Lessons from connectionism in differentiating knowledge types

• Authors: Stephen Thaler
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Recent progress in the field of computational creativity has supplied an unanticipated model of the neurobiological knowledge management system known as the brain. Close examination of this model offers an alternative language for the field of knowledge management as well as a means for implementing cognitive agents coming closer than ever to emulating human intelligence and consciousness. Knowledge management (KM) theorists have proposed a number of frameworks for distinguishing different types of knowledge. Oftentimes we hear distinctions such as explicit versus tacit1, content-based or relational2, or new contrasted with established knowledge3. With close to three decades experience in emulating cognitive function in neural networks, the author finds such delineations interesting, to say the least, foreseeing a general debate that mirrors the ongoing dialogue between high- and low-level psychologists: the former group seeks to model human behavior on the basis of beliefs, desires, fears, and hopes, primitives that tend to be as cyclic in definition as KM terms such as 'explicit' or 'tacit'. The latter group takes a totally different tack, asserting as Crick4 did, that all we are, our intelligence, personalities, perhaps even soul, is the outcome of neural mechanics. Such reductionism may ultimately diminish certain mystiques, but the capture, development, sharing, and effectiveness of knowledge is about to enter a boom period exactly because of this new outlook.

Keywords

EN

knowledge management; computational psychology; connectionism

• Publisher: Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie
• Journal: e-mentor
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 3 (55)
• Pages: 81-86

Contributors

author

Stephen Thaler

• Imagination Engines, Inc., in St. Charles, Missouri, USA

References

• Boden M., The creative mind: myths and mechanisms, Weiden and Nicholson, London 1990.
• Bray D., SSRN-literature review - knowledge management research at the organizational level, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.991169.
• Crick F., The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for soul, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1994.
• Hayes M., Walsham G., Knowledge sharing and ICTs: a relational perspective, [in:] Easterby-Smith M., Lyles M.A., The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Blackwell, Malden 2003.
• Nonaka I., Takeuchi H., The knowledge creating company: how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation, Oxford University Press, New York 1995.
• Sensky T., Knowledge management, „Advances in Psychiatric Treatment” 2002, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 387-395, http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/apt.8.5.387.
• Snowden D., Complex acts of knowing - paradox and descriptive self awareness, „Journal of Knowledge Management” 2002, Vol. 6, Special Issue 2, pp. 100-111, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13673270210424639.
• Thaler S., A proposed symbolism for network-implemented discovery processes, [in:] World congress on neural networks (WCNN'96), conference proceedings, San Diego, California 1996, pp. 1265-1268.
• Thaler S., A quantitative model of seminal cognition: the creativity machine paradigm, [in:] Mind II Conference, conference proceedings, Dublin 1997.
• Thaler S., Device for the autonomous generation, US Patent 5,659,666, 1994.
• Thaler S., Synaptic perturbation and consciousness, to be published in „International Journal of Machine Consciousness”, December 2014.
• Thaler S., The creativity machine paradigm [in:], Carayannis E.G. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, Springer Reference, 2013, pp. 447-456, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3858-8_396.