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                Subject:   Lexicon of consciousness                 Date: 10/25/96

'Defining self and else'

Rick Norwood wrote on 10/25/96:

>Aware:.....
>Conscious: ...
>self-monitoring ...
>Can we agree on these three definitions as a starting place?

I think it would be appropriate to be a little more primal:

"self" & "else"

I quote the following Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary for ref first only, not for our eventual use.

"1. Same, identical.
2a.Having its own single nature or character.
1. The identity of anything considered abstractly
2. An individual considered as an identical person; a being regarded as having a personality;
        a being in relation to its own identity.
3. Personal interest or advantage."

I presume we are heading toward empirical testability, so our definitions require a 'functionality'.

Proposition 1:

"self": any system which persists over a period of time which, when active, always effects a minimal resilient portion
of its organization.  {self-referencing coherence of action}

Framing ideas:

Under this definition, a "self" remains as long as there is a core system present. Activity can be initiated and responses made which do not force major reorganizations. A human is still a self even if a quad-amputee. A "self" must at least maintain the *potential* for some action that has been observed before as typical and representative for itself or other examples of that system. For example, we can assume that a person in a severe coma still represents the existential presence of a "self" because the body harbors the *potential* to re-awaken and/or display observable behaviors indicative of "self". If "self" is not *potentially* recoverable, only then can it be considered extinct or extinguished.

As an extreme example, an atom maintains it's self as long as a sufficient number of electrons are present to contain the nucleus. Without a sufficient number of electrons, or, with plus or minus too many nuclear members, a particular atom transforms into another atomic "self" configuration, and enacts quite different behaviors.

Proposition 2:

"else": anything excludable from Proposition 1 (including other "selves").

Framing ideas:

In the context of set theory concepts, the rest of the universe - all that is "else" - is a very unique and special set for each and every "self".     Even extants which are constructively "identical" ("similar" is probably a better word) *cannot* share an identical "else". In a sense, an entity's "individual identity" is predicated on the novelty of the spacetime massenergy "else" that exists around it and "in which" *it*(the self) is *solely* respondable to. The differentness of all "else" sets makes each individual
system *absolutely* unique.

INTEGRITY PARADIGM
10/25/96