Cognitive Systems a cybernetic perspective on the new science of the mind Francis Heylighen Lecture Notes 2012-2013 ECCO: Evolution, Complexity and Cognition - Vrije Universiteit Brussel TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................4 What is cognition? ................................................................................................................................................4 The naive view of cognition..................................................................................................................................5 The need for a systems view ...............................................................................................................................10 CLASSICAL APPROACHES TO COGNITION ........................................................................................................11 A brief history of epistemology ..........................................................................................................................11 From behaviorism to cognitive psychology.......................................................................................................14 Problem solving ..................................................................................................................................................19 Symbolic Artificial Intelligence..........................................................................................................................25 The symbolic paradigm for cognitive science...................................................................................................31 Shortcomings of the symbolic paradigm ...........................................................................................................31 NEW APPROACHES TO COGNITION ....................................................................................................................36 Connectionism.....................................................................................................................................................36 Constructivism.....................................................................................................................................................42 Situated and Embodied Cognition .....................................................................................................................48 Implementing Situated Cognition.......................................................................................................................51 - 1 - THE SYSTEMS VIEW OF COGNITION ..................................................................................................................55 Summary of previous developments...................................................................................................................55 Basic concepts of systems theory .......................................................................................................................57 Control systems ...................................................................................................................................................58 REACTIVE AGENTS................................................................................................................................................65 Condition-action rules ........................................................................................................................................65 Braitenberg vehicles ...........................................................................................................................................67 Stigmergic coordination between rules .............................................................................................................69 Reinforcement learning ......................................................................................................................................72 ANTICIPATORY AGENTS ......................................................................................................................................74 State-determined systems....................................................................................................................................74 Implementation as a connectionist network ......................................................................................................76 Anticipation .........................................................................................................................................................80 Bootstrapping of conceptions.............................................................................................................................84 Associative learning............................................................................................................................................87 SYMBOLIC THOUGHT............................................................................................................................................90 Extending working memory................................................................................................................................90 Symbolic representations....................................................................................................................................92 From symbols to rational thinking.....................................................................................................................96 CONSCIOUSNESS AND FEELING ..........................................................................................................................99 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................................99 Degrees of consciousness ...................................................................................................................................99 Consciousness of change................................................................................................................................. 103 Access consciousness....................................................................................................................................... 108 The global workspace model of consciousness.............................................................................................. 110 Phenomenal consciousness ............................................................................................................................. 114 Emotions ........................................................................................................................................................... 117 BOUNDED RATIONALITY AND COGNITIVE BIASES ..................................................................................... 120 Rationality and its limitations ......................................................................................................................... 120 Towards a connectionist theory of cognitive biases ...................................................................................... 122 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................................ 127 - 2 - INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 129 Differences in cognitive competence .............................................................................................................. 129 The g-factor ...................................................................................................................................................... 133 Interaction between intelligence and motivation........................................................................................... 136 Problems of the gifted...................................................................................................................................... 139 COLLECTIVE COGNITION .................................................................................................................................. 140 Collective intelligence ..................................................................................................................................... 140 Meme propagation ........................................................................................................................................... 144 Distributed cognition ....................................................................................................................................... 149 Towards a global brain ................................................................................................................................... 153 CONCLUSION: THE NEW SCIENCE OF THE MIND........................................................................................... 155 The origin of cognitive science ....................................................................................................................... 155 The symbolic paradigm for cognition............................................................................................................. 155 The extended mind ..........................................................................................................................................