Sketchy Model of my "Principle of Strong Immersion"

strong immersion as proposed criteria for an “aware” /autonomous life form

(First appearing on FB in Nov 2016)

I think for a being to be so-called "conscious" or have apparent autonomy (what looks like "free will") it must be a global non-equilibrium sensory system folded in on itself and immersed in its environment to an extent that it processes the outside as its inside and the inside as its outside. To appear to have free will it must make its "decisions" based on global non-equilibrium responses to its outer environment (which is also topologically part of its inner environment). Programming based on digitally modelling exclusively pre-assigned choices will result in an automaton dependent on another global sensory non-equilibrium life form immersed in its environment. (Programming based on pre-signed choices represents a language, which can be executed by living systems and used to direct other beings and automaton objects into apparent cultures, but not to replicate sensory experience or integrate an automaton into a situation allowing apparent autonomous choice; language is not sensate and not conscious, but dependent upon sensate interpreters). Also consciousness is analog and a digital representation will not suffice.

 (I’m going to be developing this idea more rigorously)

Links:

Jenny Lorraine Nielsen·Tuesday, November 29, 2016

https://www.edge.org/conversation/stuart_a_kauffman-the-adjacent-possible

https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-is-life-analog-or-digital