It is my hope that this book can serve two major purposes: first, as a descriptive theory, it will provide a uniform explanation of human intelligence and the related phenomena studied in cognitive science (CogSci); and second, as a constructive theory, it will suggest an approach to create artificial intelligence (AI).
From the very beginning of my study of CogSci and AI, I believe the research result in this field should be presented on three levels:
This eBook is going to evolve into the conceptual book, which is written in non-technical language, and establishes the philosophical foundation of my approach toward CogSci and AI. Also, it puts the research in a broad context. Previous abstractions and versions of this work have been distributed and discussed in several small circles of friends in 1985, 1991, and 2000, respectively.
The technical book has also grown through several stages, as my Master Thesis (Peking University, 1986), Ph.D. Dissertation (Indiana University, 1995), and a research monograph (Springer, 2006), with the supplements of my other publications.
The software is NARS, which has been developed in several versions, too. Recently it grew into Open NARS, an open-source software.
Currently, works at all three levels are under constant revision and extension in a time-sharing manner, whenever I find time to work on them.
When turning my existing (plain text) manuscript into hypertext for this eBook, I am trying a novel format. The eBook will consists of a main text and many sidebar texts. In the main text, I focus on expressing my ideas on the related topics in a self-contained way, and link to sidebars whenever I need to talk about a topic of importance in the field, but plays a minor role in my theory. Also, the main text is organized in webpages at three levels: book, chapter, and section, with each topics discussed in a lower level being summarized at a higher level. Therefore, readers will have the freedom of either browsing a topic quickly, or exploring the details of my treatment.
This eBook will be under construction for a while. To improve its quality, I will appreciate all kinds of feedback, as well as English corrections. Comments can either be emailed to me, or posted to the NARS discussion group.