ISI 2003 

What is Interactivism?

General Information Organizing Committee Academic Co-Sponsors 

Major Themes Tutorials Program Abstracts of Papers 

Call for Participation Call for Papers Deadlines

 Conference Fees Housing Travel

 

Institute for Interactivist Studies

GENERAL INFORMATION

From neurobiology to robotics, from cognitive science to philosophy of mind and language, the classical treatment of representation within a framework of encodingist assumptions is becoming recognized as a fatal maze of blind alleys. Dynamic systems approaches and autonomous agent research join in the struggle to find an alternative. Slowly, these efforts are converging on a recognition that life and mind, including representation, are emergents of far-from-equilibrium, interactive, autonomous systems. They are converging on Interactivism. Interactivism offers a theoretical modeling approach to matters of lfie and mind, ranging from evolutionary- and neuro-biology, including the emergence of biological function, through representation, perception, motivation, memory, learning, emotions, consciousness, language, rationality, sociality, personality and psychopathology. This work has developed interfaces with studies of central nervous system functioning, the ontology of process, autonomous agents, and all areas of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science that address the person. The conference will involve both tutorials addressing central parts and aspects of the interactive model, and papers addressing current work of relevance to this general approach. This will be our second Summer Institute; the first was in 2001 at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA. The intention is for this Summer Institute to become a traditional semi-annual meeting where those sharing the core ideas of interactivism will meet and discuss their work, try to reconstruct its historical roots, put forward current research in different fields that fits the interactivist framework, and define research topics for prospective graduate students. People working in philosophy of mind, linguistics, social sciences, artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics, theoretical biology, and other fields related to the sciences of mind are invited to send their statement of interest for participation to the organizers (see details below).
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ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Mark Bickhard <mhb0@lehigh.edu>
Robert Campbell <campber@clemson.edu>
Wayne Christensen <wayne.christensen@kla.univie.ac.at>
John C. Christopher <jcc@montana.edu>
Jesper Hoffmeyer <hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk>
Bipin Indurkhya <bipin@cc.tuat.ac.jp>
Clay Morrison <jcc@montana.edu>
Chris Sinha <Chris.Sinha@language.sdu.dk>
Mikkel H. Sorensen <megel@it-c.dk>
Georgi Stojanov <geos@cerera.etf.ukim.edu.mk>
Goran Trajkovski <gtrajkovski@alpha.wvup.wvnet.edu>
Tom Ziemke <tom@ida.his.se>

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MAJOR THEMES

• Foundations of Interactivism
Naturalism
Emergence
Process metaphysics
• Cognition and Representation
Representation emergent in action systems
Dissolution of problems of skepticism, error, Chinese room, etc.
Concepts
Memory
Learning
Heuristic learning
Metaphor
Rationality and negative knowledge
• Agents
Interaction
Motivation
Emotions
Autonomous agents
• Persons
Development
Consciousness
Sociality
Language
Ethics
Social processes and realities

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ACADEMIC AND SCIENTIFIC CO-SPONSORS

Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA
Institute for Interactive Studies
Cognitive Science Program
Humanities Research Center
IT University, Copenhagen, Denmark
SS Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

HOUSING

TBA

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TRAVEL

TBA

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