PSYCHE AS AN INFORMATIONAL STRATEGY (General Information Theory) Marcus Abundis1 Abstract This 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 Solution David 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
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Organizational Behavior (GFTP), Graduate School of Business, Stanford University (March 2011).
DRAFT: 26 Feb. 2015, M. Abundis, +1-530.388.5576, +41-(0)62.844.2193, 55mrcs@gmail.com
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