Nel 1994, mentre lavoravano a una raccolta di articoli sull'interazione tra la ricerca in Int... more Nel 1994, mentre lavoravano a una raccolta di articoli sull'interazione tra la ricerca in Intelligenza Artificiale e in Cibernetica e le discipline umanistiche, Stefano Franchi e Güven Güzeldere fecero visita a Heinz von Foerster a Pescadero, in California, una piccola città sulla costa del Pacifico, a circa 40 miglia a sud di San Francisco, dove von Foerster si era stabilito dopo essere andato in pensione dall'Università dell'Illinois. C'erano diverse ragioni che ci spinsero a cercare un incontro con Heinz. Entrambi avevamo da tempo un duraturo interesse per la storia dell'intelligenza meccanizzata, e condividevamo la convinzione che la Cibernetica, in tutte le sue differenti forme, non avesse ricevuto il credito che meritava. Condividevamo anche la convinzione che uno degli aspetti più interessanti del lavoro di Heinz von Foerster fosse la sua volontà di rinunciare ai confini disciplinari e lasciare che fosse la sua ricerca a dettare i confini della sua discipl...
The paper argues that the approach to adaptation developed by W.R. Ashby in Design for a Brain an... more The paper argues that the approach to adaptation developed by W.R. Ashby in Design for a Brain and partially revived in evolutionary robotics is orthogonal to the traditional distinction between autonomy and heteronomy that underlies much recent work in cellular biology, evolutionary robotics, ALife, and general AI. Ashby's theory of adaptation claims that homeostasis is the only principle grounding sub-cognitive as well as all cognitive functions. Ashby's generalized homeostasis thesis does not fit the traditional conception of autonomy nor its converse (heteronomy). The traditional conception generates a dualism opposing human autonomous life to its non-human heteronomous counterpart. The dualism is usually overcome by claiming that human life is actually heteronomous although it does not appear so, as the "masters of suspicion" once claimed (Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche), or, conversely, by claiming that non-human life is actually fully autonomous in spite of its ...
Research in Artificial Intelligence has always had a very strong relationship with games and game... more Research in Artificial Intelligence has always had a very strong relationship with games and game-playing, and especially with chess. Workers in AI have always denied that this interest was more than purely accidental. Parlor games, they claimed, became a favorite topic of interest because they provided the ideal test case for any simulation of intelligence. Chess is the Drosophila of AI, it was said, with reference to the fruit-fly whose fast reproductive cycle made it into a favorite test bed for genetic theories for almost a century. In this paper I will try to show Artificial Intelligence’s relationship to games is quite different from what this analogy suggests. In fact, I will argue that AI is, at core, a theory of games and a theory of subjectivity as game-playing.
Acknowledgments Douglas Hofstadter: Foreword Stefano Franchi and Francesco Bianchini: Introductio... more Acknowledgments Douglas Hofstadter: Foreword Stefano Franchi and Francesco Bianchini: Introduction: On the Historical Dynamics of Cognitive Science: a View from the Periphery The cybernetic suburb Stefan Franchi: Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Homeostat Peter Galison: The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision Peter Asaro: Computers as Models of the Mind: On Simulations, Brains, and the Design of Computers AI's peripheries Claudio Pogliano: At the Periphery of the Rising Empire: the Case of Italy (1945-1968) Patrice Maniglier: Processing Cultures: "Structuralism" in the History of Artificial Intelligence Slava Gerovitch: Artificial Intelligence With a National Face: American and Soviet Cultural Metaphors for Thought Margins of computations Francesco Bianchini: The Cartesian-Leibnizian Turing Test Maurizio Matteuzzi: Turing Computability and Leibniz Computability Christopher M. Kelty: Logical Instruments: Regular Expressions, AI, and Thinking about Thinking At the thresholds of computability Solomon Feferman: Godel, Nagel, Minds, and Machines Rossella Lupacchini: Entangling Effective Procedures: From Logic Machines to Quantum Automata Giorgio Sandri: Turing 1948 vs. Godel 1972 Works Cited Index About the Contributors
Res Publica Revista De Historia De Las Ideas Politicas, Jan 27, 2015
The essay discusses Roberto Esposito's claim that Italian thought and the Italian tradition offer... more The essay discusses Roberto Esposito's claim that Italian thought and the Italian tradition offer philosophy a way out of the dire situation it has fallen into as a consequence of the linguistic turn it took at the beginning of the 20th century. According to Esposito, Italian thought is animated by a genealogical vocation generating political, historical, and life paradigms that may revive philosophy's universal ambitions against its current linguistic relativism. The essay discusses this claim in light of the tension between ontology and history that Esposito himself raises. It concludes that the opportunities opened up by Italy's "genealogical vocation" should be supplemented by a philosophy of history that is currently lacking from Esposito's account.
The chapter discusses Antonio Damasio’s understanding of higher-level neurological and psychologi... more The chapter discusses Antonio Damasio’s understanding of higher-level neurological and psychological functions in Self Comes to Mind (2010) and argues that the distinction he posits between regulatory (homeostatic) physiological structures and non-regulatory higher-level structures such as drives, motivations (and, ultimately, consciousness) presents philosophical and technical problems. The paper suggests that a purely regulatory understanding of drives and motivations (and, consequently, of cognition as well) as higher-order regulations could provide a unified theoretical framework capable of overcoming the old split between cognition and homeostasis that keeps resurfacing, under different guises, in the technical as well as in the non-technical understandings of consciousness and associated concepts.
Nel 1994, mentre lavoravano a una raccolta di articoli sull'interazione tra la ricerca in Int... more Nel 1994, mentre lavoravano a una raccolta di articoli sull'interazione tra la ricerca in Intelligenza Artificiale e in Cibernetica e le discipline umanistiche, Stefano Franchi e Güven Güzeldere fecero visita a Heinz von Foerster a Pescadero, in California, una piccola città sulla costa del Pacifico, a circa 40 miglia a sud di San Francisco, dove von Foerster si era stabilito dopo essere andato in pensione dall'Università dell'Illinois. C'erano diverse ragioni che ci spinsero a cercare un incontro con Heinz. Entrambi avevamo da tempo un duraturo interesse per la storia dell'intelligenza meccanizzata, e condividevamo la convinzione che la Cibernetica, in tutte le sue differenti forme, non avesse ricevuto il credito che meritava. Condividevamo anche la convinzione che uno degli aspetti più interessanti del lavoro di Heinz von Foerster fosse la sua volontà di rinunciare ai confini disciplinari e lasciare che fosse la sua ricerca a dettare i confini della sua discipl...
The paper argues that the approach to adaptation developed by W.R. Ashby in Design for a Brain an... more The paper argues that the approach to adaptation developed by W.R. Ashby in Design for a Brain and partially revived in evolutionary robotics is orthogonal to the traditional distinction between autonomy and heteronomy that underlies much recent work in cellular biology, evolutionary robotics, ALife, and general AI. Ashby's theory of adaptation claims that homeostasis is the only principle grounding sub-cognitive as well as all cognitive functions. Ashby's generalized homeostasis thesis does not fit the traditional conception of autonomy nor its converse (heteronomy). The traditional conception generates a dualism opposing human autonomous life to its non-human heteronomous counterpart. The dualism is usually overcome by claiming that human life is actually heteronomous although it does not appear so, as the "masters of suspicion" once claimed (Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche), or, conversely, by claiming that non-human life is actually fully autonomous in spite of its ...
Research in Artificial Intelligence has always had a very strong relationship with games and game... more Research in Artificial Intelligence has always had a very strong relationship with games and game-playing, and especially with chess. Workers in AI have always denied that this interest was more than purely accidental. Parlor games, they claimed, became a favorite topic of interest because they provided the ideal test case for any simulation of intelligence. Chess is the Drosophila of AI, it was said, with reference to the fruit-fly whose fast reproductive cycle made it into a favorite test bed for genetic theories for almost a century. In this paper I will try to show Artificial Intelligence’s relationship to games is quite different from what this analogy suggests. In fact, I will argue that AI is, at core, a theory of games and a theory of subjectivity as game-playing.
Acknowledgments Douglas Hofstadter: Foreword Stefano Franchi and Francesco Bianchini: Introductio... more Acknowledgments Douglas Hofstadter: Foreword Stefano Franchi and Francesco Bianchini: Introduction: On the Historical Dynamics of Cognitive Science: a View from the Periphery The cybernetic suburb Stefan Franchi: Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Homeostat Peter Galison: The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision Peter Asaro: Computers as Models of the Mind: On Simulations, Brains, and the Design of Computers AI's peripheries Claudio Pogliano: At the Periphery of the Rising Empire: the Case of Italy (1945-1968) Patrice Maniglier: Processing Cultures: "Structuralism" in the History of Artificial Intelligence Slava Gerovitch: Artificial Intelligence With a National Face: American and Soviet Cultural Metaphors for Thought Margins of computations Francesco Bianchini: The Cartesian-Leibnizian Turing Test Maurizio Matteuzzi: Turing Computability and Leibniz Computability Christopher M. Kelty: Logical Instruments: Regular Expressions, AI, and Thinking about Thinking At the thresholds of computability Solomon Feferman: Godel, Nagel, Minds, and Machines Rossella Lupacchini: Entangling Effective Procedures: From Logic Machines to Quantum Automata Giorgio Sandri: Turing 1948 vs. Godel 1972 Works Cited Index About the Contributors
Res Publica Revista De Historia De Las Ideas Politicas, Jan 27, 2015
The essay discusses Roberto Esposito's claim that Italian thought and the Italian tradition offer... more The essay discusses Roberto Esposito's claim that Italian thought and the Italian tradition offer philosophy a way out of the dire situation it has fallen into as a consequence of the linguistic turn it took at the beginning of the 20th century. According to Esposito, Italian thought is animated by a genealogical vocation generating political, historical, and life paradigms that may revive philosophy's universal ambitions against its current linguistic relativism. The essay discusses this claim in light of the tension between ontology and history that Esposito himself raises. It concludes that the opportunities opened up by Italy's "genealogical vocation" should be supplemented by a philosophy of history that is currently lacking from Esposito's account.
The chapter discusses Antonio Damasio’s understanding of higher-level neurological and psychologi... more The chapter discusses Antonio Damasio’s understanding of higher-level neurological and psychological functions in Self Comes to Mind (2010) and argues that the distinction he posits between regulatory (homeostatic) physiological structures and non-regulatory higher-level structures such as drives, motivations (and, ultimately, consciousness) presents philosophical and technical problems. The paper suggests that a purely regulatory understanding of drives and motivations (and, consequently, of cognition as well) as higher-order regulations could provide a unified theoretical framework capable of overcoming the old split between cognition and homeostasis that keeps resurfacing, under different guises, in the technical as well as in the non-technical understandings of consciousness and associated concepts.
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