Mindware Ch. 5: "Perception, action and the brain"

Theme of the reading
In this chapter, Clark presents a set of differences between designed solutions and evolved solutions. He uses these differences to argue that symbolic AI models designed solutions that correspond poorly to biological solutions. In fact, the process of specifying the problems that creatures supposedly have to solve seems to be influenced by our understanding of what creatures can do. One view is that intelligent systems must create and operate on detailed internal representation of the external world. The other is that the world is it's own best representation, and that what a creature represents about the world is its own action in that world, rather than the world itself. These are very BIG ideas. Symbolic AI works as a model of many high-level cognitive tasks, but it cannot be the way the brain works. The connectionist alternative works for low-level perceptual-motor processes (cockroach cognition) but no one knows how to make it work for high-level processes such as reasoning or language.

Getting ready to read
Definitions:

Fun links

A dinosaur robot with bipedal locomotion.

Reading
Orienting questions and issues to keep in mind:
What levels of description did David Marr say were necessary to understand any computational system?
What are the differences between design and evolution as ways to find solutions?
What properties of evolutionary solutions cast doubt on the PSSH?
What is an action oriented representation?
How does an action oriented definition differ from a detailed object-centered description?

Mindware Ch. 6: "Robots and Artificial Life"

Theme of the reading
Chapter 5 left us with a problem: Classical AI seems wrong, but how can we get meaningful cognitive behavior out of a system based on other principles? Artificial life (and a special subclass of robotics) attempt to build systems on the principles of embodiment and situativity. That is, simulated organisms that evolve and that take advantage of subtle details in the implementation and in the interaction between the organism and its environment.

Getting ready to read
Definitions:

Reading
Orienting questions and issues to keep in mind:
What are the three main themes of artificial life?
What are the limits of artificial life?
What sorts of behaviors are beyond the abilities of current A-life models?
How does A-life provoke changes in the definition of life itself?
What does Godfrey-Smith's thesis of "strong continuity" say about the relationship between mind and life?