LEARNING (Reinforcement in)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1891 ▶ |
| Object type | Methodology or model |
The strenghtening of a behavioral or mental pattern by the occurence or experimental introduction of a relevant stimulus.
G. BATESON remarks: “The notion is that random changes occur, in the brain or elsewhere, and that the results of such random change are selected for survival by processes of reinforcement and extinction. In basic theory, creative thought has come to ressemble the evolutionary process in its fundamentally stochastic nature”.
However: “In both the theory of evolution and the theory of learning, …the word 'random' is conspicuously undefined and the word is not an easy one to define … Underlying both the stochastic theory of evolution and that of learning, there are unstated theories regarding the determinants of the probabilities in question. If however, we ask about change in these determinants, we shall again be given stochastic answers, so that the word 'random', upon which all of these explanations turn, appears to be a word whose meaning is hierarchically structured” (1973, p.226).
Once again, we find ourselves confronted to the basic problem of the meaning or our concepts. In our definition “strenghtening” and “relevant” imply the existence of some former structure, already more or less autopoietic: How was it instated?