Future state maximisation as an intrinsic motivation for decision making

The concept of an “intrinsic motivation" is used in the psychology literature to distinguish between behaviour which is motivated by the expectation of an immediate, quantifiable reward (“extrinsic motivation") and behaviour which arises because it is inherently useful, interesting or enjoyable. Examples of the latter can include curiosity driven behaviour such as exploration and the accumulation of knowledge, as well as developing skills that might not be immediately useful but that have the potential to be re-used in a variety of different future situations. In this thesis, we examine a candidate for an intrinsic motivation with wide-ranging applicability which we refer to as “future state maximisation". Loosely speaking this is the idea that, taking everything else to be equal, decisions should be made so as to maximally keep one's options open, or to give the maximal amount of control over what one can potentially do in the future. Our goal is to study how this principle can be applied in a quantitative manner, as well as identifying examples of systems where doing so could be useful in either explaining or generating behaviour. We consider a number of examples, however our primary application is to a model of collective motion in which we consider a group of agents equipped with simple visual sensors, moving around in two dimensions. In this model, agents aim to make decisions about how to move so as to maximise the amount of control they have over the potential visual states that they can access in the future. We find that with each agent following this simple, low-level motivational principle a swarm spontaneously emerges in which the agents exhibit rich collective behaviour, remaining cohesive and highly-aligned. Remarkably, the emergent swarm also shares a number of features which are observed in real flocks of starlings, including scale free correlations and marginal opacity. We go on to explore how the model can be developed to allow us to manipulate and control the swarm, as well as looking at heuristics which are able to mimic future state maximisation whilst requiring significantly less computation, and so which could plausibly operate under animal cognition

Disastrous social theory: lessons from New Orleans

Contemporary social theory struggles to deal with disasters not just because of epistemological shortcomings regarding the continued dualistic nature of its dealings with social phenomena and events, relegating disasters to the real of “extraordinary events,” but also because it has effectively foreclosed on its ability to deal with social reality. The latter is less the consequence of epistemic shortcomings but itself a social by-product of the institutionalization of social thought in the academy. Divorced from an ability to come to terms with social reality, because it lacks both an empirical grounding and a sense of urgency to understand that which lies outside the comfort zone of academic life, social theory is left rather aimlessly afloat amid a sea of debris that signals that the apocalypse has already happened

Influence of a small fraction of individuals with enhanced mutations on a population genetic pool

Computer simulations of the Penna ageing model suggest that already a small fraction of births with enhanced number of new mutations can negatively influence the whole population.Comment: 10 pages including 6 figures; draf

Anthropocene, Technocene and the Problem of Philosophy of Education

O termo Antropoceno começou a aparecer com mais frequência no discurso científico há mais de 20 anos. Foi uma tentativa de aproximar-se da compreensão da profundidade e gravidade do impacto do homem e suas atividades no planeta Terra, com a intenção de, no futuro, mitigar esses efeitos e evitar um possível colapso ambiental global catastrófico, que poderia envolver o colapso da própria civilização. No entanto, até ao momento, a nossa abordagem do mundo praticamente não mudou. Depois da pandemia veio a ameaça de um conflito mundial, uma guerra nuclear. Como o nosso saber científico parece impotente, mesmo o conhecimento científico mais óbvio e assustador não pode de alguma forma mudar o curso da sociedade global. Queremos pensar essa situação a partir da perspectiva da filosofia cosmológica da educação. O seu motivo central é a revelação filosófica do fundamento ontológico original de nossa humanidade, que é o mundo, o cosmos. É um confronto direto com a “educação de mercado” até agora prevalecente, que serve para manter e consolidar os esquemas de poder da política do capital.The term Anthropocene began to appear more often in scientific discourse more than 20 years ago. It was an attempt to come closer to understanding the depth and seriousness of the impact of man and his activities on the planet Earth, with the intention in the future to mitigate these effects and prevent a possible globally catastrophic environmental collapse, which might involve the collapse of civilization itself. However, to date, our approach to the world has hardly changed at all. After the pandemic comes the threat of a world conflict, a nuclear war. Since our scientific wisdom seems powerless, even the most obvious and frightening scientific knowledge cannot somehow change the course of global society, we want to think about this situation from the perspective of the cosmological philosophy of education. We want to think about this situation from the perspective of the cosmological philosophy of education. Its central motive is the philosophical disclosure of the original ontological ground of our humanity, which is the world, the cosmos. This is a direct confrontation with the hitherto prevailing “market education”, which serves to maintain and consolidate the power schemes of capital policy

Part-time of what? Job quality and part-time employment in the legal profession in Australia

This article examines the quality of part-time employment for solicitors in private practice in Australia. Although full-time jobs based on long hours are dominant in the legal profession, part-time jobs

Neuropsychological evaluation of blast-related concussion: Illustrating the challenges and complexities through OEF/OIF case studies

Background/objective: Soldiers of Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF) sustain blast-related mild traumatic brain injury (concussion) with alarming regularity. This study discusses factors in addition to concussion, such as co-morbid psychological difficulty (e.g. post-traumatic stress) and symptom validity concerns that may complicate neuropsychological evaluation in the late stage of concussive injury. Case report: The study presents the complexities that accompany neuropsychological evaluation of blast concussion through discussion of three case reports of OEF/OIF personnel. Discussion: The authors emphasize uniform assessment of blast concussion, the importance of determining concussion severity according to acute-injury characteristics and elaborate upon non-concussion-related factors that may impact course of cognitive limitation. The authors conclude with a discussion of the need for future research examining the impact of blast concussion (particularly recurrent concussion) and neuropsychological performance

Evaluation Context Impacts Neuropsychological Performance of OEF/OIF Veterans with Reported Combat-Related Concussion

Although soldiers of Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF) encounter combat-related concussion at an unprecedented rate, relatively few studies have examined how evaluation context, insufficient effort, and concussion history impact neuropsychological performances in the years following injury. The current study explores these issues in a sample of 119 U.S. veterans (OEF/OIF forensic concussion, n = 24; non-OEF/OIF forensic concussion, n = 20; OEF/OIF research concussion, n = 38; OEF/OIF research without concussion, n = 37). The OEF/OIF forensic concussion group exhibited significantly higher rates of insufficient effort relative to the OEF/OIF research concussion group, but a comparable rate of insufficient effort relative to the non-OEF/OIF forensic concussion group. After controlling for effort, the research concussion and the research non-concussion groups demonstrated comparable neuropsychological performance. Results highlight the importance of effort assessment among OEF/OIF and other veterans with concussion history, particularly in forensic contexts

Dementia Screening Accuracy is Robust to Premorbid IQ Variation: Evidence from the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-III and the Test of Premorbid Function

BACKGROUND: Scores on cognitive screening tools for dementia are associated with premorbid IQ. It has been suggested that screening scores should be adjusted accordingly. However, no study has examined whether premorbid IQ variation affects screening accuracy. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the screening accuracy of a widely used cognitive screening tool for dementia, the Addenbrooke's cognitive examination-III (ACE-III), is improved by adjusting for premorbid IQ. METHODS: 171 UK based adults (96 memory service attendees diagnosed with dementia and 75 healthy volunteers over the age of 65 without subjective memory impairments) completed the ACE-III and the Test of Premorbid Function (TOPF). The difference in screening performance between the ACE-III alone and the ACE-III adjusted for TOPF was assessed against a reference standard; the presence or absence of a diagnosis of dementia (Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, or others). RESULTS: Logistic regression and receiver operating curve analyses indicated that the ACE-III has excellent screening accuracy (93% sensitivity, 94% specificity) in distinguishing those with and without a dementia diagnosis. Although ACE-III scores were associated with TOPF scores, TOPF scores may be affected by having dementia and screening accuracy was not improved by accounting for premorbid IQ, age, or years of education. CONCLUSION: ACE-III screening accuracy is high and screening performance is robust to variation in premorbid IQ, age, and years of education. Adjustment of ACE-III cut-offs for premorbid IQ is not recommended in clinical practice. The analytic strategy used here may be useful to assess the impact of premorbid IQ on other screening tools