Asking Why in the context of cognitive architectures and Deep Thinking

1. Why?
Cognitive Architectures and Deep Thinking
ISSIP Conference Call
21 January, 2016
Jack Park

2. My Purpose
• Is Not
– To advance our understandings by making claims,
broad or otherwise.
• Is
– To explore avenues which can lead to advanced
understandings by way of illustrations , with a
touch of theoretical considerations
– To start a larger conversation…

3. Situation A
• Niel deGrasse Tyson asked Sir Richard Branson
if Sir Richard could grant free rides to space
for politicians and world leaders*
• Why?
• Tyson had stated that every astronaut he
interviewed could not imagine lifting arms
against another human after experiencing
Earth from space.
• Why?
* http://www.techinsider.stfi.re/neil-degrasse-tyson-meets-pepper-the-robot-at-clinton-globale-initiative-2015-9?sf=aaeoxy
after minute 46 in the video

4. Situation B
• A person’s parent succumbs to the end game
of a Leukemia.
– The person is told by the parent’s physician that
Leukemias are not familial; nothing to worry
about.
– Several years later, that person is diagnosed with
the same Leukemia.
• Why?

5. Situation C
• CO2 in the upper atmosphere is claimed to
contribute to climate change
• Why?
• CO2 is defined as a greenhouse gas.
Greenhouse gases contribute to climate
change.
• Why?

6. Why Indeed! Aristotle’s 4 Causes*
• Material Cause
– Change related to the material composition
(components)
• Formal Cause
– Change related to the arrangement, shape, structure
(design)
• Efficient Cause
– Change related to agency (carpenters)
• Final Cause
– Change related to the target to which change directs
(purpose)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes

7. Final Cause
• Final Cause as:
– Purpose
– Emergent state based on a final binding of the
history
– Anticipation*: a predictive model
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipation_(artificial_intelligence)
Robert Rosen (1985): Anticipatory Systems

8. A Non-living Example
What How Why

9. A Living Example

10. Tighter Focus

11. Why Microbiome?
Anticipatory
Systems:
Closed To Efficient
Cause
Robert Rosen *
(1991): Life Itself
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rosen_(theoretical_biologist)

12. Why Ask Why?
• To Study Complex Systems
– Anticipatory Systems
• Living systems are anticipatory
– Deep Thinking:
• Relational Models of complex systems entail
examination of all aspects of causality
A system containing a predictive model of itself
and/or its environment, which allows it to change
state at an instant in accord with the model's
predictions pertaining to a later instant. (Rosen)*
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipation_(artificial_intelligence)
Robert Rosen (1985): Anticipatory Systems

13. Thanks to the
organizers at IBM:
Jim Spohrer
Dianne Fodell
Thanks to reviewers:
Randy Goebel
Mark Szpakowski
Nefer Doane
Why Not?
Cognitive Systems Institute talks are archived at
http://cognitive-science.info/community/weekly-update/
jackpark@topicquests.org