A Computational Definition of 'Consilience’

Summary

This paper defines in a formal and computational way the notion of ‘consilience’, a term introduced by Whewell in 1847 for the evaluation of scientific theories, by using a detailed evaluation of the relationship between the theory and the evidence by means of reinforcement propagation.

Keywords

Consilience, Epistemology, Philosophy, Computer science, Management science

References

The Best Explanation: Criteria for Theory ChoicePaul Thagard — 1978
Abduction and InductionPeter Flach, Antonis Kakas — 2000
Artificial intelligence in medicineMichel Dojat, Elpida Keravnou, Pedro Barahona — 1989
Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science.Leona Schauble — 1994
Conjectures and refutations;: The growth of scientific knowledgeMary Hesse, Karl R. Popper — 1972
A Paradigm for Reasoning by AnalogyRobert E. Kling — 1971
Abduction and induction: syllogistic and inferential perspectivesPeter Flach — 1996
Inductive Logic Programming: Theory and MethodsStephen Muggleton, Luc De Raedt — 1994
Induction and HypothesisStephen F. Barker — 1959
The Inference to the Best ExplanationGilbert Harman — 1965
Aspects of Scientific Explanation.Michael D. Resnik, Carl G. Hempel — 1966
Abduction as Belief RevisionCraig Boutilier, Veronica Beche — 1995
Constructive reinforcement learningJosé Hernández‐Orallo — 2000
On the Role of Coherence in Abductive ExplanationHwee Tou Ng, Raymond J. Mooney — 1990
Reinforcement Learning: A SurveyLeslie Pack Kaelbling, Michael L. Littman, Andrew Moore — 1996
Coherence as Constraint SatisfactionPaul Thagard, Karsten Verbeurgt — 2019
Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive ScienceKarmiloff-Smith, Annette 1938-2016 — 1992
Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and DiscoveryJohn H. Holland, Keith J. Holyoak, Richard E. Nisbett — 1987
The continuum of inductive methodsArthur W. Burks, Rudolf Carnap — 1952
Enumerative Induction and Best ExplanationRobert H. Ennis — 1968

Cited by

Universal Psychometrics Tasks: difficulty, composition and decompositionJosé Hernández‐Orallo — 2015
An MML-based tool for evaluating the complexity of (stochastic) logic theoriesHéctor Castillo-Andreu — 2012
The Measure of All Minds: Evaluating Natural and Artificial IntelligenceJosé Hernández‐Orallo — 2017
Stochastic Tasks: Difficulty and Levin SearchJ. Hernández-Orallo — 2015

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