Please distribute to anyone who may be interested...
PhD defense Kabir
Veitas
"Synthetic Cognitive
Development"
Time: Tuesday, June 18, 14:00-16:00
Place: Room E.0.04, Building E/D, Vrije Universiteit
Brussel
Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Etterbeek
Kabir (Viktoras) Veitas will publicly present the PhD research he
did in CLEA under the supervision of Francis Heylighen, and answer
questions from the jury and public.
The topic is open-ended intelligence, a conceptual framework he developed together with Weaver (David Weinbaum), to understand how loose assemblages of agents can "individuate" into higher order individuals capable of intelligent behavior that is not a priori goal-directed, but that emerges out of interactions. In his PhD thesis, Kabir shows how this philosophical perspective on distributed cognition could be operationalized by means of a computational framework that combines an actor model with graph traversal. He further discusses some potential applications in domains such as offer networks and smart mobility.
The PhD defense is followed by a reception with snacks and drinks. Everybody welcome!
Facebook page of the event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2124025414561819/
Facebook page of the Center Leo Apostel:
https://www.facebook.com/centerleoapostel/
THESIS ABSTRACT: This thesis is an interdisciplinary design
inquiry into the operation of intelligence. It is aimed at conceiving
a computational model of individuation of an open cognitive system and
builds upon the evolutionary systemic framework of open-ended
intelligence, which treats difference primal to identity, becoming
primal to being, change primal to stability and communication primal
to object.
First, we devise the principles of the open cognitive system from
selected concepts, techniques and currents of theoretical and
pragmatic thinking in the domain of the evolution of mind, brain and
body. Then, using the metaphysical framework of open-ended
intelligence, these principles and requirements are integrated into a
model of synthetic cognitive development which rests on the mechanism
of progressive determination of systemic constraints in an
evolutionary developmental way.
Further, we formulate the computational perspective of the
stigmergic cooperation of a population of independent and
heterogeneous actors in terms of an open-ended decentralized computing
model. Finally, we specify the semantics of the computational model
and software design by integrating the actor model with graph
computing and, through computational simulation experiments,
demonstrate the stigmergic computing in the domain of decentralized
exchange.
The open-ended decentralized computing model proposes a path for
conceiving, designing, simulating and engineering open systems by
emphasizing the process of self-organization of an unconstrained space
of possibilities. It extends the paradigmatic shift of open-ended
intelligence from identity to individ- uation into the domain of
engineering, particularly of artificial general intelligence and the
ambition to integrate advanced autonomous technologies into the fabric
of society.
Keywords: Evolution, cognitive system, open-ended
intelligence, individuation, artificial general intelligence,
stigmergy, self-organization, decentralization, actor, graph,
computational model
--
Francis Heylighen
Evolution, Complexity and Cognition group
Center Leo Apostel
Free University of Brussels (VUB)
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
