Issues and Intelligent Systems

In the earlier chapter you learned about issues, but issues are actually intelligent-systems with a life of their own. All issues are intelligent-systems up until the point where they are resolved and no longer require energy. Issues are usually short lived and may live only a couple of seconds as intelligent-systems. For some issues like religious issues, they can live for thousands of years and never be resolved. An issue is alive as long as there are energy consuming understanding-engines available to understand update and maintain the knowledge base of the issue.

Just as a reminder: Books do not have issues and they are not intelligent-systems because books do not use energy. Books store fixed knowledge in an unreliable type called information that must be processed through a language before its knowledge can be revealed. Errors in the language processing of the one who is reading the book can result in false knowledge.

A book only becomes an issue when someone begins reading it. This is because they are using the understanding-engine of their reading affector and it consumes energy. By reading, they form an intelligent-system between the reader and the book. The book is the knowledge and the reader is understanding. While reading the book the issue is alive but when done reading the issue is resolved.

The chapter on issues discussed the example issue of finding a coin on the ground and deciding whether or not to pick it up. It takes an intelligent-system to resolve an issue like this. From the moment you noticed the coin on the ground a new intelligent-system was born. The brain began assembling the knowledge and understandings necessary to resolve the issue. In just an instant the brain can decide on a path of resolution. It may or may not run the picking affector that grabs the coin. Instead it may run its ignoring affector. In either case the issue is resolved in a matter of seconds and the intelligent-system is put to rest. This is an example of an intelligent-system that was designed, constructed, and used in a very small space over a very short period of time. Once the issue was resolved the intelligent-system was forgotten, discarded, or deleted from the brain and no longer needs energy.

It is not only humans that have issues; some very small creatures have issues of their own. The smallest independent life-forms are usually considered bacteria or yeast cells. If you were to take apart a single-celled life-form you would find numerous intelligent-systems at work. The intelligent-system that builds the cell wall of a tiny creature has a high level of sophistication developed over millions of years of evolution. Knowledge stored in the cell's DNA sequences direct energy consuming understanding-engines to assemble molecules of protein to form a cell wall. If the cell wall were to get damaged that would be an issue for an intelligent-system to resolve.

The intelligent-system that builds the cell wall of a bacterium actually has many issues to resolve during its life time. The cell wall senses data from MEST, allows the passage of food in one direction and waste in the other, it shrinks and expands to provide locomotion, and divides itself for reproduction. Each one of these functions is an issue for the intelligent-system to maintain and resolve. Each issue must confront the same ten directors and use that knowledge to adapt its understandings to the nature of its environment. The ten directors are universal even at the scale of a bacterium because life is a complex issue.