Goal Orientation

goal_orientation

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Life and technology are aligned behind hierarchies of purposes. Understanding the structure of these, of the mechanisms by which they are established and the mechanisms by which they are maintained in the actual working of systems is a much-neglected issue and is central to Organic Computing.

Life

Life is an array of purposeful organisms. The most fundamental purpose of an organism is that of survival. Continued survival of the abstract form of an organism is possible only through reproduction. Organisms evolve to maintain this goal of survival in a changing environment. In the course of evolution, this original goal has spawned secondary purposes. Apart from procreation these are directed at mainenance, aversion of danger etc. Through learning, tertiary goals can be implemented. Intelligent systems are able to adapt more permanent purposes to the needs of particular situations. Goals thus form a hierarchy of super-ordinate and sub-ordinate purposes. Organisms are autonomous in the sense of establishing and maintaining their own agenda. This is a central aspect of an organism´s organization .

Technology

The devices and machines evolved by technology are traditionally seen as passive tools in the hand of humans, who alone are in charge of deciding on matters of purpose. This attitude is at the base of the algorithmic division of labor. The software crisis is an expression of the fact that the manual definition and maintenance of goals on a low level has become expensive and troublesome. It is now time to automate automation, and create autonomous electronic organisms. Central to this venture must be research on mechanims for systems to establish and maintain their own goal hierarchies. Human involvement has to concentrate on the highest level only (Computer Security). Systems have to spawn their lower-level goals autonomously and have to bring all ultimate action in line with the human-defined purposes.

The Establishment and Maintenance of Goal Hierarchies

Concrete mechanisms are required to implement goals in a system. Goals need to be both established and maintained. Goal establishment or definition has to proceed on the insight that a new subordinate goal generally serves already-established higher goals and can serve better effectiveness and efficiency. A goal is maintained by acting on sub-ordinate structure and processes such as to optimize the defined goal. The bottom of this hierarchy is formed by target structures and processes. All processes in a system are to be accompanied by the immediate evaluation of their repercussions on the whole super-ordinate goal hierarchy. Goals are subject to a hierarchy of priorities. These are in general situation-dependent.