Emergent Existence

Emergent Existence

The Series

Three volumes, each meant to inherit what the one before it has earned: from a single distinction to physics and life, from life to consciousness, and from consciousness to shared meaning.

Volume I

Natural Existence

The first volume begins before ordinary physical description. Its initial concern is not what matter does, but what must already be true before something like matter could become describable at all.

From the Introduction

  1. Book I: Relational Existence

    Beta draft, prepared for peer review

    1. 1Origin
    2. 2Difference
    3. 3Distinction
    4. 4Boundary
    5. 5Relation
    6. 6Closure
    7. 7Orientation
    8. 8Return
    9. 9Formalism
    10. 10Scale
    11. 11Distance
    12. 12Geometry
    13. 13Space
    14. 14Time

  2. Book II: Physical Existence

    In drafting

    1. Spacetime
    2. Gravity
    3. Quantum Gravity
    4. Matter
    5. Black Holes
    6. Recursive Cosmogenesis
    7. Complexity
    8. Life
    9. Memory
    10. Knowing

Volume II

Conscious Existence

Planned

Volume II begins by refusing an easy equivalence. Life is not consciousness. Memory is not consciousness. Agency is not consciousness. Self-modeling is not consciousness.

From the Introduction

Planned stages

  1. Regulation
  2. Valuation
  3. Learning
  4. Self-modeling
  5. Communication
  6. Consciousness

Volume III

Meaningful Existence

Planned

Meaning comes later still. A distinction can exist without referring to anything. A physical signal can transmit information without understanding it.

From the Introduction

Planned stages

  1. Interpretation
  2. Shared reference
  3. Norms and institutions
  4. Meaning

Reading the list

Stages in upright type are drafted; stages in italics are planned, and their titles may change as the books are written. The stage lists are read from the series' registers each time the site is built.

Book I: Relational ExistenceSee every term in the Lexicon Tree