Inner & outer space, Take 1
a new perspective on Consciousness and Quantum physics by the System of Creation (SoC)
Where does consciousness come from? Is it similar to the question of where matter comes from? Physics has answered the latter question, but why is the former so hard? So far, science has not yet resolved the mystery of consciousness. So, how is it related to the brain? Is it related to quantum physics? In this article, I will use my research on the System of Creation (SoC) to gain some insight into the relationship between quantum physics and consciousness. The vision on inner & outer space was tested as a seminar to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my PhD. Turning it into a text led to several articles. The buildup will not be easy, metaphors will help to make it more intuitive. I will build up a complicated metaphor of an arch bridge where the keystone is a fractal version of itself. I’ve asked an AI generator to make the image. The image shows how a simple recursion can create so much beauty. Having this image can assist to unravel the mystery of consciousness and the opportunity to explore inner space.
This article (Take 1) will introduce the basic theory about inner & outer space. By the end of the article, the mystery of consciousness should have gained a new perspective. The next article (Take 2) shows how the theory relates to human history in general, and the Industrial Revolution in particular. Take 2 will make clear how inner space is not just a theory; it is part of reality outside the brain. Brains will be metaphorically similar to barometers: while the barometer embodies outer space, the brain embodies inner space. Based on the theory (Take 1), the reality of inner space is explained by focusing on the Industrial Revolution, which shows how evolution is creating this emerging Global Brain Embodiment (my 2011 seminar). Some modern R&D communities are unconsciously creating what we could call hive bodies & minds (see Take 3). The hive body involves all kinds of modern technology that gives the community agency. The hive mind is an antidote to toxic leadership and group thinking by creating a collaboration infrastructure so that the community can grow, split, or merge with another community. This makes such hives look metaphorically like a living cell, creating a richer image of ongoing socio-technical evolution. Because of my materialistic worldview, I didn’t notice that the soft lift, into the hive mind, would shift my own (natural) mind. Only later, by the strong lift of more advanced experiments, did the effect lead to an unexpected insight: The mind is not a cybernetic concept but a space we can enter. The implication being that we could build inner space technology, like we built outer space technology last century.
The insight takes some explaining, and these articles try a new perspective by bringing the concept of inner & outer space to the front. We needed the high-tech industry to develop outer space technology, this was what I like to call the 3rd Industrial Revolution, and it overlaps in time with the 20th century. We can go to the cutting-edge industries today to observe the weak signals about inner space technology and how the hive (body & mind) is related to this development. In this article and the next, this gets expressed as metaphors, while the third article will go to the field and replace the metaphors. For the introduction, we can use the weather rocket as a metaphor for the current state of inner space technology. The weather rocket only brings information back from outer space. Later, it was transformed into a carrier to bring life into outer space. In this article, I will show how inner space relates naturally to cognition and quantum physics. The current development of AI and quantum computers relates metaphorically to the development of weather rockets. Once Take 3 can replace the metaphor with something concrete, then Take 4 will elaborate on how the metaphorical weather rocket can become a carrier and how it opens up a metaphysical debate.
In the second chapter of this article, I will elaborate on how outer space belongs to bodies and inner space to minds. In Take 4, I will turn to celestial bodies & minds. Last century, we put boots on the moon i.e. outer space technology, allowing us to reach another celestial body. Similarly, I will elaborate on how inner space technology allows us to reach a celestial mind. The challenge is to dive into the current science and technology and recognize how the precondition for a new instrument is constructed unconsciously. Metaphorically, like how the innovations of glass were the precondition for constructing a telescope or microscope. Metaphorically, consciousness is a light too close to see. Compare it to the telescope focusing on a point of light too far to see, or a microscope for a point of light too small to see. I like to call this inner space instrument the mentalscope. Take 4 will be about the mentalscope, how it first allows us to perceive the celestial minds and helps us to reach out to them. At this moment, it is hard to explain. After Take 2, it should become metaphorically clear, and with Take 3, I hope to replace enough metaphors to take you with me in my vision about inner space technology. Take 4 shows the opportunity to develop inner space technology and enter the celestial realm.
1) The mind outside the brain: an introduction to inner space
Consciousness comes from the mind, but how does it relate to the brain? Today, experts often refer to 4E cognition: Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, and Extended. Each ‘E’ will give the mind some reach, but it fails to explain where the mind is located. From my theory on the System of Creation (SoC), I can explain why we need 4Es. So far, I’ve not expressed my view on where the mind is located. The Embodied and Embedded shows how the mind is not like a computer and how important it is to understand the relation to the body and the social setting. The Enacted and Extended will make it clear that the brain is not the mind. The mind appears to be outside the environment, it appears another reality exists, hidden in plain sight: inner space. Thanks to advances in science (cognitive and quantum), this inner space is becoming perceivable and approachable to us. Many cognitive scientists have created experiments that help us understand how the workspace and the environment are two different media. Quantum physics had to cope with how inner space is part of reality (i.e. nonlocality). The path towards insights has not been easy, but I do see how collectively we are discovering the philosophical origin of consciousness. The insights of that article will overlap with the current and next articles (Take 1 & 2). In this article, I want to give a less philosophical and more theoretical buildup: the mind is located in the invironment, which belongs to inner space. Just like the environment belongs to outer space. The workspace is this hybrid space between the invironment & the environment where cognition is perceived.
The next chapters will explain exactly how interaction between three media (invironment, workspace, and environment) works by cybernetic loops (i.e. feedback control). Before I can elaborate, we need to cover the basics of cybernetics and, particularly, recursive thinking. Most people are fluent with linear/logical thinking. It is pumped into us for generations by education. In the 20th century, the rise of relativistic thinking was popularized in academia. It could be found in mathematics and philosophy earlier. By becoming useful to science, and science becoming useful to society, this type of thinking became more common. Relativistic thinking is to take a different perspective much more seriously and follow its conclusion to the end. It can overcome paradoxes and helps us break out of the default frame of reference. It became expressed explicitly in physics with Einstein (1905). In art the work from Esher (1898 – 1972) is one of the first to visualize recursive thinking, I will use some of this work to help visualize SoC models. Relativistic thinking is a precondition to recursive thinking. In relativistic thinking, you start from a foundation, but in recursive thinking, only at the end do you find stability. Recursive thinking is still more of a niche concept and has not been expressed explicitly in such a way it has become common.
The need for recursive thinking is found in two niches: in the mathematics of computation and in the attempt to rationalize quantum physics. Early recursive thinking is found in physics with Henri Poincaré (1892–1899) and the tree-body problem, starting the domain of Chaos Theory. Yet recursive thinking became truly the focus with Gödel, Church, and Turing (1933–1936) and the halting problem, which is the mathematical foundation of our modern computers. Rationalizing quantum physics is more recent. Ilya Prigogine brings thermodynamics and quantum dynamics together in his book The End of Certainty (1997). Many books in the 1990s will take on recursive thinking scattered across many domains, which is why I had to develop a radical interdisciplinary PhD, fitting the philosophicaltradion of Leo Apostel, so it was developed in the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA), particular with the research group on Evolution Complexity and Cognition (ECCO). Getting fluent and familiar with the different niches is time-consuming, but it helps to train the mind in recursive thinking outside the software environment. I do believe an easier way exists by focusing on recursive thinking as its own theory. This article is an attempt to do so.
The second chapter introduces recursive thinking in a theoretical way. The third chapter applies the theory to both quantum physics and cognitive research, showing how both relate. This third chapter will be the introduction to my research on the System of Creation (SoC), investigating “The origin of X”, where X is abstract, referring to many concrete cases. In SoC a buildup is followed by adding cybernetic loops to the workspace and elaborating how agency emerges. Before I start those chapters, I would like to give a general introduction. Compare the mind, not being in the brain, metaphorically to understanding that the world is not flat. In our daily perception, it is not wrong to consider the Earth as flat by proximity. For example, to build a house, or even a bridge, it is ok to neglect the faint curvature of the Earth. It only became relevant when humanity sailed around the world during the Age of Exploration. After understanding the world is round, and how gravity and the solar system make planets rotate, we gained the foundational science about outer space. Getting into outer space needed several Industrial Revolutions; we can see rocket science belonging to the 3rd Industrial Revolution and its high-tech industry.
The faint curvature of Earth was a weak signal about outer space. Today, we have weak signals about inner space and a new milestone in history, as big events cast their shadow beforehand. To unravel this, we need to understand how a nested layer of minds exists in inner space. Each mind has its agency and requires a different perspective. The individual perspective, by a natural mind, is about making sense of the world (emotional, habitual, logical, etc), and it happens via thought. For the natural mind, it is ok to simplify the mind to the brain (although the body keeps the score). If we shift our focus to the collective, a social mind becomes visible. The social mind is governed by culture and language. This mind is virtual and it gives a new perspective: the duality between the mind (inner space) and the world (outer space), this mind belongs to a collective field. The social mind happens through language and culture, modern philosophers are much on it, without explicitly calling it the social mind. They elaborate how this normative, inducing social mind is the only thing that is truly in power. These minds are open-ended. For example, inner dialogue can be used to reinforce thought. The social mind creates an artificial evolution via domestication, and it can also have a relation to the natural mind with self-domestication, better known as sexual selection. Not all sexual selection results in social species, so something else is at play. According to Richard Dawkins (1976), these are the memes next to genes. I will argue that the memes are a bit like inner dialogue: an open-ended relation between a third mind and the social mind.
We know this third mind mostly as something more fundamental: natural evolution. In this article, I will elaborate evolution is the 2-loop SoC model and how naturally it can gain more control. This is particularly noticeable with a third unique perspective that exists with humans and eusocial animals, turning the environment into a workspace. Humans creating traffic signs or eusocial animals creating pheromone paths are very similar, and some eusocial animals also domesticate plants and animals like humans do. Because the environment becomes a workspace, we get a recursion. The human perspective is: we shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us. Instead of the human perspective, we could take the tool perspective and investigate a technical mind where humanity is the creation and not the creator. Integration of the technical mind works via code to develop tools. In biology, the code is in genes to produce proteins as a tool. In our most modern form, we know it as software code. This article should make clear under what conditions evolution turns into a natural mind, and Take 2 will strongly reinforce it by applying SoC to the technical mind. Take 1 is to shift from metaphor to theory and the observation of SoC for the natural mind. Take 2 does the same for the technical mind. In a way, Take 3 does the same with the social mind by focusing on hives; it will become a bit more complicated because the social mind is itself a workspace. This will show how the mind is a space, this fractal version of itself, and how this perspective allows us to enter this celestial realm via inner space technology. (Take 4). A lot of ground needs to be covered, so let us begin.
2) Recursive Thinking and the Invironment
We have to evolve our view on the relationship between mind and body according to the feedback we gain from new cognitive studies. This article is built on many cognitive experiments without going into detail. To give one, let me refer to EEG scans of the brain during so-called spiritual activities (like meditation or with psychedelic drugs). Surprisingly enough, the scans show how a rich inner experience goes together with less brain activity. Similarly, Take 2 is built on many surprising insights about technological development. Reflecting on the many different insights, I came to understand how a simple symmetry can simplify the recursive thinking, and it requires one new concept: the invironment. I start with some postulations that should become evident as these articles progress. First: our body lives in the environment and our mind lives in the invironment. The environment relates to matter and outer space. The invironment relates to memory and inner space. In outer space, matter is clumped together by the force of gravity, with a huge vacuum between them. In inner space, memory relates to the mind clumped together by the force of ego, wrapped in a body that produces the illusion of separation, also creating this huge vacuum between all the egos. This simple symmetry between inner & outer space can give us a lot of advancement to understand cognition in the world.
For this chapter, I want to introduce two fundamental concepts from cybernetics to explain the embodied mind: Evolutionary Cybernetics (EC), creating a Meta System Transition (MST). Let me give a short definition of EC and MST. EC is the emergence, through evolution, of a higher level of organization or control. MST is about scaling up agency, and this can relate to both matter (outer space) and memory (inner space), or a scale direction and a depth direction. The scale direction is about how the default level is influenced by levels below (proto) and levels above (meta). For example, plants and animals have a multicellular body, so below we have the cell (defining the fitness of the body), and above we have the ecosystems (defining the survival of the body). If we shift perspective to study the origin of life, the single cell is at the center. Below (proto) is to study self-organisation in biochemistry, and above (meta) exists as the studies focus on the early phases of embryogenesis. We can also shift perspective to the origin of societies. Now, below relates to individuals having influence, and above relates to geopolitics and international relationships that have influence too. The cybernetic interest is to see how the open-ended relation between the three layers of scale (proto, default, and meta) has a pattern. Specifically, MST shows how: first interaction occurs, which turns into coordination, and it can result in control. The difference between the natural mind, the social mind, and the technical mind follows this MST pattern. Take the natural mind and its thoughts: they can trigger emotions that are regulated by biochemicals (proto), and these thoughts can be produced in a specific language (meta).
The layers of scale are but one dimension to consider. The other dimension is the depth of control. The depth of control is to focus on the number of cybernetic loops in the same layer. This will become central in the next chapter, just to name them for now, they are: Cybernetics (1-loop), Evolutionary Cybernetics (2-loops), Autopoiesis (3-loops), Meta System Transition (4-loops), and Consciousness (5-loop). In this chapter, I will explain the 1-loop and 2-loop to introduce the recursive thinking. This recursive thinking, by the 2-loop model, will give us a different way to understand how the layers of scale are theoretically similar to the depth of control: the former is going to outer space, and the latter to inner space. The 2-loop model will be the main building block for SoC, but we do have to take one step back and start with the 1-loop model and the basics of recursive thinking. Recursive thinking is commonly applied by software programmers when developing recursive functions, and it is not at all intuitive to non-programmers. I’ve noticed it is hard for a software engineer to recognize the recursive thinking outside the programming environment, so there is a huge gap of understanding. Let us try to bridge the gap.
A recursive function creates a loop by calling the function in the definition (see the left figure below). More generally, we can call this recursive function a cybernetic loop working on feedback from the workspace (input, control, output & repeat). Both the recursive function and the cybernetic loop (central figure below) are concepts showing the model in inner space. To grasp how it exists physically (in outer space), we can look at tensegrity, where tension in the cables gives the illusion that the second structure is floating in space. This outer space representation of a 1-loop model is relatively new in architecture (first time used in the 1960s), because it requires recursive thinking to realise the possibilities. It will be easier to start from the 2-loop model below and compare it with the tensegrity. Keep these images in mind as we continue. They are three different representations of the same recursive dynamic. As we add loops to the workspace, some fascinating effects will happen.
The tensegrity is a bit tricky to understand, compare it metaphorically to a chair: we could make a chair with 1 leg, but it is most stable with 4 legs. This will also be the case with the SoC using the 4-loop model as the most stable creating the actual mind. To move from a simple 1-loop to a 2-loop is easy in a software environment: one recursive function calls the other in its definition. In other words, the two functions are weaving. This is however only possible because the computer language is already creating the space for recursive functions, so it is a bit cheating. The cybernetics will show better what is happening in the 2-loop model. The cybernetic model seems complicated, because we need three media. The outer space equivalent should make it all clearer: the arch bridge. To make the bridge, we construct an arch, and it is not stable at all. We need a wooden scaffold to keep it all from falling. Only in the end, when you put the keystone in place, does the whole structure become stable enough to remove the support frame. Notice the important difference with the tensegrity. For the tensegrity, you cannot remove the support frame (the cables). So it is a bit difficult, but in a way the 2-loop model is the foundation, the 1-loop model had to be built by another agent (mind). Only the 2-loop, can start the process of evolution. The 2-loop model (Evolutionary Cybernetics) is creating control via weaving, making ever more complex forms in the environment (outer space) and functions in the invironment (inner space). We could see the loops in the model metaphorically as voussoirs, locking the two pillars (inner & outer space) with the keystone (workspace).
In the 2-loop model, the workspace is part of space, and what is happening in it will affect the invironment and environment. The model shows control, and no direct control exists between workspace and invironment / environment, because this 2-loop model presents natural evolution. For example, a herd of animals can create a dirt road without intent. This changes the environment (form) and the invironment (function). To understand how it changes the invironment, consider that once the road changed the landscape, predators may recognize this form for their function: the hunt. So the workspace is not separated from invironment and environment. There is simply no direct control. Like the two pillars in the arch bridge bringing in the force of gravity onto the keystone, so also the invironment and the environment will enter the workspace, via the alignment produced by the loops. At this moment, the creation is by default (natural evolution). Later loops will change this to a cognitive force. Making the metaphor is easy, explaining this is not just a metaphor but how inner space is recursively real, will be harder. We need to see how the layers of scale (outer space) and the depth of control (inner space) interact, and it will take several articles to fully elaborate this. In this article we simply create the foundation.
Quantum physics can explain the pillar in the environment (i.e. the form) and show the shadow of the invironment. This part is new for SoC and will be elaborated in the next chapter. Cognitive science explains the pillar in the invironment (i.e. the function) and shows the shadow of the environment. This part has not changed over the past 10 years (see PhD figure 4.12). In the case of natural mind, the invironment is known as the Long Term Memory (LTM), the workspace is the Working Memory, and the environment is the sensory-motor coupling. So invironment becomes LTM. To map this 2-loop model to the layers of scale (proto, default, and meta), and also the human body, we see proto being the invironment or the cells, and meta being the environment or the ecosystem. So we start noticing how the workspace is truly the center and how this 2-loop model reappears all the time. Therefore, Recursive thinking is strongly interlinked with this 2-loop model.
Interestingly, the layers of scale (proto, default, and meta) and the depth of control (multiple loops) can tell us about cognition without hardly needing consciousness. Many 4-loop models are found with colleagues examining concrete origin cases that have little to do with cognition. This led to understanding “the origin of X” as an unconscious force. Only recently has the 5th loop on consciousness become the focus. As I was chasing consciousness, and knew the 5-loop model for over 15 years, how could I be so blind to its relevance? By focusing on the arch bridge as the main metaphor, I hope to make this clearer. Consider how the voussoirs in outer space are the loops in inner space. Consider how the force of gravity first works vertically on the pillar and how the voussoirs transform this until the force becomes perpendicular to its origin, so horizontally. I will elaborate in the next chapter how a 4-loop model also turns a force perpendicular to its origin and how this allows novelty production (which was the main title of my PhD). The 4-loop model creates a spark of consciousness that is turned into a current of consciousness with the 5-loop model. To visualise the current, consider the first image of an arch bridge where the keystone is a fractal version of itself. Like zooming in to the Mandelbrot set, it can become a journey to inner space.
3) From evolutionary cybernetics to human consciousness
This chapter builds up from the 2-loop model to the 5-loop model described by the neuroscience of the Global Workspace Theory (GWT). The figure of the GWT model is given at the end of this chapter. Let me begin with a short personal history, which will elaborate on how quickly we can recognize a 2-loop model and the relatively easy transition to a 3-loop model. Often, the focus is on the 4-loop model providing the most stable regulation (metaphor is the 4-legged chair). The 5th loop turns out to be notoriously difficult. During my academic education (1999-2003), I was fascinated by Evolutionary Cybernetics (EC) and Meta System Transition (MST) for the origin of life. This was more of a hobby next to my academic education. I’ve specialized in AI, running A-life simulations, mimicking an evolutionary process, like “the origin of words” (see The Talking Heads Experiment), but many of my optional courses were not in AI, as I wanted to go deep into compilers and philosophy too. The development led early on to create this 2-loop model very intuitively. Early on, this 2-loop model was described as a bootstrapping process. Yet, except for software developers, few understand the bootstrapping process, and the arch bridge appears more accessible.
My own first experiment focused on “the origin of creativity”, and it led to a 3-loop model (see picture 16 of my Dutch Master's thesis, 2003). Discovering the GWT 5-loop model gave me some confidence and a way to refine my cybernetic work to focus on 4-loops as a more natural fitting version. The GWT shows a 5th loop not going into the workspace but out to the motor system. I misinterpreted it as trivial at the time. As a broader interest, I was reading Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (1999), where Bruno Latour also describes a 4-loop model for “the origin of Science & Technology”. I was shocked, how could it be? This was not a study on cognition! So began the focus on the 4-loop model and the theory on the System of Creation (SoC), describing “the origin of X” as something more fundamental in cybernetics.
While I first tried to interact academically with peers, I would learn that this is impossible because of the radical interdisciplinary nature, combined with the focus on recursive thinking. First publications are in cognition and cybernetics (see BICS2006, EMCSR2006, and EMCSR2008). This did not lead to interaction, so I used the SoC model hidden, wrapped in a layer that first with innovation management (see ISPIM2011 and ISPIM2012). After gaining no peer feedback, I gave up and focused on fieldwork. Rapid progress was realised, and in 201,7 the fundamental breakthrough was realised, which I can best express as feedback by the field about the 5th loop. Only then, after 15 years, did I realise my error in believing the 5th outward-going loop was trivial. Now I believe it is the key to the hard problem of consciousness.
To express the breakthrough will be hard. I will try by using cognition to explain the function and quantum physics to explain the form. Just like it was easy to create the 3-loop model for cognition, the relation to quantum physics will be relatively easy. The current state of the art in different domains will show the form of the 4-loop model. It has been hard to work on the 5-loop model in cognition. The current state in quantum physics is to discover the 4-loop model, but I will give a forecast about the 5th loop later. I believe quantum physics can set up an experiment to resolve the debate on consciousness, but it will be even harder than proving the Higgs field. This will only become possible to express in Take 4, so bear with me. In this chapter, I will make the relation with the 4-loop model and quantum computer, and finish by shifting perspective to show how the fieldwork on the 5th loop function has become possible.
The 2-loop model in quantum physics is one of the foundational experiments called the double-slit experiment. In the setup, the slit is just big enough for a bit of light so we can learn its nature and it has an interesting relation to measurement. Without measurement (left figure), we observe an interference pattern, showing light is a wave. When we place a detector on the slit the figure changes and now it appears the light is a particle. How can it be both? My interpretation is that measurement gets you in the environment, without it, you are in the realm of possibilities or the invironment. By itself, not strange, what will become strange is how the invironment has morphic resonance: memory is inherent in nature, so it exists outside your brain. Notice the light we see in the screen at the back is a second iteration (recursion), the workspace was the gray screen with two slits. So the blue screen at the back is always part of the environment, we only catch a shadow of the invironment. Once the light hits the screen, it gets captured and reflected, so measured.
The double-slit shows how workspace and environment are different, with a weak signal of the invironment. For quantum physics, the depth of control will amplify the signal of the invironment getting us to memory as the essence of the invironment. Let us now go to cognition and the invironment starting from memory. It appears to us that the environment is strongly present, but as we go into detail on how exactly the neurons do the perception, we get aware of how chaotic, distributed, and complex perception is: how is memory stored? Some trauma is directly stored in the body, it is clearly not restricted to the brain. By developing robotics, it became clear how naive we are about understanding our own cognition, we have the illusion of simplicity, but only because our mind is in the invironment and we fill our workspace with it. In the environment, this illusion is but a shadow. Let me introduce experiments that focus on how we perceive the world by saccade: a quick, simultaneous movement of both eyes at high speed (0.02-0.2 seconds). The 2-loop model can explain how higher levels of recognition are an evolutionary process. The internalizing loop is associating memory in the workspace with the Long Term Memory. The externalizing is tagging memory in the workspace via a saccade. The two loops are doing dumb work, together they apear intelligent because of prior work (evolutionary cybernetics). The saccade is shown in the left figure; what is conceptually happening in the workspace is drawn in the right figure.
We have no clue at the start what is happening internally because this relates to what was in the workspace before seeing this picture. So we start with the externalizing loop, and it recognizes a basic round shape by jumping to the boundaries between dark and light. The round shape can easily trigger associations: ball, apple, face. Each of these concepts relates to prior memory (stored in LTM). Each of these prior memories has external tags. Externalizing takes over and checks which associations are observed in the environment, verifying face and rejecting ball or apple. This interaction between internalizing and externalizing happens at lightning speed, so fast we don’t realise it. At least as an adult, it takes milliseconds, but only because we did the work as babies. You can observe a few-month-old baby doing the hard work of making perceptual sense of the world. It all starts with reflexes and brain processes that are much older, bringing us back to studying natural evolution. This evolutionary cybernetics is simple enough, the harder part is to see the pattern between outer space (wave-particle duality) and inner space (association-tag duality). This will allow us to create a more advanced recursive understanding. The picture below shows how the duality relates to the 2-loop design. In black, we have association-tag duality. In blue, I added the quantum physics concept, in this case, the wave-particle duality. I will also make additions to the later models in blue to add concepts of quantum physics
.The 2-loop model creates a self-organizing system, and the 3-loop model turns this into an autopoietic system. The concept of autopoiesis comes from the origin of life research. An autopoiesis system is capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts, like an autocatalytic set of chemical components. In my own research I’ve noticed how our organisations are autocatalytic sets, making management another interesting way to study the origin of X. We can see how the visual perception above is just the start, some value associations could be made and some situations could be tagged that will shift the default flow of the 2-loop model to a more directed flow of the 3-loop model. A 3rd loop will pick up the values and situation and develop challenges. It is very similar to the autocatalytic reaction in the environment, but now it is regulating concepts in the workspace. For example, recognizing the face in the above picture can trigger associations to talk to this person, which is a challenge. This directing loop will filter or warp what is in the workspace. This 3rd loop does tell a bit about perceptual blindness or inattentional blindness, allowing us to make more complicated setups, like the Invisible Gorilla Experiment. To understand what is happening in the workspace as a metaphor, I would like to use Hand with Reflecting Sphere by Esher. Showing how the default flow (2-loops) is a direct mirror, but the 3rd loop warps the mirror to focus on the challenge.
In blue, I’ve added what I believe is the equivalent of challenges in inner space: entanglement in outer space. A short introduction to the entanglement experiment will be needed. We send two entangled “particles” (Alice and Bob) far enough so light cannot communicate between the two “particles”. I’m using breakage on particles because we only have particles when we do the measurement, and the experiment is exactly to delay the measurement, making sure light cannot be used to communicate between the two particles. If we now measure one particle, the other will automatically be set. In the figure below, the arrow pointing down to 0 and the other particle pointing up to 1 refer to the spin of the particles being measured. While the strangeness is fascinating, we can see a simple truth: entanglement directs the measurement. The quantum nonlocality of entanglement is a stronger shadow of the invironment onto the environment. A very natural move to the 4-loop model is currently happening in science & technology with the R&D on the quantum computer, creating actual quantum memory. New models are being built, like the theory on time crystals.
In physics, nonlocality is weird, and building quantum memory is hard. In cognition, we start from memory, and the comparison of current experience with prior experience is just a 4th loop to add, but now it has internalized the control of the 2-loop model, so we shall recognize the output pattern of internalizing and externalizing now as modeling and mastering. Directing is warping the workspace to focus on something. If all attention goes to amplifying internalizing and demping externalizing, we have modeling, visa versa for mastering. Both types of learning will exert a kind of control on the world, not as strong as on the workspace, but intentional because of the challenge, and it will change the invironment / environment. The development of the quantum computer is creating a 4-loop model, and I already mentioned how now modelling is happening: time crystals as a theory for quantum memory. The modeling is an ongoing process, so time crystals could be the answer, but maybe better models will emerge. So does mastering exist for quantum too?
Yes, but it doesn’t come from quantum research directly. We need to go into studies on anesthetic drugs. Anesthetic drugs knock out consciousness, so what is happening in the body because of this drug? Penrose-Hameroff’s theory explains how the anesthetic drugs disrupt the construction of microtubules. So now the focus is on mastering what mystery the microtubules hold about consciousness. Mastering is also an ongoing scientific endeavor. So the development of the 4-loop model is a work in progress. Just as the concept entangled was first called “spooky action at a distance”, we still need to find consensus in quantum physics on how to call this 4th loop. I do hope to interact with quantum researchers to explore if we can set up ways to verify the 4-loop model. Let me also give a metaphor to visualize the 4-loop mode in outer space, again a painting by Esher, now frontrunner. Note how Esher was fascinated by recursive thinking and found ways to artistically express it.
With modeling, all the focus is on the invironment, making the environment a slave to the cause. Like reading a book, you fill the workspace with invironment by imagination, and be lost in your mind, not registering what is happening in the environment. Mastering is to fill the workspace with senses of the body (environment) and make the invironment a slave to the cause. For example, when learning to ride a bike, you use the sensory input to get the balance right and control the body. You don’t have time to wander off in your mind, you need to be present in your body. All the associations related to this sensory-motoric coupling of the challenge. In sports, they call this “being in the zone”. The psychological state of flow is used to explain both being in your mind (invironment) or in the zone (environment). Notice how this makes the mind in the invironment and the body in the environment, and both are a space we can go into.
Getting back to consciousness now and how the loops are metaphorically like voussoirs of the arch bridge, turning the vertical force (gravity) into a horizontal force (tension). I’ve noticed this is metaphorically similar to the perpendicular direction we have with sailing upwind. Wind is simultaneously the force creating movement and the force to overcome. For cognition, it is a metaphor for experience, both the source for creativity and the bias to overcome. Another example many of us can relate to is how a child makes a swing go higher. The swing and sailing upwind can reveal another interesting part of the process, this pivotal moment when we go into the other direction, creating a zig-zag motion. Modeling and mastering also create a zig-zag motion. During the pivot, something special occurs. Like zero-gravity on the swing and the centrifugal force in the boat. In case of the 4-loop model, it will be a kind of spark of consciousness, being the aha experience for modeling or the victory experience for mastering. Concerning the layers of scale (proto, default, and meta). We know such events align with particular biochemicals (proto), and more recently, we are becoming aware of the relation these events have to synchronicity (meta).
Try to imagine what happens if you make this zig-zag motion turn into a recursion. Like swinging a bucket full of water, you notice it creates artificial gravity as the centrifugal force cancels out gravity. Another metaphor will become useful: an electrical spark by a 4-loop model turning into an electrical current with the 5-loop model, creating an electrical arc. Finally, I’m at the 5-loop model already described as the GWT model by Stanislas Dehaene et al. (1998). Let me first map the 4-loop SoC model to the GWT model shown below. The LTM is internalizing the PAST. The perceptual system is externalizing the PRESENT. The attentional system is directing the FOCUS. The evaluative system is evolving VALUES. The relation between values and experience is not so visible in the figure, but is well mentioned in the article. I was too quick to consider the outward (FUTURE) as just a way for the brain to control the body. On a superficial level, this is true, but as my experiment became better in producing the zig-zag motion (see Take 3), it naturally led to this metaphorical electrical arc experience. I do hope to have a deeper conversation with Stanislas Dehaene about the 5th loop and how my research may relate or be different from how they intend it with GWT model. I’ve not done this so far because my focus was to shift perspective from the natural mind to the social mind and figure out how to do field research as a cyberneticist, not as a neuroscientist.
To shift perspective to the social mind, remember the layers of scale (proto, default, and meta). Now I will go a bit more into the methodology for the field work and elaborate on how Meta System Transition (MST) and Proto System Transition (PST) became used in the participation research. While MST is a well-established concept in cybernetics, PST is my own construct, based on the fieldwork. The MST will start from the natural mind as the default perspective and focus on how organisations are mastering the depth of control. The PST will start from the social mind as the default perspective and focus on how people are modeling their own minds accordingly. As a natural mind, this process of becoming is ancient, and the Ubuntu philosophy is close to understanding how. Let me first elaborate on the MST as a way to shift perspective to the social mind; afterwards, I will come back to PST.
I’ve mentioned how GWT and “the origin of Science & Technology” (S&T model) were the first two models recognized, and it led to a SoC 2-loop meta-model: GWT as the internalizing (I) meta-loop and S&T as the externalizing (Ex) meta-loop. You could call it social innovation via organisations. Each workspace creates a type of novelty (N), together creating radical novelty. Many improvements were made in the next years. For example, GWT is not about organisation, but Nonaka’s SECI model (also 4-loop model) did fit perfectly, showing “the origin of organisational knowledge”. For the PhD, I did use more abstract names shown in the left figure below (originally figure 7.2 in PhD). In management literature, I also found models fitting with “the origin of organisational power”, fitting the directing (D) loop, and “the origin of organisational innovation”, fitting the Evolving (Ev) loop. In 2020, participating in a coaching community about effective organisation, I noticed a model that did not fit the meta-model. These 4 dimensions of effective organisation are about cultural awareness (according to the sociocracy culture, also see this video). Together with other insights and field experiments on how to bootstrap cultural awareness, led to PST.
The Proto System Transition (PST) is to start from the social mind and see how it affects the personal mind. This has been observed in all R&D communities I’ve been participating in (see Take 3). The most effective organisation always had a strong cultural expression, creating artwork and music to express their love for the community. With social communities, this is evident, but I was doing anthropology with R&D communities. For example, creating a tattoo of your favorite software tool was not a social behavior I would expect to observe, but I did. The collective work, building organisation, and infrastructure relate to MST. The community development, protecting the commons, and developing art to express the culture were about PST. With MST and the meta-model, we can see how this 4-loop model makes psychological flow turn into collective flow and this hive (mind & body). The PST is going to be used to do exactly the opposite.
As I discovered more about the 5th loop from the social mind perspective, it became clear how the research by Émile Durkheim on “the origin of religion” (indeed another origin of X) was fitting. He expresses the dynamic by the 5th loop as collective effervescence: a community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action. Such an event then causes collective effervescence, which excites individuals and serves to unify the group. So the 4-loop model allows flow, creating transition, but the 5-loop model allows effervescence, creating transformation. The PST is to understand how collective effervescence can turn to psychological effervescence. Very similar to how MST allowed psychological flow to turn into collective flow. Take 3 can dive into the MST and PST dynamics. I could start this article right now, but there is a bigger story to tell. First Take 2 needs to introduce the perspective of the technical mind in opposition to the perspective given in this article about the natural mind. I want to finish this chapter by trying to stay as close as possible to the natural mind.
In the 4-loop model, we notice how the internal loop becomes slave to the external loop for mastering, and vice versa for modeling. Interestingly, the 5th loop is slave to both, most of the time, except for this pivotal moment, when this spark occurs as the aha-experience (modeling) or victory experience (mastering) for the natural mind. Spiritual practices noticed the enslavement of the 5th loop, and they developed methods to dampen all inward-going loops and focus on the outward-going loop (e.g. meditation, contemplation, yoga). This way we can experience the natural flow and have the direct experience that everything is consciousness i.e. focus on the 5th loop by damping the 3rd and 4th loop. Spiritual practices, like Meditation, are often simple instructions, but hard to execute.. Spiritual practices are metaphorical like ancient tool making: only using what is naturally occurring, which needs a lot of patience and mastery. Think about a bushcraft course to make rope using nettle. The instruction is easy, but it takes a lot of work to make a bit of rope. We can just go to a shop and buy the rope, but it requires the huge industrialisation of our world. Rope is a silly example, of course, but the smartphone many of us use is not. It does require a global supply chain to produce. Until a century ago, we would not have imagined industry affecting the mind, now we had better quickly come to terms with this reality, the Technological Singularity is near indeed. This will become clear in Take 2.