Ripley the Robotin the Anima Mundi

Plato’s Timaeus andComputational Intelligence

Nikolaos Mavridis, MIT Media Lab

Anima Mundi"... Therefore, we may consequently state that:

this world is indeed a living being endowed witha soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related."

- Plato, Timaeus, 29/30; 4th century B.C.

A Vision and a Promise

Great thinkers: Philosophy, Religion

Vision: Computational Intelligence

Method:

Direct references to relevant ideas

Map apparently non-relevant ideas by Analogy

Promise:

Show how much Plato has predicted

Illustrate some aspects in a real-world robot

Today’s Menu

1. Introduction

2. Background

3. The “reasonable story”

4. Timaeus in 2000 AD

5. Ripley the Robot

6. Conclusion

1. Introduction:Plato

"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition

is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato"A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929

Timeline

Pythagoras: 569-475 BC

Socrates: 469-399 BC

Plato: 427-347 BC

Aristotle: 384-322 BC, Alexander…

TimaeusContext: A late dialogue

Form: (Analogy [Gentner] everywhere!)

A “reasonable story” of the world until man (the best we can do, as truth exists only about Ideas; else, opinion…)

WHY ARE WE INTERESTED IN A COSMOLOGY?

Speaker:

Timaeus, a pythagorean math/astronomer

Beginning:

Socrates: Ideal State, Kritias: Atlantis

2. Background:Pythagorean Ideals

Philosophy, Mathematics / Acusmatics

Fixations / Aesthetics:

“Number is the origin of all things”

Harmony of the spheres

Symmetries, Triplets, Triangles…

The Being of Parmenides: (created world)

One and only, closed and compact, complete, spherical,

self-sufficient…

The theory of IdeasThree parts:

Goodness

IDEAS(Archetypes,

Eternal, Unchanging)

CHORA(Pre - "Spacetime",

Random Perturbation)

SENSORYWORLD

(Imperfect, Changing)

BEING SENSES

REASON

Teleology vs. Necessity?Teleology: (Creation - 4 aitia, also finite-horizon)

Teliko: final goal

Poitico: the creator (agent)

Eidiko: the archetypical Idea

Yliko: the material to be shaped

Necessity: (local, mechanistic)

A causes B causes C

Example: “Equals attract one another”

Relation: Force Dynamics [Talmy], Jackendoff, Denett

What should be attributed to which???

W ILL OFOBJECT?

W ILL OFGROUND?

MAYBEBOTH?

OR JUST GRAVITY?(MECHANISTIC, LOCAL TEMPORALLY)

TRIPARTITE SOUL (& Ratios!)

ΝούςREASON

ΘυµοειδέςWILL

ΕπιθυµητικόDESIRES

SoulTripartite soul: (5 in Hasidism)

Nous: Reason (Eternal)

Thymoeides: Will (connects reason to desire)

Epithimitikon: Desire

Composition / Function of Reason:

Ratios of: ∃, =, ≠ for changing/unchanging

I.e. Matching within/across domains

Placing in hierarchies, Producing inferences

Directly connects to Ideas!

Ullman’s bidirectional matching

BIPARTITE BEING

SOUL BODYACTION

SENSES

SENSESREASON

WORLD OFIDEAS

WORLD OFSENSES

EmbodimentParts: Body has parts (as soul does), soul has locus…

Interface: (soul-body)

Action: Soul moves body (selfmotion=animacy)

Sensing:

• Mechanistic: Sensory world interfaces to soul through body

• Teleological: Approximate Ideas!

• Vision: Essence of heavenly body motion

• Hearing: Essence of musical harmony

• Speech: Reasonable tuition

6xxx: Grounding [larson], elevation of peripherals [phw]!

3. The “reasonable story”:The Cosmic Being

Creator: image of Idea of Goodness

Cosmic Being: image of Idea of all-inclusive living being

Preexisting: World of Ideas, Chora and Sensory World

Qualities of cosmic being: parmenidian, perfect movement

Body: triangles -> regular solids -> transform. symmetries

Soul: harmonic division, and sets into motion: TIME begins!“Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image

eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time.”

Senses itself, good company for itself!…

The seven planets, measures of time!

The Gods (Creators)

Creator

Heavenly Gods:

Earth, 7 Planets, Stars

Lower Gods:

Through Heaven and Earth

Humans (potentially creators!):

Soul: eternal, by creator, in stars!

Body: by lower Gods

Robots?

Necessity jumps in…“Now, when they (souls) should be implanted in bodies by necessity, and be always gaining or losing some part of their bodily substance, then in the first place it would be necessary that they should all have in them one and the same faculty of sensation, arising out of irresistible impressions; in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star…”

Know Necessity, tame Necessity, re-attain Harmony!

Becoming an approximation of the Creator…The elevation of the real-world engineer-mathematician, I.e. the MIT ideal

The rest of Timaeus

Works of C (Creator):

What we’ve seen so far

Human senses and body

Works of N (Necessity):

4 elements through regular solids

Sensory qualities: heat, weight, color…

Combination of C and N:

Human soul parts, and body organs

Health, other species

4. Timaeus in 2000AD

Exemplar of scientific exposition and beauty,

with deep self-reflection on validity

Descendants:

Scientific:

• Mathematical astronomy, particle physics, elemental

chemistry, sensory science, homeostasis, aging theories,

probabilistic models, mechanistic physiology…

Philosophical – religious: …

6xxx: We’ve mentioned so many!

Timaeus’s world

BIPARTITE BEING

SOUL BODYACTION

SENSES

BIPARTITE BEING

SOUL BODYACTION

SENSES

BIPARTITE BEING

SOUL BODYACTION

SENSES

TRIPARTITE SOUL

REASON WILL DESIRES

MULTIPART BODY

HEAD NECK . . .

RELATION

RELATION

RELATION

LINKLINKLINKLINK

COSMIC BEING

SOUL BODYACTION

SENSES

Goodness

IDEAS(Archetypes)

SENSORYWORLD(S?)

(Imperfect, Changing)

CHORA("Spacetime",

Random Perturbation)

Ripley’s Internalised World

RED

PROTOTYPES(Coding, tuition)

SENSORYWORLD

WORLD(COMPOUND_AGENT)

AGENTs

...

AGENT_RELATIONs

...

AGENT AGENT_RELATION

BODY(COMPOUND_

OBJECT)

SOULINTERFACE

OBJECTs

OBJECT_RELATIONs

VIEWPOINT

MOVER

MENTALMODEL

GOALS

AFFECT

SPACETIME

5. Ripley the robotInternalised Mental Models

Representationalist approach:

The state of the world as best known (me, you, others)

MM = Representations AND Processes for updating!

Consequences of bounded spacetime:

Object creation/deletion

Update of “surface” properties

Internalised vs. Cosmological genesis

Knowledge of own body

State of the system:

- “Pick up the green ball on my left!” -

Rip’s view of Anima Mundi

WORLD HIERARCHY: (Everything Animate!)

World = Compound Agent

Compound Agent = Agents + Agent Relations

Agent = Body + Soul + Interfaces

Body = Objects + Object Relations

Soul = Reason(MM) + Will(Goals) + Desire(Affect)

Interfaces = Sensing(Viewport) + Action(Mover)

Space: The chora (spatial occupancy, object permanence)

World soul missing!!!

Objects & attributesTripartite Attributes (shape, color, weight, …)

Stochastic

Deterministic (maximum likelihood)

Categorical (quantized for language)

World of Ideas:

Ideal archetypes of attributes (f.e. shapes)

Approximation through senses (grounding)

Open problem:

Encoding apparent versus deep attributes + chora

The ArchitectureModality-specific processes:

Visor

Proprioceptor

Imaginator

Central processes:

MM: Processes proposals

Predictor

Recent Work: Goals,Affect

Open Questions!!!

M E N T A L M O D E L& R E C O N C IL L IA T O R

( m e n ta l_ m o d e l . e x e )W [ t ] a n d F

M O D A L IT Y -S P E C IF IC

IN S T A T IA T O R S( v is o r .e x e e tc . )

( W [ t ] ,S [ t ] ) - > W s [ t ]

V IR T U A LO B J E C T

IN S T A N T I A T O R( im a g in e r .e x e )

( W [ t ] ,H [ t ] ) - > W h [ t ]

D Y N A M I C SP R E D IC T O R

( p r e d ic t o r .e x e )W p [ t ]

V IS U A L IS E R( v is u a l is e r .e x e )

S E N S E SS [ t ]

H Y P O T H E S I SG E N E R A T IO N

V IS U A LF E A T U R EA N A L Y S IS

L A N G U A G EU N D E R S T A N D IN G

( b is h o p )v ie w p o in ts e le c t io n

M E N T A L M O D E L S : R ip le y 's c a s e

P r e l im i n a r y b lo c k d ia g r a m , S e p t '0 3N ik o la o s M a v r i d is , M I T M e d ia L a b

Conclusion

The promise was:

Show how much Plato has predicted

Illustrate some aspects in a real-world robot

The future:

Clear up things in architecture

Study deeper & get …novel ideas from Plato!

So many more texts and authors waiting…

Epilogue"... We may now say that our discourse about the nature

of the universe has an end. The world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and is fulfilled with them, and has become a visible animal containing the visible-the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect-the one only begotten heaven. "

Now Ripley the Robot has just been born; and reason should guide us in choosing which eternal Idea will be its archetype, towards the goal of Harmonia Mundi…?