[Inquiry] Re: Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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PRO.  Note 39

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1.2.3.2.  Surprises to Explain

One of the uses of a knowledge base is to support the generation
of expectations.  In return, one of the inputs to the operators
which edit and update a knowledge base is the set of differences
between expected and observed states.  An inquiry driven system
requires a function to compare expected states, as represented
in the images reflexively generated from present knowledge,
and observed states, as represented in the images currently
delivered as unquestioned records of actual happenings.

In human terms this kind of discrepancy between expectation
and observation is experienced as a surprise, and is usually
felt as constituting an impulse toward an explanation that can
reduce the sense of disparity.  The specification of a particular
inquiry driven system would have to detail this relation between
states of uncertainty and resultant actions.

1.2.3.3.  Problems to Resolve

Since a system's determination of its own goals is a special
case of knowledge in general, it is convenient to allocate a
place for this kind of information in the knowledge component
of an intelligent system.  Thus, the intellectual component
of a knowledge oriented system may be allowed to preserve
its intentions, the images of currently active goals.

Often there is a difference between an actual state, as represented by
the image developed in free space by a trusted process of observation,
and an active goal, as represented by an image in the same space but
cherished within the frame of intention or otherwise distinguished
by an attentional affect.  This situation represents a problem to
be solved by the system through actions that effect changes on
the level of its primary dynamics.  The system chooses its
trajectory in accord with reducing the difference between
its active intentions and the observations that record
its actual conditions.

Jon Awbrey

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