William F. Clocksin - Knowledge Representation and Myth (1995) OCR

7/30/2019 William F. Clocksin - Knowledge Representation and Myth (1995) OCR

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CHAPTER TWELVE

mythW. F. CLOCKSIN

J TRl

Mo:fresearch inHtidl intelgence(1J)and cogtve scecesfoudedo, IH; h:.8Jc prc1ises tha inJigece is reaJid hough a epreseaioalHysfhcdon ahysic syboJ sysem,ad aieHige aciviyis goal-olienfcd, syu1boJiacUviy. Th bestko\nexpositorsofthesepemiseshaveIwNvwclandSiJon (1972). Thees

sentialigredietis epesentatio(theJdc:.hatrdcvaufaspecso the\or1dneedo beecodedisymolicfoiordcrtoheuwbl), ndeseachonthepacticapricipesofrepresetatiol1ashecn"ivlyar(ratleastthepast\'entyyears(e.g.Bobro\vandColis1975) . Bynw1ostAIadcogitivetheoriesarerepresentationst: theideathHI cosi nvles thepocessigof ntenal 'menta tokenstatstadwexalciti:srprocesses. The stateof theart ssummedupbyHut( I9R


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W. P.Cbn

ogher with y Broob

scinc can havul ppato1 Ifruch as knowledge ren a

a popos a Unk ewn on 1

, The pu of h t canno decouped lom

rpesnao u y

concpon o my J

ODa. yhs ae o h y MCDo e


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Knowledge represetatio admyth

. t . 1 tuctues at theleve of cognition', this aim has the

'idcy op u s

idde effet of

).1 astuctualisthemeneutic:

theideathattheworldmustbe(a .t d termsofuderlyg

structurethatexplais,teconintcprc c 1 -

ncts andorganizeswhatispereived;

(b) bn;self-deningastoscope:theorganiation ofcognitionintolevelsissupplied by thetheory,otbytheexpene

ceof theprogram;

(c) beingself-deningastodetailednature: repesentationist theoriesare

oudedoitospectioo 'iterioreflectio.Aytypeoeection

on the interio life isboundtobeexpressed insymboicform.

t could be tat the steility of representationist programs as observed by

Brooks (199) and Winogad 990) is the esult of hidden and rathe

linited) agedasbeiguitetioallybuit ito pograms.

t is possible that all these problemsareegedered byAI research'safnity

with syboli repesetatios deed withi a fomal system havig lassial

tuththeoreti sematis o some ostadard o moda sematis To

books by Tuer (984, 990) give a useful state-of-the-art summary of this

syboli logi approah to kowledge represetatio But I suggest that this

approah is miseadig if we expet it to tel us aythig about humancognition. Real human cognition and behaviou is not 'rational that is, it

caot guaratee that cotradictios will otbederivedThe fact that some people, amely traied logicias, might be rational on

paper fo a fewmomets eachday doesot refute the poit. The perforance

of any type of deivation or calculation is asymbo game, theules of\hichcanbe applied with more or less precision bya suitably tainedperson. The

deveopment of logic is useful to undestand argument and fo computer

pogammingby reducingtheseto a symbol game, butusingit tocharacterizeknowledge repesentationsinthe service of cognitionandbehaviouisajobfowhichit wasneveintended, andforwhichanumberofeseaches considerit

unsuited.

EXPERIMENTSWITHRERESENTATION-FREESYSTES

Recent eseachhas beeivovedwith caryigoutcompicatedperception

andactiontaskswithoutexplicitrepresentations andwithouttherequiement

f l te


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96 Kwldg rra ad myh

There is o reaso at a to beieve that a aima's act that appears to us tobe deceitfu is itetioa eve if the behaviour is reiaby reproducibe. For,what appear to be goas may we be achieved as a cosequece of aturaseected behaviour without supposig hat the aima had i mid hat it

wated' to achieve There is o kow imit to the compexity of a (merereex behaviour, eve without cosiderig the evoutio of such behaviorover the time spa of a whoe species i its eviromet Eve the most basic ofite-state machies ca be programmed to exhibit compicated fos ofdeceit without a ibuit kowedgerepresetatio scheme The fact that asuitabe program eed ot be witte by a perso, but may simpy evove overa period of time as the resut of a successive eumeratio of icremeta

perturbed programs, is i additio to but beside the poitSo peope seem to be predisposed to assume that deceitfu acts by aimas are

itetioa Such assumptios are ot restricted to aimas ad deceitfu acts.The experimets ofMichotte showed vividy that peope are wiig to attributeot oy itetios but whoe persoaities to itte cooured cardboard squaresmovig about o a scree. We a ko that cardboard squares do ot havesef-awareess, ad the attributio of persoaities is just a etertaiig

fatas. As for machies, we thik that machies do ot have sefawareessbut may peope ike to thik it might be possibe to program machies to havesef-awareess. quippig machies with what we cosider to be theecessar mechaism for iteiget behaviour is ot cosidered a buta serious busiess for ma AI researchers. As for we are geuieot sure of the extet of sefawareess, so it is easier for us to atributeratiociatio ad its presumed attedat kowedge represetatios taimas As for peope, we take such behaviour for grated, ad frtherore

we seem to be geerous i the attributio ofhuma characteristics to obecad creatures other tha humas The poit is that accordig to the mti

hermeeutic, a these attributios have a commo cause ad cogitive

foudatio: the mth-formatio process at work i the most primitive aersof

our psche

DISCUSSION


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197

uatonal realites that mght correspond to their meaning. \Te ca

expect that artcialntelgence research, partcuarly inthe area ofdg rprsntatn, shuld b a grat cal t th rcs thsius, bcaus A has th am nvstigating cgntn ts a hat

smd t b wrking mds. Yt, A rsarchrs ar nt accustmd t

thdlgy dscrnmnt in this cas th qurying th xtnt t

h thr nw knwdg rprsntatn tchniqu r anguag ray s an

tiv rprsntatin sm aspct cgntin, r th xtnt t \hich t s

aistatin th imags that surg and tumb in th uncnscus

algica ayrs ur psych, t us Bs (1979) phrasm phisphrs scinc hav als suggstd that scnc and myth a

lsr ratns than has bn prviusy admttd. Fr xamp, Hss (1983)

sts that t is a mistak t ntrprt th prssur twards univrsalzab as th sarch r a cmprhnsv tru thry crrspnding t ratystad, scntic thry is ntrprtd as n typ rspns t cultura nds yth and idlgy Thus, cnlictng mythlgis ncldng scintcs) shud nt b sn as autnmus atms within th scal miiu, but astating systms cgnitn and vau Pppr 9 92 has cmmntdat ptry and scnc hav th sam rigin. Thy rgnat in myths'

hat rm might a cgnitiv archtctur basd n a mythic-hmnutc? rst, th assumptn is that at th lwst lv cgntn thri nd a numbr prmitv archtyps that intract wih prcptnsa mmris t rm subcnscius pattrns activatin I shal caarrativs Atr urthr abratin and intractn with prcptn andry, sm ths subnarrativs may surac nt a cnscus li t batiatd as myths. Ts myths prbably tak a prmitiv rm narratvs

ih ar articulatd vr tim and ar clsy cupld wth rhythmic mtraviur Such a prmitiv rm is t b cntrastd t th gnral AI viw lic cncptua statmnts r a ntwrk such statmnts that rsid' bran.

is pssibl that urthr insight may b btaind m Cupitt's (99 wrkarrativs, althugh rm Cuptt's standpit h must cnsdr narrativf a cultural nd rathr than th basic rganic nd prpsd hr Ia

ltura nuncs as ssnta t th dvlpmnt cgntin, buty nctin t cnstrain th varity prcptns and mmrs that arX t th systm, and cnsqunty t cnstran th rang pssbl


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J98Knowledgerepesentatio

n and myth

M.

k 'sdescrpton of\recker strogy suggests the

primitve archetypes.JDS y

h'e Buder spobaly a composteofmore T kster acheype,\ 1Jungan c. h

theHerofeatuesMnskysnotoof. 'f Jungianarc etypes Ilpm JVCth

. d-paty descrpton ohowaatvesmght e

fames can beseenas a

h f d s ot necessariy imply that ave ayassembled his o course oe . . .

1 esentatoaJI aratives

furtherJnstruta orrepr

e concept-free, contextualzed ony wthnthe ehaviour of the neura

substrate

CONCLUS roN

There is a connection b\veen symbol, 1yth and an impoat area ofAI

research: the representation of hat are presumed to be cognitive processes

underying knoledge and behaiou. I hae sggested o\ kowedge

represetation ight be interpreted according to a heeneutic of myt Any

practica cosequence of this approah \vi ioe the implementato of a

cognitive architecture based on arhetypes and aratives, in contrastt the

morewidey knonarchitecture based on for exape, te kno\vledge baseand inferece engie withitsessentia requireet o logical eprsetatio.Ad perhaps one day Marvin Iinsky,s book Th society of rnd \Vill beaectioatelyremembered, not as a\orkofscience,butas oeoftheforeostmythoogies of our time

REFRCS

Balard,D.H (1991). Animate vision. Artfcial intelligenc,48,57-86.Bobrow,D. andCollins,A. (eds) (1975). Representationnd understnding.Academc

Press, London.

Bof, . (1979). ThematernalfaeoGod. Collins, London.Brooks,R.A. ( 1991). Inteligencewithout rpresntato. Artcial intelligen 4i,139-60.

)

Cloksin,W.F andMoore,A.W (1989)Experimentsinaapivesate-spaeobocIn Proedings of the seventh conference of the society or artcial intligene dsi1nulaion of beha\,ior ed G Cohn) pp 15 25


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W F. Clcks 199

Hinton, GB 87 earning distributed representations of onepts Proceedings ofthogtive scence so

cety (CSS-9),8.

gu EB 8 Cognitive siene: denition, status and questions Annual ReviewoPschology,40,63-29.

Mcemott, D.V. 76 Artiial intelligene eets natural stupidity SIGARTNesletter, 57 4- Reprinted in Mind design (ed ] Haugeland), pp 43-60 IPess, Cabridge, ass

Me, J Representationis, realis and the redundany of 'entaleseeor and Psychology, (2) 638

Micotte, A 63 The perception of causality Basi Books, NewYorkMs, 8 The society of mind. Sion and Shuster, New Yorkeel, and Sion, HA

7Humanproblem solving rentie-Hall, nglewood

s, NJPe, K. In search of a better world: lectures and essays from thirty years

tledge, LondonTe, 84 Logics for artcial intelligence llis Howood, Chihester, SussexTe, 0 Truth and modality for knowledge representation llis Horwood,

iheste, SussexWtehead, SD and Balard, DH Leaning to peeive and at by trial and

eo Machine learning7 4 -83Wogad, 0 hinking ahines? Can theebe? re we? In he foundations of

rtfcial intelligence (ed. D. PatridgeadY Wlks) CambidgeUnivesityPress.

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William F. Clocksin - Knowledge Representation and Myth (1995) OCR