Local, Global and Glocal Knowledge Representation

Abstract

One of the most powerful metaphors we’ve found for understanding minds is to view them as networks—i.e. collections of interrelated, interconnected elements. The view of mind as network is implicit in the patternist philosophy, because every pattern can be viewed as a pattern in something, or a pattern of arrangement of something—thus a pattern is always viewable as a relation between two or more things. A collection of patterns is thus a pattern-network. Knowledge of all kinds may be given network representations; and cognitive processes may be represented as networks also; for instance via representing them as programs, which may be represented as trees or graphs in various standard ways. The emergent patterns arising in an intelligence as it develops may be viewed as a pattern network in themselves; and the relations between an embodied mind and its physical and social environment may be viewed in terms of ecological and social networks.

Co-authored with Matthew Ikle, Joel Pitt and Rui Liu.