Cross Roads #51: "Telics: a science of goals?" Dr Pavel Chvykov

What is "agency"? How does goal-directed behavior arise from non-biological systems? What group of atoms is an "individual" that has these goals? All these questions are core to research on origins of life, artificial life, AI, cognition, and social system construction. Many of these questions are now finally starting to find plausible answers. But what if we are approaching the problem from the wrong side? We take for granted that atoms are the building blocks, while goals are high-level emergent phenomena. But what if we could formulate an equivalent modeling framework starting from the other side – where goals would be the basic building blocks, and objects and atoms would emerge as high-level effective descriptions of reality? Related perspectives, like relational ontology and process philosophy, have been gaining traction and plausibility. In this talk I will present a collection of results, from information theory of optimal model-building, through dynamical systems research into adaptation in non-biological systems, and to social systems emergence and construction. The goal of these will be to build a plausible case that such an alternate goal-first phenomenology – "telics" – may reasonably be developed based on recent research. This new paradigm would invite diametrically opposite sets of questions and challenges – bringing a new perspective to our research topics. About the Speaker → Pavel got his PhD at MIT in theoretical physics applied to the questions of origins of life. He has since transitioned into complexity science applied to problems in engineering, economics, linguistics, cognitive science. Building on this work, he is now developing a research community at the intersection of complexity science and contemplative studies (mindfulness, theology, philosophy). You can follow his blog and reach out to join the growing community at https://www.pchvykov.com/blog Cross Roads is a monthly speaker series bringing together experts from across academia and industry to talk about the latest research in intelligence science, artificial life, and AI. Subscribe to Cross Labs Channel for more videos like this →    / crosslabs   Follow Cross Labs on Twitter →   / crosslabstokyo   Visit Cross Labs website → https://www.crosslabs.org Sponsored by → https://www.cross-compass.com Organized by: Alyssa Adams, Olaf Witkowski, Antoine Pasquali, and Katsunobu Suzuki, Cross Labs / Cross Compass Ltd. #AI #Science #Intelligence #ArtificialLife #Technology