ISI 2005 Call for Papers/Participation

[Mark H. Bickhard]

Interactivist Summer Institute 2005
September 19-23, 2005
Madren Conference Center
Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA

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 third Summer 
Institute; the first was in 2001 at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, 
USA, and the second was in 2003 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 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/isi2005/index.htm

Mark H. Bickhard
Lehigh University
17 Memorial Drive East
Bethlehem, PA 18015
mark at bickhard.name
http://bickhard.ws/