Connectionists: European Spring School on Integrated Cognitive Systems (Herbert Jaeger)

[Herbert Jaeger]

Invitation to Participate: INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLEGE 2015

www.interdisciplinary-college.de

An intense, decidedly interdisciplinary Spring School in Cognitive and 
Computational Neuroscience, Machine Learning, Psychology, AI and 
Philosophy.

Guenne, Lake Moehne, Germany - March 6-13, 2015

Chairs: Herbert Jaeger, Ansgar Bueschges

Fokus theme 2015: From Neuron to Person: Assembling Behavior and Cognition

*The Interdisciplinary College* (IK) is an annual European one-week 
spring school, now in its 18th year. It offers a dense, rich, 4-track 
state-of-the-art course program in the wider sciences of 
intelligent/cognitive systems. The perspective and mission is decidedly 
interdisciplinary. The IK is also a unique social and networking event. 
Minds meet, music is played, and friends are made in long evening and 
night sessions in the welcoming conference site at Lake Moehne.

Each IK is centered on a *focus theme*. In 2015 the focus is on 
integrated, complex cognitive systems. Research in the wider cognitive 
and neurosciences (including AI, machine learning and robotics) often 
deals with specific subsystems or functions, like "motor control", 
"object recognition", "working memory", etc. There are numerous reasons 
for this fragmentation: a divide-and-conquer strategy of isolating 
subsystems has been very successful in the sciences; commercially 
relevant applications mostly are centered on single functionalities; 
interdisciplinary research is not easy in practice. Defying these 
obstacles, the IK 2015 will cast its focus on complete, autonomous 
agents -- animals, humans, robots, and software characters. An offering 
of 25+ courses (each course 4-6 hours) is grouped under the following 
perspectives:

- *Modeling cognitive architectures*: theoretical / mathematical / 
computational frameworks to analyse or design complete intelligent agents

- *Person, Identity, Dignity*: philosophical / psychological / ethics 
perspectives on sentient beings

- *Engineering Agents*: technological approaches to build robots and 
software agents

- *Neurons, Muscles, Bodies*: "bottom-up" modeling of sensing and motor 
control in neurobiology, genetics and motor science

- *Language and Thought*: "top-down" modeling of higher cognitive 
capacities in cognitive psychology and linguistics

Please visit www.interdisciplinary-college.de for the detailed program, 
venue and registration and everything else, including the IK's 
30-year-long history. Participants from outside Europe are of course 
most welcome too!


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Dr. Herbert Jaeger

Professor for Computational Science
Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Campus Ring
28759 Bremen, Germany

Phone (+49) 421 200 3215
Fax (+49) 421 200 49 3215
email  h.jaeger at jacobs-university.de

http://minds.jacobs-university.de
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