"Artificial Life: a Bridge towards a New Artificial Intelligence" Palacio de Miramar (San Sebastian, Spain) December 10th and 11th, 1993 Workshop organised by the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Computer Science & Institute of Logic, Cognition, Language and Information (ILCLI) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Directors: Alvaro Moreno (University of the Basque Country) Francisco Varela (CREA, Paris) This Workshop will be dedicated to a discussion of the impact of works on Artifical Life in Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has traditionally attempted to study cognition as an abstract phenomenon using formal tools, that is, as a disembodied process that can be grasped through formal operations, independent of the nature of the system that displays it. Cognition appears as an abstract representation of reality. After several decades of research in this direction the field has encountered several problems that have taken it to what many consider a "dead end": difficulties in understanding autonomous and situated agencies, in relating behaviour in a real environment, in studying the nature and evolution of perception, in finding a pragmatic approach to explain the operation of most cognitive capacities such as natural language, context dependent action, etc. Artificial Life (AL) has recently emerged as a confluence of very different fields trying to study different kinds of phenomena of living systems using computers as a modelling tool, and, at last, trying to artificially (re)produce a living or a population of living systems in real or computational media. Examples of such phenomena are prebiotic systems and their evolution, growth and development, self-reproduction, adaptation to an environment, evolution of ecosystems and natural selection, formation of sensory-motor loops, autonomous robots. Thus, AL is having an impact on classic life sciences but also on the conceptual foundations of AI and new methodological ideas to Cognitive Science. The aim of this Workshop is to focus on the last two points and to evaluate the influence of the methodology and concepts appearing in AL for the development of a new ideas about cognition that could eventually give birth to a new Artificial Intelligence. Some of the sessions consist on presentations and replies on a specific subject by invited speakers while others will be debates open to all participants in the workshop. MAIN TOPICS: * A review of the problems of FUNCTIONALISM in Cognitive Science and Artificial Life. * Modelling Neural Networks through Genetic Algorithms. * Autonomy and Robotics. * Consequences of the crisis of the representational models of cognition. * Minimal Living System and Minimal Cognitive System * Artificial Life systems as problem solvers * Emergence and evolution in artificial systems SPEAKERS S. Harnad P. Husbands G. Kampis B. Mac Mullin D. Parisi T. Smithers E. Thompson F. Varela Further Information: Alvaro Moreno Apartado 1249 20080 DONOSTIA SPAIN E. Mail: biziart@si.ehu.es Fax: 34 43 311056 Phone: 34 43 310600 (extension 221) 34 43 218000 (extension 209)