Cargando…

A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents

Traditionally, Euclidean geometry is treated by scientists as a priori and objective. However, when we take the position of an agent, the problem of selecting a best route should also factor in the abilities of the agent, its embodiment and particularly its cognitive effort. In this paper, we consid...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Archer, Karen, Catenacci Volpi, Nicola, Bröker, Franziska, Polani, Daniel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9727502/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36483761
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211800
_version_ 1784845037553582080
author Archer, Karen
Catenacci Volpi, Nicola
Bröker, Franziska
Polani, Daniel
author_facet Archer, Karen
Catenacci Volpi, Nicola
Bröker, Franziska
Polani, Daniel
author_sort Archer, Karen
collection PubMed
description Traditionally, Euclidean geometry is treated by scientists as a priori and objective. However, when we take the position of an agent, the problem of selecting a best route should also factor in the abilities of the agent, its embodiment and particularly its cognitive effort. In this paper, we consider geometry in terms of travel between states within a world by incorporating information processing costs with the appropriate spatial distances. This induces a geometry that increasingly differs from the original geometry of the given world as information costs become increasingly important. We visualize this ‘cognitive geometry’ by projecting it onto two- and three-dimensional spaces showing distinct distortions reflecting the emergence of epistemic and information-saving strategies as well as pivot states. The analogies between traditional cost-based geometries and those induced by additional informational costs invite a generalization of the notion of geodesics as cheapest routes towards the notion of infodesics. In this perspective, the concept of infodesics is inspired by the property of geodesics that, travelling from a given start location to a given goal location along a geodesic, not only the goal, but all points along the way are visited at optimal cost from the start.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9727502
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-97275022022-12-07 A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents Archer, Karen Catenacci Volpi, Nicola Bröker, Franziska Polani, Daniel R Soc Open Sci Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Traditionally, Euclidean geometry is treated by scientists as a priori and objective. However, when we take the position of an agent, the problem of selecting a best route should also factor in the abilities of the agent, its embodiment and particularly its cognitive effort. In this paper, we consider geometry in terms of travel between states within a world by incorporating information processing costs with the appropriate spatial distances. This induces a geometry that increasingly differs from the original geometry of the given world as information costs become increasingly important. We visualize this ‘cognitive geometry’ by projecting it onto two- and three-dimensional spaces showing distinct distortions reflecting the emergence of epistemic and information-saving strategies as well as pivot states. The analogies between traditional cost-based geometries and those induced by additional informational costs invite a generalization of the notion of geodesics as cheapest routes towards the notion of infodesics. In this perspective, the concept of infodesics is inspired by the property of geodesics that, travelling from a given start location to a given goal location along a geodesic, not only the goal, but all points along the way are visited at optimal cost from the start. The Royal Society 2022-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9727502/ /pubmed/36483761 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211800 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
Archer, Karen
Catenacci Volpi, Nicola
Bröker, Franziska
Polani, Daniel
A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
title A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
title_full A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
title_fullStr A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
title_full_unstemmed A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
title_short A space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
title_sort space of goals: the cognitive geometry of informationally bounded agents
topic Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9727502/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36483761
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211800
work_keys_str_mv AT archerkaren aspaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT catenaccivolpinicola aspaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT brokerfranziska aspaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT polanidaniel aspaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT archerkaren spaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT catenaccivolpinicola spaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT brokerfranziska spaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents
AT polanidaniel spaceofgoalsthecognitivegeometryofinformationallyboundedagents