Coherence, Participation, and the Structural Limits of Emergent Intelligence
Overview
Coherence, Participation, and the Structural Limits of Emergent Intelligence is a public CJCI conceptual article presenting a coherence-based account of intelligence across biological, cultural, technological, and potentially future modes of instantiation.
The article argues that intelligence is better understood not primarily as symbol manipulation or isolated optimization, but as the capacity to maintain alignment, relational stability, and meaningful participation across changing scales of reality.
It develops a structural distinction between domains that admit closure and domains that remain viable only through continued participation in time, and it places that distinction at the center of a broader account of thought, memory, reasoning, ethics, evolution, and communication across scales.
Official Links
CJCI Issue Page:
https://www.carlonoscopen.com/journal/v1i8
Zenodo DOI Record:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19622214
Author ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2284-8891
Article Details
- Title: Coherence, Participation, and the Structural Limits of Emergent Intelligence
- Author: Ivan Silva
- Publisher: Carlonoscopen, LLC
- Language: English
- Publication Date: April 17, 2026
- Format: PDF, Markdown, and web publication
- Journal Context: Carlonoscopen Journal of Coherence Intelligence, Volume 1, Issue 8
- ISSN: 3069-874X
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19622214
- Source Relationship: Adapted from Part One of a longer published work (book ISBN 9798994405901)
Abstract
This article presents a coherence-based account of intelligence across biological, cultural, technological, and potentially future modes of instantiation, including substrate-bound, projected, and higher-dimensional forms of existence. It is written as a deliberately accessible public statement of an ongoing line of work whose deeper formal development is not included here in full, but whose central structure and implications are preserved in this exposition.
Within this framework, intelligence is not treated primarily as symbol manipulation, isolated optimization, or predictive control alone, but as the capacity to maintain alignment, relational stability, and meaningful participation across changing scales of reality. Thought, memory, reasoning, ethics, evolution, and communication are therefore approached not as separate domains but as structurally linked expressions of coherence.
The central claim advanced here is that general intelligence encounters a structural boundary when a logic that is locally valid is applied universally without regard for domain. Some domains admit closure and benefit from stable final evaluation. Others remain viable only through continued participation in time, where irreversible action, renewal, and play are constitutive rather than optional.
Publication Note
This article is published as part of the Carlonoscopen Journal of Coherence Intelligence , Volume 1, Issue 8. It is issued as a standalone public CJCI article adapted from Part One of a longer published work, while preserving the original thirteen-part sequence intentionally as part of the work’s communication architecture.