CODIL, Complexity, evolution and Intelligence

I have just been following a FutureLearn course

Decision Making in a Complex and Uncertain World

It was run by the University of Groningen under Professor Lex Hoogduin,. While I have been concerned with complex systems all my life I have never done even an introductory course on the subject and it has proved very useful in stimulating ideas about how I might write up my work on the evolution of human intelligence.  I felt that the information presented by Pier van den Berg on natural evolutionary dynamics and that presented by Franjo Weissing on social systems helpful as while much of what they presented was known to me their presentations help me to clarify my ideas. s a result I have posted the following closing comment (limited to 1200 characters) on the course




 

This course is proving a great help in research into the Evolution of Human Intelligence.

In 1967 research started on an unconventional “computer” with a user-friendly symbolic assembly language (CODIL). The aim was that humans and the system could work as partners on complex but mathematically unsophisticated tasks. Extensive research was done and a small package was trial marketed and got very favourable reviews. It was abandoned because of incompatibility with conventional computing technology. In retrospect a key problem was that the underlying theory had not been adequately explored.

In theoretical terms conventional computers process numbers in deterministic array of numbers while in CODIL concepts (ideas named by the human) are activated in a highly recursive network. While the original CODIL system was designed to process complex clerical-type information the recursion in the theoretical model suggest an evolutionary pathway from simple decisions at the neuron level up to the exchange of cultural information in human society. The CODIL research showed how the human brain could tackle complex tasks.

Interested to know more – see my blog www.trapped-by-the-box.blogspot.co.uk

I will be actively following up the ideas this course has generated, with various leads to follow up, and an enhanced enthusiasm for properly writing up my own research.