Rupert Review of Rowlands New Science

At NDPR.

Extended cognition workshop – Amsterdam, June 27th-28th 2011

To mark the end of Catarina Dutilh Novaes’ VENI-project on formal languages and the new appointment of Julian Kiverstein at the philosophy department of the University of Amsterdam, a workshop on extended cognition will take place in Amsterdam on June 27th--28th (exact location to be determined).

Confirmed speakers so far are:

• Richard Menary (Wollongong)
• Julian Kiverstein (Edinburgh/Amsterdam)
• Helen de Cruz (Leuven) 
• John Protevi (LSU) 
• Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Amsterdam) 

There will also be a few slots for contributed papers. We are looking in particular (though not exclusively) for papers in the spirit of ‘second-wave EM’ (Sutton) or ‘cognitive integration’ (Menary). Abstracts of around 500 words should be sent to cdutilhnovaes [youknowwhat] yahoo.com no later than April 10^th.

Deadline for submission: April 10^th 2011.

Notification of acceptance: April 27^th 2011.

Workshop: June 27^th-28^th

 For further inquiries, contact Catarina Dutilh Novaes at cdutilhnovaes [youknowwhat] yahoo.com

Larry Shapiro on the Brain Science Podcast

Links here and here.

David Rumelhart (1942-2011)

News from Stanford.

Thanks to Leslie Marsh at Man without Qualities for the links.

Ken Aizawa and Carl Gillett: "The Autonomy of Psychology in the Age of Neuroscience"

Our latest paper on multiple realization is now out in this collection, Causality in the Sciences, edited by Phyllis McKay Illari, Federica Russo, and Jon Williamson.

Extended Minds, Riley Halligan: Extended Technologies, and Extended Persons Riley Halligan

This paper will be presented as part of the Human Enhancement Symposium at UT-Dallas.

Clark Review of Adams and Aizawa Bounds of Cognition and Rupert Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind

The published version is now available here.

SSPP 2011

The SSPP this past weekend in New Orleans was fun, though my nursing a cold the whole time put a damper on things.  The meds were making me a little slower than usual.

Tom Polger gave what was probably the best SSPP Presidential address I've ever seen.  Philosophically interesting, but laced with humor and a good pace.  Reminded me that I have written on stuff besides extended cognition.

In my session on Ecological Psychology, I was impressed with the uniformity of message.  Shockley and Riley had much the same talking points as Andrew and Gary.  It was reassuring to me to find Gary Hatfield, Larry Shapiro, Carl Gillett, and Tom Polger worried about the same sorts of things that I was.  So, it's not just me.

Last year, many (it seemed to me, though that's just an off-the-cuff guess ... I didn't actually count) of the papers that were given at the SSPP were subsequently also given at the SPP. 


I'm already looking forward to next year in Savannah.  I'm especially looking forward to it, since I'll be free of the officer duties that I've had for so many years.

Martiny Review of Shapiro's Embodied Cognition

Link here.

Post-doctoral position on the Theoretical Foundations of Embodied Cognition

Organization: Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country

Location: San Sebastián, Spain

Field: Computer science - Cybernetics

Requirements:

PhD or equivalent in Computer science;
4 years research experience in cybernetics;
English: excellent;
Knowledge of theories of embodied cognition. Modelling skills using evolutionary approaches and dynamical systems;
Skills in physical simulation and dynamical neural networks. Knowledge of different theories of human movement.

Abstract:

As part of the eSMCs EU project, we are recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to work on the theoretical foundations of embodied cognition through the formulation of minimal models of visually-guided movement and skill acquisition. The post is for 3 years and candidates must have a PhD in embodied cognition and experience in modelling using evolutionary robotics techniques

Description:

The new European project on “Extending Sensorimotor Contingencies to Cognition” (eSMCs) comprises a strong network of neuroscientists, AI experts, roboticists, cognitive scientists and philosophers. Its main objective is to extend notions of sensorimotor embodiment to more complex forms of cognitive performance using theoretical work as well as computational and robotic models. It will also involve behavioural and neurophysiological studies in healthy human subjects and those with movement dysfunction. As part of this project, we are recruiting a postdoctoral researcher for 3 years to work on the theoretical foundations of embodied cognition through the formulation of models of multi-modal skill acquisition, arm movements and locomotion. Suitable candidates would have experience in theoretical of embodied cognition including some of the following: sensorimotor theories of perception, non-representationalist theories of action, and enactive approaches to autonomy, agency and meaning. Candidates should have a theoretical and modelling background with a recent PhD in one of these areas. They should also demonstrate a willingness to engage in productive dialogue with empirical and modelling research.

Deadline: 21-03-2011

Link: http://www.lzf.ehu.es/s0003-home1/en/

Email: ezequiel_dipaolo@ehu.es

Phone number: phone +34 943 018549

Extended cognition workshop – Amsterdam, June 27th-28th 2011

http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/03/extended-cognition-workshop-amster... 

To mark the end of Catarina Dutilh Novaes’ VENI-project on formal languages and
the new appointment of Julian Kiverstein at the philosophy department of the
University of Amsterdam, a workshop on extended cognition will take place in
Amsterdam on June 27th-28th (exact location to be determined). Confirmed
speakers so far are: 

Julian Kiverstein (Edinburgh/Amsterdam)
Helen de Cruz (Leuven)
John Protevi (LSU)
Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Amsterdam) 

There will also be some slots for contributed papers. We are looking in
particular (though not exclusively) for papers in the spirit of ‘second-wave EM’
(Sutton) or ‘cognitive integration’ (Menary). Abstracts of around 500 words
should be sent to cdutilhnovaes [youknowwhat] yahoo.com no later than April
10th. 

Important dates: 

Deadline for submission: April 10th 2011.
Notification of acceptance: April 27th 2011.
Workshop: June 27th-28th 

For further inquiries, contact Catarina Dutilh Novaes at cdutilhnovaes
[youknowwhat] yahoo.com 

Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html.
Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html.
Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal. 

Astounding Bad News from Pitt

March 9, 2011

Dear Alumni,

Today, the University of Pittsburgh and the other state related universities received potentially devastating news when Governor Tom Corbett presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2012. Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln Universities are targeted with extreme, severe and disproportionate cuts to their already comparatively low-level of state support. If enacted, funding reductions of this magnitude will have a drastically negative impact on Pitt students and their families, and on the economy of Western Pennsylvania. The proposed budget would cut Pitt's appropriation by $110 million.

When Pitt became a state-related university in 1966, there was an implicit promise that Pitt would receive an annual Commonwealth appropriation sufficient to offer Pennsylvania students the highest quality education at an affordable tuition--significantly less than that charged to non-Pennsylvania students and dramatically less than the tuition at comparable private universities. In the interests of Pennsylvania's high-achieving students and their families, and the interests of the economic health and survival of Western Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth should uphold its commitment to these millions of Pennsylvania citizens.

Pitt has shouldered more than its fair share of the cutbacks in state funding over the past decade (with reductions to our appropriation in six of the past ten years) and did not benefit from the nearly 40 percent increase in the state budget over the past eight years. In fact, the Commonwealth invests less state dollars in Pitt today than it did ten years ago. The University has worked successfully to reduce costs and implement efficiencies in employee benefits, energy conservation, strategic purchasing and many other areas. Even with these efficiencies, the proposed funding reduction will have a dramatic impact on tuition for Pennsylvania students and their families, and for staffing levels, salaries and construction projects.

While the large deficit facing the Commonwealth presents daunting budget challenges, investment in public higher education is a necessity in order for Pennsylvania students to have affordable access to the high quality education needed for the new technology-oriented economy. Investment in public higher education is also needed if Pitt is to continue its proven track record of increasing employment and economic activity in our home regions. In the current economy, the Commonwealth should be investing in successful job generators and economic engines like Pitt. That is the reason other states with very large budget deficits, like Virginia, ARE investing in public higher education, even as large cuts are planned throughout other areas of their state budgets.

WHAT CAN WE DO? Please write a letter, send an e-mail and call your state senator, state representative and Governor Corbett. All the information you need, including identifying your senator and state representative can be accessed by clicking here.

Please share any correspondence between you and your legislator with us at: papres@pitt.edu.

Elidorou Review of Rupert's Cognitive Systems is Officially Out

Here.

Noë at the Hughes Leblanc

http://philomtl.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/conferences-hugues-leblanc/.

Thanks to John Protevi for the link.

Calvo and Keijzer on Cognition

What is cognition? Although cognition is one of the core concepts in the behavioral and cognitive sciences, there is no generally accepted answer. For example, in his classic book Cognitive Psychology, Ulrich Neisser defined cognition as: “all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.” (1967, p.4) But this definition seems to include many artifacts, like tape recorders, and organisms, like plants, that were not intended to be labeled as cognitive. The classical cognitive sciences that grew up under the influence of people like Neisser used a much more limited interpretation of cognition: not all forms or information processing did suffice. The implicit extra constraint in this definition was that cognition involves the kind of information processing that also occurs in human intelligence, where it is described in terms like perception, planning, thinking and action. (Calvo & Keijzer, 2008, p. 249)

More cognitivism in plants, it seems.

Calvo on Avoiding Terminological Disputes

The debate on ‘plant intelligence’ is unfortunately plagued with conceptual traps. Intelligence is usually cashed out in animal or anthropocentric terms, in such a way that plants plainly fail to meet the conditions for animal or human‑like intelligence, for obvious but uninteresting reasons. Nevertheless, in the name of scientific progress fight over labels ought to be avoided altogether. Plant neurobiology is not searching for the sort of tissues that implement computations in animals. It goes without saying that plants do not share  “neurons” with animals, or exhibit animal “intelligence”. If the reader wishes to keep those terms for animals exclusively, so be it.  (Garzon, 2007, p. 209)

So, I agree here.  Try to be reasonably clear on your terminology, then get to empirical work.  And, it seems to be common ground here at least that there are differences in the capacities of plants and of animals.  So, what are those?

Calvo on Cognitivism in Plants?

Do plants compute? The blunt answer is “yes”. Plants compute insofar as they manipulate representational states. The sine qua non of representation‑based competency is off‑line adaptive behavior.  Reactive behavior differs from truly cognitive one because it fails to meet the principle of dissociation (the states of a reactive system covary continuously with external states). Off‑line competencies thus mark the borderline between reactive, noncognitive, cases of covariation and the cognitive case of intentional systems. Nocturnal reorientation in Lavatera cretica leaves is not to be interpreted in reactive terms, since such a competency is not explained by means of online forms of covariation. (Garzon, 2007, pp. 210-1.)

As I noted earlier, Paco is a representationalist embodied cognitionist (that's a pretty awful name).  Here, however, he is a computationalist, representationalist, embodied cognitionist.  This, again, makes it harder to be definitive about what advocates of embodied cognition believe.

Maybe someone should put forth the argument that because the advocates of embodied cognition can't agree on what they mean, they should give up that whole enterprise.  It's hopeless.  But, that someone wouldn't be me.

Calvo on the Goals of Cognitive Science

In fact, it has become somewhat inescapable to accept that a final understanding of human intelligence will be embodied and embedded. ... From this perspective, plants and animals, as open systems coupled with their environments, are on a par. The target is the scientific understanding of the continuous interplay of both animals and plants in relation to the environmental contingencies that impinge upon them.  (Garzon, 2007, p. 209).

First of all, I'm fine with saying that plants and animals are equally open systems coupled with their environments.  Leibniz was wrong to maintain that they are "windowless" monads. 

Second, there is a bit more room for debate, it seems to me, when it comes to "the target of scientific understanding".  Maybe one wants to know about the continuous interplay of organisms and their environment, but, then again, maybe one thinks that animal behavior is the product of certain sorts of mechanisms that one does not find in plants, and that among these mechanisms is a body of linguistic competence, and maybe one wants to know what constitutes this competence.  Maybe one does not really care about the continuous interplay of animals and plants with their environment.  Maybe one thinks that behavior of this sort is a kind of hodge podge of lots of different factors that don't really form all that coherent a whole.  Maybe, that is, one takes a view like Chomsky's articulated in the early pages of Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.

Here, it seems to me, is one place where the new embodied and embedded stuff seems to have understated the differences it has with cognitivism on this score.