49,737 research outputs found
Logic, self-awareness and self-improvement: The metacognitive loop and the problem of brittleness
This essay describes a general approach to building perturbation-tolerant autonomous systems, based on the conviction that artificial agents should be able notice when something is amiss, assess the anomaly, and guide a solution into place. We call this basic strategy of self-guided learning the metacognitive loop; it involves the system monitoring, reasoning about, and, when necessary, altering its own decision-making components. In this essay, we (a) argue that equipping agents with a metacognitive loop can help to overcome the brittleness problem, (b) detail the metacognitive loop and its relation to our ongoing work on time-sensitive commonsense reasoning, (c) describe specific, implemented systems whose perturbation tolerance was improved by adding a metacognitive loop, and (d) outline both short-term and long-term research agendas
Embodied cognition: A field guide
The nature of cognition is being re-considered. Instead of emphasizing formal operations on abstract symbols, the new approach foregrounds the fact that cognition is, rather, a situated activity, and suggests that thinking beings ought therefore be considered first and foremost as acting beings. The essay reviews recent work in Embodied Cognition, provides a concise guide to its principles, attitudes and goals, and identifies the physical grounding project as its central research focus
The Good Flow: How Happiness Emerges from the Skillful Enactment of Morality
In this paper, I will argue that 'being good' positively correlates to 'being happy.' First, I will clarify how Iâll be using the word âmoralityâ and the phrase âbeing goodâ. Second, I will claim that moral goodness is developed and exercised as a kind of practical skill. This will allow me to propose that âbeing goodâ â like other complex and engaging skills â entails the elicitation of a kind of flow experience. Third, I will propose that âbeing goodâ involves achieving what I'll call âvertical coherencyâ within oneâs life and that this provides sustained engagement (âflowâ) and meaning while exercising moral goodness. Lastly, I will show why the kind of happiness that we truly want for ourselves and those we care about emerges from a moral engagement â a âgood flowâ â of the sort described
A hierarchy of personal agency for people with life-limiting illness
The purpose of the study was to discover how individuals diagnosed with a life-limiting illness experienced themselves as agents, even in the face of death. In this qualitative, multiple case study design four female outpatient hospice patients with terminal illnesses received humanistic counselling to explore their experiences of themselves and their illness. A graded set of 8 levels of personal agency emerged from analyses of the texts of their sessions, ranging from a passive, objectified Non-agentic mode to an active, autonomous Fully Agentic mode, with multiple subcategories representing further gradations within levels. Our results are consistent with guidelines for supportive and palliative care with advanced cancer, which specify that dying patientsâ needs be assessed and that they be involved in decisions about their care
Can Science Explain Consciousness?
For diverse reasons, the problem of phenomenal consciousness is persistently challenging. Mental terms are characteristically ambiguous, researchers have philosophical biases, secondary qualities are excluded from objective description, and philosophers love to argue. Adhering to a regime of efficient causes and third-person descriptions, science as it has been defined has no place for subjectivity or teleology. A solution to the âhard problemâ of consciousness will require a radical approach: to take the point of view of the cognitive system itself. To facilitate this approach, a concept of agency is introduced along with a different understanding of intentionality. Following this approach reveals that the autopoietic cognitive system constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, which underlie perceptual completion effects and âfilling inââand, by implication, phenomenology in general. It creates phenomenality much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that it assigns meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history that is the source of valuation upon which meaning depends. Phenomenality is a virtual representation to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self) tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub- agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal, but serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from that of unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least psychologically bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter, and perhaps hope for a broader definition of science
Technological Change and Institutions: A Case Study
The arena of mobile telecommunication in Europe has undergone a technological transition from analogue (first generation) to digital (second generation) technologies. While this transition is immediately attributable to shifts in demand and supply patterns, closer examination reveals that there are numerous other intervening factors that have facilitated this transition. This paper utilizes a conceptual framework for institutional analysis developed in earlier work to identify and discuss some of these factors. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications from this study for an institutional perspective on technological change.economics of technology ;
How the Brain Makes Up the Mind: a heuristic approach to the hard problem of consciousness
A solution to the âhard problemâ requires taking the point of view of the organism and its sub- agents. The organism constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that are assigned meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history. Phenomenality is a virtual representation, made to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self), which is tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub-agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal and serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least informally bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter
Human Computation and Convergence
Humans are the most effective integrators and producers of information,
directly and through the use of information-processing inventions. As these
inventions become increasingly sophisticated, the substantive role of humans in
processing information will tend toward capabilities that derive from our most
complex cognitive processes, e.g., abstraction, creativity, and applied world
knowledge. Through the advancement of human computation - methods that leverage
the respective strengths of humans and machines in distributed
information-processing systems - formerly discrete processes will combine
synergistically into increasingly integrated and complex information processing
systems. These new, collective systems will exhibit an unprecedented degree of
predictive accuracy in modeling physical and techno-social processes, and may
ultimately coalesce into a single unified predictive organism, with the
capacity to address societies most wicked problems and achieve planetary
homeostasis.Comment: Pre-publication draft of chapter. 24 pages, 3 figures; added
references to page 1 and 3, and corrected typ
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