Re: [SIMSOC] Newbie on the list - working on emergence of norms and beliefs
Dear Rosaria,
One can distinguish between normative and cognitive
expectations. They are differently codified at the level of society, but they
can also co-vary and at some times replace one another at the level of
individual minds. Individuals have difficulties with keeping them separate
because the focus is on integration as an identity. At the level of the social
system, this can be more relaxed.
With best wishes,
Loet
Il 18-01-2007 21:03, "Loet Leydesdorff"
<[log in to unmask]> ha scritto:
Dear colleagues,
It seems to me that norms are not generated by individuals, but
by social processes
I would phrase it socio-cognitive
processes.
and then reflected at the psychological level by individuals.
Not enough: agents not only reflect norms in their beliefs: based
on them they decide whether t form corresponding goals, and then possibly
transform these into the corresponding intentions, etc. So, the menatl path of
norms is a long and complex one, which contributes to norms social dynamics.
Of course there may be conflicting norms that agents will either ignore,
solve, choose among, etc. Precisely for this reason, in accountig for norms in
society one ought to integrate the cognitive and the social
model.
ross
From: News and discussion about computer
simulation in the social sciences [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Rosaria Conte
Sent: Thursday, January
18, 2007 10:09 AM
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SIMSOC] Newbie on the
list - working on emergence of norms and beliefs
But, then, what does the statement
mean? Can you give some examples of the use of cognitive agents
that are not based on a cognitive architecture?
There is a misunderstanding here:
I said that a theory of norm emergence based on cognitive
agents does not imply that a cognitive model (and the
underlying architecture) is a model of large scale societal
behavior: in other words, although cognitive agents contribute to
societal processes, the latter should not be modeled as cognitively
designed (a great deal of social dynamics is
extra-mental).
My personal view is that norms and
practice are closely related.
This is a conventionalist view of
norms. In any attempt to distinguish them from conventions, norms
are accounted as something rather different from
practices.
How can it be that entities reason upon
representations of norms, but don't issue or understand these
norms?
Very
simple. Lets start from legal norms: agents need to form a
mental representation of the norms impinging on them in order
to autonomously decide whether to comply with them or not. However,
agents usually emanate no norm: often, they don’t even have the
faintest idea how norms are issued, by whom and through which
processes. The same a fortiori is true for social
norms.
I am not aware of any cognitive
agents that are not, in some way shape or form, based on a theory
of human cognition.
GPS is no
theory of human cognition but it is meant to be a General
theory of intelligent, planning systems. Miller, Galanter and
Pribram’s work (from the early 60s) is a general theory of
intelligent, goal-driven systems which has poor relation with any
pre-existing theory of human cognition.
It is probably my lack of knowledge
about those who define a theory of cognition for animals, other
than human, that I can't say much about this. But, I would say
that the theory of artificial minds is very much related to that
of the theory of human cognition.
Perhaps
unfortunately,, this is not the case. The hegemonial, although
no more so recent, trend in cognitive psychology is the modular view
of the mind, that so far to my knowledge no-one took as a reference
for computational modeling and agent architecture. As to symbolic
theories of animal intelligence, in cognitive primatology, lots of
people (Tommasello, Visalberghi etc.) are working on primates’ and
children’s social imitation and cooperation with experimental and
observational approaches, trying to understand related cognitive
determinants of these behaviors.
Cheers
ross
(...)
More so,
many scientist (e.g. neuroscience, anthropology, cognitive
science) have in recent years developed counter theories to
the theory of the human mind as a "symbolic copy machine."
Although it is not entirely
clear to me what a symbolic copy machine is, I do believe
instead that cognitive science in general has no much to say
against the theory of human mind as a symbolic system.
To claim that cognition is based on
symbolic processing, it means that that there is a copy function
within the process, and symbolic structures are copied from one
place to another in order to store and recall the symbolic
structures.
However, this by no means implies a
particular commitment to a view of agents as necessarily
conscious, ratiomorphic, and deliberative.
Yes it does, at least
deliberative, which I would posit needs consciousness. I am not
sure what ratiomorphic is.
A cognitive (based upon symbolic
representations) view of the mind should not be equalized with a
strictly deliberative view of
agenthood.
Maybe
not in the field where you operate, but I would claim that in
philosophy and cognitive psychology it does. Maybe you can give
some examples that make your claim
explicit.
... (but, alas, not every human
activity is
goal-driven).
Of
course. However, a cognitive theory of goals defines them as
symbolic internal representations triggering and guiding
actions; by no means, again, this implies that goals are also
attributed the property of being rational, consistent, conscious
and necessarily chosen for action (and therefore
planned).
But
that is not what the goal-based theories say. More importantly, if
one uses a BDI agent architecture (or an expert system based
architecture, such as Jess) to model reasoning in your agents,
then you are either implicitly or explicitly claiming that "goals
are also attributed the property of being rational ..." Simply
because these architectures are based on the theory that rational,
consistent, conscious choosing of actions is planned and
goal-based. In other words, imho, you cannot use these
architectures to implement your agent system and then claim that
your model does not rely on these theories. That is why we
developed our own BDI-like architecture that is not based on these
theories, but on theories of situated action and activity theory,
which do not use the concept of a goal to model reasoning, and
does not use goal-based planning to simulate perception-action and
deliberation.
Cheers
ross
