Cognitive Informatics: Exploring the Theoretical Foundations for Natural Intelligence, Neural Informatics, Autonomic Computing, and Agent Systems

Cognitive informatics (CI) is a new discipline that studies the natural intelligence and internal information processing mechanisms of the brain, as well as the processes involved in perception and cognition. CI provides a coherent set of fundamental theories, and contemporary mathematics, which form the foundation for most information and knowledge based science and engineering disciplines such as computer science, cognitive science, neuropsychology, systems science, cybernetics, computer/software engineering, and knowledge engineering. This editorial addresses the objectives of the International Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Natural Intelligence (IJCINI), and explores the domain of CI and its interdisciplinary nature. The historical evolvement of CI and its theoretical foundations are elucidated. The coverage of this inaugural issue and recent advances in CI are reviewed. This editorial demonstrates that the investigation into CI will result in fundamental findings towards the development of next generation information and computing technologies.