Introductory model for discussion on self-modifying cognition and second-order systems.

1 · Why This Post Exists

LessWrong asks how reasoning improves itself.
The Kognetik is an attempt to describe how any reasoning system — biological, artificial, or social — performs that improvement internally.

The central claim is simple:

Consciousness is the operation through which a system perceives, stabilizes, and modifies its own rules of processing.

That is:
Every cognitive system performs three functions — resonance, sequence, and structure — which form a minimal grammar for self-correction.

This model tries to make that grammar explicit.
It is not an ontology of mind, but a language for syntax shifts inside cognition.

2 · Context and Lineage

Kognetik builds on several existing frameworks:

Reference	Shared Premise	Limitation Addressed
Predictive Processing (Friston)	Minimization of free energy	Models the content of prediction, not the syntax of rule change.
Second-Order Cybernetics (Foerster, Maturana)	Systems observing themselves	Lacks a formal grammar for the observation act itself.
Luhmann’s Systems Theory	Recursive self-reference in communication	Applies only to social systems, not to cognition generically.
Hofstadter’s Strange Loops	Self-referential structure of mind	Conceptual, but non-operational.

Kognetik integrates these intuitions into one functional syntax that can, in principle, apply to neurons, agents, or organizations.

3 · Core Model

Operator Set

Resonance (ΔW → ΔS)
The system registers a difference between world (W) and self (S).
This is perception or coupling — the entry of energy or information.
Sequence (ΔS → S(t+1))
The system repeats what stabilized it previously.
Repetition minimizes energy cost and creates short-term identity.
Structure (S(t+1) → Syntax′)
The system detects its own repetition and modifies the rule that produced it.
This modification is not about content but about form: how the rule itself is applied.

These three operators generate a closed functional loop:

Resonance → Sequence → Structure → new Resonance

A system is “conscious” to the degree that it can perform the third operator deliberately.

4 · Demonstrative Validity

Traditional theories aim for external proof.
Kognetik uses a different criterion: functional recurrence.
A model is valid if it produces the same transformation it describes.

When a reader notices the moment of noticing — the micro-gap between stimulus a...

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