MCCHE Precision Convergence Webinar Series with Paul Rosenbloom
On Minds: Reflections of a Cognitive Architect
By Paul Rosenbloom
University of Southern California
Date: September 24, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Location: Online
Abstract
Minds are functional entities that enable intelligent behavior. This talk introduces reflections on the study of minds arising from a multi-decade career focused largely on cognitive architectures鈥攈ypotheses concerning the fixed structures and processes that yield a mind, whether natural or artificial. Cognitive architectures must be integrative, in accommodating the full range of capabilities required of a mind. They also must be general, in applying across many, if not all, problems and domains. This breadth of investigation, across a sequence of three architectural lineages鈥擷aps, Soar, and Sigma鈥攁nd over many years, has inspired a set of recent reflections concerning: (1) key concepts critical to understanding minds, such as architectures, symbols, and intelligence; (2) the structure of the space of technologies that underlies work on minds, yielding both multi-dimensional maps of technologies and criterial tradeoffs across them; and (3) my decades of work on architectures, along with key aspects of my life, in the form of a personal intellectual memoir that ultimately yields a set of maxims that align with a career, and life, dedicated to seeking insight into mind and its associated disciplines through architectural exploration.
