Related papers: Analogy, Mind, and Life
Institutions and their aggregates are not the right units of analysis for developing a science policy with cognitive goals in view. Institutions, however, can be compared in terms of their performance with reference to their previous…
The idea that the brain is a probabilistic (Bayesian) inference machine, continuously trying to figure out the hidden causes of its inputs, has become very influential in cognitive (neuro)science over recent decades. Here I present a…
The influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (ALife) technologies upon society, and their potential to fundamentally shape the future evolution of humankind, are topics very much at the forefront of current scientific,…
Evolution is the fundamental physical process that gives rise to biological phenomena. Yet it is widely treated as a subset of population genetics, and thus its scope is artificially limited. As a result, the key issues of how rapidly…
The knowledge gap hypothesis suggests that the diffusion of information tends to increase rather than reduce social inequalities. Subsequent research on the digital divide has extended this perspective by focusing on unequal access to and…
Experiments in cognitive science and decision theory show that the ways in which people combine concepts and make decisions cannot be described by classical logic and probability theory. This has serious implications for applied disciplines…
In this review, we examine an extended Bayesian inference method and its relation to biological information processing. We discuss the idea of combining two modes of Bayesian inference. The first is the standard Bayesian inference, which…
The widely considered assertion is that the unitarity of quantum mechanical evolution assures the preservation of information. It is even promoted in popular literature as an established fact. (Susskind, 2008) Yet, a simple chain of…
The mainstream view of meaning is that it is emergent, not fundamental, but some have disputed this, asserting that there is a more fundamental level of reality than that addressed by current physical theories, and that matter and meaning…
Information theory has explained the organization of many biological phenomena, from the physiology of sensory receptive fields to the variability of certain DNA sequence ensembles. Some scholars have proposed that information should…
For a computational system to be intelligent, it should be able to perform, at least, basic deductions. Nonetheless, since deductions are, in some sense, equivalent to tautologies, it seems that they do not provide new information. The…
When we want to predict the future, we compute it from what we know about the present. Specifically, we take a mathematical representation of observed reality, plug it into some dynamical equations, and then map the time-evolved result back…
Intelligence is a human construct to represent the ability to achieve goals. Given this wide berth, intelligence has been defined countless times, studied in a variety of ways and represented using numerous measures. Understanding…
By comparing biological and artificial perception through the lens of illusions, we highlight critical differences in how each system constructs visual reality. Understanding these divergences can inform the development of more robust,…
The Universe contains everything that exists, including life. And all that exists, including life, obeys universal physical laws. Do those laws then give adequate foundations for a complete explanation of biological phenomena? We discuss…
This work examines the interconnections between logic, epistemology, and sciences within the Naturalist tradition. It presents a scheme that connects logic, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and cognition, emphasizing…
An idea is not a replicator because it does not consist of coded self-assembly instructions. It may retain structure as it passes from one individual to another, but does not replicate it. The cultural replicator is not an idea but an…
Active inference is a unifying theory for perception and action resting upon the idea that the brain maintains an internal model of the world by minimizing free energy. From a behavioral perspective, active inference agents can be seen as…
I argue that both digital and analog information are important in the foundations of quantum physics. If it is possible for information present in one system to become present in others without being erased in the original system I will say…
In living systems, we often see the emergence of the ingredients necessary for computation -- the capacity for information transmission, storage, and modification -- begging the question of how we may exploit or imitate such biological…