The Ladder of Inevitability

The Ladder of Inevitability

Each step follows from the previous under broad conditions:

1. Microdynamics $\to$ Attractors: Bifurcation theory for driven nonlinear systems
2. Attractors $\to$ Boundaries: Dissipative selection for gradient-channeling structures
3. Boundaries $\to$ Regulation: Maintenance requirement under perturbation
4. Regulation $\to$ World Model: POMDP sufficiency theorem — V20: $C_{\text{wm}} = 0.10{-}0.15$, agents' hidden states predict future position and energy substantially above chance
5. World Model $\to$ Self-Model: Self-effect ratio exceeds threshold ($\rho > \rho_c$) — V20: $\rho_{\text{sync}} \approx 0.21$ from initialization; self-model salience $> 1.0$ in 2/3 seeds
6. Self-Model $\to$ Metacognition: Recursive application of modeling to the modeling process itself — nascent in V20; robust development likely requires resource-scarcity selection creating bottleneck dynamics (V19)