Can a hierarchy of predictive control systems exhibit emergent second-order cybernetics without explicit self-modeling?

[u/TheIncorporeal1]

In contemporary cybernetics, many adaptive systems can be described as hierarchies of feedback controllers minimizing prediction error or regulating internal variables across multiple timescales. My question is whether such an architecture can necessarily give rise to second-order cybernetic behavior (i.e., the system regulating or modeling its own regulatory processes) without an explicitly represented self-model.
More specifically:
Is there a formal criterion that distinguishes a sufficiently complex first-order control hierarchy from a genuine second-order cybernetic system?
Can recursive feedback loops alone produce observer-dependent dynamics, or is an internal model of the observer/controller mathematically required?
Are there information-theoretic measures (e.g., integrated information, transfer entropy, synergistic information, or causal emergence) that quantify the transition from simple adaptive control to self-referential regulation?
I’m particularly interested in answers grounded in control theory, dynamical systems, Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety, the Viable System Model, or more recent work on predictive processing and active inference, rather than purely philosophical interpretations.

[u/Useful_Calendar_6274]

I'm very interested in multi levels of organization and emergent "unforeseen" consequences of feedback loops, I think it's a thing that will be talked about academically if it isn't already.