The Biological Foundations of Enactivism: A Report on a Workshop Held at Artificial Life XV.
Eran Agmon, Matthew Egbert, Nathaniel Virgo
Artificial life January 1, 2018 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1162/artl_a_00253 via PubMed
Summary
This report summarizes the Biological Foundations of Enactivism Workshop at Artificial Life XV, which revisited enactivism's contributions to biology and aimed to ground the concept of autonomy in quantitative, observable definitions. Key issues discussed include identifying emergent individuals from their environment, the roles of autonomy and normativity in biological theory, the spontaneous emergence of autonomous agents at life's origins, and scientific perspectives on subjective experience.
Study at a glance
| Design | workshop report |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The workshop aimed to ground the concept of autonomy in quantitative definitions based on observable phenomena and addressed issues including emergent individuals, autonomy and normativity in biology, the origins of autonomous agents, and subjective experience. |
Abstract
This is a report on the Biological Foundations of Enactivism Workshop, which was held as part of Artificial Life XV. The workshop aimed to revisit enactivism's contributions to biology and to revitalize the discussion of autonomy with the goal of grounding it in quantitative definitions based in observable phenomena. This report summarizes some of the important issues addressed in the workshop's talks and discussions, which include how to identify emergent individuals out of an environmental background, what the roles of autonomy and normativity are in biological theory, how new autonomous agents can spontaneously emerge at the origins of life, and what science can say about subjective experience.