Learning as an Evolutionary Process

As far as I know, Pringle (v Pringle 1951) was one of the first to articulate in some detail the
analogy between evolution and speciation and human earning and adaptation. He developed a
descriptive model of the brain as a medium for the evolution of more and more complex forms of
organisation. His neurophysiological speculations were paralleled by Crossman’s (1959)
psychological theory of skill organisation in which stable behaviours are selected from an
initially diverse population. From his posthumous writings (Craik 1966), we know that Kenneth
Craik, too, had a similar vision of the mechanisms underlying learning and adaptation.

It was Ross Ashby (1956) who clarified the concepts most elegantly: from the perspective of
abstract cybernetics, evolution of more complex forms is a necessary consequence of applying a
constraint (a rule or principle of selection) to a system with a relatively large number of
(initially) “uncoupled” parts.

Pask (for whom Ross Ashby was a constant source of inspiration) understood from Ashby’s
abstract theory that the medium of evolution and the nature of the evolving entities are irrelevant.
This freed him from a concern with the particulars of brain organisation to concentrate on what
he later referred to as the "symbolic evolution” of concepts (Pask 1972a). From the early sixties
on, he was concerned to explicate and model the complex processes of mentation (v Pask 1968a)
as abstract systems constrained by well-defined properties. In Beer’s terms, these are the “fabric”
properties found in any brain-like or, in general, organic system:

 There is a limit on the resources available (be they conceptualised as “storage space”, “free
energy”, or “processing time”).
 The basic units or parts out of which a self-organising system is constructed or modelled are
themselves just such self-organising systems.
 The system and its parts are active.

Pask’s telling phrase was that “man is a system who needs to learn”; within the limits of
“boredom” and “fatigue” he is always learning, always engaged in a species of symbolic
evolution.

As well as the special purpose computers or “learning machines” mentioned above, Pask (in
association with Feldman and Mallen) pioneered the use of computer programs to simulate
learning and evolution.

Several models (v Pask 1969b) simulate the evolution of populations of self-reproducing

automata on a tessellation competing for the resource of “food” or “energy”. Their intent was to
demonstrate the ubiquity of the evolution of more complex forms of automata (as hybrids or
cooperatives) even in such a highly abstracted and artificial universe.

A different class of models (developed chiefly in association with G L Mallen) simulate the
processes whereby skilled behaviour are acquired by a human operator.

In these models, Park first fully articulated his conception of learning as a hierarchical process.
At level 1, problem-solving procedures compete for execution; at level 2, higher order problem-
solving procedures monitor, construct and select among the lower level procedures, they
themselves competing for execution. Further levels maybe invoked to account for creativity,
insight and the development of cognitive structures in ontogenesis (Pask 1966 models the
developmental psychologies of Piaget and Vyzotsky in this way).
In his several accounts of these models (see also Pask 1963, 1966b) Pask is always at pains to
point out that the hierarchy of control processes is an abstraction invoked by the observer in
order to give a reasoned account of cognition: the reality of cognition is, in McCulloch’s phrase,
heterarchical. The distinction between levels of control is a necessary consequence of the initial
decision to distinguish processes (as symbolic or program-like entities) from the processors in
which they are executed. Without these distinctions, the observer finds that not only has his
system no “top” or “bottom”, it also has no boundaries to distinguish it from its environment,
which, by the same token, includes the observer himself. This, I think, is perhaps the heart of
Pask’s contribution as an epistemologist: his recognition that certain distinctions have to be made
if the observer is to break out from his solipsistic silence and that, having made those initial
distinctions, certain consequences follow necessarily, having import in a very general sense for
the whole methodology of the cybernetician. With these concerns, he clearly anticipated the
classic work of Spencer-Brown (1969), The Laws of Form.

Ashby W R. (1956). An Introduction to cybernetics. New York: Wiley.

Ashby W R. (1961). “What is an intelligent machine?” in Proceedings of the Western Joint

Computer Conference, Los Angeles, pp 257-281.

Pask G. (1969a). “The Meaning of Cybernetics in the Behavioural Sciences” in Progress of

Cybernetics, Volume 1, J Rose (ed), New York: Gordon and Breach, pp 15-44.

Pask G. (1969b). “Education 2000” in New Directions in Educational Technology, K W Lewis

and R W Lyne (eds), London: Academic Press.

Pask G (1972a). “A Fresh Look at Cognition and the Individual”, Int J for Man-Machine Studies,
4, pp 211-216.

Pask G. (1972b). “Anti-Hodmanship: A Report on the State and prospects of CAI”, Programmed
Learning and Education Technology, 9, 5, pp 235-244.

Pask G. (1973). “The Nature and Nurture of Learning in a Social Educational System” in
Lifelong Learning in an Age of Technology, K Richmond (ed). Turin: Agnelli Foundation.

Pask G. (1975a). Conversation, Cognition and Learning, Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Pask G. (1975b). The Cybernetics of Human Learning and Performance. London: Hutchinson.

Pask G. (1975c). “Artificial Intelligence – a Preface and a Theory” in Machine intelligence in

Design, N Negroponte (ed), Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Pask G. (1976). Conversation Theory: Applications in Education and Epistemology, Amsterdam:

Elsevier Press.

Pask G, Kallikourdis D and Scott B C E, (1975). “The Representation of Knowables”, Int J for
Man-Machine Studies, 7, pp 15-134.

Pask G and Scott B C E. (1972). “Learning Strategies and Individual Competence”, Int J for
Man-Machine Studies, 4, pp 217-253.
Pask G and Scott B C E. (1973). “CASTE: A System for Exhibiting Learning Strategies and
Regulating Uncertainties”, Int J for Man-Machine Studies, 5, pp 17-52.

Pask G, Scott B C E and Kallikourdis D. (1973). “A Theory of Conversations and Individuals”.

Int J for Man-Machine Studies, 5, pp 443-566.