Re: virus: the universe

psypher (overload@fastmail.ca)
Wed, 19 May 1999 07:54:00 -0400 (EDT)

> You're saying significance is significant? Isn't that circular? Or
> is that what "[recursively speaking]" is supposed to cover? I don't
> see how this connects with the concepts of subjective and objective
> information.

...the concept of significance is an abstraction pertaining to the weight of factors in the process of making decisions. The abstraction [significance] can be applied to itself as a concept.

> How can there be a "particular consciousness" in an undivided
> universe?

...the universe can never be perceived directly as whole because all observation occurs from within the system. A player in an orchestra is both playing a particular pattern of music and contributing to a work as a whole. While playing the part, the player can have no awareness of the composition as a whole. ...same concept, only there's no audience. ...Lao Tzu said it better several thousand years ago.

> How does a pattern "become self-aware"?

...by being sufficiently complex to be unable to integrate all factors which have bearing on its evolution.

-psypher



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