Research philosophy

My research is focused on understanding the fundamental principles of intelligence through the lens of category theory. The method and the goal in this case are intertwined: to understand the abstract nature of intelligence - how we structure the thoughts in our heads - it is first necessary to find a better way of structuring these thoughts. Category theory is a tool to do that. This is a strong claim which calls for an explanation. Eventually I hope to get around to writing up one.

The notion of intelligence largely overlaps with notions such as life, autopoiesis, philosophy of mind, and consciousness. All of these notions have always had a mythical component assigned to them. But with science and mathematics in the 21st century we are finally starting to have enough context to ask the right questions. As this is one of the most profound questions we can ask ourselves, I do not expect to complete this ambitious goal, only to make progress towards it, together with anybody I can work with. Even more, for reasons unknown yet, the question itself be nonsensical or ill-phrased. Asking the right questions is progress in itself.

In essence, I am betting by investing my resources into this that the required ingredient to make progress on these abstract questions of intelligence and consciousness is the study of abstraction itself: category theory. I’ll eventually write up more thoughts on all of this: how I understand the role of category theory in modern science and how it can be used to understand machine learning.

I have a long-term research philosophy which I try to keep updated as I learn more about the world. I am also learning how to best express this philosophy. As such, these are still rough notes that I keep coming back to in order to reflect on and improve them. Please do challenge anything that doesn’t come across as clear and compelling. I’m also trying to scale up these endeavours, so if your goals overlap, feel free to get in touch!

While this is a long-term goal, the work I am currently doing as a part of my PhD is more concrete. I am still using category theory, but now to formalize and distill the essence of information flow in artificial neural networks. This allows me to make tangible, measurable progress on the long-term research goal.

I’ll write more about this when I can. There are several papers in the works, but for now the best way to get acquainted with the work done is to see my CyberCat presentation. It assumes knowledge of category theory, most notably that of lenses/optics.