scott@bgsu.CSNET.UUCP (07/11/86)
Two recent postings to this newsgroup by Eyal Mozes and Pat
Hayes on the (re)presentation of perception and knowledge in
integrated sensory/knowledge systems indicate the validity of
philosophy in the theoretical foundations of knowledge science, which
includes AI and knowledge engineering. I'd prefer not to make a
public choice between Mozes' vs. Hayes' position, but I'm impressed
by the sincerity of their arguments and the way each connects
philosophy and technology.
Hayes remarks that "The question the representational position
must face is how such things (representations) can serve as percepts
in the overall cognitive framework." This is indeed a serious problem
facing the designers of fifth- and sixth-generation intelligent
systems. Here is a two-hundred-year-old approach to the problem, an
approach that not only can help the representationalists but can also
be of value to realist and idealist (re)constructions of knowledge
within the simulated consciousness of a knowledge system:
REPRESENTATION
|
+---------------+-------------+
| |
UNCONSCIOUS CONSCIOUS
REPRESENTATION REPRESENTATION
(AI/KE) (Perception)
| |
+------------------+ +------+--------+
| | | | |
RULE FRAME LOGIC OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE
BASED BASED BASED PERCEPTION PERCEPTION
(Knowledge) (Sensation)
|
+------------------+ Refers to the
Relates | | object by means
immediately to <-- INTUITION CONCEPT --> of a feature
the object | which several
+-------------+ things have in
| | common
Has its origin in PURE EMPIRICAL
the understanding alone <-- CONCEPT CONCEPT
(not in sensibility) (Notion)
|
A concept of reason <-- IDEA
formed from notions
and therefore transcending
the possibility of experience
This taxonomy tree of mental (re)presentations in a knowledge
system was drawn by Jon Cunnyngham of Genan Intelligent Systems
(Columbus, Ohio) after a group discussion on the following passage
from Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" (B376-77):
The genus is representation in general (repraesentatio).
Subordinate to it stands representation with consciousness
(perceptio). A perception which relates solely to the subject
as the modification of its state is sensation (sensatio), an
objective perception is knowledge (cognitio). This is either
intuition or concept (intuitus vel conceptus). The former
relates immediately to the object and is single, the latter
refers to it mediately by means of a feature which several
things may have in common. The concept is either an empirical
or a pure concept. The pure concept, in so far as it has its
origin in the understanding alone (not in the pure image of
sensibility), is called a notion. A concept formed from
notions and transcending the possibility of experience is an
idea or concept of reason. Anyone who has familiarised
himself with these distinctions must find it intolerable to
hear the representation of the colour, red, called an idea.
It ought not even to be called a concept of understanding, a
notion.
A word of caution about the translation: First, the German
"Anschauung" is translated into English as "intuition." Contrary to
what my wife would have you think, this word should not be taken in
the sense of "woman's intuition" but rather in the sense of "raw
intake" or "input." Second, although "Einbildung" comes over to
English naturally as "image," the imaging faculty ("Einbildungskraft")
should only with caution be designated in English by "imagination,"
especially when we consider that the transcendental role of this
faculty is the central organizing factor in Kant's theory of the
human(oid) knowledge system. Third, the Norman Kemp Smith edition,
available through St. Martin's Press in paperback for somewhere in
the neighborhood of $15.00, is the best English translation, despite
the little problems I've just pointed out regarding "Anschauung" and
"Einbildung." The other translations pale in comparison to Smith's.
In view of all this, I'd like to add to Hayes's challenge:
Yes, there is a problem in the integration of perceptual (or should we
say "sense-based") and intellectual systems. But the solution is
already indicated in Kant's reconstruction of the human(oid) knowledge
system by the equating of "objective perception," "knowledge," and
"cognitio" (which, by the way, may or may not be equivalent to the
English use of "cognition"). The problem can be pinpointed more
exactly in this way: How can we force the system's objects to obey the
apriori structures of consciousness that are necessary for empirical
consciousness (awareness) of intelligible objects in a world, given to
a self. (The construct of a self in a sense-based system of objective
knowledge may seem to be a luxury, but without a self there can be no
object, hence no objective perception, hence no knowledge.)
What do we have now? Do we have intelligent systems?
Perhaps. Do we have knowledgeable systems? Maybe. Are they
conscious? No. The Hauptsatz for knowledge science is this:
"Knowledge is structured in consciousness." So investigate
consciousness and the self in the human, and then you'll have a basis
for (re)constructing it in a computerized knowledge system.
One more diagram that may be of help in unravelling all this:
Understanding Sensibility
|
E Knowledge Images
m of --------> Objects
p objects |
|
----------------------+-----------------------
T |
r Pure concepts Schemas Pure forms of
a (categories) --------> intuition
n and principles | (space and time)
s |
As was mentioned in an earlier posting to this newsgroup (V4 #157),
this diagram springs from a single sentence in the Critique (B74):
"Beide sind entweder rein, oder empirisch" (Both may be either pure
[transcendental] or empirical).
May I suggest that knowledge-system designers consider the
diagram in conjunction with the taxonomy tree of mental
representations. With these two diagrams in mind, two seminal
passages from the Critique (namely, B33-36 and B74-79) can now be
recognized for what they are: the basis for the design of integrated
sense/knowledge systems in the fifth and sixth generations. To be
sure, there is a lot of work to be done, but it can be done in a more
holistic way if the Critique is read as a design manual.
Tom Scott CSNET: scott@bgsu
Dept. of Math. & Stat. ARPANET: scott%bgsu@csnet-relay
Bowling Green State Univ. UUCP: cbosgd!osu-eddie!bgsuvax!scott
Bowling Green OH 43403-0221 ATT: 419-372-2636 (work)