[Inquiry] Re: Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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INT.  Note 10

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1.5.  Inquiry Driven Systems (cont.)

The concept of an inquiry driven system is intended to capture
the essential properties of a broad class of intelligent systems,
and to highlight the crucial processes which support learning and
reasoning in natural and cultural systems.  The defining properties
of inquiry driven systems are discussed in the next few paragraphs.
I then consider what is needed to supply these abstractions with
operational definitions, concentrating on the terms of mathematical
systems theory as a suitable foundation.  After this, I discuss my
plans to implement a software system that is designed to help analyze
the qualitative behavior of complex systems, inquiry driven systems
in particular.

An inquiry driven system has components of state, accessible to
the system itself, which characterize the norms of its experience.
The idea of a norm has two meanings, both of which are useful here.

In one sense of the word "norm", we have the descriptive regularities
that are observed in summaries of past experience.  These norms govern
the expectable sequences of future states, as determined by natural laws.

In another sense of the word "norm", we have the prescriptive policies
that are selected with an eye to future experience.  These norms govern
the intendable goals of processes, as controlled by deliberate choices.

Collectively, these two orders of norms go to make up
the "knowledge base", or the "intellectual component",
of the intelligent agent or the inquiry driven system.

Jon Awbrey

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