Studies on Consciousness, Cognition and Life

个人研究综述:

我的研究的根本理念是：精神不能化为物质，而属性一定存在于所有的物质中，这种属性使物质的某个特定结构（如大脑）在某个特定的环境中能够表现出“意识”。

我认为认知是所有活性生物体的属性，只是它们表现出不同的（持续性的）程度而已。我们可以说记忆和学习的特性在自然界无处不在，只要我们假定它们表现出了不同的程度。

认知（活的）物质的行为与非认知（死的）物质的行为之间有着让人震惊的相似之处。（如一张纸被反复折叠后往往“记得”被折叠过，因而保持被折叠的状态。）

我们所发现的在自然界中无处不在的“认知的程度”可以用模糊逻辑的形式主义来表示，但是现代物理是建立在量子力学之上的，而量子力学又是建立在概率论之上的。要想使生物科学与物理科学间得到调和，也就是说统一认知科学与物理，一个可能的出发点是以量子力学的模糊逻辑来取代概率论。

教育及其他相关经历：

比儒（Piero）于1982年以最高荣誉获得意大利都灵大学的数学学位，在那里他从事相对论（主要应用于黑洞理论）和理论物理（量子色动力学的一个统一模型）的研究工作).
他曾经担任以加利福尼亚的库比提诺为基地的奥利维蒂（Olivetti)人工智能中心总裁多年。
他已在意大利和美国出版了多部相关领域著作，并发表文章数百篇。
他曾经是哈佛大学的人工智能访问学者（1984），在1995至1996年间，他又在斯坦福大学的知识系统实验室访学。
他在世界范围内多所大学讲学，最近在加州大学伯克利分校和加利福尼亚整合研究学院教授有关头脑的形式理论。

Year 2000 statement of work

Main technical papers:

Butera, Scaruffi: "Computer-aided tuning in an expert system for software configuration" (Vienna, Third SPIE Symposium, 1986)

Logiudice, Scaruffi: "Knowledge Modules: a structure for representing the granularity of real-world knowledge" (Montreal, Sixth Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1986)

Donalisio, Petrone, Scaruffi: "A framework to build expert systems for decision support" (Boston, Second Conference on Applications of A.I., 1987)

Scaruffi: "Expert Systems for Management" (Osaka, Japanese Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1987)

Butera, Iacono, Scaruffi: "A model-based heuristic approach to board troubleshooting" (Detroit, Expert Systems in Manufacturing, 1988)

Scaruffi, Steccanella, Barbetti: (Madrid, Knowledge Engineering Workshop, 1988) "A model of knowledge communication for building intelligent tutoring systems"

Ronchi, Butera, Frascari, Scaruffi: "A dual-blackboard architecture for tele-diagnosis" (Artificial Intelligence in Design and Manufacturing [vol.1/2, Academic Press], 1988)

Scaruffi: "The new wave of personal distributed intelligence" (ACM Computational Intelligence, 1988)

Scaruffi, Barbetti: "A domain-independent framework for tutoring systems" (ACM/AIE IEA, 1989)

Chiantore, Perotto, Resta, Scaruffi "An expert system for product configuration" (World Congress on Expert Systems, 1991)

Qian, Russi, Scaruffi: "Generation of production rules from neural networks" (Intl Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems, 1991)

Scaruffi: "Towards unification of cognitive and physical sciences: cognition as a property of matter" (Cognitive Society Conference:, 1996)

Scaruffi: "The Factory of Illusions: artificial and natural creativity" (Berliner Festspiele 2000, 1999)

Scaruffi: Consciousness as multi-track evolution (Conference on Consciousness, 2001)

Scaruffi: A reductionist explanation of the self (Conference on Consciousness, 2001)

Scaruffi: The experimental study of consciousness (Conference on Consciousness, 2001)

List of main lectures and seminars on Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Theories of the Mind:

October 1999: U.C. Berkeley, Extensions, USA

September 1998: U.C. Berkeley, Extensions, USA

April 1998: California Institute for Integral Studies, USA

April 1997: U.C. Berkeley, Extensions, USA

Talk #1 - Practical Applications of A.I. This talk will provide a survey of real-world applications of A.I.: so called "expert systems", neural networks, natural language processing systems. It will also bridge the history of artificial intelligence with the history of its applications, the history of A.I. in the academia with the history of A.I. in the industry. It will identify the areas of our society that have been affected and will be affected by artificial intelligence technique, briefly dealing with the economic and social impacts.
Talk #2 - Theories of the Mind. This talk will provide an interdisciplinary survey of theories of the mind, consciousness and life that are emerging from a broad range of fields: neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of the mind, non-standard logic, biology, artificial life and non-linear dynamics. The student will gain a basic understanding of the various research programs that deal with the mind, consciousness and life: how the brain works, how its structure relates to the mind, how conscious phenomena relate to the mind, how mind relates to life, how science can explain all of this. Included in this talk will be topics such as self-organizing systems (Kauffman), memes (Dawkins), the multimind (Ornstein), concepts (Rosch), mental models (Johnson-Laird), situated cognition (Gibson, Neisser, Barwise), autopoietics (Maturana), neural darwinism (Edelman), emotions (Aggleton), convergence zones (Damasio), time binding (Llinas), language (Chomsky, Austin, Searle, Grice), etc.

October 1990: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Department of Systems, Colombia

May 1989: University of Cagliari, Department of Philosophy, Italy

August 1988: Monterey Institute for International Studies, USA

May 1987: University of Bari, Department of Mathematics, Italy

List of theses supervised:

Supervised about 20 graduate theses jointly with faculty members of Italian Universities:

1982) Turin: "A keyed file system for optimized relational access"

1982) Turin: "A syntax-driven editor for a data management system"

1984) Turin: "A semantic network based architecture for document retrieval"

1985) Pisa: "Partitioning a knowledge base into knowledge modules"

1985) Pisa: "An expert system for quality assurance"

1986) Pisa: "An integrated parser for text understanding"

1987) Pisa: "An expert system for board troubleshooting"

1987) Pisa: "A dual-frame architecture for text understanding"

1987) Pisa: "A framework for building intelligent decision support systems"

1988-90) etc etc

Greek thought evolved an intriguing division of mental life into two souls, the Thymos (pron: "theemos") and the Psyche.

The Thymos pertains to the active soul, what we today refer to thought, consciousness, awareness, etc. It was associated with breath, heart and liver. Breath was identified with soul, as in most ancient systems of philosophy (the Hindu "atman" comes from the word for "breathing") and with language (breath is what you need to utter sounds). Liver was reputed to be the origin of emotions (there must have been painful liver diseases at the time :-). The heart was considered the seat of desires and intentions.
The Psyche is the immanent soul, independent from the body, a precursor of the eternal soul of Christianity that survives the body in the other world.

It appears that this was a very ancient belief, predating civilizations, as the same distinction can be found in most ancient cultures: in Egypt there were the ba and ka, in China the p'o and hun, in Judaism the nephesh and the ruach, in Buddhism the kama-manas and the buddhi-manas, in Zoroastrianism the daena and the urvan. Countless esoteric beliefs, all derived from ancient theosophies, distinguish between an active entity (alaya-vijnana, karana-sarira) and a passive entity (manas, suksma-sarira). Interestingly, the concept was abolished by Christianity but resurfaced in Islam (the ruh and the nafs).

In ancient Greece the Thymos became the active, rational and mortal part of the person (the part that has control over the body), while the Psyche became the quiescent and immortal part of the person.

The Thymos became a core concept of Socrates' philosophy. In Socrates' theology the doctrine of Thymos is a meditation on the history of philosophy from Homer to Socrates himself, by which Socrates hails the passage from unconscious philosophizing to rational self-consciousness. Interestingly, Socrates warned against the dangers of self-awareness. He warned that consciousness would cost us greatly, both in terms of desire to live and in terms of our harmony with nature. In Plato's late dialogues this contradiction has a happy ending, as Socrates finds in conscious thought the meaning of life itself.

Platonic philosophy elevated the Thymos above the Psyche. The Psyche is viewed as a sort of lower mind that can connect with either a higher mind (nous), that a Christian may perhaps interpret as God, or with the Thymos, that a Christian cannot interpret because it has no correspondent. Thymos is the cause of anger and passion. In a sense, it is opposite of meditation.