We’re gearing up for our final event of 2020, and we’ve got a fantastic line-up of speakers: Pamela Lyon, Michael Levin, Matthew Egbert, Matthew Sims, Randall Beer and Ximena Nelson. We’ll run the gamut of agency & intelligence from simple simulations to single cells to saltating spiders (!) Please join us! More information below.
AIMS 3: Learning and Preferences – August 27th
The Agency and Intelligence on Multiple Scales (AIMS) project at the University of Wollongong is hosting a virtual workshop via Zoom from 11am-1pm (AEST) on Thursday, August 27th, with talks from David Spurrett and Yee Lian Chew. Attendance is free and open to all. AIMS Workshop: Learning and Preferences Thursday, August 27th, 2020 11am-1pm AEST Virtual Conference via Zoom link Read More…
Lab News: May & June
With everything that has been going on in the world, we’ve fallen pretty far behind in posting the latest news from the lab. We had two students, Anco Peeters and Nick Brancazio, receive their PhDs in late May. Anco has moved to Germany, where he is now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Read More…
AIMS 1: Agency with a non-human face
We managed to launch the AIMS project last week, just before concerns over COVID-19 shut down almost all face-to-face activities at UOW for the near future. Pamela Lyon and Carrie Figdor were fantastic keynotes to kick things off for the project, and we had a strong turn-out from UOW and USyd. We all Read More…
Synthese Special Issue: Multiscale Modeling and Active Materials
We are now accepting submissions for our special issue of Synthese on Multiscale Modeling and Active Materials, edited by Patrick McGivern and Nick Brancazio. Active materials are non-equilibrium systems that pose interesting challenges for modeling in materials science. The study of active materials can inform ongoing philosophical debates as well as raising many new issues Read More…
Brancazio & McGivern presenting at ECOGS 2020!
Nick & Patrick will be presenting a paper on Multi-Scale Agency at next month’s International Conference on Embodied Cognitive Science at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Tom Froese and colleagues have put together an awesome line-up of speakers and we’re super-excited to be involved and do our part for “the Copernican revolution in Read More…
Multi-Scale Agency project starts today!
Today is Day 1 of our new “Intelligent Agency on Multiple Scales” project! This is funded under the Templeton World Charity Foundation’s Diverse Intelligences scheme, and the project will examine ways in which concepts of agency depend on scale. For the next two years, we’ll be examining the different roles that agency plays in explaining Read More…
Agency and Intelligence on Multiple Scales (AIMS) Project: Inaugural Research Workshop
We are excited to announce the Agency and Intelligence on Multiple Scales (AIMS) project, led by Patrick McGivern at the University of Wollongong. This is a two-year project investigating concepts of agency and intelligent action across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, from sub-cellular and single-cellular processes to the actions of large-scale collectives. AIMS is Read More…
Active materials: minimal models of cognition?
New paper by Patrick McGivern: “Active materials: minimal models of cognition?” This is the final advance publication from the upcoming special issue of Adaptive Behavior, Approaching Minimal Cognition, edited by Nick Brancazio, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, and Patrick McGivern. Abstract: Work on minimal cognition raises a variety of questions concerning the boundaries of cognition. Many discussions of minimal Read More…
3 PhD student thesis submissions in 3 weeks!
McGivern Lab is proud to announce that three of our PhD students have submitted their theses in the last three weeks! Nick Brancazio submitted her thesis “Having Gender in Mind” in November 2019. She’ll be staying at UOW to work on the Agency and Intelligence in Minimal Systems (AIMS) Project. This project builds on the Read More…