Swarm grandee Guy Theraulaz presents a lecture on Biological Principles of Swarm Intelligence. Other salient talks available on this site include: Evolutionary Algorithms by Adam Prügel-Bennett Dance evolution by Jeff Balogh, Gregg Dubbin, Michael Do Science, Technology, and Applications of Swarm Robotics by Dario Floreano The Mathematics of Emergence and Flocking by Stephen Smale Fuzzy Logic by Michael Berthold Differential Evolution and…
Over at Vitorino Ramos’ ever thoughtful blog is a post extolling the virtues of the “small”. The point is twofold: First, the superb detail afforded by the photographs that Vitorino has assembled shows a rather complexly “designed” creature – a design that belies the supposedly simple life-form that ants are typically taken to be. The…
Meet Paro. He’s a robotic seal developed by Japanese researchers to help dementia patients feel that they have companionship and a feeling of security, without the responsibilities of a living pet. (Thanks to Suzie Katz for alerting me to this story). Made to emulate a live pet as much as possible, he can cuddle, nod and…
V.S. is always good value for money – his enthusiasm is palpable. Click photo to view video.
The latest special issue of The Journal of Mind and Behavior is now available: Contents Abstracts A Pluralistic UniverseBradford J. WigginsBrent D. SlifeBrent S. MellingCody D. ChristophersonDavid E. LearyDennis C. WendtEdwin E. GanttGeorge S. HowardWayne VineyWilliam Douglas WoodyWilliam James
I’ve read just about everything by Andy Clark – as I’ve said several times before he is a superb stylist and is philosophy at its most lively. Some years back I read his paper Memento’s Revenge: Objections and Replies to the Extended Mind. I don’t recall having seen the film that Andy references in his paper;…
I want to give a plug to the excellent resource that is the Brain Science Podcast website so passionately managed by Ginger Campbell. There is even an iPhone app now available though I haven’t used it yet.
The latest issue of EPISTEME is now available.
The program for EPISTEME 2010 is firming up nicely. It’s great to see Martin Kusch finally involved with EPISTEME. Discussants at large include David Bloor – how ecumenical is that? In many ways social epistemology comes home – Edinburgh historically being a hotbed of the Strong Programme – and EPISTEME being published by Edinburgh University…
Here’s a TPM interview with Alan Sokal. As Sokal says, perhaps it is inevitable that whatever his technical achievements are, he will be remembered for the so-called “Sokal hoax.” The vitriol that this debate generated I think did philosophy a service to a degree – “Continental” and analytical philosophy – but the slanging match did…
manwithoutqualities 