Re: Robot Evolution

Glen M. Sizemore wrote:

"John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message


Definitions:-
Induction: from the particular to the general.
Deduction: from the general to the particular.

Machines cannot induce a thing because nobody knows how a mind makes an
induction.


No, but we know some particulars concerning "induction" in animals. Indeed,
a great deal is known about it. Please see the entire history of the
experimental analysis of behavior, some of which can be found in the 50
years of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. One could
say that not only is the study of operant conditioning the study of
intention, it is also the study of much of what we call induction.


In my own introspectively based attempt to get a
handle on "reasoning", I found it helpful to begin
by dividing the cognitive realm into two broad
divisions, higher cognition and lower cognition.
And I felt it was important to focus on the
process that leads to an increase in knowledge,
or understanding, or rationality, or whatever term
you prefer. And in this regard I came up with the
following two categories:

Higher Cognition ("Reasoning"):
The cognition of abstruse similarity and difference.
Example:
Electricity is like water flowing in a pipe.

Lower Cognition (Conditioning):
The cognition of obvious similarity and difference.
Example:
This A + B sequence is like ones previously observed
(e.g., Pavlov's dogs).

Here is what I had to say on these two categories in my
paper, 'Rehabilitating Introspection' available at my
website:

Higher Cognition:

Not uncommonly, deductive syllogisms such as ?Socrates is a
man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates is mortal?, are
offered as examples of reasoning. This is not how I am
employing the term in the phylogeny, which is why it appears
in quotation marks. I mean for it to refer to whatever
thought process lies at the heart of ampliative inference, a
process often associated with ?Aha!? or ?Eureka!?
experiences, but commonly falling below the threshold of an
identifiable event in which much, if not most, of the
processing is not introspectively available. Even so, by
applying a bit of the abstraction and generalization
prescribed by our procedure (and in contrast to the Nisbett
and Wilson approach to the study of ?higher order, inference
based responses?), I believe enough is available for us to
make a reasonable guess that the cognition of similarity and
difference (analogical/metaphorical ?reasoning?) does most
of the heavy lifting. But then I am hardly the first
introspectionist to arrive at that conclusion:

[quote]
All kinds of reasoning consist in nothing but a
comparison and a discovery of those relations either
constant or inconstant, which two or more objects
bear to each other (Hume, 1739).


Lower Cognition:

My unorthodox definition of conditioning as ?the cognition
of obvious similarity and difference? stems from my
unorthodox definition of reasoning as ?the cognition of
abstruse similarity and difference? which, when combined
with the former, offers a number of explanatory advantages:

1. It allows for continuity between the two concepts and, as
such, allows for an appreciation of how ?reasoning? might
have evolved from conditioning. In this view, the ability
to understand electricity by comparing it to how water flows
in a pipe is just an extension of the process that underlies
an organism?s ability to understand a currently observed A +
B sequence (e.g., Pavlov?s dogs) by comparing it to ones
previously observed.

2. It allows one to forego syllogistic deduction (?Socrates
is a man??, etc.) as a paradigm for reasoning in that, based
on the analogy with conditioning, concluding that Socrates
is mortal can be viewed as analogous to a conditioned mouse
remembering it must go left at the fourth fork in a maze.
In much the manner the mouse?s recollection would be
construed as more a manifestation of conditioning that has
already occurred, we might also conclude that deducing
Socrates is mortal is more a manifestation of reasoning
which has already occurred, and perhaps closer to
remembering than reasoning, at least in an ampliative sense
of coming to a deeper understanding of the nature of
reality, and thereby serving to produce a net increase in
one?s rationality.

[quote]
If analogy were merely a special variety of something
that in itself lies way out on the peripheries, then
it would be but an itty bitty blip in the broad blue
sky of cognition. To me, however, analogy is anything
but a bitty blip -- rather, it?s the very blue that
fills the whole sky of cognition ? analogy is
everything? (Hofstadter, 2001).

3. It allows for a naturalistic indeterminism in that one
can surmise that once an event sequence or feature has
become cognized it is easy to appreciate how one might then
have the option of following the sequence or conforming to
the feature or not, and thereby becoming less determined by
it, i.e., aware of more options than prior to the cognition.
Another way of saying this is that it lends itself to the
suspicion that there might well be an inverse correlation
between ?being cognizant? or ?being rational? and ?being
determined?.

4. It affords a linkage between ?reasoning? in the
ampliative sense and rationality, in that rationality could
be construed simply as ?the psychical product of ?reasoning?
(ampliative inference)? with the Latin/Greek origin of
?ratio? meaning ?to compare?.


PR










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