“prefer the simplest explanation, but for territory”
evolution
Biology, senses, and cognition, evolved.
“we distinguish phenomena to survive – to distinguish, we must detect difference”
Senses evolved to detect patterns (relative arrangement) of stimuli; patterns become persistable, then recognisable.
Persisted, recognisable patterns help identify external phenomena, to improve the circumstances of survival. Mis-identification of external circumstances often worsen the circumstances of survival.
“foundations of cognition include ‘distinguishing well’”
discernment
Consider that discernment is optimised by:
- Minimising false positives
- Minimising false negatives
- Minimising operational resources requirements, and latency
“foundations of cognition include ‘distinguishing well, efficiently’”
minimal-viability
“minimal-viability is the outcome of evolutionary and operational constraints of survival”
Biology optimises for survival; we ought to consider the evolution of 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 circumstances” through which any minimally-viable distinction must remain distinct.
This is an unsolvable problem for biology, there is only “presently minimally-viable distinction” – and always the inherent risk of future collision (interpretive collision: false negative distinction; biological mimicry, for example)
minimally-viable distinction is inherently ambiguous
.
Evolution minimises the risk of interpretive collision by constraining and segmenting interpretive contexts.
Interpreting stimuli in separate contexts helps to minimise “the space of all circumstances” in each case.
“foundations of cognition include ‘distinguishing well, efficiently, contextually’”
de-duplication
#tbc“foundations of cognition include ‘distinguishing well, efficiently, contextually, coherently, insightfully’”