The Emergence of Interactive Meaning Processes in Autonomous Systems

1
The Emergence of Interactive Meaning Processes in
AutonomousSystems

• Argyris Arnellos, Thomas Spyrou, John Darzentas
• University of the Aegean
• Dept of Product Systems Design Eng
• Syros, Greece
• http//www.syros.aegean.gr

2
General Problem

• Theoretical frameworks of cognition are
  differentiated by the way they handle the notions
  of intentionality, meaning, representation and
  information.
• One could ask How is meaning generated and
  manipulated in natural and consequently in
  artificial cognitive systems?

3
MAIN APPROACHES to GOGNITION and to the DESIGN of
ARTIFICIAL AGENTS

• Cognitivism and Computational Artificial Agents
• All intentional content is a kind of information
  which is externally transmitted by a merely
  causal flow.
• Meaning is externally ascribed
• ?An Objection Searles Chinese Room Argument
• An Answer (Harnad, 1990) Symbol Grounding is an
  Empirical Issue
• Note A complete cognitivist grounding theory
  should consider both external and internal
  representational content, as well as, their
  transduction system and its interactive nature.
• Main candidate for the transduction is a
  connectionist network

4
Connectionism

• Connectionist systems as syntactically adaptive
  systems (not all of them)
• Such machines receive (contingent) feedback from
  their outputs, which then directs the adjustment
  of their decision function (i.e.new
  percept-action mapping).
• No semantics as the system cannot decide on its
  own which aspects of the world must be encoded
  ("feature primitives") such that the machine can
  find a successful classification rule.
• Adding a "training" origin to correspondence
  works no better than adding lawfulness
• Connectionistic architectures cannot account for
  internal content.

5
Dynamic Systems and Cognition

• Time-Dependence Natural cognition happens in
  real time, hence dynamics is better suited to
  model it than the a-temporal computational
  approach.
• Embodiment Cognition is embedded in a nervous
  system, in a body, and in an environment, whereas
  computationalism typically abstracts this
  embeddedness away, and can incorporate it in only
  an ad hoc manner.
• Emergence Dynamics can explain the emergence and
  stability of cognition through self-organisation,
  whereas cognitivism ignores the problem of
  cognitive emergence.

6
Dynamic Systems and Cognition

• No information processing (no symbols, no
  representations)
• The dynamics of the cognitive substrate (matter)
  are taken to be the only thing responsible for
  its self-organization
• Systems ability for classification is dependent
  on the richness of its attractors, which are used
  to represent events in its environment
• Systems meaning evolving threshold cannot
  transcend its attractors landscape complexity

7
Defining Agency

• Strong notion An agent is a system which
  exhibits
• interactivity the ability to perceive and act
  upon its environment by taking the initiative
• intentionality the ability to effect
  goal-oriented interaction by attributing
  purposes, beliefs and desires to its actions
• autonomy the ability to operate intentionally
  and interactively based only on its own
  resources.
• Collier, 1999 suggests that there is
• no function without autonomy
• no intentionality without function
• no meaning without intentionality
• Circle closes by considering meaning as a
  prerequisite for the maintenance of systems
  autonomy during its interaction.

8
The Need for a New Kind of Representations

• As tasks become more complex the use of internal
  states that carry information about the
  environment becomes less and less avoidable.
  (Kirsh, 1991)
• even in the very simple cases mentioned above
  we find that individual units act as very simple
  representations in mediating interactions between
  the robot and its world Brooks (1997)
• What kind of representations do we need?
• No representations per se, but a different type
  of representation

9
The Need for a New Kind of Representations

• Representations that can only be understood in
  the context of activity.
• For an adaptive system the primary problem is to
  produce action appropriate to the context, not
  referentially individuate a signal source
  (cognitivism).
• The content should be accessible to the system
  itself.

10
Functionality and Representations

• A behaviour is really contributing to systems
  functionality if and only if it is mediated by
  representations and
• an information-carrier is only a representation
  if it plays an appropriate role in the systems
  functionality towards its self-maintenance
• Where can these kind of representations be found
  and
• What type will they be?

11
Code Duality in protein structure/sequences based
on (Hoffmeyer Emmeche, 1991)

• Analog Information Space protein functional
  conformations
• Digital Information Space amino-acid sequences

AIS
Ksequencestructure
H ? K
10101010110100010011001
DIS
12
Levels of Interactive Representations (Bickhard,
1998)

• Interactivism and Function
• Function is a forward looking concept as it tries
  to explain what is its future value to the
  system.
• Recursively Self-Maintenant Systems
• System has alternative ways of self-maintenance
  available and it can switch one alternative to
  another in case of failure.
• The conditions under which the serving of a
  function succeeds constitute the dynamic
  presuppositions of those functional processes.
• a minimal ontological representative system (S)
  has to include a subsystem, a differentiator
  (Dif), engaging in interaction with its
  environment (Env).

13
Levels of Interactive Representations (Bickhard,
1998)

• Internal course of that interaction will depend
  both on the organization of the subsystem and on
  the interactive properties of the environment.
• Each final state classifies all of the
  environments together that would yield that
  particular final state if interacted with. Each
  possible final state (FS) will serve as a
  differentiation of its class of environments

Goal System 1
Env1
Pi
FS1
Pj
Goal System 2
Env2
FS2
Dif
Env3
System
14
Emergent Levels of Interactive Representations

• Level 3 Implicit definitions of environmental
  categories
• Final states reached can be considered as a
  digitalisation of the analog-analog interactions
  in the internal of the system due to its contact
  with the environment.
• Minimal information
• There is no information concerning anything about
  that environment beyond the fact that it was just
  encountered and that it is not the same as those
  environments differentiated by any of the other
  possible final states.
• There is no representational content involved
• System has no information about the classes of
  environments that it implicitly defines.

15
Emergent Levels of Interactive Representations

• Level 4 Functional Interactive Predication
• System strives to achieve maintain
  self-maintenance and through its interactions
  builds a new level of organisation (new
  representational level) where the implicit
  environmental differentiations of Level3 are
  re-organised as quantitative variety of
  functional predications about the environment.
• From Level3 ? Level 4 - Minimal representation
• The whole system at this moment (FI) interprets
  the signs of Level3 as Dynamic Interpretants at
  Level4
• Differentiators final states (FS)
  (Representamens) indicate which further
  procedures might be appropriate and the
  goal-system selects from among them.
• Analog-driven Emergence where new predicates are
  formed

16
Levels of Interactive Representations
Systems Habit
Representamen
Dynamic Interpretant
Goal System 1
Env1
Pi
FS1
Pj
Goal System 2
Env2
FS2
Dif
Env3
System
17
Levels of Interactive Representations

• Level 5 Implicit definitions of environmental
  properties
• Interaction with the environment continuous and
  the AIS of Level4 are locally interacting in
  various time scales in order to reduce
  uncertainty for the environment.
• A in a way more compressed digital record
  emerges and we have a transition from
• implicit definitions of environmental categories
  ? implicit definitions of environmental
  interactive properties
• From Level4 ? Level 5
• Emergence of functional relations among systems
  organisations that involve such implicit
  definitions
• Implicitness and presupposition is observed which
  can account for unbounded representationality.

18
Levels of Interactive Representations

• Level 6 Emergence of organisations of
  interactive potentialities
• Levels 5 representations are implicitly being
  selected by systems differentiating interactions
  in a statistical manner ? formation of
  aggregates of properties that are presently
  available.
• These aggregates are ongoingly updates ?
  construction of new indications and changing old
  ones ? formation of apperceptive procedures.
• From Explicit Situation Images ? Implicit
  Situation Images
• Implicit definitions of environmental interactive
  properties Level5) ENGAGE in various
  apperceptive procedures driven by Level4 and
  forms organisations of interactive potentialities

19
Levels of Interactive Representations

• Level 7 Emergence of objects and Constructive
  Memory
• The organisations of indications of interactive
  potentialities are used in systems interaction
  and in some cases they tend to remain constant
  (invariant) as patterns.
• The quantitative variety of the organisations of
  interactive potentialities of Level 6 is
  re-organised as certain types of organisations
  (based on their temporal coherence).
• Such types of organisations of interactive
  potentialities constitute objects for the system
  itself.
• Memory System is able to expand its situation
  image without explicit bound ? system represents
  such invariances in its situation image.
• Constructive Memory
• System is able to test past apperceptive
  processes in present and differing directions.

20
Levels of Interactive Representations

• Level 7 Emergence of objects and Constructive
  Memory
• At this phase, icons and indexes can emerge into
  the system but not symbols, for which genuine
  social communication is needed.
• Symbols will need the lower levels
• Notes
• A useful framework for Alife and AI experiments
  (since, interactive representations need only
  simple control systems)
• It seems that initially two non-semiotic levels
  should exist?

21
Full Semiotic and Representational Capacity
Rule-based syntactic complexity
Induction
PS
PS
FI
FI
object
action
PS
PS
Morphodynamics
sos of representational structure
pragmatics systems history
Deduction
DI
DO
DO
Testing anticipations
signs
DO
Memory-based analogy making
IO
II
II
DO
measurement
ENVIRONMENT
Abduction
COGNITIVE SYSTEM