creators_name: Heylighen, Francis editors_name: Trappl, Robert type: bookchapter datestamp: 1998-06-15 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:48 metadata_visibility: show title: Fitness as Default: the evolutionary basis of cognitive complexity reduction ispublished: pub subjects: cog-psy subjects: evol-psy subjects: phil-dec-theory subjects: phil-epist full_text_status: public keywords: fitness, default reasoning, requisite variety, decision-making, complexity, entropy, categorization, evolutionary epistemology, trial-and-error, cognitive complexity, natural selection, probability ordering abstract: Given that knowledge consists of finite models of an infinitely complex reality, how can we explain that it is still most of the time reliable? Survival in a variable environment requires an internal model whose complexity (variety) matches the complexity of the environment that is to be controlled. The reduction of the infinite complexity of the sensed environment to a finite map requires a strong mechanism of categorization. A measure of cognitive complexity (C) is defined, which quantifies the average amount of trial-and-error needed to find the adequate category. C can be minimized by "probability ordering" of the possible categories, where the most probable alternatives ("defaults") are explored first. The reduction of complexity by such ordering requires a low statistical entropy for the cognized environment. This entropy is automatically kept down by the natural selection of "fit" configurations. The high probability, "default" cognitive categorizations are then merely mappings of environmentally "fit" configurations. date: 1994 date_type: published publication: Cybernetics and Systems '94 publisher: World Science, Singapore pagerange: 1595-1602 refereed: FALSE citation: Heylighen, Francis (1994) Fitness as Default: the evolutionary basis of cognitive complexity reduction. [Book Chapter] document_url: http://cogprints.org/314/2/Fitness_20as_20Default2.ps