Topics of the Symposium

Main topics of the symposium

The symposium will be a one-day session of talks, Q&A’s, and panel discussions, structured around three themes: 

(1) Foundations, (2) Applications, and (3) Life and computation. 

1- Foundations:

Foundational debates concerning the nature of computational processes, the status of formal and physical models, and the relationship between abstraction and implementation - have been reopened by both theoretical developments and increasingly powerful real-world systems. Against this backdrop, the symposium’s foundations strand invites critical reflection on the conceptual terrain of computation, motivating the following guiding questions:

  
What makes a process computational?  
   

Are classic distinctions between syntax and semantics, or implementational, algorithmic, and computational levels of description sound?  
 
Is computation subjective or objective, abstract or concrete, mathematical or physical? 

   
What are the limits of computation? Is undecidability restricted to a mathematical realm?   

2- Applications: 

The applications strand of the symposium will re-examine the role of computational concepts and tools across various research contexts relating to intelligence and the mind. To further discussion of this topic, we seek contributors to address the below questions:

  
What are the distinctive strengths and limitations of computational explanations —generally, and in specific fields?   
   

What is the explanatory role of representations and algorithmic models in the cognitive sciences?  
 
What are the prospects for and obstacles to the development of a “computational phenomenology”?  

3- Life and computation

As a conjunction of the foundations and applications, we will dedicate the last part of the symposium to the relation between life, adaptive behavior, and computation. The intention of this session is to undertake considerations of the following kind:

What is gained, and is anything lost, by treating cognition, life, and other processes computationally? 

Is cognition a computational process? If so, what makes certain computational processes cognitive, and others not?

Is there something fundamentally non-computable in Life?