14.4 Implications of Patternist Philosophy for Derived Hypergraphs of Intelligent Systems 275
structure, and that in highly intelligent systems they should have subgraphs that constitute models of the whole hypergraph (these are self systems). SMEPH does not add anything to the patternist view on a philosophical level, but it gives a concrete instantiation to some of the general ideas of patternism. In this section we’ll articulate some "SMEPH principles", consti- tuting important ideas from patternist philosophy as they manifest themselves in the SMEPH context.
The logical edges in a SMEPH hypergraph are weighted with probabilities, as in the simple example given above. The functional edges may be probabilistically weighted as well, since some Schema may give certain results only some of the time. These probabilities are critical in terms of SMEPH’s model of system dynamics; they underly one of our SMEPH principles,
Principle of Implicit Probabilistic Inference: In an intelligent system, the temporal evolution of the probabilities on the edges in the system’s derived hypergraph should approxi- mately obey the rules of probability theory.
The basic idea is that, even if a system - through its underlying dynamics - has no explicit connection to probability theory, it still must behave roughly as if it does, if it is going to be intelligent. The roughly part is important here; it’s well known that humans are not terribly accurate in explicitly carrying out formal probabilistic inferences. And yet, in practical contexts where they have experience, humans can make quite accurate judgments; which is all that’s required by the above principle, since it’s the contexts where experience has occurred that will make up a system’s derived hypergraph. Our next SMEPH principle is evolutionary, and states
Principle of Implicit Evolution: In an intelligent system, new Schema and Concepts will continually be created, and the Schema and Concepts that are more useful for achieving system goals (as demonstrated via probabilistic implication of goal achievement) will tend to survive longer.
Note that this principle can be fulfilled in many different ways. The important thing is that system goals are allowed to serve as a selective force.
Another SMEPH dynamical principle pertains to a shorter time-scale than evolution, and states
Principle of Attention Allocation: In an intelligent system, Schema and Concepts that are more useful for attaining short-term goals will tend to consume more of the system’s energy. (The balance of attention oriented toward goals pertaining to different time scales will vary from system to system.)
Next, there is the Principle of Autopoesis: In an intelligent system, if one removes some part of the system and then allows the system’s natural dynamics to keep going, a decent approximation to that
removed part will often be spontaneously reconstituted.
And there is the
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