Groups of all sizes, kinds, and formalities, from small local organizations to national political entities, collect and digest information, make predictions, consider options, make decisions, and take actions. In short, groups engage in cognition. As such, they can usefully be viewed as cognitive agents (i.e., cognitive organisms). Cognition, in any organism, requires a cognitive architecture—a means and mechanics to perform cognition. The mission of the Principled Societies Project (PSP) is to support the science-based de novo development and testing of new cognitive architectures that are fit for purpose, especially in the large-group setting. A group cognitive architecture can include norms, rules, mechanisms, institutions, tools, procedures, sensors, and analytic processes. For a society, it can include core societal systems (e.g., governance, economic/financial, legal, education, health, and analytical systems). As an example, societies collect and process information and make decisions via an economic system, and these decisions affect the wellbeing of the society.

What does "fit for purpose" mean? The cognitive process of a group can range from highly functional to highly dysfunctional, relative to to the normative purpose of cognition. From an active inference perspective, that purpose is to make accurate predictions and guide behavior in order to reduce the uncertainty of achieving and maintaining wellbeing, broadly defined.

The focus of this website is the Local Economic Direct Democracy Association (LEEDA) framework and books and papers related to the design and testing of societal systems as cognitive architectures. The CogNarr (Cognitive Narrative) Ecosystem is an extension of this work, only its focus is on facilitating group cognition in the more general setting. For more information, see the CogNarr Project hosted by the Active Inference Institute, where John Boik is a research fellow.