3.4 The General Structure of Cognitive Dynamics: Analysis and Synthesis AT => Combine => Explain > Combine > Explain > Combine >
It is not hard to express this alternating dynamic more formally, as well.
Let X denote any set of components.
Let F(X) denote a set of components which is the result of synthesis on X.
Let B(X) denote a set of components which is the result of analysis of X. We assume also a heuristic biasing the synthesis process toward simple constructs.
Let S(t) denote a set of components at time t, representing part of a system’s knowledge base.
Let I(t) denote components resulting from the external environment at time t.
Then, we may consider a dynamical iteration of the form
This expresses the notion of alternating synthesis and analysis formally, as a dynamical iteration on the space of sets of components. We may then speak about attractors of this iteration: fixed points, limit cycles and strange attractors. One of the key hypotheses I wish to put forward here is that some key emergent cognitive structures are strange attractors of this equation. The iterative dynamic of combination and explanation leads to the emergence of certain complex structures that are, in essence, maintained when one recombines their parts and then seeks to explain the recombinations. These structures are built in the first place through iterative recombination and explanation, and then survive in the mind because they are conserved by this process. They then ongoingly guide the construction and destruction of various other temporary mental structures that are not so conserved.
3.4.4 Self and Focused Attention as Approximate Attractors of the Dynamic of Iterated Forward- Analysis
As noted above, patternist philosophy argues that two key aspects of intelligence are emergent structures that may be called the “self” and the “attentional focus.” These, it is suggested, are aspects of intelligence that may not effectively be wired into the infrastructure of an intelligent system, though of course the infrastructure may be configured in such a way as to encourage their emergence. Rather, these aspects, by their nature, are only likely to be effective if they emerge from the cooperative activity of various cognitive processes acting within a broad base of knowledge.
Above we have described the pattern of ongoing habitual oscillation between synthesis and analysis as a kind of “dynamical iteration.” Here we will argue that both self and attentional focus may be viewed as strange attractors of this iteration. The mode of argument is relatively informal. The essential processes under consideration are ones that are poorly understood from an empirical perspective, due to the extreme difficulty involved in studying them experimentally. For understanding self and attentional focus, we are stuck in large part with introspection, which is famously unreliable in some contexts, yet still dramatically better than having no information at all. So, the philosophical perspective on self and attentional focus given here is a synthesis of empirical and introspective notions, drawn largely from the published thinking and research of
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