Call for Papers
CFP: Representation and Reality: Humans, Animals and Machines, at AISB-50, Goldsmiths, London, 1-4 April, 2014
The symposium is part of the AISB-50 Annual Convention 2014 to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London, on April 1th -4th 2014
http://www.aisb.org.uk/events/aisb14
The convention is organized by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB)
OVERVIEW:
Our symposium could be considered as the continuation of a part of the symposium “Computing Nature” organized by Gordana Dodig – Crnkovic and Raffaela Giovagnoli at the AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012. We would like to offer an occasion to discuss the problem of <representation> and its relationship with the <reality> in humans, other animals and machines. It is closely connected to the question what capacities can be plausibly understood in computational terms and what are the most promising approaches that try to solve the problem.
TOPICS OF INTEREST
We aim to discuss the following topics related to the problem of <representation>:
(1) The point of view of connectionism and dynamical systems (Scheutz, Clark, Juarrero, Kaneko and Tsuda, O’Brien, Horgan, Trenholme) namely the different proposals that include the possibility to rule out representation and, which in some cases question the computational nature of <representation>.
(2) A plausible strategy to analyze the problem of representation from a philosophical perspective implies the comparison between human and machine capacities and skills. Searle presented an interesting theory of representation based on the mind’s capacities to represent objects and to the linguistic capacities to extend the representation to social entities. Putnam, on the contrary, criticizes the role of images in representational activity. The Kantian notion of representation is inherited by authors such as McDowell and Campbell. Differently, we can intend the notion of representation in inferentialist terms as introduced by Brandom. And, finally, constructivist approaches put forward the idea that in a cognitive agent, representations only serve the purpose of organizing experiences/sense data rather than mapping ontological structures of an outside reality.
(3))For machine representation, current results in AI, AL and cognitive robotics are of interest.
(4) Evolutionary aspects of the development of increasingly complex capacities in (embodied, embedded) living organisms to process information in the interaction with the environment and as a consequence develop new morphological structures – morphogenesis, meta-morphogenesis.
SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION DETAIS
Submissions must be full papers and should be sent via Easychair:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=roraisb50
Text editor templates can be found at:
http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb08/download.html
The length of submitted papers is limited to eight pages. Each paper will receive at least two reviews. Selected papers will be published in the general proceedings of the AISB Convention, with the proviso that at least ONE author attends the symposium on order to present the paper and participate in general symposium activities.
PUBLICATION
Apart from the publication in the ASB proceedings, selected papers with the focus on computational aspects of representation will be invited for publication in the Springer Vietnam Journal of Computer Science
http://www.springer.com/computer/information+systems+and+applications/journal/40595
More philosophically oriented papers will be published in the journal Constructivist Foundations http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/
IMPORTANT DATES
i. Full paper submission deadline: 3 January 2014
ii. Notification of acceptance/rejection: 3 February 2014
iii. Final versions of accepted papers (Camera ready copy): 24 February 2014
iv. Convention: 1-4 April 2014 [confirmation of symposium dates tbc]