Cognitive Informatics and Denotational Mathematical Means for Brain Informatics

Cognitive informatics studies the natural intelligence and the brain from a theoretical and a computational approach, which rigorously explains the mechanisms of the brain by a fundamental theory known as abstract intelligence, and formally models the brain by contemporary denotational mathematics. This paper, as an extended summary of the invited keynote presented in AMT-BI 2010, describes the interplay of cognitive informatics, abstract intelligence, denotational mathematics, brain informatics, and computational intelligence. Some of the theoretical foundations for brain informatics developed in cognitive informatics are elaborated. A key notion recognized in recent studies in cognitive informatics is that the root and profound objective in natural, abstract, and artificial intelligence in general, and in cognitive informatics and brain informatics in particular, is to seek suitable mathematical means for their special needs that were missing in the last six decades. A layered reference model of the brain and a set of cognitive processes of the mind are systematically developed towards the exploration of the theoretical framework of brain informatics. The current methodologies for brain studies are reviewed and their strengths and weaknesses are analyzed. A wide range of applications of cognitive informatics and denotational mathematics are recognized in brain informatics toward the implementation of highly intelligent systems such as world-wide wisdom (WWW+), cognitive knowledge search engines, autonomous learning machines, and cognitive robots.