1. Evolutionary Robotics and Interdisciplinary Enactivism CNRS Summer School: Constructivism and Enaction: A new paradigm for Cognitive Science Ile d’Oleron, France 29.5.-3.6.2006 Marieke Rohde Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics University of Sussex

2. Structure Myself Past research Ideas on Enactivism and Interdisciplinarity Ideas for Future Research

3. Background Keen interest in radical constructivism during school and college Was caned out of me during my BSc in Cognitive Science in Osnabrueck, Germany (2000-2003) BSc at Intelligent Dynamical Systems group at Fraunhofer AIS, St. Augustin: First contact with Evolutionary Robotics (2003) MSc Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems at Sussex, UK (2003-2004) DPhil in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at Sussex, UK (2004 - ???) Interdisciplinary background, main focus on computational modelling

4. Computers, Robots, Embodiment: The Braitenberg Vehicle Braitenberg, V.: „Vehicles. Experiments in Synthetic Psychology.“ illustrations by Maciek Albrecht, MIT Press, 1984

5. Evolutionary Robotics

6. Past Work Investigation of Motor Synergies in Motor Control (Rohde & Di Paolo, 2005) A Critique of Value System Architectures. (Rohde & Di Paolo, 2006) –Division between (adaptive) behaviour generation and (rigid) adaptation mechanism

7. Our model: Evolve a light seeking, fitness predicting robot –Supports a conceptual argument against “meaning generating boxes” –Discussion of hybrid/“on-the-fence” position –Discussion of “neural correlates of behaviour” Past Work

8. Interdisciplinarity Computationalism: Roughly: Linear Reduction, AI at intellectual core No real need for dialogue Enactivism: Mutual Constraining of Disciplines (as described for neurophenomenology (Varela 1996) Understanding: Hermeneutic Introduce computational modelling into the picture

9. Future Work The “trinity of minimalism” –Evolutionary Robotics –Perceptual Supplementation –Phenomenology Investigation: Sensorimotor delays and the construction of the time arrow Inspired by empirical findings on a reversion of the experienced time arrow after adaptation to increased sensorimotor delay (D. Cunningham et al.)