>Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 12:13:55 -0500
>Reply-To: PSYCHE Discussion Forum <PSYCHE-D%NKI.BITNET(a)uga.cc.uga.edu>
>Sender: PSYCHE Discussion Forum <PSYCHE-D%NKI.BITNET(a)uga.cc.uga.edu>
>From: PATRICK WILKEN <X91007(a)pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au>
>Subject: Artificial Life Workshop
>X-To: psyche-d(a)NKI.bitnet
>To: Multiple recipients of list PSYCHE-D <PSYCHE-D%NKI.BITNET(a)uga.cc.uga.edu>
>
> ARTIFICIAL LIFE: A BRIDGE TOWARDS A NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
> Palacio de Miramar (San Sebastian, Spain)
> December 10th and 11th, 1993
>
>Workshop organised by the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science,
>Faculty of Computer Science & Institute of Logic, Cognition, Language
>and Information (ILCLI) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
>
>Directors: Alvaro Moreno (University of the Basque Country)
> Francisco Varela (CREA, Paris)
>
>This Workshop will be devoted to a discussion of the impact of work
>on Artifical Life on Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence
>(AI) has traditionally attempted to study cognition as an abstract
>phenomenon using formal tools, that is, as a disembodied process that
>can be grasped through formal operations, independent of the nature of
>the system that displays it. Cognition is treated as an abstract
>representation of reality. After several decades of research in this
>direction the field has encountered several problems that have taken it
>to what many consider a "dead end": difficulties in understanding
>autonomous and situated agencies, in relating to behaviour in a real
>environment, in studying the nature and evolution of perception, in
>finding a practical explanation for the operation of most cognitive
>capacities such as natural language, context dependent action, etc.
>
>Artificial Life (AL) has recently emerged as a confluence of very
>different fields trying to study different kinds of features of living
>systems using computers as a modelling tool, and, at last, trying to
>artificially (re)produce a living system (or a population of them) in
>real or computational media. Examples of such phenomena are prebiotic
>systems and their evolution, growth and development, self-reproduction,
>adaptation to an environment, evolution of ecosystems and natural
>selection, formation of sensory-motor loops, autonomous robots. Thus,
>AL is having an impact on classic life sciences but also on the
>conceptual foundations of AI and new methodological ideas in Cognitive
>Science.
>
>The aim of this Workshop is to focus on the last two points and to
>evaluate the influence of the methodology and concepts appearing in AL
>for the development of new ideas about cognition that could
>eventually give birth to a new Artificial Intelligence. Some of the
>sessions consist of presentations and replies on a specific subject by
>invited speakers while others will be debates open to all participants
>in the workshop.
>
>MAIN TOPICS:
>* A review of the problems of FUNCTIONALISM in Cognitive Science
> and Artificial Life.
>* Modelling Neural Networks through Genetic Algorithms.
>* Autonomy and Robotics.
>* Consequences of the crisis of the representational models of cognition.
>* Minimal Living System and Minimal Cognitive System
>* Artificial Life systems as problem solvers
>* Emergence and evolution in artificial systems
>
>SPEAKERS S. Harnad P. Husbands
> G. Kampis B. Mac Mullin
> D. Parisi T. Smithers
> E. Thompson F. Varela
>
>Further Information: Alvaro Moreno
> Apartado 1249
> 20080 DONOSTIA
> SPAIN
>E. Mail: biziart(a)si.ehu.es
>Fax: 34 43 311056
>Phone: 34 43 310600 (extension 221)
>34 43 218000 (extension 209)
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>LEVELS OF FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE IN REVERSE BIOENGINEERING:
>THE DARWINIAN TURING TEST FOR ARTIFICIAL LIFE
>
>Stevan Harnad
>Laboratoire Cognition et Mouvement
>URA CNRS 1166 I.B.H.O.P.
>Universite d'Aix Marseille II
>13388 Marseille cedex 13, France
>harnad(a)princeton.edu
>
>ABSTRACT: Both Artificial Life and Artificial Mind are branches of what
>Dennett has called "reverse engineering": Ordinary engineering attempts
>to build systems to meet certain functional specifications; reverse
>bioengineering attempts to understand how systems that have already
>been built by the Blind Watchmaker work. Computational modelling
>(virtual life) can capture the formal principles of life, perhaps
>predict and explain it completely, but it can no more BE alive than a
>virtual forest fire can be hot. In itself, a computational model is
>just an ungrounded symbol system; no matter how closely it matches the
>properties of what is being modelled, it matches them only formally,
>with the mediation of an interpretation. Synthetic life is not open to
>this objection, but it is still an open question how close a functional
>equivalence is needed in order to capture life. Close enough to fool
>the Blind Watchmaker is probably close enough, but would that require
>molecular indistinguishability, and if so, do we really need to go that far?
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Phil Husbands
>School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
>Univesity of Sussex, BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, U.K
>philh(a)cogs.susx.ac.uk
>
>ABSTRACT: We discuss the mothodological foundations for our work on the
>development of cognitive architectures, on control systems, for
>situated autonomous agents. We focus on the problems of developing
>sensory-motor ystems for mobile robots, but we also discuss the
>applicability of aur approach to the study of biological systems. We
>argue that, for agents required to exhibit sophisticated ionteractions
>with their environments, complex sensory-motor processing is necessary,
>and the design by hand of control systems capable of this is likely to
>to become a prohibiytively difficult as complexity increases. We
>propose an automatic design process involving artificial
>evolution,where the basoc buildig blocks used for evolving cognitive
>architectures are noise-tolerant dynamical networks. These networks may
>be recurrent, and should operate in real time. time. The evolution
>should be incremental, using an extended and modified version of a
>genetic algorithm. Practical constraints suggest that initial
>architecture evaluations should be done largely in simulation. To
>support our claims and proposals, we summarize results from some
>preliminary simulation experiments where visually guided robots are
>evolved to operate in simple environments. Significantly, our results
>demonstrate that robust visually-guided control systems evolve from
>evaluation fuctions which do not explicitly require monitoring visual
>input. We outline the difficulties involved in continuing with
>simulations, and conclude by describing specialized visuo-robotic
>equipment, designed to eliminate sensors and actuators.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Barry MacMullin
>School of Electronic Engineering
>Dublin City University
>McMullinB(a)DCU.IE
>
>ABSTRACT: I reconsider the status of computationalism (or, in a weak
>sense, functionalism): the claim that being a realisation of some (as
>yet unespecified) class of abstract machine is both necessary ans
>sufficient for having genuine, full-blooded, mentality. This doctrine
>is now quite widely (though by no means universally) seen as
>discredited. My position is that, thoug it is undoubtedly an
>unsatisfactory (perhaps even repugnant) thsis, the arguments against it
>are still rather weak. In particular, I critically reassess John Searle's
>infamous Chinise Room Argument, and also some relevant aspects of
>Karl Popper s theory of the Open Universe. I conclude that the status
>of computationalism must still be regarded as undecided' and that it
>may still provide a satisfactory framework for research.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Domenico Parisi
>Institute of Psychology
>National Research Council, Rome
>e-mail: domenico(a)irmkant.bitnet
>
>ABSTRACT: Genetic algorithms are methods of parallel search for optimal
>solutions to tasks which are inspired by biological evolution and are
>based on selective reproductiomn and the addition of variiation through
>mutations or crossover. As models of real biological and behevioral
>phenomena, however, genetic algorithms suffer from many limitations.
>Some of these limitations are discussed under the rubrics of (a)
>environment, (b) variation, and (c) fitness, and ways are suggested to
>overcome them. Various simulations using genetic algoritms and neural
>networks are briefly described which incorporate a more biologically
>realistic notion of evolution.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Tim Smithers
>Facultad de Informatica
>Apartado 649
>20080 San Sebastian
>smithers(a)si.ehu.es
>
>ABSTRACT: Traditianally autonomous systems research has been a domain
>of Artificial Intelligence. We argue that, as a consequence, it has
>been heavily influenced, often tacitly, by folk psychological notions.
>We believe that much of the widely acknowledged failure of this
>research to produce reliable and robust artificial autonomous systems
>can be apportioned to its use and dependence upon forlk psychological
>constructs. As an alternative we propose taking seriously the
>Eliminativce Materialism of Paul Chuchland In this paper we present our
>reasons for adopting this radical alternative approach and briefly
>describe the bottom-up methodology that goes with it. We illustrate the
>discussion with examples form our work on autonomous systems.
>
>[Rest of abstracts not yet available]
>
>
LEVELS OF FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE IN REVERSE BIOENGINEERING:
THE DARWINIAN TURING TEST FOR ARTIFICIAL LIFE
Stevan Harnad
Laboratoire Cognition et Mouvement
URA CNRS 1166 I.B.H.O.P.
Universite d'Aix Marseille II
13388 Marseille cedex 13, France
harnad(a)princeton.edu
ABSTRACT: Both Artificial Life and Artificial Mind are branches of what
Dennett has called "reverse engineering": Ordinary engineering attempts
to build systems to meet certain functional specifications, reverse
bioengineering attempts to understand how systems that have already
been built by the Blind Watchmaker work. Computational modelling
(virtual life) can capture the formal principles of life, perhaps
predict and explain it completely, but it can no more BE alive than a
virtual forest fire can be hot. In itself, a computational model is
just an ungrounded symbol system; no matter how closely it matches the
properties of what is being modelled, it matches them only formally,
with the mediation of an interpretation. Synthetic life is not open to
this objection, but it is still an open question how close a functional
equivalence is needed in order to capture life. Close enough to fool
the Blind Watchmaker is probably close enough, but would that require
molecular indistinguishability, and if so, do we really need to go that
far?
Ez a papir kaphato listserv(a)cogpsyphy.hu -tol a kovetkezo parancsal:
send koglist harnad.artificial_life
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad
Cognitive Science Laboratory | Laboratoire Cognition et Mouvement
Princeton University | URA CNRS 1166 I.B.H.O.P.
221 Nassau Street | Universite d'Aix Marseille II
Princeton NJ 08544-2093 | 13388 Marseille cedex 13, France
harnad(a)princeton.edu | harnad(a)riluminy.univ-mrs.fr
609-921-7771 | 33-91-66-00-69
Zoli -
Jo, mindenben igazad van. Kiveve, ahol sajat magadnak mondasz ellent:
>5 - Nem allitottam, hogy 'az algoritmusok vagy fuggvenyek
>osszekapcsolasa barmilyen ertelemben is nem-algoritmikus lenne'.
>Amit allitottam, hogy 'az egyszeru (fuggvenyekkel, algoritmusokkal
>reprezentalhato) elemek osszekapcsolodasa mar valoban tulmegy az
>algoritmus es fuggveny fogalman'. Itt arra gondoltam, hogy nehany
>jol definialt atmeneti fuggvennyel jellemezheto absztrakt neuron,
>vagy sejtautomata ma'r algoritmussal nem lekepezheto interakciokat
>kepes megvalositani.
MI EZ???! Ajanlom figyelmedbe az alabbi bevezeto irodalmakat, szo van bennuk
kompoziciorol, meg ilyesmikrol is. (Laikusok szamara, ujra: az algoritmusok
osztalya zart az "osszekapcsolas" [helyesen: parhuzamos alkalmazas, egymasra
kovetkezes, stb.] muveleteire nezve.)
B.A. Trakhtenbrot: Algoritmusok es absztrakt automatak, Mu"szaki, Bp, 1978.
Peter Rozsa: Recursive functions. New York, Academic Press, 1967.
Nem lehet azon vitatkozni, mi az, hogy algoritmus. Anelkul viszont nem ertem,
mirol beszelunk, lehet-e, nem lehet, mit?
gk
Valasz Kampis Gyuri hozza(m)szolasahoz:
Azt hiszem, az alapveto felreertes kozottunk szemantikai. Te az elet
alatt a teljes bioszferat erted, en pedig egy mechanizmust. Ha azt
mondod, hogy a bioszfera nem redukalhato le egy modellre, akkor
nincs vita kozottunk. Ha azt mondod, hogy a fentebb emlitett
sajatos mechanizmus nem redukalhato le modellre, akkor ezt meg
kellene vedeni.
Ezen kivul a tovabbi felreertesek:
1 - Nem irtam, hogy Darwin talalta volna fel a fajokat, vagy az
evoluciot. Azt sem mondtam, hogy a darwini modell az AL fele'
mutatna. Csak azt, hogy modell, es mint ilyen elvileg szimulalhato.
2 - Remelem nem gondolod komolyan, hogy a kepernyon robbano
atombomba analogiajara szamitogeppel generalt (esetleg robbantott)
grillcsirkevel akarok taplalkozni a jovoben. En a strong AL
kifejezest soha nem hasznaltam, sot ha az a szamitogeppel generalt
csirket jelenti, akkor valoszinuleg nem is fogom. Az
'egybemosasnal' arra utaltam, hogy amennyiben egy mechanizmus
leredukalhato egy absztrakt modellre, a modell atviheto mas
hordozokra. Az elvi szimulalhatosag kriteriuma a modelleknek.
Kovetkezeskepp, ha az eletnek van modellje, akkor az elvileg
szimulalhato.
3 - Nem mondtam es nem is gondoltam, hogy 'Neumann az eletet akarta
megfogalmazni' (fogalmazasgatlas). Azt kifejezetten
eszrevettem, hogy matematikai jeloleseket alkalmaz dolgozataban
(izlestelenseg).
4 - En nem az 'ANN' (Artificial Neural Networkokre) hivatkoztam,
hanem 'neuronhalozat modellekre'. Ekozben olyanokra gondoltam,
amelyeket R.D. Traub, D.A. McCormick, es a hasonloak muvelnek.
5 - Nem allitottam, hogy 'az algoritmusok vagy fuggvenyek
osszekapcsolasa barmilyen ertelemben is nem-algoritmikus lenne'.
Amit allitottam, hogy 'az egyszeru (fuggvenyekkel, algoritmusokkal
reprezentalhato) elemek osszekapcsolodasa mar valoban tulmegy az
algoritmus es fuggveny fogalman'. Itt arra gondoltam, hogy nehany
jol definialt atmeneti fuggvennyel jellemezheto absztrakt neuron,
vagy sejtautomata ma'r algoritmussal nem lekepezheto interakciokat
kepes megvalositani.
6 - Lehet, hogy a 'nemlinearis duma' 10 eves, de
(1) Kovetkezik-e ebbol, hogy hulyeseg?
(2) Ezalatt szukebb szakteruletemen, a neurobiologiaban hozott
relevans eredmenyeket.
(3) Ha egyszer valamilyen rendszerben nemlinearis interakciok
zajlanak le, akkor azok meg 10 ev mulva is nemlinearisak
lesznek.
7 - Nem irtam es nem is gondoltam azt, hogy 'az evolucio vagy az
elet lenyege az, hogy "nem akad el"'. Amit irtam, hogy 'legyen az
alkalmazkodas egyszeruen csak annyi, hogy az algoritmus nem akad el
zart hurokban'. Ez csak egy pelda kivant lenni arra, hogy mit ertek
alkalmazkodas alatt algoritmus eseteben.
Nadasdy Zoltan
FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
Fifth Symposium on Logic and Language
The Fifth Symposium on Logic and Language (LL5) will be
held in Hungary from September 2 to September 5 or 6 [Note: the
finishing date is subject to change depending on the number
of participants].
Abstracts are welcome on all subjects of natural language
semantics and logics related to natural language, but abstracts
specifically addressing issues of focus, contrast and
presupposition are especially encouraged.
Abstracts should be detailed (at least 2 pages, or 500 words)
and may be sent either by E-mail to
LL5(a)nytud.hu
or 3 copies by post to
Jeff Goldberg (Rm 119)
Linguistics Research Institute
PO Box 19
H-1250 Budapest
Hungary
Deadline for receipt of abstracts is April 15, 1994
The Logic and Language Symposia are held every second year in
varying places in Hungary. We plan this year to hold the
symposium in the mountains, and currently are looking at a
mansion a few kilometers from the Slovak border.
Please: In order to make arrangements, we need to have
some idea of how many people will be participating. If you
are interested, please let us know as soon as possible,
stating, as best you can at this point, whether you
expect to participate.
For more information concerning the symposium or to
be added to our mailing list, please feel free
to get in touch with us at the addresses above, or by
FAX (36-1) 115-14-18.
--
Jeffrey Goldberg Linguistics Research Institute of the
goldberg(a)nytud.hu Hungarian Academy of Sciences
FAX: (36-1) 115-1418
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 12:17:02 +0100
From: pleh(a)ludens.elte.hu
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
MRC BRAIN AND BEHAVIOUR CENTRE
McDONNELL-PEW CENTRE FOR COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
SUMMER SCHOOL ON CONNECTIONIST MODELLING
Department of Experimental Psychology
University of Oxford
11-23 September 1994
Applications are invited for participation in a 2-week
residential Summer School on techniques in connectionist
modelling of cognitive and biological phenomena. The course
is aimed primarily at researchers who wish to exploit neural
network models in their teaching and/or research. It will
provide a general introduction to connectionist modelling
through lectures and exercises on PCs. The instructors with
primary responsibility for teaching the course are Kim
Plunkett and Edmund Rolls.
No prior knowledge of computational modelling will be
required though simple word processing skills will be
assumed. Participants will be encouraged to start work on
their own modelling projects during the Summer School.
The Summer School is sponsored (jointly) by the University
of Oxford McDonnell-Pew Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience
and the MRC Brain and Behaviour Centre. The cost of parti-
cipation in the summer school is 500 pounds to include
accommodation (bed and breakfast at St. John's College) and
summer school registration. Participants will be expected to
cover their own travel and meal costs. A small number of
graduate student scholarships may be available. Applicants
should indicate whether they wish to be considered for a
graduate student scholarship but are advised to seek their
own funding as well, since in previous years the number of
graduate student applications has far exceeded the number of
scholarships available.
If you are interested in participating in the Summer School,
please contact:
Mrs. Sue King
Department of Experimental Psychology
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford OX1 3UD
Tel: (0865) 271353
Email: sking(a)uk.ac.oxford.psy
Please send a brief description of your background with an
explanation why you would like to attend the Summer School
(one page maximum) no later than 1 April 1994.
From: Arantza Etxeberria <arantza(a)cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Subject: Artificial Life Workshop Announcement
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 10:48:42 BST
ARTIFICIAL LIFE: A BRIDGE TOWARDS A NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Palacio de Miramar (San Sebastian, Spain)
December 10th and 11th, 1993
Workshop organised by the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science,
Faculty of Computer Science & Institute of Logic, Cognition, Language
and Information (ILCLI) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Directors: Alvaro Moreno (University of the Basque Country)
Francisco Varela (CREA, Paris)
This Workshop will be devoted to a discussion of the impact of work
on Artifical Life on Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence
(AI) has traditionally attempted to study cognition as an abstract
phenomenon using formal tools, that is, as a disembodied process that
can be grasped through formal operations, independent of the nature of
the system that displays it. Cognition is treated as an abstract
representation of reality. After several decades of research in this
direction the field has encountered several problems that have taken it
to what many consider a "dead end": difficulties in understanding
autonomous and situated agencies, in relating to behaviour in a real
environment, in studying the nature and evolution of perception, in
finding a practical explanation for the operation of most cognitive
capacities such as natural language, context dependent action, etc.
Artificial Life (AL) has recently emerged as a confluence of very
different fields trying to study different kinds of features of living
systems using computers as a modelling tool, and, at last, trying to
artificially (re)produce a living system (or a population of them) in
real or computational media. Examples of such phenomena are prebiotic
systems and their evolution, growth and development, self-reproduction,
adaptation to an environment, evolution of ecosystems and natural
selection, formation of sensory-motor loops, autonomous robots. Thus,
AL is having an impact on classic life sciences but also on the
conceptual foundations of AI and new methodological ideas in Cognitive
Science.
The aim of this Workshop is to focus on the last two points and to
evaluate the influence of the methodology and concepts appearing in AL
for the development of new ideas about cognition that could
eventually give birth to a new Artificial Intelligence. Some of the
sessions consist of presentations and replies on a specific subject by
invited speakers while others will be debates open to all participants
in the workshop.
MAIN TOPICS:
* A review of the problems of FUNCTIONALISM in Cognitive Science
and Artificial Life.
* Modelling Neural Networks through Genetic Algorithms.
* Autonomy and Robotics.
* Consequences of the crisis of the representational models of cognition.
* Minimal Living System and Minimal Cognitive System
* Artificial Life systems as problem solvers
* Emergence and evolution in artificial systems
SPEAKERS S. Harnad P. Husbands
G. Kampis B. Mac Mullin
D. Parisi T. Smithers
E. Thompson F. Varela
Further Information: Alvaro Moreno
Apartado 1249
20080 DONOSTIA
SPAIN
E. Mail: biziart(a)si.ehu.es
Fax: 34 43 311056
Phone: 34 43 310600 (extension 221)
34 43 218000 (extension 209)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
LEVELS OF FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE IN REVERSE BIOENGINEERING:
THE DARWINIAN TURING TEST FOR ARTIFICIAL LIFE
Stevan Harnad
Laboratoire Cognition et Mouvement
URA CNRS 1166 I.B.H.O.P.
Universite d'Aix Marseille II
13388 Marseille cedex 13, France
harnad(a)princeton.edu
ABSTRACT: Both Artificial Life and Artificial Mind are branches of what
Dennett has called "reverse engineering": Ordinary engineering attempts
to build systems to meet certain functional specifications; reverse
bioengineering attempts to understand how systems that have already
been built by the Blind Watchmaker work. Computational modelling
(virtual life) can capture the formal principles of life, perhaps
predict and explain it completely, but it can no more BE alive than a
virtual forest fire can be hot. In itself, a computational model is
just an ungrounded symbol system; no matter how closely it matches the
properties of what is being modelled, it matches them only formally,
with the mediation of an interpretation. Synthetic life is not open to
this objection, but it is still an open question how close a functional
equivalence is needed in order to capture life. Close enough to fool
the Blind Watchmaker is probably close enough, but would that require
molecular indistinguishability, and if so, do we really need to go that far?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Husbands
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
Univesity of Sussex, BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, U.K
philh(a)cogs.susx.ac.uk
ABSTRACT: We discuss the mothodological foundations for our work on the
development of cognitive architectures, on control systems, for
situated autonomous agents. We focus on the problems of developing
sensory-motor ystems for mobile robots, but we also discuss the
applicability of aur approach to the study of biological systems. We
argue that, for agents required to exhibit sophisticated ionteractions
with their environments, complex sensory-motor processing is necessary,
and the design by hand of control systems capable of this is likely to
to become a prohibiytively difficult as complexity increases. We
propose an automatic design process involving artificial
evolution,where the basoc buildig blocks used for evolving cognitive
architectures are noise-tolerant dynamical networks. These networks may
be recurrent, and should operate in real time. time. The evolution
should be incremental, using an extended and modified version of a
genetic algorithm. Practical constraints suggest that initial
architecture evaluations should be done largely in simulation. To
support our claims and proposals, we summarize results from some
preliminary simulation experiments where visually guided robots are
evolved to operate in simple environments. Significantly, our results
demonstrate that robust visually-guided control systems evolve from
evaluation fuctions which do not explicitly require monitoring visual
input. We outline the difficulties involved in continuing with
simulations, and conclude by describing specialized visuo-robotic
equipment, designed to eliminate sensors and actuators.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry MacMullin
School of Electronic Engineering
Dublin City University
McMullinB(a)DCU.IE
ABSTRACT: I reconsider the status of computationalism (or, in a weak
sense, functionalism): the claim that being a realisation of some (as
yet unespecified) class of abstract machine is both necessary ans
sufficient for having genuine, full-blooded, mentality. This doctrine
is now quite widely (though by no means universally) seen as
discredited. My position is that, thoug it is undoubtedly an
unsatisfactory (perhaps even repugnant) thsis, the arguments against it
are still rather weak. In particular, I critically reassess John Searle's
infamous Chinise Room Argument, and also some relevant aspects of
Karl Popper s theory of the Open Universe. I conclude that the status
of computationalism must still be regarded as undecided' and that it
may still provide a satisfactory framework for research.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Domenico Parisi
Institute of Psychology
National Research Council, Rome
e-mail: domenico(a)irmkant.bitnet
ABSTRACT: Genetic algorithms are methods of parallel search for optimal
solutions to tasks which are inspired by biological evolution and are
based on selective reproductiomn and the addition of variiation through
mutations or crossover. As models of real biological and behevioral
phenomena, however, genetic algorithms suffer from many limitations.
Some of these limitations are discussed under the rubrics of (a)
environment, (b) variation, and (c) fitness, and ways are suggested to
overcome them. Various simulations using genetic algoritms and neural
networks are briefly described which incorporate a more biologically
realistic notion of evolution.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Smithers
Facultad de Informatica
Apartado 649
20080 San Sebastian
smithers(a)si.ehu.es
ABSTRACT: Traditianally autonomous systems research has been a domain
of Artificial Intelligence. We argue that, as a consequence, it has
been heavily influenced, often tacitly, by folk psychological notions.
We believe that much of the widely acknowledged failure of this
research to produce reliable and robust artificial autonomous systems
can be apportioned to its use and dependence upon forlk psychological
constructs. As an alternative we propose taking seriously the
Eliminativce Materialism of Paul Chuchland In this paper we present our
reasons for adopting this radical alternative approach and briefly
describe the bottom-up methodology that goes with it. We illustrate the
discussion with examples form our work on autonomous systems.
[Rest of abstracts not yet available]
