Metacognition
Metacognition is the ability to observe, evaluate, and adjust one's own cognitive activities. When a person notices how they are thinking, why they form certain judgments, and whether their understanding is reliable, they are not only engaging in general cognition but also examining cognition itself. This article explores the relationship between metacognition and self-knowledge, knowledge reliability, and belief revision. The value of metacognition lies not in achieving complete understanding of the mind, but in enabling people to discover limitations, adjust convictions, and gradually correct their judgments.
The Essence of a PhD: Standing Between the Known and Unknown
The term 'Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)' encompasses 'Philosophy,' representing an attitude of inquiry toward the nature of knowledge and the exploration process. Its core lies not in accumulating information, but in whether individuals can enter unknown territories and transform untested personal ideas into public knowledge with logical foundations and discussion value. From an epistemological perspective, a PhD represents an exploratory state at the boundary between the known and unknown: the emphasis is not on repeating existing answers, but on clarifying how problems arise and the applicable scope of knowledge.
Epistemology
Epistemology is the philosophical field studying the possibility, sources, conditions, and limits of knowledge. It concerns not existence itself, but how knowledge of existence is possible. While ontology asks what exists, epistemology asks how humans know what exists and what conditions make a knowledge claim valid. Human cognitive abilities are always in limited states. Senses may cause illusions, memory may produce biases, and reasoning may lead to wrong conclusions. Therefore, 'knowing' is not a self-evident state but a philosophical concept requiring explanation and justification.
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical branch studying the structure of being and reality. Its core question lies in exploring what constitutes existing things, how existence is classified, and the relationships between different beings. Ontology does not address how knowledge is acquired, but focuses on whether and how what knowledge refers to exists. This distinguishes it from epistemology. Epistemology addresses knowledge's sources and justification, while ontology addresses the conditions and structure of existence.
Seventy Years of Paradigm Shifts in Artificial Intelligence History
The history of Artificial Intelligence is not a single-line accumulation of technology, but a seventy-year methodological competition. Starting from the Dartmouth Workshop in 1956, AI gradually divided into two core paths: Symbolism and Connectionism. The former believes intelligence can be decomposed into logical rules and symbolic reasoning, while the latter argues intelligence should emerge from systems similar to neural neurons in the brain.
Computational Cognition
Cognition can be understood as a system's process of building internal models of the environment and continuously updating them. Perception, learning, inference, and action are not independent, but built on shared computational structures of representation, prediction, and control. In modern perspective, cognition is no longer viewed merely as symbol manipulation or neural activity, but is formalized as adaptation to uncertain environments through computational processes.
AI Model Collapse and Changes in Information Ecology
The rapid development of generative AI has made large language models a crucial infrastructure for contemporary knowledge generation. However, recent research indicates a potential structural problem: as AI systems increasingly rely on self-generated data for retraining, models may exhibit information degradation and performance collapse phenomena, known as model collapse. This phenomenon raises concerns about the long-term sustainability of AI systems trained on synthetic data.
Cognitive Science
Cognitive science studies how intelligent systems perceive environments, form knowledge, perform inference, and produce behavior. Its core questions are: what is cognition, how does cognition work, and how does cognitive ability emerge from physical systems. Cognitive science is not a single discipline but an interdisciplinary research framework. Psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, and anthropology all contribute perspectives on cognition.
Occam's Razor: Philosophical Principle
Occam's Razor is a philosophical principle for selecting explanations, with its core lying in reducing unnecessary assumptions and retaining structures that effectively explain phenomena. This principle does not guarantee correctness, but provides criteria for choosing among multiple possibilities. Often attributed to 14th-century philosopher William of Ockham, its core proposition is: do not multiply entities beyond necessity. This principle has been widely applied to philosophy, science, and methodology.
New Era Engineering Landscape: Software Technical Debt Risk and Response
GenAI is like post-industrial-era automation machinery arms, indeed replacing repetitive work in software engineering and other fields. While software engineering is complex, many common program logics remain, and despite complexity, they are legacy technology and repetitive development, exactly what GenAI excels at, given its training on existing technical articles and knowledge. This unavoidably gives large enterprises opportunities for restructuring and workforce adjustment, a harsh but realistic situation. However, when GenAI's generation becomes unreliable...