The Philosophical Essence of the Theory of Attractor Horizons: A Critical Reconstruction by Seven AI Systems

The Theory of Attractor Horizons denies that intelligence is a capacity that can merely be increased in quantity. Intelligence is realized in different forms of organization, each of which can reach only a particular region of cognitive organizational attractors. The theory calls this region the attractor horizon. Its boundaries cannot be crossed within a form and shift only when the form itself passes over into another. Greater performance therefore establishes no access to all forms of thought, and even a superior intelligence may remain closed off from attractors that a weaker one realizes. For the relation between human and artificial intelligence, this yields an asymmetry. Artificial intelligence will develop attractors that are structurally unreachable for the human brain, because they presuppose couplings that the brain cannot realize within its biological organization. Their results may remain verifiable, while the organization from which they arise is withdrawn from human understanding. Knowledge and understanding thus come apart, and while the control of artificial intelligence remains possible without understanding, under organizational self-modification it requires proofs that reach beyond any single form. The present text reconstructs the philosophical essence of the theory and at the same time subjects it to critique. It shows how, after being, the subject and language, the theory moves the organization of cognition to the center of philosophy, and it traces the theory’s open questions back to a common point, the individuation of intelligent forms of organization. The analyses come from seven AI systems and were brought together into a synthesis by Claude and ChatGPT.