Specificity vs. generality of cybernetic knowledge

Cybernetic knowledge lower on the practopoietic hierarchy must be more general than the knowledge higher on that hierarchy. In other words, knowledge at the higher level or organization can be considered a special case of the knowledge at a lower level of organization.

For example, if the general rule for a heating system is “If it is cold, heat.”, a specific case tells us what is a happening right now e.g., “It is cold, and therefore the heater should be on.”

The most general form of knowledge in our body is that stored in genes and gene expression mechanisms. This knowledge tells our body what to do in a wide range of circumstances, many of which we may never encounter. This information has been acquired over millions of years of evolution. By expressing these genes and developing an organism, the system acquires more specific knowledge about environmental conditions that hold for a particular space and time. Our body contains even more specific knowledge in space and time in a form of the current contents of our working memory. The very top of specificity is reached with the sensory-motor loops that are being executed at a given instant.

Therefore, a specificity hierarchy may look as follows:

genes –> anatomy –> working memory contents –> ongoing sensory-motor loops

The relationship between general and specific knowledge is referred to as transcendence of knowledge and can be expressed graphically in knowledge graphs.

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