Emergence, Dynamics, and Cognition

Registration is free, but please contact Patrick McGivern by April 2nd if you are interested in attending.

Recent work at the intersection of cognitive science, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology has emphasized the importance of dynamical processes in cognition. A central idea in much of this work is that cognitive processes are 'emergent', and that understanding emergence is essential for understanding cognition. But emergence is a notoriously ambiguous concept, which critics argue doesn't play any explanatory role. The aim of this workshop is to improve our understanding of the relationship between emergence, dynamics, and cognition, along with closely related ideas about extended cognition, niche construction, and mechanistic explanation.

Thursday, April 12th

9:00 Coffee/tea
9:30 Adele Abrahamsen (UCSD), “Dynamic Mechanistic Explanation”
10:00 Bill Bechtel (UCSD), “Organization and Dynamical Mechanistic Explanation”
11:15 Coffee/tea
11:45 Jon Opie (Adelaide), “Emergent Cognitive Structures”
12:45 Lunch
2:00 Karola Stotz (Sydney), “Cognitive-developmental Niche Construction, the Emergence of Internal Versus External, and Extended Cognition”
3:00 Mirko Farina (Macquarie), “Criss-Crossing the Boundaries of the Mind: Complementarity in Action”
4:00 Coffee/tea
4:30 Brett Calcott (ANU), “Self-Organisation, Evolvability, and Evolutionary Novelties”
5:30 End of day 1

Friday, April 13th

9:00 Coffee/tea
9:30 Rob Rupert (Colorado), “Embodiment, Consciousness, and the Massively Representational Mind,”
11:00 Coffee/tea
11:30 Elizabeth Schier (Macquarie), “Emergent Representation in Color Vision”
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Richard Menary (Macquarie), “The Emergence of Mathematical Cognition: Cultural and Neural Factors”
2:30 Patrick McGivern (UOW), “Emergence as an Explanatory Concept”
3:30 Workshop concludes

For more information, contact Patrick McGivern at [email protected]