Note: This seminar already happened!
The role of AI in the paradigm shift toward an embodied-embedded cognitive science
Tom Froese
Life and Mind seminar
When: Wednesday 15 November, at 15:00.
Where: Room ARUN 404B.
In this talk I will look at the role of AI and robotics in the ongoing paradigm shift of the cognitive sciences. I will start by analyzing the shift from cognitivism towards a more embodied-embedded cognitive science, and conclude that this move was mostly due to empirical developments in AI which allowed purely philosophical arguments to be resolved experimentally. More recently, there has been a lot of discussion of a further shift towards enactivism. I will try to give a brief overview of the central aspects of an enactive theory of cognition. In particlar, I will highlight enactivism’s central concern with the notion of subjectivity and then analyze AI and robotic’s role (if any) in facilitating this second shift. It might turn out that this shift in understanding needs something qualitatively different from the resolution of disputes in either the philosophical or empirical domain of the cognitive sciences.
