Abstract
In this paper we connect open-ended development, authority, agency, and motivation through (1) an analysis of the demands of existing in a complex world and (2) environmental appraisal in terms of affordance content and the complexity to select appropriate behavior. We do this by identifying a coherent core from a wide range of contributing fields. Open-ended development is a structured three-step process in which the agent first learns to master the body and then aims to make the mind into a reliable tool. Preconditioned on success in step two, step three aims to effectively co-create an optimal living environment. We argue that these steps correspond to right-left-right hemispheric dominance, where the left hemisphere specializes in control and the right hemisphere in exploration. Control (e.g., problem solving) requires a closed and stable world that must be maintained by external authorities or, in step three, by the right hemisphere acting as internal authority. The three-step progression therefore corresponds to increasing autonomy and agency. Depending on how we appraise the environment, we formulate four qualitatively different motivational states: submission, control, exploration, and consolidation. Each of these four motivational states has associated reward signals of which the last three—successful control, discovery of novelty, and establishing new relations—form an open-ended development loop that, the more it is executed, helps the agent to become progressively more agentic and more able to co-create a pleasant-to-live-in world. We conclude that for autonomy to arise, the agent must exist in a (broad) transition region between order and disorder in which both danger and opportunity (and with that open-ended development and motivation) are defined. We conclude that a research agenda for artificial cognitive system research should include open-ended development through intrinsic motivations and ascribing more prominence to right hemispheric strengths.
Highlights
In this theoretical paper we aim to unify a number of complementary and highly consistent results from a wide range of scientific domains that all pertain to “learning to cope autonomously with the challenges of an open environment.” We will frame these results in terms of agency and autonomy development
In our efforts we benefitted from results and insights from life-span research, personality development, emotion theory, psychoanalysis, motivation research, brain lateralization, political psychology, soundscape research, complexity theory, and even early Chinese philosophy
While this may seem an unnecessary wide range of scientific domains to address the call-topic of “open-ended development driven by intrinsic motivations” we argue that both the concepts of “open-ended development” and “motivation” are not just cognitive functions, but cognitive foundations: without motivation there would be no activity and no agency
Summary
In this theoretical paper we aim to unify a number of complementary and highly consistent results from a wide range of scientific domains that all pertain to “learning to cope autonomously with the challenges of an open environment.” We will frame these results in terms of agency and autonomy development. This intuitiondriven (dangerously circular) process is vindicated by results later in this paper that dovetail with Maslow’s conclusions while being based on entirely different evidence Another way to approach open-ended development comes from gerontology and especially the role of lifelong learning and continued education for older people which allows them to stay involved in a rapidly changing world (Ardelt, 2000). Both are essential forms of cognition and together they allow for a gradual proven and reliable extension of the limits of agent capability toward ever more complex situations and everlarger temporal and spatial scopes This continual progression of exploration, consolidation, and testing is another formulation of open-ended development.
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