Knowledge Generation as Natural Computation - Research

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Knowledge Generation as Natural Computation KGCM - International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management July 8-11, 2007 – Orlando, Florida, USA.

Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc Department of Computer Science and Engineering Mälardalen University, Sweden

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Investigations into Information Semantics and Ethics of Computing

Computation Information Computation as Information Processing Ethics of Computing Open Problems Revisited Research Results Future Research Dodig-Crnkovic G., Bookrest 2 Oil on kanvas

http://www.diva-portal.org/mdh/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=153

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Information A special issue of the Journal of Logic, Language and Information (Volume 12 No 4 2003) d di t d tto th dedicated the diff differentt ffacets t off information. A Handbook H db k on th the Phil Philosophy h off Information (Van Benthem, Adriaans) is in preparation as one volume Handbook of the philosophy of science. http://www.illc.uva.nl/HPI/ Published in 2008!

Dodig-Crnkovic G., Ab Ovo. Information: Between the Anvil and Hammer – Orphean Theme, oil on canvas

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Computation The Computing Universe: Pancomputationalism

Zuse was the first to suggest (in 1967) that the physical behavior of the entire universe is being computed on a basic level, possibly on cellular y the universe itself which he automata, by referred to as "Rechnender Raum" or Computing Space/Cosmos. Computationalists: Zuse, Wiener, Fredkin, Wolfram, Chaitin, Lloyd, Seife, ..

Computing: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering and Information Systems, according to ACM/IEEE (2001). The German, German French and Italian languages use the respective terms "Informatik" Informatik , "Informatique" Informatique and “Informatica” (Informatics in English) to denote Computing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancomputationalism

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Computing Nature and Nature Inspired Computation Natural computation includes computation that occurs in nature or is inspired by nature. Computing Inspired by nature: Evolutionary E l ti computation t ti Neural networks Artificial immune systems Swarm intelligence

In 1623, Galileo in his book The Assayer Il Saggiatore, claimed that the language of nature's book is mathematics and that the way to understand nature is through mathematics. Generalizing ”mathematics” to ”computation” we may agree with Galileo – the great book of nature is an ebook!

Simulation and emulation of nature: Fractal geometry Artificial life

Computing with natural materials: DNA computing Quantum computing

Journals: Natural Computing and IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.

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The Wildfire Spread of Computational Ideas

"Everyone knows that computational and information technology has spread like wildfire throughout academic and intellectual life. But the spread of computational ideas has been just as impressive. p Biologists g not only y model life forms on computers; p ; they treat the gene, and even whole organisms, as information systems. Philosophy, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science don't don t just construct computational models of mind; they take cognition to be computation, at the deepest levels." Brian Cantwell Smith, The Wildfire Spread of Computational Ideas, 2003

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The Universe as a Computer - Pancomputationalism

We are all living inside a gigantic g g computer. p No,, not The Matrix: the Universe. Every y process, p every y change g that takes place in the Universe, may be considered as a kind of computation computation.

Seth Lloyd, Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos,, 2006 Milkowsky Marcin, Is Computationalism Trivial? In Computation, Information, Cognition G. Dodig Dodig-Crnkovic Crnkovic and S. Stuart (Editors), CSP, Cambridge 2006 Charles Seife, Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes, 2006

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Present Model of Computation: Turing Machine

......

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Tape Control Unit

Read-Write head 1. Reads a symbol 2 Writes a symbol 2. 3. Moves Left or Right

The definition of computation is currently under debate, and an entire issue of the journal Minds and Machines (1994, 4, 4) was devoted to the question “What is p Computation?” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/

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Turing g Machines Limitations - Self-generating g g Systems y According to George Kampis, Kampis complex biological systems must be modeled as self-referential, self-organizing systems called "component-systems" (self-generating systems), whose behavior, though computational in a generalized sense sense, goes far beyond Turing machine model. “ componentt system “a t is i a computer t which, hi h when h executing ti itits operations (software) builds a new hardware.... [W]e have a computer that re-wires itself in a hardware-software interplay: the hardware defines the software and the software defines new hardware. Then the circle starts again.” (Kampis, p. 223 Self-Modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive S i Science) )

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Correspondence Principle picture i t f from Stuart St t A. A Umpleby U l b http://www.gwu.edu/~umpleby/recent_papers/2004_what_i_learned_from_heinz_von_foerster_fig ures_by_umpleby.htm

TM Natural Computation

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Computation as Information Processing

With information i f ti as the th primary i stuff t ff off the th universe, i and d computation t ti as its time-dependent behavior (dynamics), we have a Dual-aspect Universe: informational structure with computational dynamics. Information and computation are closely related – no computation without information, and no information without dynamics (computation).

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Computing Nature

- Agent-centered (information and computation is in the agent) AGENCY

ONTOLOGY

- Agent is a cognizing biological organism or an intelligent machine or a combination

INF-COMP

METAPHYSICS

- Action (interaction with the physical world and other agents as a part of it) is essential - Kind of physicalism with information as a stuff of the universe - Agents A t are parts t off different diff t cognitive iti communities iti - What is considered to exist and can exist (ontology) depends on agency – in the next step agency depends on what is taken for granted to exist and can exist

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Naturalizing Epistemology

Naturalized epistemology p gy ((Feldman,, Kornblith,, Stich)) is,, in general, g , an idea that knowledge may be studied as a natural phenomenon -- that the subject matter of epistemology is not our concept of knowledge, but the knowledge itself. itself The stimulation of his sensory receptors is all the evidence anybody has had to go on, ultimately in arriving at his picture of the world. ultimately, world Why not just see how this construction really proceeds? Why not settle for psychology? (Epistemology Naturalized, Quine 1969; emphasis mine)

I will re-phrase the question to be: Why not settle for computing? Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature nature, methods methods, limitations limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief.

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Kognitionsvetenskap Kognitionsvetenskap K iti t k ä är ett tt tvärvetenskapligt t ä t k li t forskningsområde f k i åd dä där forskare från så olika fält som filosofi, psykologi, neurovetenskap, datavetenskap, lingvistik och antropologi studerar en levande organisms sätt att bearbeta signaler från omgivningen och på så sätt utforma organisms egna strukturer och beteenden .

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Kognitionsvetenskap Centrala C t l kognitionsvetenskapliga k iti t k li ffrågeställningar å täll i ä är h hur organismen i tar till sig och bearbetar information, hur den växelverkar med omgivningen (inklusive andra organismer), hur den fattar beslut och löser problem och lär sig. Genom att studera kognitiva processer såsom minne, perception, uppmärksamhet, problemlösning, g beslutsfattande och emotion men även medvetande och fria vilja utifrån ett tvärvetenskapligt perspektiv förväntar forskarna få svar på dessa frågor. Kognitionsvetenskapliga idéer tillämpas inom områden som människa-dator-interaktion (MDI), spel och pedagogik.

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Naturalist understanding of Cognition According A di tto Maturana M t and dV Varela l (1980) even the th simplest i l t organisms possess cognition and their meaning-production apparatus is contained in their metabolism. Of course, there are also non-metabolic interactions with the environment, such as locomotion, that also generates meaning for an organism by changing g g its environment and providing g new input data. Maturana’s and Varelas’ understanding of cognition is most suitable as the basis for a computationalist account of the naturalized evolutionary epistemology.

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Naturalist understanding g of Cognition

A great conceptual advantage of cognition as a central focus of study is that all living organisms posess some cognition, cognition in some degree.

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Info Computational Account of Knowledge Generation Info-Computational

Dual aspect unification of information and computation as physical Dual-aspect phenomena Natural computing as a new paradigm of computing goes beyond the Turing Machine model and applies to all physical processes including g those g going g on in our brains.

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Info Computational Account of Knowledge Generation Info-Computational The Turing Machine model is about mechanical, mechanical syntactic symbol manipulation as implemented on the hardware level. All complexity is to be found on the software level. Different levels of complexity have different meanings for different cognizing agents agents. Semantics is essential for living organisms. Semantics defines the relationship between the mind and the world. IInformation f i has h b both hd declarative l i and d non-declarative d l i fforms ((e.g. bi biology), l ) each of them with their own role for living systems.

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Info-Computational Account of Knowledge Generation Info computationalist approach as agent Info-computationalist agent-centered centered allows for pluralism: logical, epistemological and ethical. It is supported by research results from physics, biology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind among others. mind, others physical y level,, living g beings g are open p complex p computational p At the p systems in a regime on the edge of chaos, characterized by maximal informational content. Complexity is found between orderly systems with high information compressibility and low information content and random systems with low compressibility and high information content.

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Cognition as re-structuring re structuring an agent in interaction with the environment •

All cognizing beings are in constant interaction with their environment. They are open complex systems in a regime on the edge of chaos, which is characterized by maximal informational p y Flake. capacity,

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The essential feature of cognizing living organisms is their ability to g complexity, y and to handle complicated environmental manage conditions with a variety of responses which are results of adaptation, variation, selection, learning, and/or reasoning, GellMann.

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Cognition as re-structuring re structuring an agent in interaction with the environment •

As a result of evolution evolution, increasingly complex living organisms arise that are able to survive and adapt to their environment. It means they are able to register inputs (data) from the environment, p to structure those into information, and in more developed organisms into knowledge. The evolutionary advantage of using structured, component-based approaches is improving responsetime and efficiency of cognitive processes of an organism.

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The Dual network model, suggested by Goertzel for modeling cognition in a living organism describes mind in terms of two superposed networks: a self-organizing associative memory network, and a perceptual-motor process hierarchy, with the multilevel logic of a flexible command structure.

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Cognition as re-structuring re structuring an agent in interaction with the environment •

In a nutshell nutshell, naturalized knowledge generation acknowledges the body as our basic cognitive instrument. All cognition is embodied cognition, in both microorganisms and humans (Gärdenfors, ) In more complex p cognitive g agents, g knowledge g is built upon p Stuart). not only reasoning about input information, but also on intentional choices, dependent on value systems stored and organized in agents memory.

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It is not surprising that present day interest in knowledge generation places information and computation (communication) in focus as information and its processing are essential structural focus, and dynamic elements which characterize structuring of input data (data → information → knowledge) by an interactive computational process going on in the agent during the adaptive interplay with the environment.

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Computation, Information, Cognition The Nexus and the Liminal

Editor(s): Gordana Dodig Crnkovic and Susan Stuart

Cambridge Scholars Publishing Titles in Print as of July 2007 http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Computation-Information--Cognition--The-Nexus-and-theLiminal.htm