Cognitive architecture and second-order systematicity: categorical compositionality and a (co)recursion model of systematic learning Steven Phillips (
[email protected]) Mathematical Neuroinformatics Group, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568 JAPAN William H. Wilson (
[email protected]) School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, 2052 AUSTRALIA Abstract each other. An example that is pertinent to the classical ex- planation is the learning (or memorization) of arbitrary asso- Systematicity commonly means that having certain cognitive capacities entails having certain other cognitive capacities. ciations. For instance, if one has the capacity to learn (mem- Learning is a cognitive capacity central to cognitive science, orize) that the first day of the Japanese financial year is April but systematic learning of cognitive capacities—second-order 1st, then one also has the capacity to learn (memorize) that systematicity—has received little investigation. We proposed associative learning as an instance of second-order systematic- the atomic number of carbon is 6. This example is a legiti- ity that poses a paradox for classical theory, because this form mate instance of systematicity (at the second level) given that of systematicity involves the kinds of associative constructions systematicity has been characterized as equivalence classes that were explicitly rejected by the classical explanation. In fact, both first and second-order forms of systematicity can of cognitive capacities (McLaughlin, 2009). be derived from the formal, category-theoretic concept of uni- Elsewhere (Phillips & Wilson, submitted), we argue that versal morphisms to address this problem.