ELIZABETH@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU.UUCP (11/09/87)
Friday, 13 November 12:00pm E25-401 Ideonomy: Founding a 'Science of ideas' In a book published in 1601, Francis Bacon urged that modern science should have the equivalent of an 'ideonomic' character, as well as being based on experimentation and induction. My talk concerns a five-year effort to lay foundations for a science of ideas which I call Ideonomy. Whereas the field of Artificial intelligence is primarily aimed at the automation of mind, cognitive science at the modeling of human intelligence and thought, and logic at the formalization of reasoning, ideonomy is preoccupied with the discovery, classification, and systematization of universal ideas, with aiding and abetting man's use of ideas, and with automating the generation of ideas. The ideonomist holds that inattention to the latter things has hobbled the development, and limited the success of the other fields; and that properly all four subjects should be developed simultaneously and in close coordination, being mutually necessary and synergistic. At present ideonomy is divided into some 320 subdivisions, a few of which are: the study of ignorance, the study of analogies, the study of form, the study of causes, the study of questions, the study of answers, the study of processes, and the study of cognitive and heuristice principles. In each of these cases it seeks to identify: the types (of these things), higher and lower taxa, examples, interrelationships, causes, effects, reasons for studying, needed materials and methods, fundamental concepts, abstract and practical relations to other ideonomic divisions, and the like. We can also characterize ideonomy in another way, such as: the study of how elementary ideas can be combined, permuted, and trnsformed as exhaustive groups of ideas; A new language designed to facilitate thought and creativity; An attempt to exploit the qualitiative laws of the universe.