Hypernetworks: A Molecular Evolutionary Architecture for Cognitive Learning and Memory

Abstract

Recent interest in human-level intelligence suggests a rethink of the role of machine learning in computational intelligence. We argue that without cognitive learning the goal of achieving human-level synthetic intelligence is far from completion. Here we review the principles underlying human learning and memory, and identify three of them, i.e., continuity, glocality, and compositionality, as the most fundamental to human-level machine learning. We then propose the recently-developed hypernetwork model as a candidate architecture for cognitive learning and memory. Hypernetworks are a random hypergraph structure higher-order probabilistic relations of data by an evolutionary self-organizing process based on molecular self- assembly. The chemically-based massive interaction for information organization and processing in the molecular hypernetworks, referred to as hyperinteractionism, is contrasted with the symbolist, connectionist, and dynamicist approaches to mind and intelligence. We demonstrate the generative learning capability of the hypernetworks to simulate linguistic recall memory, visual imagery, and language-vision crossmodal translation based on a video corpus of movies and dramas in a multimodal memory game environment. We also offer prospects for the hyperinteractionistic molecular mind approach to a unified theory of cognitive learning.