Abstract Reasoning and Life-Long Learning via symbol and rule discovery

Abstraction and abstract reasoning are among the most essential characteristics of high-level intelligence that distinguishes humans from other animals. High-level cognitive skills can only be achieved through abstract concepts, symbols representing these concepts, and rules that express relationships between symbols. This project aims to self-discover abstract concepts, symbols, and rules that allow complex reasoning by the robot. If the robots can achieve such abstract reasoning on their own, they can perform new tasks in completely novel environments by updating their cognitive skills, or by discovering new symbols and rules. If the objectives of this project are achieved, scientific foundations will be laid for robotic systems that learn life-long lasting symbols and rules through self-interacting with the environment and express various sensory-motor and cognitive tasks in a single framework.