A Self-realizing system is one that seeks to create and maintain its own structure over time. Freya Matthews suggests that these systems can be viewed through the lens of [[Geometrodynamics]] as a local pattern within a larger field. One that continually configures, preserves, and perpetuates self organization. This reminds me of Fritjof Capra's [[Systems View of Life]] which attempts to move to a eco-spiritual form [[Home/017- Posts/Spiritual Mechanism|Spiritual Mechanism]] of [[General Systems Theory]]. Which is unfortunately still a mechanistic framework. Can we instead replace these ideas of systems with [[Dialectical Naturalism]] ? >'The individuality of such systems, which I call selves, is not, from a systems perspective, a function of separateness or discreteness but of inter-connection: they maintain their distinctness by continually exchanging energy with their environment. A paradigmatic instance of the self is clearly the organism. - Freya Matthews ### What counts as an individual? Those beings that seek to differentiate themselves from the environment. Chairs, rocks, bricks etc. are not self differentiating. Aristotle describes such differentiation in terms of subject v.s. object or living v.s. manufactured. Stating that living beings follow the laws of nature and thus must be those that reproduce, change, and have motion. *Does this mean that a.i. can be self-realizing and if it is, does that mean it has become an individual? How does an object move towards subjecthood? How does one reclaim their subjecthood?* #question >'From that perspective they remain merely accidental crinkles or knots in space.' - Freya Matthews *Imagine space as a woven fabric the knots are the design of the world we experience. But this is also an apt description of gravity that warps the fabric of space creating time. [[Spinoza's Ethics]] attributes [[Conativity]] to all beings and Self-Realizing Systems would have Conativity as well. >'The prime locus of meaning may reside in the realm of selves, in the order of self-realization that must unfold amongst selves in accordance with Law if the living cosmos is to remain on track.' - Elvia Wilk ## Sources: [[Matthews, Freya (2021) The Ecological Self]] [[General Systems Theory]] [[The Network Self]]