AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy (provisional)
Date:
4th April 2008
Location:
University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Overview
The convergence of computing and philosophy has a lineage going back to Leibniz but it is not until
the work of Alan Turing and the appearance of electronic computers in the mid-20th century
that we arrive at a practical intersection between computing and philosophy.
Precursors to the theories and programs of interest to this AISB Symposium on Computing and
Philosophy include the Turing Test as outlined in Turing's seminal reflection on thinking machines;
the AI work of Herb Simon and Alan Newell with the Logic Theorist; Rosenblatt’s Perceptron -
a biologically inspired pattern matching device - and Grey Walter’s Turtle - an early
example of embodied Cybernetic Artificial Intelligence (A.I).
The purpose of this symposium is to advance the philosophical study of computing in general
by exploring the philosophical analysis of central concepts in computer science, the application
of computational principles to traditional philosophical problems and computational
modelling of philosophical assumptions and we welcome papers exploring any of these issues;
however in recent years there has been a growing interest in the convergence of themes from
Constructivism, Enactivism, Dynamic Systems Theory and Second Order Cybernetics
and symposium organisers are particularly interested in receiving contributions from these areas.
Topics
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to
- Constructivism; enactivism; second order cybernetics
- Dynamic systems theories of cognition
- Sensorimotor theories of perception
- Artificial life; computer modelling in biology; simulation of behaviour
- Machine understanding; Searle's Chinese room argument; the Turing test
- Biosemiotics
- Embodied A.I.; robotics
- Virtual reality; computer-mediated communication
- Philosophy of information / technology
- Information and computer ethics
- Metaphysics (distributed processing, emergent properties, formal ontology, network structures, etc.)
Submission and Publication Details
Submitted contributions shall be sent by electronic mail to (m.bishop@gold.ac.uk). All articles shall be sent
electronically as PDF files to this address. Text editor templates can be found at
http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb08/download.html
. We request that submitted papers are limited to eight pages. Each paper will receive at least two reviews. Selected papers will be published in the
general proceedings of the AISB Convention, as long as at least one author comes to the symposium to
present the paper and participate in the discussions and symposium activities.
Important Dates
Submission deadline:: 14 January 2008.
Notification of acceptance:: 15 February 2008.
Camera ready copy due:: March 10th 2008, (please submit PDF online via: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~csc245/aisb08/).
Symposium: 4th April 2008.
Registration: Registration is now open. Please register and arrange accommodation asap as accommodation can be difficult to find
at short notice in Aberdeen.
Publication
All papers from the AISB convention will be published in the AISB proceedings. We will further investigate the possibility of publishing
the best papers in a journal special issue or book form.
Additional Information
A "Best Student Paper" award will be given to the best student written
paper submitted to the convention. The AISB will also fund three student
scholarships. See here for further details.
Organisers
- Peter Baumann
- Department of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
Email: p.baumann@abdn.ac.uk
tel: +44 (0) 1224 272368
- Mark Bishop
- Dept. Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK. SE14 6NW.
Email: m.bishop@gold.ac.uk
tel: +44 (0) 2070 785048
- Luciano Floridi
- Steve Torrance
- School of Health and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, UK.
Email: S.Torrance@mdx.ac.uk
tel: +44 (0) 1273 873754
Programme Committee
- Peter Baumann (Aberdeen University, UK)
- Mark Bishop (Golsmiths, University of London, UK)
- Ron Chrisley (University of Sussex, UK)
- Luciano Floridi (University of Hertfordshire & St. Cross College Oxford University, UK)
- John Preston (University of Reading, UK)
- Murray Shanahan (Imperial College, UK)
- Colin Schmidt (Université du Maine, France)
- Keith Stenning (The University of Edinburgh, UK)
- Susan Stuart (The University of Glasgow, UK)
- Steve Torrance (Middlesex University & University of Sussex, UK)
- Michael Wheeler (University of Stirling, UK)