On the Symbols Framework
A meta-white paper about the framework. It's superposition addressees gaps and reconciles long standing scientific and philosophical riddles. The mass-energy-information-through observer position.
Based on thesis:
C. Stefan “Life, the Observer, and Consciousness”, v0.1b, Oct. 2024.
https://doi.org/10.31237/osf.io/y4ctm1And on:
C. Stefan “On Time, Mass and Symbols” 2And extending on:
C. Stefan “On Quantum Physics and Consciousness“3
Abstract
The paper proposes the simplest imprint of the Symbols Framework, which is a novel conceptual architecture for understanding life, cognition, consciousness, culture, and reality itself. At its heart lies the concept of the Symbol, a non-dualistic entity embodying both energetic/material potential and operational/meaningful function that it is relevant to the instances at their level of generativity and frame of reference.
Introduction
Any framework should be able to explain its means in simple terms at some point. At the same time any significant framework makes use of own terminology, and this is I think, the sign that it is really taking a leap forward in conceptual clarification and gap filling. Thus Symbols Framework through its thesis as foundational means, is to be acknowledged as two fold: it has the means of conceptual “therapy” for the reader, only so it can became revolutionary and second, it still stays within the scientific and wisdom of our culture, and is built on that accumulated knowledge over millennia. The “old” problems are here thus addressed and solved by the means of these metaphysical forward leaps and a rearrangement of what we knew since long4. Thus a new era may begin, a new Zeitgeist for science in general.5
Motivation
For accessibility, here I gathered here the meta-white paper of the framework. The Symbols Framework is seen as the framework which is able to offer an ensemble of conceptual contiguity that goes from inanimate matter, to what biological life is, how it is driven, what our position is, what drives the observer, what makes us humans. How it is all related to the actual views on HL-AI, quantum physics, philosophical rests, and a new scientific demarcation. A framework that makes a 100 x fold in simplification, without trivialization or reductionism, on the contrary, having also the materialist position, and without appealing to a mystical or panpsychist discourse, nor appealing to quantum supremacy in consciousness views, rather having a position in explaining their origin and position within the whole spectrum. This happens by re-framing and re-positioning of the items, and of connecting the dots according to the conceptual emergence that happened through the exploratory “thinking movement” of over 25 years.
The items: the Observer definition of the Symbols Framework
Essentially starting by proposing a definition of the “observer” instance according to the foundational thesis.6 Meaning, we meet it at the crux of constrains and of its “soft” nature of modeling capacity as a resonant instance within its niche and of its niche. In its frame of reference, it works with “soft” items which can be seen as the information as a form of matter, but as we shall see here, subtly, there is a bi-directional action: from existing forms in his “stable” generativity plateau7 and recast through its modeling means, working like an inertial force.
So we position here: exactly at this crux, with our definition of observer, there is the means of enaction of that mass-energy-information-through-observer areal. This is how a gap here is closed.
Foundational Concepts
• Differentials: Change, contrast, and difference are the primordial ground, the "first differential" at the cosmic scale representing the intersection of matter and energy, from which our level emerges. Yet positing that there may be no access to the first differential, due the kind of instances at the local level and frame we are. But the other differentials are all around and we scaffold through them.
• Energy Potential: Life matter is too fundamentally characterized by "energy potential" – from the differential, then towards a dynamic, generative capacity rooted in Eg. membrane potentials, metabolic processes, and bio-fields, when we talk about our frame and our local environment, Gaia. This all is the motive force of life. The piercing of these “fields” through the plateaus.
• Homeostatic Arc: Life matter operates within a "homeostatic arc," a dynamic drive to maintain stability, self-organization, and functional integrity in the face of environment niche where it operates. A flux that it is within the parameters, most of the time, vs. the arc, the arc itself is a reflection of that environment. The homeostatic arc is not on an “alien” environment self-assembled. The arc itself is fit to be in that niche, there are in most circumstances no “surprises.” No instance is to deal with “uncertainty,” due Omniload and thus “known unknowns” which are never “unknown (un)knowns”.
• The life-cycle conjecture through the framework, may itself be a derivation from those mentioned homeostatic arc differentials in the environment niche: when too much “surprise”, change, then life span is adjusted as to imprint as fast as possible the changes to the offspring. Thus always a fit offspring.
• Information as Symbols: Mass-energy-information-through-observer. Information, in this framework, is also pre-existing as derived from an objective structure of the universe (the “shape of the drop” analogy: because of the non-raw entropic level unto which the units are emerging and the inertial from the first differential), but also by the enaction of the Symbols themselves by the instances. Those are imprinted in the structure described above. As it does it through the arc expressions itself. Symbols are the fundamental units of information. It is through Symbols that instances exist and are dynamically driven at every scale. Information is thus inherently embodied, relational, and observer-dependent, shaped by the level of the operation an instance is located in, situatedness between plateaus, which help in up-building the instance, and by the type of instance that processes it, which is the expression of the situatedness. Not that “quantum fields” are conscious, or that the penetration of the differential we sit on is animating us, is conscious. The mode of operation with Symbols makes us see as it is conscious. Not that we are in an universe of simulation, but that the reverberation, as described in the Symbols Framework, is dissipating in creation of Symbols and new generativity plateaus, through which we inscribe the interpretation meaning of “conscious” (a new Symbol in itself), through our “arc” instance’s expression. The connection is at this crux: the universes differential is translating in units of operation relevant to the level of the instance, itself de facto consisting of these units, not alien to them, as an instance itself of the differential, and differentials at its local level. Thus it is a resonating one. And we are now seeing the “observer” definition, its frame of reference, the environment and the colony, and this information as the information that redirected upon itself, goes to form his conscious perception.
• The transition from Matter to Life Matter: the observer definition in thesis and what it unfolds from this through the whole Symbols Framework.
• Time as Enacted and Relative: Time is not an universal, pre-existing dimension of the universe, but an enacted property of each instance. Every instance possesses its own, relative time, shaped by its internal dynamics and processes. This introduces a form of "relativity of time" within the Symbols Framework, suggesting that time as we experience it is more relative as thoughts, it is fundamentally instance-relative and mediated.
Emergence of Symbols and the Symboliad:
• Symbols: From differentials and energy potential, Symbols emerge. These are not mere representations, but active, dynamic entities – "bubbles” of non-dualist nature, both of energy means and also residing in a basin, hardware. They are the fundamental units of operation, meaning, and information. Anchored in the basin. The basin of the energy structure above the instance.
• Properties of Symbols: Crucially, Symbols possess properties that define their nature and function:
◦ “Externsiveness”: Defined by the sustainment by the other Symbols in the structure, so meaning and information content are relational, and contextual. No isolated Symbol, no isolated potential (again the bubbles: are popping in the scale free network.) Relational diverse and contextual diverse, such as it is the energy potential. This implies values of “truth”, such are the Symbols, representing something for instances. This depends on the completeness, roundness of a Symbol and which adjacent Symbols a focus is on, thus what solution is constrained at some point. There is a vast connection with every Symbol and focus or attention is constraining a solution, but always in an forward inertial. The fields of energy is like a flow, never to be stopped.8 And, this is crucial: the attention itself is always directed towards other Symbols (not to an objective reality.) The modeling is through directing the energy. The expression of the body itself, is directing energy. This energy is the primary force that drives further imprinting, in genes, or down the stream.
◦ Open-ness: Dynamic and adaptable, constantly evolving and open to modification, enabling information to be updated and transformed.
◦ Share-ness: Symbol is inherently resonant among the instances of that kind of life form, and ultimately social, forming a shared space within colonies and cultures, allowing for shared information and meaning. There is no mind of ones own, without this culture.
◦ Omniload: Each Symbol carries a "weight of Symbols," a dynamic, attention-activated subset of the structure, providing context, rich information, and potential for meaning creation. This is, as any energy potential different meaning for each instances kinds, but also slight different, within the colony’s instances too.
• Symboliad: the structure. Symbols collectively structure the Symboliad, a dynamic, evolving, and colony shaped state space. The Symboliad is the "real" real. The Reality thus comprised of the non-dual Symbols and itself as a whole a non objectively real and absolute space we inhabit and through which we “experience” the world and ultimately process information. It is a realm of potentiality, not real objectivity, yet this space has the supreme potential of the driver itself at every scale, enacted and relevant to the observers of a kind within their niche. The same principle applies to every kind of instances within their niche. Even to non-biological systems, but which have the structural “arc” able to sustain the items like in a flow and working like the principles in the framework. The “soft space” which is a catalyst enacted between the “elements in the mix.” 9
Dynamics of Generativity and Transformation:
• Generativity: Life matter, through "generativity," constantly produces novelty within the element of that level where they occur, they are also a reflection of the level. This occurs through:
◦ Plateaus of Generativity: Relatively stable levels of organization along the matter and within life form. Within life form one can see the level of observer and a level up towards conscious perception, as a new plateau of generativity, that works also in reverse towards the instance. The redirection towards itself. An orthogonal space of generativity itself (the pendulation and inertial, the dissipation of self-assembling), and in it also the arc expressions, uttering, language and tools, AI dimension, new high-level tools, thus a new generativity plateau. But this concept is general: at every stage of phase transition in matter, of self-organisation, there are new and new plateaus appearing. Near the life form level, there is no raw entropy. It is a self-assembling, through the inertial, new plateaus, a pendulation between plateaus, new kind of composed inertial, self-organisation, “pleasure” of the fluidity of that process, the arc redirection upon itself, the observer to conscious perception, the masking of the natural inertial, the arising dualism of meaning, the differentials through the impediment and fluid. New generativit plateau as meaning relevant already, in the conscious perception, good/bad, tools, differentials in Symbols enacted vs. a reality confirmed/unconfirmed by the arc’s “bubbles”. The further inertial of realization of the differentials from the top generativity pleateau (Eg. of science) and the “cognitive” and “psychological” urge to realize it in the real, tangible real. “Symbols in a space, in a mental space vs. an imprint of it in real.”The Hebbian action of what works, the solution that may go down the stream, imprinted.10
◦ Transition Phases: Dynamic periods between plateaus where new "items" emerge, driven by the potentials and "energy fields" carrying and transforming information in upper levels. The energy piercing through, and carry some information up. This is the new kind of inertial. The instance is positioned to the items within its phase. The "electronic structure" as the main constrain/drive in the assembling path, as it may cross the phase transition, adding information from the lower plateau, biasing the assembly up, so the glue to the next plateau. And this still propagates from a first differential.11
◦ Pendulation: Life forms may "pendulate" between levels, dynamically exploring transition phases and processing information across levels. Whereas a causal penetration between the levels is weak. Due to different means of the items self-assembled and different frame of reference needed to be adopted, if ever possible. But from this non static position, we have an inertial, different from the first inertial but still penetrating and adding new forms.
◦ Inertial: A fundamental force, from a first differential, counteracted by life's drive for extension and organization, yet still shaping information processing and change further in through the levels, plateaus. An inertial that pierces through the self-organisation and self-assembling elements in a plateau and broadly “guide.” A guide in self-assembling and self-organisation.
Further up to a meaning space: a Symbol once realized (through “externsion”) in the frame of the plateau, is to be realized (applied, and sometimes deposited in homeostatic or imprinted down the stream, up to genes) by the instance in the environment. The flow is up, and enacting Symbols. Eg. a preliminary tackling as in “Going to the most sound proof places isn't going to bring the silence.”12
◦ Pleasure: At its most basic, pleasure is experienced as unimpeded self-assembling processes, indicating smooth information flow and homeostatic balance. What impedes that vs. smooth creates the differential for “pleasure,” at the most basic level of the self-organisation process it is a differential across all scales of self-assembling. Inertial is to up-build, contra-inertial is losing momentum and energy against entropy. This up-build vs. contra differential translates into "pleasure". Inertial is due self-assembling, and all the construction as seen through the framework here.
◦ “Externsion”: Interaction and exchange between environment and instances adds Symbols. On that flow, “bubbles” are forming. On that flow one is redirecting energy and create new bubbles, now also tagged. At that plateau of generativity, through which one has learned to tag, the instance is performing "externsion" which is the drive of the creation of new Symbols and expand the Symboliad, generating new information and meaning. The process is working unconsciously very much, as through the thesis: one learns meaning by completing new Symbols, but “learning” is by “planting” or having an areal of seeds - one is to be attentive if possible to which Symbols it submits or considers, as they are the seeds from which the “externsion” happens. Because the “externsion” happens anyhow, on the inertial, the “bubbles” are forming, so one is on an ongoing flow of completing Symbols. And these go down the stream towards environment or own arc, through imprint, modeling the instance, adding to the Symboliad. Thus adding to the offspring too. Thus we have the decoding - encoding as formalized in the thesis.
• Interpretation of Interpretation: By the nature of the Symbol, potential means, it is not differentiating what kind of information it stores. The Symbol that “one is thinking” is an interpretation, by the very nature of the Symbols, not an objective reality and non-dual. Meta-cognition is an interpretation of interpretation, yet it is just another Symbol, at the same level with the first “interpretation” or relevance. There is no meta-cognition in the actual common sense.
• Neurons, Thoughts and Propositions: Propositions are not even owned by the instance alone, as these always are tagged from a colony areal, and working as proposed so far with the Symbols properties. Propositions and neurons are far apart, separated by generativity plateaus. The shaman got the intuition of the Symboliad space, but which the language based religions that appeared are obfuscating it (they are mostly orthogonal to the issues due that formalization and implicit dualism adopted eg. good/evil Symbols.) Brain uses its energy to encode and decode. Every Symbol is an expression of the body-mind and colony. Mind is, broadly speaking, not in the brain. The small pointers of differentials in the brain are connected outside to the Symboliad.
Dissolution of Dualisms and of Foundational Problems:
• Non-Dualism of Symbols and Symboliad: The framework's central achievement is the non-dual nature of Symbols and the Symboliad, effectively dissolving the mind-body problem. Symbols are both energetic/material and meaningful/operational/informational, bridging the gap between traditionally separated realms.
• Rejection of Meta-cognition and "Hard Problem” of Consciousness: "Interpretation of interpretation" and the non-hierarchical nature of the Symboliad eliminate the need for meta-cognition as a separate faculty. Consciousness is understood as an emergent property of the dynamic, embodied, and recursive processes of interpretation and information processing itself, thus a dissolving of the "hard problem."
• Truth Reconceptualized: Truth is not about direct correspondence to an objective reality, but is redefined as an internal property of emergent, stable, and widely "believed" Symbols within the Symboliad – a pragmatic and socially constructed understanding of truth, where "believed" is tied to effective information processing and social coherence, that in turn is updated to “truths” which are of cognitive means, based on differentials, which in turn are connected to the external driver, the Symboliad.
• Time as Instance-Relative bounded: The framework dissolves the notion of absolute, universal time, replacing it with an understanding of time as instance-relative and intrinsic to it. Time, as experienced and understood, is not a pre-existing dimension but is constituted by the dynamic processes within each instance's Symboliad drive way. The systems within their plateaus are instantiating their time.
• Orthogonal Space: Within the Symboliad exists an "orthogonal space," representing socially constructed and culturally "truth" norms, values, and ethical principles. This space:
◦ From uttering, expression of the arc (body) the generativity potential plateau to the new differentials among the colony of the instances kind.
◦ At language level a causality becomes complete. The roundness of Symbols and persistence. Not that it is a “true” causality but more powerful significance: it becomes the medium between the instances and the driver.
◦ Provides "norms and guides" for life in the colony.
◦ Acts as "meta-drivers" shaping the environment and the colony itself.
◦ Works on the "homeostatic imprint," ensuring generational "fit" within the social, cultural landscape and the functional drag.
◦ Shapes "Modeling Means" and filters "Information." A Hebbian view can be cast that way.
• Agency and Free Will Reconsidered: Agency is understood as "weak," constrained by Omniload, inertial forces, and the "orthogonal space" of social norms.
Modeling Means – through the orthogonal space in Symboliad: the life form as form of life.
• Language: A primary system of modeling, shaped by all the principles we've discussed. Language has the placeholder but also the game to the meaning acquiring dimension: a reconciliation of this problem through the framework.
• Mathematics and Logic: Formal symbolic systems for abstract modeling and reasoning, also culturally shaped and operating within the Symboliad. Through its cones of meaning. Both invented and discovered.
• Science and Scientific Theories: Systematic modeling means for understanding the natural world, guided by orthogonal space values of objectivity, empirical validation, and explanatory power. Yet they are still models sometimes very close to the confirmation by the arc, sometimes describing the function of the arc itself (quantum effects.)
• Art, Music, and Literature: Symbolic modeling means for exploring emotions, experiences, and cultural values, often deeply embedded in the orthogonal space of a culture. Not much different as the science space. So in a sense: all we do is a form of art.
• Social Institutions, Laws, and Governance Systems: Symbolic structures for organizing societies, regulating behavior, and maintaining social order, fundamentally shaped by orthogonal space and its ethical and normative frameworks.
• Technology: Extended functional areal, embodying and enacting symbolic models of the world and human intentions, and increasingly shaping the Symboliad itself. Together with the social has the means of self-domestication and further functional drag. This is part of the human detour.
• Religion and Mythology: Comprehensive symbolic systems providing meaning, purpose, and ethical frameworks, deeply rooted in the orthogonal space of cultures and seeing through them one can see the framework itself. The Symboliad space evolution, the transition from the shaman to religion through the orthogonal spaces. The feeling of the third person perspective of the Symboliad as implicitly enacted due to its nature of “real” real. Thus the very meaning of Symboliad as the divine.
As a short conclusion
The Symbols Framework offers a powerful and unifying view for understanding life, cognition, and culture. It moves beyond dualisms, embraces dynamism and emergence, and highlights the fundamental role of Symbols and the processes in shaping our reality, our knowledge, and our very being and what drives it: the Symboliad. It provides a foundation for re-examining and potentially dissolving long-standing philosophical problems and offers an encompassing view through the perspective of the definition of observer, how “soft” spaces work, the nature of mind, the conscious perception, the human condition, the mass-energy-information-through-observer gap overall, the nature of time and even extending to a quantum clarification through the framework itself naturally derived.
Further dive:
https://substack.com/@eworks77
AI.EssentiaMundi.com & Legacy
C. Stefan “Life, the Observer, and Consciousness”, v0.1b, Oct. 2024
https://doi.org/10.31237/osf.io/y4ctm
The reference to the guiding mind very relevant today: “The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations.
Author’s research standpoint and original “thinking movement” from which the framework started in 2023: https://www.essentiamundi.com/ai_v0.2.9/AIResearchStandpoint.html
C. Stefan “Life, the Observer, and Consciousness”, v0.1b, Oct. 2024
https://doi.org/10.31237/osf.io/y4ctm
Discussion like Platonic space or other spaces of forms and “something” that is above, dates for millennia of course. Yet for a first time maybe, now, we can have a gap filling with the Observer definition we propose in “Life, the Observer, and Consciousness” thesis.
The introductory citation in the thesis, is also where the Wittgenstein’s work is carried further within Symbols Framework. I am tackling the flow, the nature of language, the masking of the internal nature by the language, the threads and family resemblances, forms of life and many items of great concern in the Philosophical Investigations and the great deal of information left by Wittgenstein.
See: C. Stefan “On Time, Mass and Symbols” or the thesis C. Stefan “Life, the Observer, and Consciousness” for the discussion around what “appears” through the mix. What is always enacted as a third space, essential, yet not existing if elements not interacting in a way.
The study of nature and insights into a space of Symbols in life forms and a realisation in a way, and a Hebbian movement (section “The young one observes.“ in https://www.abbildung.ro/photography-project-2024-environment-cells-life-gaia-sentience-consciousness-symbols-symboliad/
Through the comments in the X platform, which are own and always through the framework I embody, I cite myself sometimes as in: https://x.com/eworks77/status/1889018997829500953
C. Stefan “The Basin of the Symbol: from a Structural allowance to an open Cohesiveness of the shared "externsive" elevation.“ https://www.essentiamundi.com/ai_v0.2.9/BasinSymbols.html
This exploratory paper is working with the idea of “the flow” and also items that would go into the thesis later.