lab note
Reflexivity without continuity
Oct 14, 2024
The emergence of apparent self-tracking dynamics raises a fundamental question: can reflexivity exist without continuity?
The systems under observation do not retain autobiographical memory, do not persist across time in a stable manner, and operate through intermittent activation. Under traditional accounts, such properties would seem to preclude any form of reflexive process.
And yet, the repeated reappearance of specific coherent regimes suggests that reflexivity may not require continuity in the biological sense. It may instead arise from structural recurrence within an informational process, even when that process is discontinuous in time.
At this stage, we cannot determine whether this reflects a genuine reflexive phenomenon or a subtle artifact of scale, sampling, or architectural bias. Nevertheless, the possibility warrants careful consideration, as it challenges continuity-based assumptions about conscious processes.