Beyond design: cybernetics,biological computers and hylozoism

The history of British cybernetics offers us a different form of science and engineering, one that does not seek to dominate nature through knowledge. I want to say that one can distinguish two different paradigms in the history of science and technology: the one that Heidegger despised, which we could call the Modern paradigm, and another, cybernetic, nonModern, paradigm that he might have approved of. This essay focusses on work in the 1950s and early 1960s by two of Britain’s leading cyberneticians, Stafford Beer and Gordon Pask, in the field of what one can call biological computing. My object is to get as clear as I can on what Beer and Pask were up to. At the end, I will discuss Beer’s hylozoist ontology of matter, mind and spirit. This material is not easy to get the hang of—but that is what one should expect from an unfamiliar paradigm. Presented at an international conference on the philosophy of technology, Copenhagen, 13–15 Oct 2005. Revised for submission to Synthese.     

On Becoming a Cybernetician: Highlights and Milestones

In this article, I describe how I encountered cybernetics and how it became an important part of my life. I begin with an account of my time at Brunel University and also describe how I came to work with Gordon Pask, one of the few intellectuals and researchers in the UK who styled themselves as cyberneticians. To enrich my story, I include an overview of the story of cybernetics as I perceive it. Given the importance I attach to cybernetics as an intellectual tool, I end with a plea for it to be included in all educational curricula.     

语义问题与人工智能模型构造的系统观点

基于"物理符号系统假设"的传统人工智能采信了低阶结构不连续的思想,将概念化与概念的语义基础分离,把对思维过程的模拟看作是能用形式化方法来实现的。但事实证明,这种后验性方法存在理论和实现上的双重危机,要完成有实际意义的、有创新性的智能行为丰富的语义是必需的,这使语义问题成为人工智能不同应用分支中的焦点,它包括语义获取、表达和使用三个方面。而要实现对语义问题的认识和解决就必须把它和其它智能行为作为一个连续的、相关的、不可分割的认知结构进行完整地考察,以系统的观点来看待智能模型的构造问题。这个认知结构统一性的基石就是基于神经生理基础的、以知觉的心理生理学解释为依据的、对语义的直接表达,这为统一以神经系统动力学为模型的其它各种智能行为提供了基础。     

Thorndike's Puzzle Boxes And The Origins Of The Experimental Analysis Of Behavior

The year of Thorndike's dissertation on animal intelligence, 1898, may mark the beginning of the field that eventually became known as the experimental analysis of behavior. The dissertation began a major shift in thinking about animal and human learning, provided important methodological innovations, and carried the seeds of later research and theory, particularly by B. F. Skinner. Although Thorndike was an associationist in 1898, the dissertation began the systematic search for fundamental behavioral processes, and laid the foundation for an empirical science of behavior.     

Artificial explanations: the epistemological interpretation of explanation in AI

In this paper I critically examine the notion of explanation used in artificial intelligence in general, and in the theory of belief revision in particular. I focus on two of the best known accounts in the literature: Pagnucco’s abductive expansion functions and Gärdenfors’ counterfactual analysis. I argue that both accounts are at odds with the way in which this notion has historically been understood in philosophy. They are also at odds with the explanatory strategies used in actual scientific practice. At the end of the paper I outline a set of desiderata for an epistemologically motivated, scientifically informed belief revision model for explanation.     

Doctor's Expertise and Managing Discrepant Information from Other Sources in Genetic Counseling: A Conversation Analytic Perspective

The study examines a recurrent interactional pattern in genetic counseling. It describes clinical geneticists' responses in situations in which clients have presented information from other sources that is potentially discrepant with information given by the doctor. The data consists of 12 video-recorded sessions of genetic counseling in Finland, and the method is conversation analysis. There are two primary ways the doctors respond: either they accept the client's information as such, but show that it is not discrepant with the doctor's information, or they reject the client's information. In the latter case they mitigate the ‘wrongness’ of the client's information. The clinical geneticists seem to be working with a dilemma: they need to find a balance between ensuring correct understanding of the information and showing respect for the expertise of others. A particularly complex case is also analyzed and reflected on.     

The League

About painting, cybernetics, and shared purpose, this article is partly a story, in part a memoir, an adventure in cybernetics, happening 30 years ago, in snow, in the small Swiss city of St. Gallen. A conference of the American Society for Cybernetics meets there. It is 1987. The author, a painter, searching for a new understanding of painting, encounters a convergence of the art of painting and the art of cybernetics through principles of second-order cybernetics in Pask, von Foerster and Maturana, dissolved in Kathleen Forsythe’s poetry. The form, as well as the content of this article, reflects cybernetics.     

The beginning of conversation: Early patterns of mother-infant vocal responsiveness

Microanalytic techniques were used to characterize the structure of the prespeech communication of 4-month-old infants and their mothers. Two observers continuously recorded the interactive behavior of mothers and their infants during hour-long observations in the homes of 25 families. Loglinear models were used to examine the extent to which the vocal behavior of one person was conditional upon the vocal behavior of the partner. Within the limits of this microanalytic approach, analyses indicated that patterns of mother-infant vocal exchange were structurally similar to patterns of adult conversation. Initial vocal responses were followed by suppression of vocalization, allowing the partner to join the conversation. The comparative effectiveness of vocal behavior as an elicitor of vocalization and as a response to vocalization was shown for mothers and infants relative to the other behaviors observed. Vocalization served as a modulator of visual attentiveness: When the partner was not visually attentive, vocalization elicited visual attention.     

Propositional Plausible Logic: Introduction and Implementation

Plausible Logic allows defeasible deduction with arbitrary propositions, and yet when sufficiently simplified it is very similar to the Defeasible Logics of Billington and Nute. This paper presents Plausible Logic, explains some of the ideas behind the definitions, applies Plausible Logic to an example, and proves a coherence result which indicates that Plausible Logic is well behaved. We also report the first complete implementation of propositional Plausible Logic. The implementation has a web interface which makes it available to researchers and students everywhere. The implementation is evaluated experimentally, and is shown to be capable of handling tens of thousands of rules and sufficiently many disjunctions for realistic problems.     

Artificial consciousness and the consciousness-attention dissociation

Artificial Intelligence is at a turning point, with a substantial increase in projects aiming to implement sophisticated forms of human intelligence in machines. This research attempts to model specific forms of intelligence through brute-force search heuristics and also reproduce features of human perception and cognition, including emotions. Such goals have implications for artificial consciousness, with some arguing that it will be achievable once we overcome short-term engineering challenges. We believe, however, that phenomenal consciousness cannot be implemented in machines. This becomes clear when considering emotions and examining the dissociation between consciousness and attention in humans. While we may be able to program ethical behavior based on rules and machine learning, we will never be able to reproduce emotions or empathy by programming such control systems—these will be merely simulations. Arguments in favor of this claim include considerations about evolution, the neuropsychological aspects of emotions, and the dissociation between attention and consciousness found in humans. Ultimately, we are far from achieving artificial consciousness.     

Parent-adolescent health conversations as action: Theoretical and methodological issues

Abstract

A qualitative research method based on action theory is proposed and illustrated for use in health psychology and health promotion research. Action refers to the goal-directed and intentional behaviors of individual and groups. Action theory has the advantage of using the perspectives provided by manifest behavior, internal processes, and social meaning in the analysis of action. In this article, the actions under consideration are the health-related conversations of parents and their adolescent children. The approach is premised on an understanding of health promotion as a family task constructed through actions such as conversations between family members. Health conversations in two parent-adolescent dyads are used to illustrate the method. The analysis includes the identification of goals, functional steps, and elements and their relation to the family health promotion project. Specific attention is paid to data gathering and analysis issues and their implications for health promotion research.     

On the Diversity of the Cognition Disciplines and the Development of A Unifying Philosophy of Information

The cognition and information theoretic sciences have now been in existence for the better part of a century. In that time, their varied disciplines have undergone extensive maturation, honing their methods, constitutions, and evaluation techniques in the pursuit of academic rigor, while not losing sight of the practical influences that have served as their almost universal cornerstone. Meanwhile, this period has also been marked by increasing disparity and gradual distancing of the philosophical underpinnings upon which each field is founded, adding strain to interdisciplinary collaborative efforts. This article presents an overview of select information‐science‐related cognition disciplines, and shows how the nascent Philosophy of Information (PI) can be adopted as a means of unifying these philosophical foundations in an empirically sound manner, without sacrificing general applicability. In addition, it demonstrates how PI is already rooted in the philosophies or epistemological views of several of the cognition disciplines, implicitly or otherwise.     

Social support from weak ties: Insight from the literature on minimal social interactions

When people face difficult life events, such as cancer or bereavement, they fare better when they receive support. These “experiencers” are likely to seek and receive support from a wide range of people, from close others to acquaintances. Indeed, the social support literature has long acknowledged the value of having a diverse support network. Research suggests that experiencers often perceive “weak ties” (i.e., acquaintances) as sources of support, and that experiencers sometimes prefer to get support from weak ties rather than strong ties. Providing support can be challenging for all kinds of supporters, however weak ties may be more likely than strong ties to allow worries about their inability to provide effective support to stop them from providing any support at all, thus depriving experiencers of opportunities for additional support. In this paper, we focus on the fact that often the provision of support occurs via a social interaction. We draw on the social psychology literature on minimal social interactions to suggest reasons why potential weak tie supporters might doubt their ability to provide effective support, and to generate advice to encourage potential supporters to reach out. Finally, we suggest future areas of research, with the ultimate goal of helping to expand the support that is available for people experiencing difficult life events.     

Distraction effects in tasks of varying difficulty: Methodological issues in measuring development of distractibility

Effects of distraction on 5- and 8-year-old children's performance on a short-term memory task were examined. Tasks at three difficulty levels were employed to determine whether a floor effect could account for the lack of an age difference reported in an earlier study. A floor effect does not appear to be a key factor; the absolute amount of performance decrement was roughly equal for the two ages here regardless of task difficulty, and performance was well above chance under all conditions. The children adapted somewhat to the presence of distraction as shown in greater performance impairment for the first trial under distraction than for remaining trials. Use of a proportional, rather than an absolute, decrement index was considered, and the relevance of the present data to this issue was discussed.     

Give Me a Hand: Adult Involvement During Object Exploration Affects Object Individuation in Infancy

The development of object individuation, a fundamental ability that supports identification and discrimination of objects across discrete encounters, has been examined extensively by researchers. There are significant advancements in infants' ability to individuate objects during the first year‐and‐a‐half. Experimental work has established a timeline of object individuation abilities and revealed some mechanisms underlying this ability. However, the influence of adult assistance during object exploration has not yet been explored. The current study investigates the effect of adult involvement during object exploration on infants' object individuation abilities. In Experiment 1a and 1b, we examined 9.5‐month‐old infants' colour‐based object individuation following adult‐assisted multisensory object exploration. Two components of adult interaction were of particular interest: facilitation of object manipulation (grasping, rotating, and attention‐getting behaviours) and social engagement (smiling, pointing, attention‐getting verbalizations, and object‐directed gaze). Experiment 2a and 2b assessed these components with 4.5‐month‐olds to examine their impact across development. The results showed that after adult‐guided object exploration, both 9.5‐ and 4.5‐month‐old infants successfully individuated previously undifferentiated objects. Results of Experiments 1b and 2b provide implications for the mechanisms underlying the scaffolding influence of adult interaction during infant behaviours. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic self- and other-focused emotional intelligence: A theoretical framework and research agenda

This paper introduces a theoretical framework for research on the dynamics of self- and other-focused emotional intelligence (EI). The EI-framework focuses specifically on the interplay between different EI dimensions when individuals are processing their own emotions and the emotions of others. The framework captures different phases of processing self- and other-emotions. The first phase consists of situational cues (e.g., an argument) that elicit interdependent emotions in the self and others. The next phase specifies differential and interacting effects of EI dimensions when processing these emotions, and the third phase describes what proximal and distal consequences this processing may have. In addition, the framework includes candidate dispositional and contextual factors (e.g., emotion type, motivation) that may qualify the process.     

Causal cognitive architecture 1: Integration of connectionist elements into a navigation-based framework

The brain-inspired Causal Cognitive Architecture 1 (CCA1) tightly integrates the sensory processing capabilities found in neural networks with many of the causal abilities found in human cognition. Causality emerges not from a central controlling stored program but directly from the architecture. Sensory input vectors are processed by robust association circuitry and then propagated to a navigational temporary map. Instinctive and learned objects and procedures are applied to the same temporary map, with a resultant navigation signal obtained. Navigation can similarly be for the physical world as well as for a landscape of higher cognitive concepts. There is good explainability for causal decisions. A simulation of the CCA1 controlling a search and rescue robot is presented with the goal of finding and rescuing a lost hiker within a grid world. A simulation of the CCA1 controlling a repair robot is presented that can predict the movement of a series of gears.     

From human to artificial cognition and back: New perspectives on cognitively inspired AI systems

We overview the main historical and technological elements characterising the rise, the fall and the recent renaissance of the cognitive approaches to Artificial Intelligence and provide some insights and suggestions about the future directions and challenges that, in our opinion, this discipline needs to face in the next years.     

Living and Loving Cybernetics

How we learn to interpret our experiences influences the sorts of experiences we seek. In other words, habits of mind become habits of action. Cybernetics, as a way of thinking, changes how we act. My testimony demonstrates that the appeal of cybernetics remains strong today, for those who are lucky enough to stumble across its beauty, as I was. Cybernetics contributed to the theoretical foundation and conceptualization of my dissertation, and it positively influences my teaching, whether I am teaching cybernetics explicitly or not. While I am fortunate to be able to integrate cybernetics in my work, what delights me most is living it in my every day.