural selection.” 3. Entropic logic begins to fill a void in “signal entropy contra material entropy” that Shannon

created by simply assuming a presence of meaningful content – what I call “Shannon’s gap.” 4. Lastly, blind variation seeds a chance for future novelty (object-subject ambiguity), needed

for evolutionary events to occur. This was identified by Monod (1971) as “material necessity and chance.” Weaver points to a similar need for entropic variants as degrees of freedom we have in constructing content (from Case Two #7).

Thus, Level Z = empiric entropy + material entropy,

or Level Z = primitive data + material entropy.

Matching (parameter[s] + relatability) reveals another duality, but with three distinct facets. Naming a dualistic-triune core for all primitive data and functioning content marks a critical “dualist ➔ triune shift” in informational vistas; beyond simple material duality. If this dualistic-triune core marks a “true universal order,” this implies a type of metadata that can span all informational classes – core metadata, or Bateson’s (1979) “the pattern that connects, all life.” To then fill such a core metadata form with “universal (primitive) data elements,” as content, would provide a foundation for all information. Such elemental data might then depose Bits as a computational fundament and allow a major leap in informatics. The benefits of such a shift are hard to estimate without sounding hyperbolic – similar to the advent of early digital computers, circa WWII, but that remain vital to many modern advances.

In an HDD (Figure C), matching shows parameter A as a series of Bit-tokens (Magnetic Flux), parameter B as a Limit Window, and the relatable means as electromagnetic. The Limit Window formalizes a simple “fit or no-fit” order for all Bit-token Fluxes; a matched material form arises as a “token A + token B limit.” Thus, an HDD’s sensed (processed) primitive data are habitually bound/ordered (i.e., a primitive memory) by the Limit Window’s parametric form. Alternatively, we can say that an HDD’s primitive data are reflexively/subjectively formalized. This primitive empiric order is shown as:

HDD primitive data = (Bit-tokens + Limit Window) + ( electromagnetic ), or primitive data = ( parameter[s] ) + ( relatability ),

primitive data = ( minimal order ) + ( minimal process ), primitive data = ( form ) + ( content ).

Outside of an HDD, biologist Stuart Kaufmann (1995) and others see this empiric fit as “order for free” (self-organizing), evident as niche formation in natural selection (fit-ness), simple machines in engineering, the Standard Model in physics, etc. The Standard Model shows a fine-tuned universe balanced upon a few empiric constants, framed in a dualistic-triune manner:

Standard Model = ( fermions/matter ) + ( bosons/forces ), Standard Model = ( leptons + quarks ) + ( bosons ),



or primitive data = ( parameter[s] ) + ( relatability ).

This dualistic-triune order appears in many basic models, also seen as a Hegelian dialectic and 7

evident in nature’s fractal forms. Further, the Standard Model’s precision has no known blind variants (low empiric entropy), as compared to the variety seen in evolved organisms. This fluid variability points back to metadata, type theory, and the question: How can an ordering of logical orders for the extant cosmos be modeled? – with an answer now inferred as core metadata.

Despite a basic simplicity, matching also shows in complex systems. In artificial intelligence, natural language processing holds that a basic context/match is vital to success (High, 2013). Likewise, for Psyche this primitive empiric order seems autonomic. This means that a hominid, due to its matched formal facets, will never (relatably) “scratch behind its ear with the point of its elbow.” Nor will this hominid, due to its physiology, experience the oceanic depths as does an elephant seal (6,998 feet; AAD, 2013), even if making frequent oceanic dives. Nor will a !Kung of the Kalahari “persistence hunting” kudu (running up to thirty-five kilometers over eight hours; Liebenberg, 2006), have the experience of an Iñupiat “persistence hunting” Arctic whales. Each context conveys a primitive empiric order, reflexive/subjective identity, or about-ness.

Matching, as parameter(s) + relatability, argues that reductive monadic “materialism is false: there are features of the world over and above [purely] physical features” (Chalmers, 1996, p. 123). In addition, the relatable roles that a monadic (wholly parametric) view asks us to ignore are critical to defining functionality. Within parameter(s) + relatability, the later alone affords a functioning order of logical orders – an aesthetic order – by targeting one transmitted material Fit. This Fit then implicates two other facets in a functioning dualistic-triune of Fit + Direction and Scale, shown in Figure E and explained below. • Fit denotes one specific objective match (a statistical variant) between parameters, which then

affords a recurrent material transmission, that conveys a re-productive (subject) functioning. • Direction of Fit denotes what parametric trait(s) is employed (used) and what is deployed

(afforded), and/or if aspects of reciprocity and synchrony are involved. For example, fuel affords a car’s movement from place to place, while also transporting the fuel.

• Scale reflects if a Fit proceeds from simple to complex (constructive, anabolic, synthetic, aggregating, negentropic, etc.), from complex to simple (destructive, catabolic, analytic, dis-aggregating, entropic, etc.), along equal orders of complexity (sympathetic, symbiotic, etc.), and/or if de novo emergent aspects arise. From the prior example, the petrol that affords a car “visiting new sites” is reduced from a hydrocarbon to work, heat, water, and carbon dioxide.

Figure E: Relatability as a recombinant dualistic triune of: Fit + Direction and Scale; with unknown (Abstract) and known (Simple Machine) facets. Functioning arises as an inter-related role between two or more Forms: Plank, Pivot, and Ground thus afford a functioning Lever – a “named subject.” Many empiric orders are possible (blind

The Standard Model shows two leptons and two quarks each, in three families, presenting twelve 7

elementary particles. Bosons and quarks, three each, pair to create protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons form an atom’s nucleus, which is paired with an electron shell to complete an atom. Atomic variants are isotopes, isomers, and ions that drive chemistry. DNA’s base pairs present triplet codons that yield amino acids. Dimensions are given in height, width, and depth; time is past, present, and future – later joined as a dualistic “space-time.” Language is often divided into syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, or: form + content = functioning.



variants, empiric entropy, unrefined subjective) for Plank and Pivot, but only a few aesthetic orders convey any Lever functioning. Next, moving the pivot point from X to O (Δ Direction: vertical to horizontal) shifts a Lever to a Roller, or a precursor Wheel/Pulley; and moving the Fit from X to Z creates a Ramp/Wedge. Small changes in relatable roles thus bring about major functional shifts. To “evolve” these roles (not shown), a Wedge and Roller can join to create a Screw; a Wedge can join other Wedges to create an Airfoil; an Airfoil and Screw can combine to create a Propeller; etc. Exploiting natural recombinant roles (Fit, aesthetic orders), born as blind variants (empiric entropy), provides a basis for Psyche’s later heuristic knowing and willful intention, or a general intelligence.

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Naming an aesthetic order within an empiric order allows us to further parse and refine (select) our view of primitive data; which also affords a primitive-to-functional transition: n empiric order[s] ➔ primitive data = (parameter A + parameter B) + ( A:B relatability ),or primitive data = ( parameter[s] ) + ( relatability ),

primitive data = ( named objects ) + (unrefined subjective);

�� n aesthetic order[s] ➔ recombinant functioning triune: Fit + Direction and Scale;

↳ named subjective value[s]. Hence, Direction and Scale mark the core dynamic(s) of a functioning-dysfunction process, where one objective Fit names one subjective role, with a targeted “meaning” we call a function.

Following the above, if empiric entropy = n empiric order[s], or n blind variants – one empiric order = aesthetic entropy = n aesthetic order[s]. As such, one aesthetic order might then “name” a fixed Lever (Figure F has six examples); another order might name a “noisy” Lever (Figure E); and another variant may seem functionally incoherent. “Empiric-aesthetic entropy,” or expanded entropic logic, thus holds many “meaningful” functioning-dysfunctional or adjacent (Kaufmann, 2000) possibilities, each of which can be further refined, or “selected,” as: empiric entropy + material entropy = Level Z, ↳ 1 empiric order . . . from n empiric order[s] = empiric entropy,

↳ 1 aesthetic order . . . from n aesthetic order[s] = aesthetic entropy,↳ n functioning sign types[s] = signal entropy (Shannon’s Level A),



Signal entropy thus marks the transmitted work for one Fit’s Direction and Scale (relational logic). This stepped entropic selection (processing) closes Shannon’s gap as a scaled functioning continuum – an ordering of logical orders, or ontological functional dynamics. This entropic logic is expanded in the next section on differentiation.

Primitive data’s (empiric entropy's) variability demands of Psyche a recombinant behavior of invention, discovery, and exploration – that is, informational strategies. No other means lie at hand that promote survival for this “weak species” (humans) with no real purpose-built tools – no fangs or claws; a rather variable, functionally ambiguous form. Instead of resolute fangs and claws, resolute wanderlust as exercised intuition, curiosity, longing, and other “imaginings” must functionally re-form the ennui of natural selection and survival (Monod, 1971). Hence, we trans-form our weak ambiguous form into a sapient sensibility that allows us almost unlimited material access. From necessity, humanity becomes a consummate generalist, a “universal tool,” thrusting itself into a highly adaptive informational role.

But the deeper challenge of empiric-aesthetic entropy is that we typically sense only that which is evident; we cannot arbitrarily transcend “the lens” we use to sense primitive data. Blind variants do not always arise ex tempore, nor do we sense things for which we have no capacity, nor alacrity, for sensing. In the manner of Kant’s das Ding an sich (noumena), some things must lie beyond our ken, as we busily attend to that which we can effectively and efficiently process (phenomena). This is true for any entity with finite senses and applies to all manner of discovery and exploration. But evolving a sense of elemental data and core metadata, as suggested here, may lessen this noumenal-phenomenal Abyss for humanity.

In this sub-section, matching (parameter[s] + relatability) links three informational principles: transmittable material forms ➔ primitive data variants ➔ functioning metadata content, and thus captures the paper’s key organizing principle. This new taxonomy now replaces form + content in the principle of transmittable materiality from Case Two #6: changes in parameter(s) cause a change in relatability, and a shift in relatability requires a shift in parameter(s). These new terms give a precise view of primitive data, which then underpins metadata functioning and an inferred core metadata. Further, they augment Shannon’s “signal entropy contra material entropy” by adding empiric-aesthetic entropy (entropic logic), filling Shannon’s gap. Finally, parameter[s] + relatability conveys Monod’s evolving “material necessity and chance” as a related informatics.

Differentiation. The second interpretive filter is also formal (data without specific content), but unlike matching differentiation is formally divisive. This means that, for a given Fit, reports of parametric + relatable differences add detail – transmitted aesthetic traits. As differentiation entails transmission it is equal to Shannon-Weaver’s Level A signal entropy; it follows Level Z (the making of primitive data) and precedes Level D (the making of meaning).

For formally divisive data to arise, differences in Fit + Direction and Scale must exist. Biologist Gregory Bateson (1972) called this “a difference that makes a difference.” The first of these two differences implies that: if primary (object) differences do not exist, or are not transmitted or sensed by anyone or anything – it “makes no difference” – no secondary (subject) functioning can ensue. This reiterates the notion that process precedes and defines presentation.



Likewise, Shannon’s signal entropy also requires “a difference” for content to arise. Thus, a flat wave-form (monotone) or “wiped” Bit streams (degaussed media) convey null functioning. Inversely, more differences afford more content. For example, if using just two terms, binary code (Table 1) offers far fewer ordered variants (2 objective, 22 subjective: 00, 01, 11, 10) than does hexadecimal code (16 objective, and 162 = 256 subjective: 1C, E9, 40, 7A, 00 . . .).

More transmittable object differences afford exponentially more (divisive) subject differences. This signaled differentiation (divisiveness) can grow to mirror (mimic) material entropy, even to the point of appearing chaotic. Further, the “granular work” of a Fit’s Direction and Scale transmits signals, where n sign type[s] = signal entropy. This presentation of sign types does not instantly convey a subject content, but merely raises “a potential,” that then requires yet another filter to name specific functioning – that of designation, the third and last interpretive filter.

As with matching, differentiation does not require an “intelligence,” but can occur naturally/thermodynamically. We see this in convection cells (cloud formation), in temperature/humidity shifts (snowflake formation), as divided material densities (erosion), and structural inherence (crystallization); each of which hold distinct aesthetic traits (Deacon, 2011, Monod, 1971).

In HDDs, differentiation applies many times in determining functioning content (Table 2), but it first shows as: 1. Bit-tokens of two recurrent material states: magnetic spots and divisive gaps (parameter[s] +

relatability). But these differences cannot be said to exist, since they are not sensed, detected, or observed by anyone or anything (transmit ∅ = sign type ∅). As a designed device, HDDs embody a given aesthetic order, but its tokens convey only an archetypal (a priori) notion without any content process; in sum, “a difference” is not yet reported, nor is anything we might call “signal entropy” seen. The key issue here is to answer: “Is this a transmittable (recurrent) material form?” If yes, we proceed further; if not, it conveys material entropy.

2. Next, a Magnetic Flux arises as an animated Bit-token platter and read/write head process (parameter[s] • relatability). An “unknown order” is now trans-formed by electromagnetic Bit-token aggregation (transmitted Fit). An aesthetic sense of Bit-token order arises (transmit x = sign type x); wave-form differences thus present signal entropy. Conceptually, a dualist ➔ triune shift occurs. The key issue is now: Does this transmitted Fit afford any functioning?

3. Indeed, this wave-form Fit is uncertain, due to variances in Bit-token shape, platter speed, head position, vibrations, etc. This added material entropy (erratic differences) means that every wave-form is subtly diverse. Induced material entropy threatens “non-recurrent = non-function,” and incites noise in the ASCII wave-forms. How, then, is this material entropy surpassed in a way that affords functioning?

4. Differentiated Pulse sign types (up ↑ and down ↓) within the Flux allow an HDD to defer material entropy. Pulse logic ignores all wave-form traits except for two key facets (↑ and ↓); a “quasi entropic” (parsed) view reduces a blurred ASCII wave-form to Pulse sign types. The Pulses then reveal even more order;↑ never follows ↑, and ↓ never follows ↓, and their spacing is exact. Ironically, material sign reduction (entropic logic/mimicry) reveals more contra-reductive order. As this entropic mimicry becomes more precise, ever more “revealed order” seems likely. Each Pulse trait holds a distinct disorder ➔ order possibility, but HDDs use three ordered traits in one composite order as:



5. Pulse Intervals (space-time) divide a binary 1 (↓–↑ one long gap) from a binary 0 (↓-↑-↓ two short gaps). This mitigates the risk of a 1 Pulse (↓↑) being confused as part of a 0 Pulse (↓↑↓) and drops the total number of sign types to two (signal entropy = 2). “Pulse order” is now transcended by “Interval order;” which has a long history in IT (Morse code, punch cards/tape, CDs, etc.) and also in Psyche’s causal (sequential) operations (Tononi, 2009).

��Table 2: Bit-token trans-formation in HDDs. Each step conveys a distinct order (parameter[s] + relatability), thus affording a new context (matching) for each ensuing step. An exact reversal of this trans-formation is unlikely since extraneous traits are discarded along the way, making the process irreversible and also implying an “arrow of time.”

The signaled differences an HDD must process are reduced from potentially countless Bit-token combinations to hundreds of ASCII wave-forms, to four Pulse patterns, and then just two space-time Intervals. This sign type reduction lessens an HDD’s overall signal entropy, abating the risk of confronting ambiguous data (material entropy) and yielding precise interpretations. Further, using two sign types (0, 1 = 2) captures the lowest signal entropy possible – one sign type alone affords “no difference,” and three sign types (0, 1, X = 3) are fifty percent more complex.

Decreased signal entropy, however, limits an HDD’s interpretive span, where “excess” material entropy (ambiguity) prompts system errors. Hence, purpose-built HDDs “survive” only as long as their environment (context) remains intact. HDDs have no adaptive capacity vis-à-vis volatile



environs. In other words, an HDD’s low signal entropy cannot contra-reductively Fit (match or mimic) the expansive material entropy of perpetually disturbed environs.

Again, excluding or including ambiguous data marks a key contrast between IT and Psyche. Studying just how Psyche works apart from HDDs begins to clarify the difference. To start, the adaptivity that an HDD lacks is essential to Psyche; the stable environs an HDD requires do not exist for Psyche. For Psyche to hold an effective informational role, its generative differentiation of signal entropy (granularity) must be “equal to” the material entropy of its disturbed environs. Hence, an HDD’s reductive differentiation cannot work for Psyche. Psyche must aggregate sign types, not reduce them. It must optimize encounters with functional ambiguity, not ignore them. Such are the demands of practical adaptation – any lapse here simply foretells Psyche’s demise.

To see this generative differentiation better, consider that Psyche embodies five senses. Within this presumed sentience:

First: Following an HDD model, one might think Psyche’s five senses yield ten total sign types (two signs per sense). This assumes each sense is binary and discrete, performing as if all other senses do not matter.

Second: But our senses are deeply coordinated, producing unified sensations. This suggests a “network logic” where every possible recombinant joining of five senses (31 total), and then two signs for each sense, yields 961 possible sign types. This network logic mitigates signal ambiguity by essentially using adjacent (possible) senses as cross-reference – or, more signal entropy better matches/mimics (parses) the material entropy of disturbed environs.

Third: At the same time, to think that each sense engenders only two signs is false; we do not usually hear a binary “something or nothing.” We hear a complex: a fly buzzing about our head, and a dog’s distant bark, while the wind rustles some leaves, as the neighbor mows his lawn. We focus on each signal for ever-more narrative/generative detail. This implies a much larger number of sign types, well beyond 961, a number at which we can only naively guess.

Fourth: This analysis ignores that Psyche must process complex analogue signals (worldly values) in differentiating its data, where IT uses digitized analogue sign types.

Differentiated (sign type)s aggregation also applies to finding order in empiric-aesthetic entropy, broached earlier when modeling a Lever in Figure E. Levers are typically named Class 1, 2, or 3, where the empiric order of a Lever’s aesthetic elements – fulcrum F, effort E, and load L (or Fit + Direction and Scale) – sets a Lever’s Class/Order (Figures F and G). In examining Lever meta-dynamics we see that: 1. As a baseline, the work within one Fit (aesthetic order) transmits sign types, and any Fit or

Lever instability (material entropy, erratic differences) induces noise in that signal entropy. All empiric Lever Classes are shown below as First, Second, and Third Orders.

2. Within any one empiric Lever Order variants may arise (aesthetic entropy) due to shifts in the value of fulcrum, effort, and load (aesthetic elements), while the empiric order of those elements is unchanged. Differentiation of aesthetic element values thus DRIVES aesthetic order and related sign type presentations (Figure F, note I).

3. If a Fit’s order (of F, E, and L) does change, new empiric orders arise: Class 1 becomes Class 2, and Class 2 becomes Class 3. De novo aesthetic orders and sign types are afforded by each new empiric order. Thus, diverse Lever Classes share aesthetic elements, but held in different



empiric orders. Differentiation of aesthetic element order thus MODIFIES empiric order, aesthetic entropy, and subsequent sign type production (Figure F, note II; Figure G).

4. Further, functional voids occur between empiric orders. If two aesthetic elements join, the named Lever lapses and de novo aesthetic elements arise as a “fulcrum load” and “effort load.” Compound (aesthetic) elements offer new parametric (adjacent) possibilities, which then require a de novo match to convey any functioning (no signs produced yet, possible exaptation). Thus, differentiation as aesthetic element compounding (or division) DISRUPTS empiric orders and all subordinate facets (Figure G; Figure F, note III).

Figure F: Three Lever Classes: named subject Orders. The empiric order of: load L, fulcrum F, and effort E (aesthetic elements) defines the Class. (I) In a First empiric Order (left to right), if L draws closer to F, E decreases (Δ aesthetic value = aesthetic entropy). Diverse aesthetic values reflect Hammers, Pliers, etc. in diverse positions, sizes, and shapes, but with the same basic Fit. For example, a Hammer’s “slotted claw” or “adjustable” Pliers afford a range of aesthetic values (sign types). This aesthetic entropy stays within Class 1 until L joins F, and an asymptote arises (Figure G, green 0) – E collapses, the Lever lapses, and empiric Order is broken. (II) When L moves past F, towards E, a Second empiric Order arises. And, if L’s rightward shift persists until L joins E, Order is again broken and another asymptote occurs (Figure G). As L then moves past E, a Third empiric Order arises. Five empiric orders (empiric entropy) are noted: three symmetric functioning Levers (Class 1, 2, and 3), and two asymmetric (proto-empiric, ambiguous) orders. (III) Asymmetric elements of fulcrum load F-L and effort load E-L (not shown) require a new match to convey any functioning, but we know already (from experience) that these parametric/aesthetic variants (de novo elements) afford a functioning Ramp/Wedge and Pendulum, each in its own context.

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Figure G: A graph of differentiated mechanical advantage (MA) for three Lever Classes. All aesthetic elements are constant except for the distance (D) between load (L) and fulcrum (F): Δ DL-F (dotted red line). Following Figure F’s



narrative, this image shows a scaled functioning continuum as Lever MA. The climbing red line (left to right) shows MA increases as L approaches F, in Class 1. Also, signal entropy (in yellow) is shown for one aesthetic order of a Class 1 Lever, with many variants possible (aesthetic entropy), within any given Class. When L joins F, an MA asymptote occurs (first green 0) – a novel “not Lever” emerges or devolves. The same occurs at the next asymptote (second green 0), which later affords an inverse MA. Empiric-aesthetic variants that arise outside of, or adjacent to, the red MA line (not shown) entail noise in some form: “noisy” Levers, erratic differences, and/or material entropy.

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This study of Lever meta-dynamics shows that Bateson-like differences in Fit + Direction and Scale (aesthetic elements) enable every transition. Further, key empiric-aesthetic shifts mark two branching events, one gradual (modified) and the other punctuated (disruptive) – often noted as novelty or “emergence.” In this analysis we can thus say that relatable object differentiation, of aesthetic elements, guides all functioning and functional transitions – subjectivity.

The centrality of aesthetic elements (Fit + Direction and Scale) in every operative role implies a type of elemental data and a scaled functioning continuum for all simple machines (an inferred core metadata). Also, nearly all organisms employ some system Levers to navigate and exploit the evolutionary landscape. As such, Figure G may be seen as a crude map of the operative roles needed for survival – or, a type of adaptive consciousness or intelligence. Elemental functioning can equally be labeled “Evolutionary Habits” or pattern dynamics. Lastly, those elements mirror the role of leptons, quarks, and bosons in the Standard Model. But, relational logic is modeled here in a Lever to show much greater variability. This operative variability also appears in much of art, music, and mathematics (Hofstadter, 1980).



For Psyche, object differentiation likely first arose as a migratory role. Over eons hominids have searched their environs, differentiating spaces and resources. As a minor “advantageous habit,” this migration might improve as a regular practice (zugenruhe), and then enlarge as “sustained speculation” – a more psychological vista. Each step our ancestors took past the African expanse, towards new environs, generatively enlarged their aggregate sign types (adjacent latency), and hence, individual signal entropy and functioning (subjective) potential. When those signs are then promulgated as archetypal memes, via paintings, songs, myths, books, the Internet, etc. – an informational strategy of distributed memory – the recombinant (adaptive and exaptative) role of those differentiated signs can inflate explosively. Distributed memory, in turn, enables our species’s far-reaching social constructs of collaboration and competition.

What we must now call “progressively refined imagination” enhances human survival so much that a once hoary psychological habit now unfolds formidably (recklessly?) as a “cognitive ecology,” material culture, the Anthropocene epoch, and a sixth mass extinction. Our psychological role likely arose some 40,000 to 100,000 years ago as a cultural Great Leap Forward, or the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. It marks a schism between behaviorally modern humans and anatomically modern humans, some 200,000 years ago. The exact date and cause(s) of this transition are elusive, but its evidence pervades the archeological record (CARTA, 2013).

In asserting naïve wanderlust, we begin to in-form ourselves; a formative process arises, the limits of which we have not yet seen. But it is imagination (relational logic) alone that allows us to think “something exists” (noumena) beyond the bare earth directly before us (phenomena). It is imagination as Peirce’s abduction (inference) that allows us to posit a hypothesis, design a trial, and envision a result, thereby defining every scientific endeavor. It is “the only logical operation which introduces any new idea” (Peirce, CP 5.172). Our imaginal self unbolts a trans-formative Abyss, or Pandora’s Box, where a subconscious mind craves ever-more differentiated signals. I label this divisive human imagination a “Sacred Wound,” a psychologic autonomy or separation that pushes our reasoning beyond the innately joined unity of a matched cosmos.

Designation, the last interpretive filter, entails the making of meaning, Level D. Making of meaning is defined here as: trial-and-error conduct that enacts, sustains, enlarges, and endures functioning – as coeval natural selection. But this definition suggests two questions: 1) Why is trial and error needed?, and 2) How is natural selection relevant? A. In creating meaning, trial and error helps parse recurrent order (functioning) from material

entropy (dysfunction), since what divides the two can be vague. In many systems, order and disorder are enmeshed, evident as mortality, decay, rot, etc. How, then, does one parse those entangled traits? We begin with simple views of the cosmos (instructive myths, etc.) . . . and later “formal experiments” emerge.

B. Natural selection marks an apex in human meaning. It grounds an archetypal/scientific view of life-death – it affords us a core meme (Wilson, 2009; Becker, 1973). Without some ab initio sense of “value” to underlie human informational wherewithal, “meaning” itself can have no “meaning” as a knowable and divisive disorder ➔ order. Also, if selection dynamics are unclear for a species (e.g., confused predator-prey roles as self-predation and self-selection), moral/social puzzles arise that are still gauged against natural selection. Here, natural selection is seen as a broad interaction of material entropy (dysfunction, disorder)



and signal entropy (order); where material entropy also affords a modicum of empiric-aesthetic entropy (recurrent order) in typical random collisions that may match.

Every trial-and-error event thus presents a likely logic, value, order, or meaning that is evident as life/persistence or death/oblivion – it resolves existential ambiguity. As such, designation entails self-preservation; beyond the basic self-organizing seen in the prior interpretive filters. Hence, a willful intentionality (teleonomy: for a given purpose), or “intelligence,” is inferred.

Designation points to Bateson’s second difference in “a difference that makes a difference.” But this notion of “makes a difference” poses some problems. Cyberneticist Søren Brier (2008, ch. 4.3) notes that to whom or to what it “makes a difference” is not named (subjectivity), nor is to what end it “makes a difference” named (objectivity). Further, Bateson (1972, pp. 463-464) notes that “differences are themselves to be differentiated,” but he is silent on how this occurs. Lastly, the process of “making a difference” is unstudied; Bateson notes only that “differences arise and are reported,” but goes no further. Such missing details also show in the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, who assumes the presence of sign types but never defines (a priori) sign-type production, while Shannon likewise presumes a presence of meaningful content (Shannon’s gap, note 2).

Some of these issues were covered by earlier analysis. Matching marks to whom or to what it “makes a difference” by defining an initial context. To what end it makes a difference is named as recurrent material transmissions that afford functioning. A sense of how “differences are differentiated” is given as parameter(s) + relatability, and refined via Fit + Direction and Scale. Lastly, sign type production is modeled as primitive data and a “first ontological event” (re Level Z). A “second ontological event” is what we now aim to clarify as the designation of functioning (subject) content – Level D.

In HDDs designation is set via metadata (Table 1); they hold no trial-and-error conduct. Instead, HDDs operate via mechanical cause-and-effect. Trial and error occurs for HDDs, but only in the human debugging of human hardware and software designs – a bestowed aesthetic order. Even a wall thermostat, argued to be Psyche-like (Chalmers, 1996), has an ontology and epistemology wholly defined by human deeds. Thus, thermostats, HDDs, cars, etc., have no identity past a pre-de-signed function, toward some human (adaptive) need. As such, engineered devices entail a set content (embodied, even homuncular, content), but they offer no autonomous designations. To think otherwise ignores the engineers who conceive, design, produce, and program those devices. Similarly, in a most primitive manner liquids also have an embodied content that differs from that of solids and gasses, etc. – a natural content design modeled by the Schrödinger equation.

Still, a sense that de-signed devices are “conscious” seems common. They do, after all, embody native interpretive roles (matching, differentiation, and designation). Those interpretive designs afford each device an appearance of adaptive functioning. But this functioning is not self-organized, autonomous, nor does it reflect “subjectively meaningful” self-preservation or self re-production. Thus, the idea that the Internet or your iPhone is conscious, or that one’s personality is machine upload-able, etc. (Kurzweil, 2013; Koch, 2012) are suspect. Such claims often rely on vague or absent definitions of information, consciousness, intelligence and the like. Moreover, the principle of transmittable materiality asserts that, even if a full rendering of one's personality is downloaded to a device, new material transmissions generated by that new platform will, at the least, affect the resultant “personality.” Thus, de-signed material forms extend Psyche’s



adaptive reach as distributed memory and related functioning – but only for those individuals able to properly use said devices (an external agency is still required).

For Psyche, designation (trial-and-error conduct) sets the core of an in situ “behavioral habit.” The qualities of that behavior determine who becomes “extinct” and who lingers “conscious” – the making of a difference (for that entity). Consciousness thus arises as a self-mapped (surviving object) form of one’s functioning subject content. This “map” largely parallels metadata’s role in HDDs. As a further example, the MacBook on which I write this paper (exercising my personal adaptivity) is objectively identical to all MacBooks of a given production cycle, but then “my MacBook” is subjectively unique in its metadata functioning, per my usage of it – which then conveys an extended “Marcus consciousness” that is intentionally and critically overseen by me.

In sum, Psyche’s experience of consciousness is akin to experiencing an autonomously encoded/encoding metadata. A key difference is that Psyche’s “metadata” afford spontaneous adaptive deeds (designations), but HDD metadata do not. This argues for a metadata-consciousness of clear recombinant roles, with both objective (genetic) and subjective (functioning) habits. Figure G offers a crude map of one such recombinant role, but it does not reflect what we might call an “intelligence” – at best, it presents what we might intelligent differentiation, not designation. A recombinant role without adaptive trial-and-error conduct is “meaningless.” Only recombinant metadata matched with “selection dynamics,” for context, would mark a subjective, meaningful, designating, teleonomic “intelligence.”

As such, defining “intelligent designation” – often seen as free will or intentionality – requires a recombinant core metadata that entails selection dynamics; but for now such modeling lies largely un-touched. Regardless, if such a model is created, it might then be deployed as a computer machine intelligence, or an artificial general intelligence (AGI). If that extendable machine intelligence then surpassed human wherewithal, this would imply an artificial super intelligence (Bostrom, 2008).

That Psyche has a selectively-recombinant informatics (subjective designation) is unsurprising. Our lack of direct purpose-built tools demands a means of indirect resource access. Recombinant informatics allow that indirect access, and affords material re-productive advances for skilled individuals. Further, humanity’s most distinct tool – hands: a generalist/ambiguous device – demands a naturally recombinant, even imaginative, operating system (informatics, psychology), to realize functioning by grasping and wielding diverse objects. Indeed, our hands “animate” inanimate objects, a type of “super-naturalism” to parallel Monod’s (1971) animism. Moreover, the Bateson-like “making of tool objects that make a subjective difference” underlies all human commerce. But even if this entropic (ad)vantage, or entropic mimicry, does arise for a talented individual, their survival is still not assured. For example, if the Earth offered only one static environment (low entropy), more specialized entities (as opposed to generalists) would prevail.

But a unitary environment is not what Psyche confronts. Instead, humans continually seek out new tools, education, and research, honing their informational relevance. This informational refinement is entrained, perforce, by a period of increasingly acute environmental shift – the span between 356,000 to 50,000 years ago. A 306,000-year stretch of alternating mega-droughts with stints of moist abundance aligns with the arrival of behaviorally modern humans 200,000 years



ago (Potts, 2013). Erratic material constraint/affordance (entropy) thus imposed on Psyche, and other species, a operative role that incites an evolutionary arms race – what Leigh Van Valen (1973) calls the Red Queen’s race, where “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Such intense entropic cycles naturally “prime the pump” of creativity, where only those entities that aptly “mimic” (or, alternatively, avoid) this entropic crescendo will survive.

Still, a deeper question of “Why would anything like Psyche ever evolve?” lies unanswered. As suggested above, we may claim that an entropic crescendo naturally demands and affords more entropic processes and processing. But then this also assumes a type of agency (trial-and-error conduct) we often attribute to “Life processes;” although explaining that Life agency is beyond the scope of this paper. Still, even in our weak grasp of Life we see DNA as a type of living core metadata, which reinforces the paper’s main tenet. Furthermore, at the other end of a “Life contra material entropy/Death” continuum, material entropy is also undefined. Some equate material entropy to thermodynamic entropy (Deacon, 2011), but doing so omits many of the forces known and defined in the Standard Model, along with every known-but-still-undefined (or even unknown) force like gravity, quantum mechanics, matter-antimatter annihilations and asymmetry, dark energy, dark matter, etc. As before, explaining humanity’s incomplete grasp of Energy is beyond this paper’s reach.

Despite our incomplete sense of Life and Energy, we easily accept that both exist. Moreover, a reductive “functionalist information theory,” as presented here, would accommodate discoveries on either front. We still see Life and Energy in terms of basic functioning, despite our awkward absence of useful details. As such, this paper’s analysis need not be impeded if entropic results continue to arise that hold some (functioning) meaning, and where the making of meaningful differences remains of interest. A complete model of material entropy (noumena) would offer many likely advances, but, in the meantime, it remains incumbent upon the species to adapt as far as practical to known phenomena – for only those who do so will hold a re-productive future.

Summary Analysis: Case Three examines interpretation. It notes that metadata forms present subject content, and that “object interpretation” is the process by which metadata arise (from Case Two). This interpretive process is then detailed, as follows: 1. Interpretation entails three sequential filters – matching, differentiation, and designation –

which afford three functioning presentations: null, normal, and ambiguous. Each filter is then studied to illuminate the a priori origins of a filter’s process.

2. First, matching presents minimal primitive data in a dualistic-triune form: parameter[s] + relatability, born of Level Z. These minimal data entail a material variability (empiric logic/entropy) that can be aesthetically refined via Fit + Direction and Scale (relational logic, selection). Entropic logic, as empiric-aesthetic entropy, is then interposed between material entropy and signal entropy to explain Shannon’s gap and the need to fill that gap with meaningful subject content (recurrent functioning) to bring about any actual information.

3. Second, differentiation presents “Bateson primary (object) differences.” For a given match, diverse object differences permit the transmission of one Fit’s Direction and Scale – or, an aesthetic order’s “work.” Transmitted differences then present: n sign types = signal entropy, or a Shannon-Weaver Level A equivalent. Reductive versus aggregating differentiation are then contrasted to distinguish IT/HDD models from Psyche’s survival behavior.



4. Third, designation invokes trial-and-error events to present “Bateson secondary (subject) differences”– Level D – which names functioning-and-dysfunction meaning(s), vis-à-vis natural selection. Designation thus implies a teleonomic (for an entity’s benefit) intelligence.

5. Finally, in this analysis: core metadata, a scaled functioning continuum, aesthetic elements, and elemental data are also presented as foundational concepts.

CONCLUSION – Going ForwardTo explain the Hard Problem’s durability, philosopher Colin McGinn (2012) states that it is impossible for humanity to view the core of its own consciousness – the psychological challenge or risk is too great. “McGinn’s curse” is evinced by 2,500 years of rough debate and study on the topic, and now underlies a modern quarrel on artificial intelligence. As a rough parallel example, I admit to a psychological challenge in grasping Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. I accept their veracity but they fall outside of my native thinking. For me they “risk” a more comfortable and facile sense of personal identity. I must reflect deeply before the theories begin to make sense. Further, a similar problem is said to generally exist in quantum mechanics where no single scientific theory prevails.

Still, while few may ever grasp this topic, I assert that empiric models of Psyche are, none-the-less, possible. Hence, “McGinn’s razor” is a more likely way to view those “who can” and those “who cannot.” Such samadhi divisions arise in many practices with a history of contemplative or self-reflective study. Similar divisions also show in scholarly traditions, where the measure of disciplined focus one must exert to reach “true enlightenment” is daunting, even prohibitive. In fact, such samadhi divisions likely exist in every human craft, due to our now-vast cultivation of this multi-functional informational (ad)vantage.

The core problem is not that consciousness, intelligence, or Psyche is unknown to us; rather, it is that it is too well known, too intimate – too obvious. Everyone has de facto life experiences, and hence a de facto working model, everyone is “expert.” This naturally leads to many opinionated conflicts – one problem having one thousand faces. Psyche (informatics) is for us the proverbial water in which a fish swims; humanity’s core adaptive and evolutionary means. The goal is, thus, not so much to view or sense Psyche as it is to model it in workman-like terms (taxonomy) – to make rational “a thing” that can often seem irrational, confused, or even magical and mysterious.

Philosopher John Searle (2004) attempts one such view as “biological naturalism,” perhaps the most practical of many offerings. Searle states that Psyche has an objective ontology (material form, an observer independent event) and a subjective ontology (personal identity, an observer dependent event), which join in a wholly natural manner. But then Searle never details how the two are joined and/or how one derives from the other. He even states that the later is irreducible, where “in the case of [subjective] consciousness, causal [neurological] reducibility does not lead to ontological reducibility” (Searle, 2002, p 60), while claiming a non-dualist view. But Searle’s irreducible subjectivity cannot “objectively answer” the Hard Problem – a regular issue in many models of consciousness.

In contrast, this paper presents a model that joins objective ontology and subjective ontology as a unified dual aspect . . . that later shifts to more complex (scalable) dualistic-triune fractal form. Case One details the subjective (onto)logical presentation of functioning via metadata. Case Two



then maps the objective material (onto)logical processes of that metadata. Case Three expands on this (dualist) object-subject ontology as interpretation – a making of objective data, subjectively meaningful. It details how the two are related – via a minimally triune parameter[s] + relatability – and afford metadata. Case Three also shows empiric-aesthetic entropy (again, parameter[s] + relatability) as filling Shannon’s gap, and affording gradual and punctuated novelty, a scaled functioning continuum, material re-production, and meaningful survival – all “things needed” to describe and explain a modeled Darwinian world. As such, this paper posits a proto-informatics for all human senses, experience, meaning, and knowledge, and is, thus, labeled General Information Theory (GIT).

Two questions still linger: So what? and What next? Answering “So what?” has a similar flavor to trying to find the value in discovering the Higgs boson. At best, it points to a vague possible future. Like a simple man of the 1700s, we cannot now imagine one “magical day” of sitting in a giant silver tube as it rushes by, floating in the air, like a hurried time machine. But, everyone inside is calm, even bored, causally working or reading; as a coiffed attendant passes by offering drinks and snacks. But in this age of Dick Tracy wristwatches, we must view a “Star Trek effect” as a likely, rather than unlikely, part of our human journey. Still, in the end, So what? is nearly forgotten, as we quickly, eagerly (naïvely, dangerously?) begin clutching at What next?

To answer What next? has an immediacy that is a rational relief, as compared to pondering an “impossibly possible” future of unimagined benefits (and unintended consequences). To realize a future with “elemental data” displacing a computer’s Bits, a core metadata structure must first be named. This paper suggests a dualistic-triune fractal form, but that concept is unproven and even better models may be possible. Further, the recombinant “evolution” of information means that core metadata will likely appear as a table of tables, pointing to type theory, group theory, and category theory, or some other hierarchical mathematical framing. Next, an entire suite of elemental data (aesthetic elements) must be catalogued in an ordering of all logical orders. This task – a Herculean collaborative feat in an era of specialized interests – is likely equal to the task of mapping DNA. Following the cataloging of aesthetic elements, a recombinant ordering of logical operations (aka selection dynamics) must be mapped. Lastly, many political and cultural hurdles must be surpassed. In short, vested interests abound on many fronts (market resistance); entrenched educational systems seem incapable of training critical thought (staffing risk); and the short-term goals of investment capital (financial risk) preclude the depth of focus needed to complete this project. Still, GIT’s undertaking seems more likely, than not, if we simply consider our species’s recent advances in informatics.

Regardless, from the above analysis it seems, at least, possible to frame a working definition of “consciousness” in relation to Psyche as: an operating schema (metadata) for engaging in spontaneous energy-matter exchanges upon the evolutionary landscape (Abundis, 2009). The defining of “intelligence,” in equivalent first-principle terms, must await completion of further research – specifically the modeling of aesthetic elements and selection dynamics.

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Psyche as an Informational Strategy (GIT)