“minimal-viability is the inevitable outcome of evolutionary and operational constraints on survival”
“prefer the simplest explanation; but for territory”
Biology optimises for survival – we ought to consider the evolution of interpreted distinction, in terms of minimal-viability:
“—what is the least amount of biological implementation (evolution) and information (operation) required to distinguish well?”
The problem with “minimally-viable distinctions”, is knowing in advance “the space of all future circumstances” through which any minimally-viable distinction must remain distinct.
Insufficiently distinct representations are ambiguous; ambiguous representations cause interpretive collision.
This is an unsolvable problem for biology – it impossible to know future circumstances in advance.
For biology, there is only “presently minimally-viable distinction” – and always an inherent risk of future collision.
minimally-viable distinction is inherently ambiguous
The risk of interpretive collision are minimised by constraining and segmenting operationally isolated interpretive contexts: “the space of all future circumstances” becomes “the space of some, contextually related, future circumstances”
Interpreting stimuli by operationally isolated contexts minimises “the space of all circumstances” through which any minimally-viable distinction must remain distinct.