Conscious Cognitics

Having worked in the areas of

networks, databases, multimedia and intelligent systems for many years, I see a

new subject emerging. While we know how to define intelligent systems, we do not

know whether such systems are cognitive. Often we say, "They are not really

intelligent," thereby making a distinction between our ‘biological’

intelligence and that of machines.

This confusion is probably

because we don’t quite understand what cognition is.

Cognition is a property of

consciousness and not the other way round. We would be able to understand

cognition more easily if we understood consciousness first.

We could begin to understand

consciousness by mimicking it. The only kind of consciousness we know about is

in living systems. And, as far we know, living systems are self-organizing

systems.

I propose we define a word called

cognitics as follows: "Cognitics is the study and engineering of

conscious processes in self-organizing systems".

It is the cognitic components of

future systems that may determine competitive edges in technologies of the

future.

Dr

Sugata Mitra