“Kiddo” when you are still using false equivalencies like a kid. "Modulation makes memory, therefore modulation makes minds" doesn't follow. And "explain X or I'm right" isn't an argument either. Memory formation is well understood. Coincident firing opens NMDA receptors, calcium triggers CaMKII, AMPA receptors get added, and the synapse strengthens (LTP). Protein synthesis then locks it in. Neuromodulators like dopamine and norepinephrine act as a gate that tags what's worth keeping, but the storage itself is connection-strength change.
Even granting modulation a role in the incorrect way you’re using it for your argument, memory isn't consciousness or intelligence. Sea slugs form serotonin-driven memories with about 20k neurons. Your immune system has memory with no neurons at all. Patient H.M. couldn't form new long-term memories yet stayed fully conscious and scored above average on IQ tests.
Modulation has nothing to do with biology/consciousness/intelligence within the framework you mention. It just doesn’t make sense. You’re incorrect over and over about only life being capable self-modulating. Storm systems do, and my best example, the BZ reaction, is something you’re ignoring.
You’re not wrong about NEETS, you’re wrong that it applies to our conversation whatsoever. The argument only works by treating two different meanings of "intelligence" as one. Information impressed on a medium, whether ink on paper or a modulated radio wave, isn't intelligence in the sense we're debating. Showing that something merely carries information doesn't show that it understands, thinks, or is conscious.
@FATE_IMPERIUM Your definition puts the intelligence on the wrong thing. Modulation impresses intelligence onto a carrier signal, not onto the transmission medium the signal travels through.
@FATE_IMPERIUM Per discussion last night you admitted bacterium have some degree of consciousness even though it is only in the form of chemical reactions, ergo a chemical reaction can constitute consciousness. If conscious can be solely chemical, then a BZ reaction is intelligent
That’s no silver bullet. Modulation means varying the carrier's amplitude (AM), frequency (FM), or phase to encode a signal, and the receiver's demodulator pulls the signal back out. In older radio textbooks, that signal is called the "intelligence," meaning the message content, not a mind. Your argument takes this engineering term and makes it the dividing line between life and non-life, then slides from "intelligence = message" to "intelligence = consciousness."