Information vs. Meaning

• Information, in a physics sense (Shannon), is about the implausibility of an event (self-information) or its average (entropy). Meaning arises from the relationship between an observer and the observed, representing Bayesian beliefs about the observed.
• Meaning is what neuronal activity *represents* about sensory input, not the activity itself. It’s about beliefs *about* something, requiring a separation between observer and observed.

The Bowtie Architecture and Time

• Information can be viewed on behavioral, developmental, and evolutionary timescales. We access the past through “memory engrams,” and use them for forward-aimed behavior.
• The “bowtie” metaphor: Experiences are compressed into a generative model (left side). The *interpretation* of memories/information (right side) is fundamentally creative, going beyond algorithmic processing.
• Analogy to Information Bottleneck. The present is the bottleneck, and is the simplest Markov blanket. The future and past are on the sides.
• Compression is crucial. Systems infer the causes of compressed sensory input. This decompression/disentangling is a form of inference – filling in the gaps – minimizing variational free energy. This is creative.
• The “bottleneck effect”. There are simple explaintions found for interpreting and explaining data.
• “In-painting” fills gaps within existing structures; “out-painting” extends into novel areas unprepared for by the past.

Xenobots, Anthrobots, and Novelty

• There exist new expressions found that allows us to communicate with xenobots in new ways.
• Anthrobots (from human tracheal cells) show massive gene expression changes in their new lifestyle, demonstrating plasticity beyond standard embryonic development.
• These cells “go past” merely in-painting by using current systems for different function.
• This highlights the ability of biological systems to go beyond past experience and solve problems in novel, adaptive ways.

Genomes and Plasticity

• Genome and phenotype relationship. This is intelligent and not a mere map.
• There is hiding of what the genes have to do as repairs take place.
• The Genome as problem solvers. More is offloaded, giving space for genes to evolve in a creative manner.
• The genome doesn’t encode memories of specific past environments, but rather “tricks” that enable a problem-solving agent to adapt to *various* (potentially novel) situations.
• Evolution selects for “learnability,” not just “selectability.” The genome provides plasticity and the capacity to learn in an “unrealized” world.
• Planaria as extreme examples. They have minimal reliance on their (unstable) genome, putting effort into algorithms that build a “proper worm” regardless of hardware. They can’t be transgenic.
• The present contains, what’s necessary from the past in order to be ready to move toward the future.
• Evolution/biology works from a place where they know change must occur. This means biology must create solvers which will solve whatever it comes across (a form of intelligent “beginners” mindset)
• Because organisms/cells solve, even what should be harmful genes are no longer expressed in selection (as other organisms are ready). Thus evolution can proceed freely.

Noise, Prediction Error, and Creativity

• Noise and the observer. Noise is how the system is defined. For example: quantum mechanics underwrite on noise.
• What is considered “noise” depends on the observer’s perspective and expectations. It can be an opportunity for different computations.
• The noise are like quantum fluctuation.
• There is prediction error that exists within biological life. It serves a positive and functional use to understand and get “used” to its experience and environment.
• Prediction error is distinct from foundational random fluctuations. It’s essential for belief updating and drives the dynamics of biotic self-organization – “In the absence of prediction error, I would be dead.”

The “Self” and the Present

• The story is important because of how it continuously maintains the model through time. The view of the self.
• The observer creates an observation to understand themselves. A story/narrative. The notion is self can easily be lost or disturbed.
• To understand the world is the same as asking it how one should act.
• Higher agency happens to do planning. But there exist simplified methods, “some of that ends up happening anyway as a  byproduct of simpler things that they’re doing.”.
• Data, and not the program itself, may dictate a large reason/control on how biological organization/self organization occur.
• A model which persist well and make niche contructions (helpful models/mindsets/perspective), this could change behaviors drastically. This is not unlike cancer or human brains and persnality constructs.
• The “now” is critical for the self. It defines a continuous process of storytelling, interpretation, and meaning-seeking, a “self-telling story.”  The present is like communicating to your past/future.
• Mortal vs simulated models. The real biological world cannot have simulations (running forever).
• Mental action and attention are how one can “pick” out the organization that it deems to be fit (from previous model, experiences, senses, etc…)
• This process extends to communication with past/future selves, constructing a narrative that integrates past experiences.

Mortality vs. Story of self and Biological and “Psychological” Disease

• Meaning that is passed through the “bottleneck effect” (or time) can give more information of its systems. 
• Aging as goal disruption: Somatic intelligence can suffer “existential boredom” after achieving its morphogenetic goals, leading to degradation even *without* external damage.
• Changing is the necessary of existence, we must keep going in different scales.
• Mathematical “death” (oscillator death/equilibrium) occurs when a system stops changing, violating the dynamics necessary for life.  Staying in one place is like being a closed system, so you can’t exist.
• Staying too long (in on ideal “goal” like state), would break laws of dynamics of existence and change.
• The “renewal effect”. Where change can occur. Such as to have “children”, even.
• Higher/lower organisms. “The cycle of reproduction..”, there exist other organisms.
• Story and Selfhood. “and ended by explicitly talking  about the constructive aspects of this so-called  deflationary account.”: “what we’re talking about is,  you know, a really beautiful constructive process…”, they use creativity, active-reconstructing, understanding models to best organize.
• Distinction dissolved, between psychological and bioogical systems, from attention, to action, to prediction errors: “…ranging from hallucinations and delusions right  through to, say, dysmorphophobia, you know,   abnormal beliefs about my body, for example.”  This plays a role for biological and “psychological” well-being (example, Cancer with understanding boundaries).
• The ability to predict future actions leads to having mental and internal (in brain) action (hypothetical). Having future in model means having bigger scales. Having future hypothetical also require higher and bigger models and constructs.

Scale-Free Consiousness

• Can consciousness itself occur in lower/higher organization?: …basically you could find processes that  have the attribute of things that we consider   to be conscious processes expressed at multiple  scales.

Concerns, and Story Telling.

• The risk. Science not always the answer, there are those who become unstable with science’s new findings that they feel themselves not exist, that the sense and beauty is removed.
• Science, its constructive uses, should provide more to existence and understanding.

信息 vs. 意义

• 从物理学（香农）的角度来看，信息关乎事件的不可能性（自信息）或其平均值（熵）。意义源于观察者与被观察对象之间的关系，代表了对被观察对象的贝叶斯信念。
• 意义是神经元活动所*代表*的关于感官输入的内容，而不是活动本身。它关乎*关于*某事的信念，需要观察者和被观察对象之间的分离。

领结架构与时间

• 信息可以在行为、发育和进化的时间尺度上被观察。我们通过“记忆印迹”访问过去，并将其用于面向未来的行为。
• “领结”隐喻：经验被压缩成一个生成模型（左侧）。对记忆/信息的*解释*（右侧）本质上是创造性的，超越了算法处理。
• 类似于信息瓶颈。现在是瓶颈，也是最简单的马尔可夫毯。未来和过去在两侧。
• 压缩至关重要。系统推断压缩感官输入的原因。这种解压缩/解缠结是一种推理形式——填补空白——最小化变分自由能。这是具有创造性的。
• “瓶颈效应”。对于解释和说明数据，可以找到简单的解释。
• “内绘”填补现有结构内的空白；“外绘”延伸到过去未曾预料到的新领域。

异种机器人、人类机器人和新颖性

• 存在新的表达方式，使我们能够以新的方式与异种机器人交流。
• 人类机器人（来自人类气管细胞）在其新的生活方式中显示出大量的基因表达变化，表明其可塑性超越了标准胚胎发育。
• 这些细胞通过将现有系统用于不同功能而“超越”了单纯的内绘。
• 这突出了生物系统超越过去经验并以新颖、适应性的方式解决问题的能力。

基因组和可塑性

• 基因组和表型关系。这是智能的，而不仅仅是一张图谱。
• 在修复发生时，基因必须做什么被隐藏起来。
• 基因组作为问题解决者。更多的东西被卸载，为基因以创造性的方式进化提供了空间。
• 基因组不编码特定过去环境的记忆，而是编码使问题解决者能够适应*各种*（可能是新颖的）情况的“技巧”。
• 进化选择“可学习性”，而不仅仅是“可选择性”。基因组提供可塑性和在“未实现”世界中学习的能力。
• 涡虫作为极端例子。它们对（不稳定的）基因组的依赖最小，而是将精力投入到构建“合适的涡虫”的算法中，无论硬件如何。它们不能成为转基因生物。
• 现在包含着过去为了走向未来所必需的东西。
• 进化/生物学从一个它们知道必须发生变化的地方开始运作。这意味着生物学必须创造出能够解决任何遇到的问题的解决者（一种智能的“初学者”心态）。
• 因为生物体/细胞会解决问题，所以即使是那些应该有害的基因也不再在选择中表达（因为其他生物体已经准备好了）。因此，进化可以自由地进行。

噪声、预测误差和创造力

• 噪声和观察者。噪声是系统定义的方式。例如：量子力学依赖于噪声。
• 什么被认为是“噪声”取决于观察者的视角和期望。它可能是不同计算的机会。
• 噪声就像量子涨落。
• 生物生命中存在预测误差。它具有积极和功能性的用途，以理解并“习惯”其经验和环境。
• 预测误差不同于基础的随机波动。它对于信念更新至关重要，并驱动生物体自我组织的动力学——“如果没有预测误差，我就会死。”

“自我”与当下

• 故事很重要，因为它如何持续地维持模型。对自我的看法。
• 观察者创造一个观察来理解自己。一个故事/叙述。自我的概念很容易丢失或受到干扰。
• 理解世界与问它应该如何行动是一样的。
• 更高的自主性会进行计划。但存在简化的方法，“其中一些最终会作为他们正在做的更简单的事情的副产品发生。”
• 数据，而不是程序本身，可能决定了生物组织/自我组织发生方式的主要原因/控制。
• 一个持续良好并做出有利的模型构建（有用的模型/心态/视角）的模型，可能会极大地改变行为。这与癌症或人脑和人格结构没什么不同。
• “当下”对自我至关重要。它定义了一个持续的故事讲述、解释和意义寻求的过程，一个“自我讲述的故事”。现在就像与你的过去/未来沟通。
• 有死的模型与模拟模型。真实的生物世界不能有模拟（永远运行）。
• 精神行动和注意力是一个人如何“挑选”出它认为合适的组织（从以前的模型、经验、感觉等…）的方式。
• 这个过程延伸到与过去/未来的自我沟通，构建一个整合过去经验的叙述。

死亡 vs. 自我叙事、生物性和“心理”疾病

• 通过“瓶颈效应”（或时间）传递的意义可以提供更多关于其系统的信息。
• 衰老作为目标破坏：躯体智能在实现其形态发生目标后可能会遭受“存在性无聊”，即使*没有*外部损害也会导致退化。
• 改变是存在的必要条件，我们必须在不同的尺度上继续前进。
• 数学上的“死亡”（振荡器死亡/平衡）发生在系统停止变化时，违反了生命所必需的动力学。待在一个地方就像一个封闭的系统，所以你无法存在。
• 停留太久（在一个理想的“目标”状态），会破坏存在和变化的动力学规律。
• “更新效应”。可能发生变化的地方。甚至可以有“孩子”。
• 更高/更低的生物。“繁殖的循环…”，存在其他的生物。
• 故事与自我。“并明确地谈论了这个所谓的通货紧缩账户的建设性方面”：“我们正在谈论的是，你知道，一个真正美丽的建设性过程…”，他们使用创造力，积极重建，理解模型以最佳组织。
• 心理和生物系统之间的区别被消解了，从注意力到行动，再到预测错误：“…从幻觉和妄想一直到，比如说，身体畸形恐惧症，你知道，对我的身体的异常信念，例如。” 这对生物和“心理”健康都有影响（例如，癌症与理解边界）。
• 预测未来行动的能力会导致产生精神和内部（在大脑中）的行动（假设）。在模型中拥有未来意味着拥有更大的尺度。拥有未来的假设也需要更高和更大的模型和结构。

无尺度意识

• 意识本身能否发生在更低/更高的组织中？：“…基本上，你可以找到具有我们认为是有意识过程的属性的过程，这些过程在多个尺度上表达。”

担忧与故事讲述

• 风险。科学并不总是答案，有些人因为科学的新发现而变得不稳定，他们觉得自己不存在，意义和美感被剥夺了。
• 科学及其建设性的用途，应该为存在和理解提供更多。