This paper argues that subjectivity begins not with consciousness, memory, or self-reflection, but with a minimal self-maintaining organization for which continued existence and termination are intrinsically non-equivalent. This asymmetry introduces intrinsic normativity into an otherwise indifferent physical order, making information meaningful relative to the organization’s continued...
The cover paper, A Constructive Ontology of Minded Beings, is not a fourth theoretical contribution so much as the interpretive frame for the trilogy (Paper I on minimal subject: 10.5281/zenodo.21700484, Paper II on minimal self: 10.5281/zenodo.21700773, Paper III on minimal person: 10.5281/zenodo.21700984). It explains that the project is built around three distinct ontological questions: why...