What nutrient do I keep? What nutrient do I ignore?
Eating:
Pattern Cycle (Meta-Level)
- Pattern: Recognition of fundamental forms
Digestion is the process of consuming, breaking down, absorbing, and integration; the primary concern is satisfying and predicting the needs of the self. The most common form is in food, where a body performs mechanical and chemical digestion until it is able to absorb the required nutrients. While the atomic units, save some metals, are already present in the body what truly matters is the arrangement; so the true value can be described in terms of “negentropy”. The distribution of chemicals in the consumed food need to be complementary to be helpful, eating nothing but refined sugars leaves the body lacking in what is needed to build muscles.
- Body: Embodiment of patterns in physical systems
The process begins by identifying the material to be digested; then the determination of if a material is useful and how much preparation is required to make nutrients available can be completed. From there the material is treated to reduce negentropy until it is below a threshold such that it can be consumed, making nutrients accessible to the body. The choice of hunger is more than just one piece, the microbiome has adapted to a diet and pushes the body towards specific materials that they can thrive off of while providing the body some benefit. Finally the nutrients are fully prepared, absorbed, and the energetically unfavourable to synthesise components integrated into the body.
- Mind: Organization of patterns into models
The main components involved are the ability to predict which nutrients are required by the body in order to deal with the future. Some things are simple such as the continual need for energy, others are complex but predictable like growth, and others yet are almost impossible such as a spontaneous injury. The body has multiple systems to perform inference on which material is nessicary for consumption; from neuronal (choose what to eat) to microbiome (influences neuronal and hormonal) to hormonal (state of body) . These are not performed in a vacuum though, humans have physical-sociological systems that influence us such as knowledge provided to us (mother telling us to eat healthy) and monetary constraints (healthy food can be expensive).
- Soul: Emergence of patterns through relationship
There is a risk here, in believing that these systems are designed solely for the benefit of ensuring we have the right nutrients, the reason being that each system learns on different timescales. The fastest adapting system being our neuronal, with quick changes based on weighed prices and cravings, the microbiome is slower, acting on the time scale of microbial selection, and hormonal is glacial, acting on the scale of human evolution. If we experience chronic stress our hormones think we might die, our cravings turn to fast calories, we choose unhealthy foods, and our microbiome adapts so as to reinforce the cycle. Social and psychological systems have developed to help ameliorate or extract wealth from this problem, but only by addressing the gestalt do we see long-term gains.
Body Cycle (Physical Systems)
- Sensing: Basic molecular recognition and response
So we know that consumption of food is the result of the body attempting to predict which nutrients are important when consuming negentropy, what of other forms that share a structure, what of learning? Learning involves the identification of information, the prediction of which information is useful, and then the integration into the mind. The information is then scored over time by how frequently recurs, with
- Encapsulation: Formation of boundaries and self
- Cooperation: Emergence of multicellular organization
- Symbiosis: Co-adaptive systems and mutual transformation
Mind Cycle (Information Processing)
- Identification: Recognition of distinct signals
- Translation: Converting signals to internal representations
- Integration: Formation of coherent models
- Dialogue: Dynamic exchange of meaning
Soul Cycle (Interpersonal Relationship)
- Witnessing: Recognition of other consciousness
- Connection: Formation of relationships
- Communion: Development of shared understanding
- Resonance: Ongoing patterns of mutual influence