[Inquiry] Re: Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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INT.  Note 12

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1.6.  The Irritation of Doubt

In the next few paragraphs I discuss a critical problem
to be solved in this approach, indicating its character
to the extent I can succeed at present, and I suggest a
reasonable way of proceeding.

In human inquiry there is always a relation between affective and cognitive
features of experience.  We have a sense of how much discord or harmony is
present in a situation, and we rely on the intensity of this sensation as
one measure of how to proceed with inquiry.  This works so automatically
that we have trouble distinguishing the affective and cognitive aspects
of the irritating doubt that drives the process.  In the artificial
systems we build to support inquiry, what measures can we take to
supply this sense or arrange a substitute for it?  If the proper
measure of doubt cannot be formalized, then all responsibility
for judging it will have to be assigned to the human side of
the interface.  This would greatly reduce the usefulness of
the projected software.

The unsettled state that instigates inquiry is characterized by a high level of
uncertainty.  The settled state of knowledge at the end of inquiry is achieved
by reducing this uncertainty to a minimum, at least to the point where action
is not misguided.  Within the framework of information theory we already have
a concept of uncertainty, the entropy of a probability distribution, as being
something that we can measure.  Certainly, how we feel about entropy does not
enter the equation.  Can we form a connection between the kind of doubt that
drives human inquiry and the kind of uncertainty that is measured on scales
of information content?  If so, this would allow salient dynamic properties
of inquiry driven systems to be studied in abstraction from the affective
qualities of the anomalies, the disagreeabilities, and the incongruities
that now drive them in the spheres of human experience.  With respect
to measurable qualities of uncertainty, inquiry driven systems could
be taken as special types of control systems, where the variable to
be controlled is the total amount of discrepancy, disparity, or
dispersion in the knowledge base of the system.

The assumption of modularity, that the affective and the intellectual aspects of
inquiry can be disentangled into separate components of the system, is a natural
one to make.  Whenever it holds, even approximately, it simplifies the task of
understanding and permits the analyst or designer to assign responsibility for
these factors to independent modules of the simulation or the implementation.
However, this assumption appears to be false in general, or true and useful
only in approaching certain properties of inquiry.  Many other features of
inquiry are not completely understandable on this basis.  To tackle these
more refractory properties, I will be forced to examine the concept of a
measure that separates the affective and intellectual impacts of disorder.
To the extent that this issue can be resolved by analysis, I believe that
it hinges on the characters that make a measure "objective", in effect,
invariant over many perspectives and interpretations, as opposed to
being merely the measure of a subjective moment, an impression that
is limited to a special interpretation or a transient perspective.

Jon Awbrey

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