User:Leonid2

/ Knowledge Instinct

Higher animals understand the world in terms of concepts-mental representations. Survival demands matching representations and patterns in sensory data (top-down and bottom-up signals. This process is driven by an inborn drive or instinct., . Humans and higher animals have a special instinct responsible for cognition, the knowledge instinct. Harry Harlow discovered that monkeys as well as humans have the drive for positive stimulation , regardless of satisfaction of drives such as hunger; David Berlyne discussed curiosity in this regard; Leon Festinger, introduced the notion of cognitive dissonance and described many experiments on the drive of humans to reduce dissonance; John Cacioppo discussed the need for cognition . Until recently, however, it was not mentioned among ‘basic instincts’ on a par with instincts for food and procreation. The reasons were that it was difficult to define, and that its fundamental nature was not obvious. The fundamental nature of this mechanism is related to the fact that our knowledge always has to be modified to fit the current situations. One rarely sees exactly the same object: illumination, angles, surrounding objects are usually different; therefore, adaptation-learning is required. A mathematical formulation of the mind mechanisms (Perlovsky 2006) makes obvious the fundamental nature of our desire for knowledge. In fact virtually all learning and adaptive algorithms (tens of thousands of publications) maximize correspondence between the algorithm internal structure (knowledge in a wide sense) and objects of recognition. Concept-models that our mind uses for understanding the world are in a constant need of adaptation. Knowledge is not just a static state; it is in a constant process of adaptation and learning. Without adaptation of concept-models we will not be able to understand the ever-changing surrounding world. We will not be able to orient ourselves or satisfy any of the bodily needs. Therefore, we have an inborn need, a drive, an instinct to improve our knowledge, called the knowledge instinct. Mathematically it is described as a maximization of a similarity measure between the knowledge stored in concept and the world (as it is sensed by sensory organs; also the very sensing is usually adapted and shaped during perception).