Call for Papers/Call for Participation

[Mark H. Bickhard]

Interactivist Summer Institute 2003
July 22-26, 2003
Botanical Auditorium
Copenhagen, Denmark

Join us in exploring the frontiers of understanding of life, mind, and
cognition.  There is a growing recognition - across many disciplines -
that phenomena of life and mind, including cognition and representation,
are emergents of far-from-equilibrium, interactive, autonomous systems.
Mind and biology, mind and agent, are being re-united.  The classical
treatment of cognition and representation within a formalist framework
of encodingist assumptions is widely recognized as a fruitless maze of
blind alleys.  From neurobiology to robotics, from cognitive science to
philosophy of mind and language, dynamic and interactive alternatives
are being explored.  Dynamic systems approaches and autonomous agent
research join in the effort.

The interactivist model offers a theoretical approach to matters of life
and mind, ranging from evolutionary- and neuro-biology - including the
emergence of biological function ? through representation, perception,
motivation, memory, learning and development, 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, philosophy of
science, 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
biennial 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 paper submission or statement of interest for
participation to the organizers.

http://www.lehigh.edu/~interact/isi2003/isi2003.html

Mark

--
Mark H. Bickhard
Cognitive Science
17 Memorial Drive East
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA  18015
610-758-3633
mhb0 at lehigh.edu
mark.bickhard at lehigh.edu
http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/mhb0.html