UARDBOP 2015 - Symposium on Updating the anti-representation debate : behavior-oriented perspectives

The goal of the symposium consists in bringing to the fore key issues pertaining to the representationalism/anti-representationalism debate from a behavior-oriented perspective. These issues appear under at least three main questions that respond to each other and are mostly overlapping: (1) Is behavior the main purpose of cognition? (2) What is the difference between behaving and moving? (3) When does the explanation of behavior require the use of representations?
Question (1) addresses the function of the brain and how it is related to the body and the world. Is the brain mainly in the business of guessing how the world is according to what it receives through the senses, or is the brain mainly geared towards generating adaptive patterns of bodily motion? The answer to this question entails very different conceptions of what the brain does and what the body and the world do to the brain.
Question (2) is about the boundaries of behavior. At issue are some traditional demarcations present in cognitive science such as the distinction between processing sensory signals and programming movements, the distinction between controlling individual movements of muscles and handling whole bodily postures and dispositions, and the distinction between agent and environment. How does the concept of behavior cut through these common demarcations and how is it related to perception?
Question (3) is concerned with the classical representational approach to cognition. Is behavior the execution of a program? Can bodily motion be coordinated without the use of different kinds of representation? How much behavioral complexity can be achieved without appealing to models or computational architectures? Are dynamical models of coordination dynamics truly non-representational? How is it possible to account for intentional or goal-oriented behavior without appealing to an agent representing or intending such goals?
We welcome proposals addressing directly any of the questions raised above and any other questions related to the link between movement coordination, representation, brain function, and perception and action. Proposals can include specific or general scientific research, as well as theoretical philosophical considerations.
The symposium will consist in a full day of talks, and a second half-day devoted to a round-table among the participants to discuss one or two key subjects directly linked to the presentations of the previous day.
Venue :
University of Kent, Canterbury, UK from 20-22 April 2015. The AISB Convention is an annual conference covering the range of AI and Cognitive Science, organised by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (http://www.aisb.org.uk/news/150-aisb15).
Important dates :
- paper submission deadline : 15th January 2015.
- paper acceptance notification : 15th February 2015.
- AISB 2015 Convention : 20-22 April 2015.
Paper submission guidelines :
Please send extended abstracts prepared for blind review of no more than 1000 words (without counting references) in PDF format to martin.fultot-AT-gmail.com . Full papers are also welcome optionally. Please give the following name to your PDF file for extended abstracts : “aisb2015abs” ; and “aisb2015full” for the full papers. It is very important that you give this name to your files to ensure blind review.
Invited speakers :
- Randall Beer (Indiana University)
- Tom Froese (UNAM)
Committee :
- Benoît Bardy (University of Montpellier)
- Viktor Jirsa (University of Aix-Marseille)
- Fred Keijzer (University of Groningen)
- Erik Myin (University of Antwerp)
- Organizer : Martin Flament Fultot (University of Paris Sorbonne, SND)
Publication :
Publication of the proceedings and/or a standalone volume will be considered according to the amount of high quality contributions.