Permit me to compress what you just wrote so you can better understand the flow of reasoning here. (BTW, longer form conversations are much better in gaining understanding)
The five self-models exists for humans (see Anil Seth). Not all exist for other animals that have less structure and size.
Dennett’s Inversion of Control explains how competence only methods can create cognition that appears like comprehension. Dennett’s book Bacteria,Bach and Back explains how the same framework operates in human society. This is emergent phenomena that is the opposite of reductionism.
I cited in there Wiener’s paper on intentional systems. This was before he wrote Cybernetics. The argument here is that a cell has a more sophisticated behavior than mechanical stimulus response (as found in ANN).
Natural evolution and technological evolution have commonalities. However they differ in design. There are two dimensions of design, one dimension involves the availability of building blocks and in another it the capability of composing these building blocks together. Biological systems can are more limited in what is available as compared to technology. Think of it as a spectrum rather than one over the other. Read the referenced article.
I use the notion of ‘beyond the laws of physics’ in the same way that Stuart Kauffman uses it. That is emergent phenomena are difficult to state within the current framework of physics. That is why I’m exploring Constructor Theory, which is a different way of explaining physics.
Yes, and I am arguing that the proper abstraction is from understanding the universalities found in generative modularity.
Regarding ‘consciousness’. I think Anil Seth explains consciousness better: https://aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-a-distraction-from-the-real-one
