Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

Applied a theory of information integration to decision making with probabilistic events. 10 undergraduates judged the subjective worth of duplex bets that included independent gain and lose components. The worth of each component was assumed to be the product of a subjective weight that reflected the probability of winning or losing, and the subjective worth of the money to be won or lost. The total worth of the bet was the sum of the worths of the 2 components. Thus, each (...) judgment required multiplying and adding operations. The multiplying model worked quite well in 4 experimental conditions. The adding model showed more serious discrepancies, though these were small in magnitude. The theory of functional measurement was applied to scale the subjective values of the probability and money stimuli. Subjective and objective values were nonlinearly related both for probability and for money. (shrink)

Unified theory of cognition -- Psychological laws -- Foundations of person cognition -- Functional theory of attitudes -- Attitude integration theories -- Comparisons of attitude theories -- Moral algebra -- Group dynamics -- Cognitive theory of judgment-decision -- General theory -- Experimental methods -- Unified science of psychology.

A functional theory of memory has already been developed as part of a general functional theory of cognition. The traditional conception of memory as “reproductive” touches on only a minor function. The primary function of memory is in constructing values for goal-directedness of everyday thought and action. This functional approach to memory rests on a solid empirical foundation.

Bullot & Reber (B&R) put forth a design stance to fuse psychological and art historical accounts of visual thinking into a single theory. We argue that this aspect of their proposal needs further fine-tuning. Issues of transgression and coherence are necessary to provide stability to the design stance. We advocate looking to Art Education for such fundamentals of picture understanding.

Cognitive algebra strongly disproved the representativeness heuristic almost before it was published; and therewith it also disproved the base rate fallacy. Cognitive algebra provides a theoretical foundation for judgment-decision theory through its joint solution to the two fundamental problems – true measurement of subjective values, and cognitive rules for integration of multiple determinants.

The function of memory is to allow past experience to subserve present goal-oriented thought and action. The defining characteristic of goal-oriented approach/avoidance is value. Value lies beyond the reproductive conception of memory that is basic to both metaphors discussed in Koriat & Goldsmith's target article. Functional memory requires a quite different metaphor, for which a grounded theory is available.