Natural Computing @AISB/IACAP2012

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAMME PROCEEDINGS & POST-PROCEEDINGS

NATURAL/UNCONVENTIONAL COMPUTING AND ITS PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE

@ AISB/IACAP, 2nd - 6th July 2012

The Symposium on Natural/unconventional computing and its philosophical significance (https://sites.google.com/site/naturalcomputingaisbiacap2012/) is part of the AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012 in honour of Alan Turing, 2-6 July 2012 (http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/turing12/)

OCCASION

The AISB/IACAP World Congress programme, which serves both as the year's AISB Convention and the year's IACAP conference, is honouring Alan Turing,

and the broad and deep significance of Turing's work to AI, to the philosophical ramifications of computing, and to philosophy and computing in general.

The Congress is one of the events forming the Alan Turing Year (http://www.turingcentenary.eu)

SCOPE

Even though Turing is best known for the Turing machine and the Turing test, his contribution is significantly wider.

He was among the first to pursue what Denning (2007) calls “computing as natural science”, and thus Hodges (1997) describes Turing as natural philosopher:

“He thought and lived a generation ahead of his time, and yet the features of his thought that burst the boundaries of the 1940s are better described by the antique words: natural philosophy.”

The symposium addresses, but is not limited to, the following topics, grouped in two tracks:

I) NATURAL/UNCONVENTIONAL COMPUTING

This track will address the emerging paradigm of natural computing, and its philosophical consequences with different aspects including (but not limited to):

- Theoretical and philosophical view of natural/unconventional computing with its philosophical significance (such as understanding of computational processes in nature and in human mind).

- Characterizing the differences between conventional and unconventional computing.

- Digital vs analog & discrete vs continuous computing

- Recent advances in natural computation (as computation found in nature, including organic computing; computation performed by natural materials; and computation inspired by nature)

- Computation and its interpretation in a broader context of possible frameworks for modeling and implementing computation.

It is important to bring philosophical reflection into the discussion of all the above topics.

II) REPRESENTATION AND COMPUTATIONALISM

This track highlights the relevance of the relationship between human representation and machine representation to analyse the main issues concerning the contrast between symbolic representation/processing on the one hand and nature-inspired, non-symbolic forms of computation on the other hand--with a special focus on connectionism. We also welcome work on hybrids of symbolic and non-symbolic representations. Particular developments that papers may wish to address are:

- The 'Embedded, Embodied, Enactive' approach to cognitive science (by Varela et al)

- The 'Dynamic Systems' approach (by, say, Port and Van Gelder);

- Other representational possibilities that are clearly available: no representations or minimal representations;

- Process/procedural representations (e.g. by Kevin O'Regan).

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline: April 8, 2012.

Notification of acceptance: May 8, 2012.

Camera ready version deadline: June 1, 2012.

Symposium: July 4 – 6, 2012.

PAPER SUBMISSION

Guidelines for paper submission are as follows:

- The paper should be written in English.

- The maximum length of a paper is 6 A4-sized pages in ECAI format (format download:

http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb08/download.html.

- The paper should be in PDF format.

- Please choose one track between:

NATURAL/UNCONVENTIONAL COMPUTING and

REPRESENTATION AND COMPUTATIONALISM and submit via the online paper submission system at:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ncaisbiacap2012