BOOK REVIEW

Arturo Carsetti: Epistemic Complexity and KnowledgeConstruction

Theory and Decision Library A, Springer, Dordrecht, 2013,vii+151, $129, ISBN 978-94-007-6012-7

Magali Fernandez-Salazar

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

This book constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms

of knowledge construction and a rare attempt to bridge the gap between biological

and connectionist models, on the one hand, and cognitive models on the other. The

volume documents a revolution now occurring in the cognitive sciences and in the

field of epistemic complexity, a revolution that permits the approach to the problem

of knowledge construction from the standpoint of both theoretical models and

simulation.

The first chapter of the book presents an up-to-date account of a number of recent

trends in the field of self-organization theory. In particular, entropy, algorithmic

complexity, self-referentiality and cellular automata are widely discussed. The

second chapter focuses on some advances obtained, from a modelistic point of view,

in biological computing. The alternative splicing and the interface between ruler and

coder constitute the essential backbone of the chapter. This chapter also introduces

alongside the classical concept of reflexive model, the new and fruitful concept of

self-organizing model. The third chapter is dedicated to the link between semantic

information and algorithmic complexity. The possible design of a biological

computer is widely discussed with respect to the introduction of non-standard

models and limitation procedures. The fourth chapter concerns the genesis of the

cognitive code with respect to the development of meaning considered both from

the point of view of government and use. Finally, the last chapter investigates the

functional nature of morphogenesis as it unfolds at the level of the emergence of

semantic forms and, in particular, of eigenforms.

M. Fernandez-Salazar

Neuropathic Pain Research, SND-CNRS Sorbonne University, Maison de la Recherche 28,

rue Serpente, 75006 Paris, France

M. Fernandez-Salazar (&)

Institute of Diagnostic Neuroradiology, University-Hospital of Greifswald, Walther Rathenau Str.,

46, 17489 Greifswald, Germany

e-mail: magali.fernandez12@gmail.com

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Minds & Machines

DOI 10.1007/s11023-014-9339-5

According to Carsetti, natural selection should be considered, at the co-

evolutionary level, as the effective coder in action (as also advocated, for instance,

by J. Maynard Smith). As such, it necessarily appears as linked to a continuous

process of emergence of meaning. Actually, at the biological level,

‘‘… what is innate is the result of an evolutionary process and is programmed

by natural selection. Natural selection is the coder (once linked to the

emergence of meaning): at the same time at the biological level this

emergence process is indissolubly correlated to the continuous construction of

new formats in accordance with the unfolding of ever new mathematics, a

mathematics that necessarily moulds the coder’s activity. Hence the necessity

of articulating and inventing a mathematics capable of engraving itself in an

evolutionary landscape in accordance with the opening up of meaning. In this

sense, for instance, the realms of non standard-models and non-standard

analysis represent, today, a fruitful perspective in order to point out, in

mathematical terms, some of the basic concepts concerning the articulation of

an adequate intentional information theory. This individuation, on the other

hand, presents itself not only as an important theoretical achievement but also

as one of the essential bases of our very evolution as intelligent organism’’ (p.

112).

Hence the importance, in Carsetti’s opinion, of articulating and inventing

mathematics capable of engraving itself in an evolutionary and self-organizing

landscape. At the level of a cognitive system sensibility (pace Kant) is not

‘‘… a simple interface between absolute chance and an invariant intellectual

order. On the contrary, the reference procedures, if successful, are able to

modulate canalization and create the basis for the appearance of ever-new

frames of incompressibility through morphogenesis. This is not a question of

discovering and directly exploring (according, for instance, to Putnam’s

conception) new territories, but of offering ourselves as the matrix and arch

through which they can spring autonomously in accordance with ever

increasing levels of complexity. There is no casual autonomous process

already in existence, and no possible selection and synthesis activity via a

possible remnant through reference procedures considered as a form of simple

regimentation. These procedures are, in actual fact, functional to the

construction and irruption of new incompressibility: meaning, as Forma

formans, offers the possibility of creating a holistic anchorage, and is exactly

what permits the categorial apparatus to emerge and act according to a

coherent arborization’’ (p. 111).

The volume aims to investigate, first of all, in which way the tools offered, for

example by non-standard analysis, can be of help to outline new approaches with

respect to the inner structure of an information theory also capable of taking into

account the teleonomical aspects proper to the cognitive actions expressed by living

beings. According to Carsetti, it is not possible to explain the whole complexity of

M. Fernandez-Salazar

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the self-organizing and living processes within a general Markovian frame even if

expanded by taking into consideration the role of natural selection and the

differentiation processes. In addition, we have to make essential reference to a

logical level of explanation able to take into account the role played by meaning at

the level of the self-organization processes as well as the dialectics between surface

information and depth information. Certainly natural selection rewards the

flexibility and the supply of variability; why, however, does the evolution appear

to reward the supply not of a purely stochastic variability, but of a varied and

articulated complexity and consequently, of a constrained complexity?

Taking up an old thesis introduced by H. Atlan, the author remarks that in a

natural self-organizing system (a biological one) the goal has not been set from the

outside: what is self-organizing is the function itself with its meaning. The origin of

meaning in the organization of the system is an emergent property. Moreover, the

origin of meaning is strictly connected to precise operations of observation and self-

observation. This last remark constitutes one of the key points of the book: if we

want to capture the secret flavor of intentional information, we need measures

capable of taking into consideration the growth processes at stake, the statistical

fluctuations living at the microscopic level, etc. The Shannonian measure concerns

essentially stationary processes articulating in a one-dimensional landscape; on the

contrary a true measure of information for life and hereditary structures should

concern semantic information at work as implemented by specific, self-organizing

coupled systems.

As is well known, true cognition appears constrained by mathematical limitations

imposed by a number of specific analytical tools: computability and the Turing

universe, incompressibility and the oracles in action, self-organizing nets, deter-

ministic chaos, non-linear mathematics, second-order structures, and so on. It is, in

particular, with respect to this particular framework, that, in the author’s words, the

simulation activity, the construction, for instance, of an adequate semantics for

natural language, presents itself as a form of interactive knowledge of the complex

chain of biological realizations through which Nature reveals itself to our brains in a

consistent way (by means, for example, of the intelligent design of specific

experiments at the level of an extended Turing universe). In certain respects, this

can be considered as the true turning point of the book: Carsetti claims that the

simulation work, in effect, offers the semantic net real instruments in order to

perform a self-description process and to outline specific procedures of control as

well as a possible map of an entire series of paths of creative imagination. In turn,

the progressive (and selective) exploration of these paths will allow external

information to form in an emergent way, thus exploiting new and even more

complex patterns of interactive expression and action. When we pass from a world

of objects to a world of constructions we are no longer exclusively faced, for

instance, with boolean algebras, first-order structures and simple observational acts;

we are really faced with a dynamic and functional universe characterized by inner

circularity, by self-organization and by the presence of specific categorization

processes as well as of precise evolutionary differentiation patterns. It is exactly the

correct framing of this particular kind of laboratory of possible emergence that will

assure the successive revelation of ever new levels of depth information.

Epistemic Complexity and Knowledge Construction

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In its technical part the book investigates the complicated plot existing between

depth information and surface information from the point of view of computability

theory. In particular, Carsetti remarks that the attempts of Church and Kleene as

well as Post’s version of Godel’s theorem not only show, in terms of recursive

function theory, that formal axiomatic systems are incomplete but they also give, in

certain respects, some hints in order to outline an information-theoretic version of

Godel’s theorem, a version that will be given later by Chaitin. In this version we

find precise suggestions about the possibility of introducing effective measures of

the information power of formal axiomatic systems. Carsetti claims that insofar as

we manage to realize, by self-reflection on our own reasoning, that our logical and

mathematical inferences can be formalized by a given formal system, we also

realize that self-reflection is itself part of our mathematical reasoning; actually, it is

at the basis of the effective construction of the undecidable. Thus, we can better

realize in which sense depth information can be defined but, at the same time, it

cannot be effectively computed.

In accordance with some original intuitions by Hintikka, the author argues that

depth information can be thought of as surface information at infinite depth. In

certain respects, we can simply affirm that it can be calculated by an infinite process

during which one can never know how close one is to the final value. In this sense,

we need more adequate measures of meaningful complexity, also capable, for

example, of taking into account the dynamic and interactive aspects of depth

information. We have, in particular, to outline new models for the interface existing

between the observer and the observed system. At the level of this kind of model,

emergence (in a co-evolutionary landscape) and truth (in an intensional setting), in

many aspects, will necessarily coincide. Moreover, a coupled system in this

theoretical perspective must be considered as a multiplicative unit: a source-forge

for other coupled systems. Here we can precisely identify the role played by self-

organizing models: the reflexive models are limited because they give an account

only for the relationships between perception and existence at the standard level,

between creativity and meaning as limited to the realm of invariance. The self-

organizing models, to the contrary, aim to examine the work done by the ruler (as

well as by the connected ‘editor’) with respect to that particular transition point

provided by the link existing between the realm of invariance and the paths of

morphogenesis. In this sense, it is necessary to refer to new models of the real-

number line; these models, however, should be objectively identified (as in the case

of Harthong-Reeb theoretical construction) also with reference to the relationship

existing between seeing and thinking as well as to the ongoing processes of

construction of our neural circuitry. Hence the necessity of a continuous

exploration, in evolutionary terms, of those particular modules intersecting

mathematical investigations and epigenetic growth (at the neural level) that really

identify the secret architectures of the ‘knowing I’. We really have the possibility to

enter the territories of epistemic complexity even if to continue the line of thought

taken in this book it appears necessary to develop, in mathematical terms, a more

incisive and accurate analysis of the role played, at the functional level, by the self-

organizing models.

M. Fernandez-Salazar

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This is a fine work, a fascinating set of discussions concerning an extremely

interesting area. It contributes to the current and lively debate about the nature of

cognition and about the role played by symbolic dynamics and epistemic

complexity in the development of biological and cognitive activities. Anyone

who is interested in functional and neural models concerning knowledge construc-

tion will be informed by the wealth of material presented in this volume.

Epistemic Complexity and Knowledge Construction

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