How do mind-independent physical patterns turn into mind-dependent meaning? The journey is continuous in substrate—a backdrop of reality that changes more slowly than the patterns it carries—and yet discontinuous in capability. At six identifiable thresholds new feedback loops appear, locking-in qualitatively different kinds of information. Once crossed, these thresholds are never re-crossed in reverse; snowflakes do not become quarks again, and languages do not forget how to mean.
Below is a bird's-eye story of those thresholds. If you'd rather dive into equations and diagrams, follow the links; if you just want to "feel" the shape of the ascent, stay on this page.
Stage I – Stable Structures & the Particle Alphabet
Nature’s first miracle is reliability. Quantum jitters are tamed by code-like symmetries so that an electron here is an electron everywhere. These stable vibrational modes form a “cosmic alphabet.” Because the alphabet is biased—some letters are far more probable than others—the universe starts off with structure already baked in. That statistical bias is what later agents will exploit as “physical laws.” Deep dive ›
Stage II – Environmental Information: Patterns as Potential Cues
When stable particles aggregate, they cast shadows, echoes, gradients—regularities in spacetime. A red patch on a leaf says nothing by itself; yet it could be read as nectar, disease, or camouflage. The environment thus offers a library of latent information whose pages will remain blank until readers evolve. Deep dive ›
Stage II.5 – Thermodynamic Bridge: From Matter to Autopoiesis
Energy gradients do the heavy lifting. Far-from-equilibrium chemistry first spins up dissipative whirlpools, then autocatalytic networks, and finally autopoietic cells that redraw the universe into inside and outside. With that boundary comes the first evaluative stance: patterns are now sorted by "helps me persist / hurts me / irrelevant." Deep dive ›
Stage III – Proto-Semantics: Detection, Valence, Action
Sensors, receptors, ion channels—tiny yes/no widgets—map specific external patterns onto specific metabolic responses. Meaning here is actionable valence. Sugar gradients mean food; pH shifts mean danger. There is no detached representation—only functional coupling between cue and consequence. Deep dive ›
Stage IV – Developing Semantics: Internal Models & Prediction
Nervous systems decouple perception from action long enough to simulate. Neural codes stand in for distal states; forward models forecast futures; plasticity writes experience back into structure. Meaning stretches across time ("If dark clouds, then rain later") and becomes context-sensitive ("Clouds mean relief for a drought-stressed plant but danger for a picnic"). Deep dive ›
Stage V – Full-Blown Semantics: Symbolic, Shared Worlds
With language the game changes again: tokens need not resemble their referents; grammar lets finite symbols yield infinite thoughts; and culture stores cognition off-brain. Meaning is now collectively negotiated and transmitted across generations. Whole civilizations ride atop these high-altitude information systems. Deep dive ›
Stage VI – Principles, Constraints & Tests
Looking back we can state the invariants: physical grounding at every tier, staircase-style emergence, and the ever-tightening feedback loop of the inside-out lens. Deep dive ›
Want the hard science and rival theories? These principles generate predictions—outlined in the Tests file—that invite the model to be proven wrong. See the falsification matrix and comparative analysis. Empirical tests & comparisons ›
<< Previous: Pattern Realism: Matter/Energy and Information as Complementary Lenses | Up: Pattern Realism: Matter/Energy and Information as Complementary Lenses | Next: Foundation: Stable Structures and Inherent Patterns >>