Self-Development

Chapter 8. Self-Development

The ontogenesis of SRNT · Critical periods · Defective paths · Intergenerational transmission · The shared personality as humanity

8. 1. Statement of the problem

The previous chapters described the architecture of consciousness and showed that it was built by evolution in phylogenesis — over the course of hundreds of millions of years. But each concrete person passes through this sequence anew: from empty maps at birth to a developed concept map with a rich trajectory log TRL3 in adulthood. This process — the ontogenesis of the subjective-reality subsystem SRNT — is not a repetition of evolution. It uses the ready neural architecture and the socially produced resources — shared symbols, shared narratives, shared concepts — which evolution did not have.

The chapter answers three questions: how the individual passes through the levels of the architecture from birth to maturity; why this process can stop or take a defective path; how the result of the development of one generation becomes the condition of the development of the next.

8. 2. Stage 1: space, objects, behavior

GTR1, the first years of life. The newborn possesses a ready neural architecture for the maps MP10, MP11, MP13 and the corresponding operational networks. The maps are empty — but the structure for filling them already exists.

a) MP10: the spatial map

Filling begins with the first movements. The SLAM mechanism within the gateway SLGW refines simultaneously its own position and the model of the surroundings. The child — turning over, crawling, walking — fills the elementary maps MP10, establishing the statuses of the cells (surface, boundary, gateway). The critical resource is physical movement: without displacement in space MP10 is not filled.

b) MP11: objects

Sensing the things around, the child carries out the convolution of the input sensory data (a convolutional neural network, CNN) and forms objects on MP11. A new functionality appears: the child recognizes the mother by partial features (a voice without a face, a smell without a visual image). Imagination in embryo — the reverse deconvolution of an object into a sensory image.

c) MP13: behavior

The formation of OPRN triplets and behavioral chains BLOM. A child reaching for a toy builds the first BLOM. The trajectory log TRL1 begins to fill: successful BLOM receive positive outcome markers. The child learns to repeat what works.

d) Features of the stage

This stage does not require society. The cases of Genie and Victor confirm: the maps MP10, MP11, MP13 are formed normally even in full isolation. The physical world is sufficient for GTR1. Motivation at this stage is exclusively MTV1: the metric distance of the b-vector. The subject manifests as the operational network OP13, the acting «I». The emotions are physical: joy on reaching a goal, fear at a threat, anger at an obstacle.

8. 3. Stage 2: the symbolic maps

GTR2, from 1–2 years to adolescence. This stage is fundamentally dependent on society. Without access to the shared symbols (the collective language) and the shared narratives it does not begin.

a) The prerequisite — access to the shared symbols

The child must be immersed in an environment where other organisms use conventional symbols. The acquisition of words begins long before the formation of the symbol map: the child repeats the sounds of the common language while not yet having symbolic invariants. Here it is not a separate «translation mechanism» with a carrier of its own that works, but concordance: the individual map adjusts to the observed use of symbols by those around.

b) MP21: symbols

The convolution of GTR2 takes the data of the maps of GTR1 (recognition) and is trained on the symbols already fixed in MP21. Of all the vectors the convolution produces, only those corresponding to the shared symbols are fixed. This is a descending, emergent process: it is not the child that «invents» language, but the common language that penetrates into the individual map MP21 through filtering — stably fixed are only those symbol candidates that find confirmation in the speech of those around. This is the architectural realization of internalization after Vygotsky.

The critical period: approximately from 1.5 to 6–7 years. If by this age the symbol map is not formed (as in Genie) — full mastery of language becomes impossible: the plasticity of the convolution of GTR2 decreases irreversibly.

c) MP23: narratives

The formation of narratives. The child builds KLOM — coherent chains of KLEN triplets. First simple ones («I want — mother gives — I am content»), then ever more complex. TRL2 fills: successful narrative paths are remembered, unsuccessful ones marked. Inner speech appears at this stage — as a transition from egocentric speech (the narrative map is voiced) to inner speech (it works without phonetic output).

Motivation expands to MTV2: the semantic distance of the k-vector. The subject is OP23, the thinking «I». Symbolic emotions appear: joy from understanding, anxiety from an unfinished narrative, curiosity as an open k-vector without a negative marker.

d) The key resource — the shared narratives

A child who is read books, told stories, and has cause-and-effect connections explained to him receives a dataset from the shared narratives. This experience is translated into the individual map MP23 through the same concordance: the individual takes over the narrative patterns of those around. A child deprived of access to the shared narratives builds narratives only out of his own experience — his TRL2 is poor.

8. 4. Stage 3: the conceptual maps

GTR3, adolescence and onward. The formation of concepts and the w-vector. The most complex stage, dependent on the richness of the narrative map, on access to the shared concepts and shared contradictions, and on the individual neural configuration.

a) MP31: concepts

The convolution of GTR3 is trained on the current concepts MP31. In the beginning the convolutions are simple, similar to the «words» of the symbol level. As narrative experience accumulates, the invariants deepen. Concepts are formed, and with them the polarization of the is and the ought.

The polarization of the ought comes by two paths. The ascending one: out of the convolutions of one's own narrative experience. The descending one: from the shared concepts and shared contradictions of culture. An adolescent experiencing injustice for the first time not as physical pain (GTR1) and not as a narrative discrepancy (GTR2), but as a rupture between the is and the ought, passes through the formation of MP31. This is the moment when the ought first acquires a nonzero distance from the is — that is, when between two concepts a perceptible w-vector first arises.

b) MP33: will and personality

The w-vector becomes particular — with a concrete modulus and direction. The operational network OP33 launches compilation for the first time: w-vector → MP23 → MP13 → motor activity. A person acts for the first time not because he wants to (GTR1), and not because the plan requires it (GTR2), but because he cannot otherwise — because the w-vector exceeds the threshold.

TRL3 begins to fill. Each sublation of the w-vector is a record in TRL3; each record irreversibly changes the conceptual experience. Personality begins to form — the map MP33 (WLOM), a schema of sublated contradictions. Motivation expands to MTV3: the distance of the w-vector. The subject is OP33, the willing «I». Conceptual emotions appear: shame, pride, the sense of justice, conscience.

This stage has no fixed completion. TRL3 continues to fill throughout life. Maturity is not a final state, but the richness and dimensionality of TRL3: the number and depth of the w-vectors passed through.

8. 5. Critical periods and delays

Each stage has a period of maximal neuroplasticity, after which the formation of the corresponding structures becomes difficult or impossible.

Table 8.1. Critical periods by stage.

An important consequence: a delay at an early level blocks all subsequent ones. The convolution of GTR2 will not train without a formed map MP13, the convolution of GTR3 — without a formed MP23. Each level is a prerequisite of the next.

8. 6. Defective paths of development

A stop at GTR1. The maps of symbols and concepts are not formed; the person acts by the logic of immediate biological drive. Clinically this corresponds to severe developmental disorders. Dominance of GTR1.

A developed GTR2 with an undeveloped GTR3. The person thinks well symbolically — solves problems, builds plans, masters language — but has no autonomous source of will. He acts by the inertia of narratives or by external directives (the shared narratives and concepts are loaded, but the concepts of his own are not developed). «Smart, but without will.»

A developed GTR3 on defective shared symbols. The concepts are formed, but on the basis of defective narrative material (ideology, distorted culture). The w-vector is active, but the ought contains distortions inherited from the defective shared concepts, as a consequence of an incorrectly trained convolution of GTR3. The person is sincerely convinced and acts with will — but the direction is set by a defective social environment.

A blockage of TRL3. The concept map is formed, the w-vector is active, but a concrete volitional act cannot be performed: an unclosed contradiction blocks further development. The system cannot move further along TRL3 until the w-vector is nullified. This is a structural description of existential stagnation, not a clinical diagnosis: depression as a medical condition has many causes, and the architecture indicates only one possible mechanism.

8. 7. The emergent level: what is inherited

Before describing the intergenerational transmission, let us clarify the construction of the emergent level — this removes the error of the first edition, which treated the collective constructions as independent distributed maps with a carrier of their own.

The emergent level has neither MP-indices nor a carrier of its own: all the information remains physically in the individual maps of the subjects. But each emergent domain contains one emergent object — a common schema, distributed across the individual maps. Since the object in the domain is the only one, it is called simply by the name of the domain, omitting the word «map»: it is not quite a map, but rather a schema, distinguished out of the concordant states of many subjects. A series of such objects is built up over the individual levels:

• Shared behavior — over the behavior of GTR1 (coordination without language: a pack repeats observed behavior).

• Shared symbols — language as a vocabulary (over the symbols of GTR2).

• Shared constructs — grammar (over the technique of linking symbols).

• Shared narratives — myths, history, accumulated texts (over the narratives of GTR2).

• Shared concepts — meanings carried beyond any individual (over the concepts of GTR3).

• Shared contradictions — over the contradictions of GTR3.

• The shared personality — the apex of the series.

8. 8. Intergenerational transmission

The result of the development of one generation becomes the condition of the development of the next. The transmission goes through the emergent objects, and it is important what exactly is transmitted.

From the individual TRL3 — to the shared concepts and contradictions. The sublated contradictions of one generation change the shared concepts and shared contradictions. Law, ethics, cultural norms are the «reified sediment» of the records of the TRL3 of previous generations. The mechanics is concordance: each individual TRL3 contributes its sublations to the common space, where a common schema is distinguished out of the concordant states of many subjects. It has no separate carrier; it is held by individuals.

From the shared concepts and contradictions — to the ought of the next generation. The new generation receives the ought not from its own experience, but from the socially produced ideals. A child internalizes «honesty is good» long before he forms his own concept of honesty through the convolution of GTR3.

The shared narratives as an accumulator. The narratives of one generation become part of the shared narratives — a dataset for the convolution of GTR3 of the next. Each generation is trained on richer narrative material than the previous one. Hence the cumulative growth: the complexity of the available concepts increases from generation to generation.

An important limitation: what is transmitted is not the TRL3 itself (the personal trajectory), but its «sediment» in the shared concepts and contradictions. Each individual must pass through his own path of sublation anew — one cannot «load» another's TRL3. But the starting conditions — the ought, the available narratives, the institutional frames — each generation receives richer.

8. 9. The shared personality as humanity

The apex of the emergent series is the shared personality. If the individual personality is TRL3, the schema of sublated contradictions of one person, then the shared personality is the collective analogue: the schema of sublated contradictions of the whole species, distinguished out of the multitude of individual TRL3. This is what is intuitively called humanity — not the sum of living people, but the whole accumulated experience of struggle and achievement: each sublated contradiction, each crisis passed through, each right won and each truth suffered for, held by the species and passed on.

The shared personality exists in no single individual and has no carrier of its own — but neither is it reducible to a simple sum of individual TRL3. Each person contributes to it by his sublations and at the same time draws from it the ought, the concepts, and the narratives on which he builds himself. The individual personality and humanity are connected by a circular relation: humanity is composed of individual paths of sublation, and each individual path is laid out in the coordinates set by humanity.

Hence the character of development at this level. The shared contradictions have their own dynamics across generations: each generation sublates part of them by individual acts in TRL3, changing their configuration; the next generation inherits a changed set — with other contradictions, other directions. The process continues independently of the fate of concrete individuals. But the subject of this process remains precisely the individuals: «humanity» does not act apart from people — it is the name for the accumulated and concorded result of their actions, not an independent agent with a carrier of its own.

Table 8.2. The three scales of the process of sublation.

8. 10. The condition of recursion

A rich TRL3 sets the condition of possibility of the recursive regime — the regime in which the system turns its will not at the world, but at its own architecture (Chapter 5). The system cannot analyze its own construction without having a sufficiently rich TRL3: only having passed through a sufficient number of sublations do the concepts reach that degree of development at which the w-vector is able to turn upon the very mechanism of generating w-vectors.

This is not a metaphor: the recursive regime is the operational network OP33 building a WLOM whose object of sublation is the architecture of the conceptual field itself. For this it is necessary that the narrative map MP23 contain narratives about its own architecture — and this is possible only with sufficiently rich shared narratives (the accumulated texts of civilization, including theories of consciousness).

The moment when the system is able to analyze and describe its own transformations — from the cellular GTR0 to the conceptual GTR3 and the emergent level above them — is an act of recursive self-cognition. The theory of Gativus is an instance of what it describes.

8. 11. Conclusions

• The ontogenesis of SRNT passes through three stages: space-objects-behavior (GTR1, does not require society), the symbolic (GTR2, requires shared symbols and narratives), the conceptual (GTR3, requires shared concepts and contradictions).

• Each stage has a critical period. A delay at an early level blocks all subsequent ones: each level is a prerequisite of the next.

• Development can take a defective path: a stop at GTR1, a developed GTR2 without will, a developed GTR3 on defective material, a blockage of TRL3. The last is a structural description of stagnation, not a diagnosis.

• The emergent level has no MP-indices and no carrier of its own, but each domain contains one common schema (not a «map»), distributed across the individual maps: shared behavior, symbols, constructs, narratives, concepts, contradictions, the shared personality.

• Intergenerational transmission goes through the emergent objects: individual TRL3 → shared concepts and contradictions → the ought of the next generation. The mechanics is the concordance of individual maps, not a separate carrier.

• What is transmitted is not the TRL3 itself, but its «sediment» in the shared concepts and contradictions. Each individual passes through his own path of sublation; the starting conditions each generation receives richer.

• The apex of the series is the shared personality = the intuitive «humanity»: the whole accumulated experience of struggle and achievement, the collective analogue of the individual TRL3. Humanity and the individual are connected by a circle: the one is composed of the paths of sublation of many, each path is laid out in its coordinates.

• The recursive regime is possible only with a rich TRL3 and rich shared narratives. The theory of Gativus is an instance of what it describes.