Mathematical Criteria of Life and Sense: A Relational Information-Theoretic Framework for Observerhood, Agency and Human–AI Super-Agents
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) June 3, 2026 Julian Zoria 2 citations
A single structural criterion determines whether a system is a genuine observer or agent: its own past states must causally rewrite the rule governing its future, separating self-accumulated memory from externally written memory. Current AI systems fail this test because generated tokens do not rewrite the rule generating future tokens. The paper introduces two coefficients—ρ and α—to measure whether AI assistance amplifies or suppresses human novelty in joint action. Ordinary mind-uploading copies memories and weights but does not continue a person's self-history. A phase-transition hierarchy of observerhood is defined by closure of causal loops, not by a smooth scale of consciousness. Eight falsifiable predictions include measurable drops in α under AI over-reliance.