The supremum principle selects simple, transferable models

Humans use analogical reasoning to connect understanding of one system to another. Can machines use similar abstractions to transfer their learning from training data to other regimes? The Manifold Boundary Approximation Method constructs simple, reduced models of target phenomena in a data-driven way. We consider the set of all such reduced models and use the topological relationships among them to reason about model selection for new, unobserved phenomena. Given minimal models for several target behaviors, we introduce the supremum principle as a criterion for selecting a new, transferable model. The supremal model, i.e., the least upper bound, is the simplest model that reduces to each of the target behaviors. By unifying the relevant mechanisms, the supremal model successfully transfers to new target domains. We illustrate on a simple epidemiological example and elaborate on Wnt signaling from developmental biology. We present a general algorithm for constructing a supremal model and note formal connections to theories of analogical reasoning in cognitive psychology.