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  • Gerhard Schimpf
    Gerhard Schimpf    Utente Premium   Moderatore gruppo
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    German Chapter of the ACM supports ECAP10 - European Confernce on Computing an Philosophy, Munich 10/4 to 10/6/2010
    Dear all,

    The German Chapter of the ACM has decided to support the

    European Conference on Computing and Philosophy
    ECAP 10
    Technische Universität München (TUM), October 4th to 6th 2010.

    To support our ACM student members in Germany, we have sent out an invitation letter with the offer to cover the conference fee
    for the first 30 students to show up.

    If you are interested, here are more details of the conference:

    For the first time, a major international conference in Germany will address the interdisciplinary topic of philosophy, robotics and informatics, in collaboration with E-CAP, the European Association for Computing and Philosophy, and IACAP, the International Association for Computing and Philosophy. Unlike other conferences of professional associations, this conference at the interface between the humanities, the cognitive and the technical sciences will appeal to students and junior scientists in particular, in order to initiate a subject of immense future relevance for German society.

    Conception of the conference:

    Information and computer technology is well-known to be a key skill in the society, in which today's young people grow up, which shapes their thinking and their interests, regardless of whether they will end up studying technological, natural, cultural, social sciences or the humanities. Many young people acquire access to the sciences by means of information, communication and computer technologies, which they master naturally since an early age just like the classical cultural techniques of reading and writing. We write on PCs, gather information in the Internet and communicate via email or mobile phone. Even those, who try to evade computers in everyday life, entrust themselves to computer-aided supply, traffic and health care systems. In the background tasks are accomplished involving logical proofs, control, design and organization, which are carried out more or less autonomously by computer systems.

    Language and thinking, perception and sensation, interaction and communication have long been research topics in informatics, which aims at amending and transcending the traditional boundaries of man-machine systems. Robotics develops technical systems that are increasingly autonomous. In several German research clusters of excellence (funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), cognition in technical systems is examined in an interdisciplinary context by engineers and natural scientists, cognitive and neuroscientists (e.g. TU München, Universität Bielefeld). Areas of application are e.g. housekeeping and health-care robots in the aging society. After all, humanoid robots are not only a national research goal in Japan, but are constructed in German research laboratories as well (e.g. TU Karlsruhe, TU München).

    These issues concern the core business of philosophy, which has always inquired about the foundations and limits of human thinking, cognition and action. Hence, ECAP10 will primarily be devoted to the foundations and limits of these man-machine systems. Naturally, the conference topic has to be approached from an interdisciplinary perspective, since man-machine systems are developed by informatics and engineering science as well as neuroscience, cognitive and social sciences. Key technologies change not only our lives but also our self-conception. How autonomous can and should we remain, if our thoughts and actions, our perception and experience depend increasingly on technical systems? The ethical question, which abilities computers or robots should and should not have, can only be answered if we become acquainted with their basic principles.

    As a special event at ECAP10, a research laboratory for man-machine systems will be presented and used as a platform for epistemological and ethical questions. In this regard, TU München as highly suitable conference venue can offer an afternoon with the humanoid robots in the research lab of the cluster of excellence CoTeSys (Cognition in Technical Systems). It is intended to develop epistemological and action-theoretical questions on the basis of the experimental handling and the construction of technical systems. Obviously, such a concrete “bottom-up” approach not only motivates young people, but also ties in with their case- and problem-oriented approach to information, communication and computer technologies. Furthermore, in some German states experimentally and creatively experienced robotics forms part of the curricula at schools (e.g. North Rhine-Westphalia). This approach is to be used as a platform for epistemological and action-theoretical questions in cooperation with the cognitive and social sciences: What are e.g. perception, sensation, cognition, decision, action and consciousness in human beings and/or in man-machine systems? Which differences and which similarities exist? How can the intended usage be judged ethically?

    The life sciences also offer a lab-oriented and experimental approach to computing. A necessary condition for the deciphering of the building blocks of life was the availability of automated DNA sequencing machines, which are widely available in laboratories today given the increasing computer powers (e.g. supercomputing). All these approaches share a reductionist paradigm in the investigation of nature: the biological system is split up into smaller subsystems, whose parts are then described as accurately as possible. This generates an information overload concerning single components like for example the features of a cell or of an organism. The complexity of this vast amount of data constitutes an enormous challenge to systems research, which deals with the interrelations between a cell and an organism. This paradigm change will succeed only, if disciplines like biology, mathematics, informatics and system science collaborate on an interdisciplinary basis. Also, a close interaction emerges between experimental data acquisition and computer-aided modeling and simulation. Bioinformatics integrates various biological data, stores them in databases and makes them available for modeling purposes. Finally, there are the long-term objectives of a virtualization of nature with 'transparent' cells, organs and organisms for medicine and technology.

    For the epistemological and system-theoretical questions of in silico-, in vitro-, and in vivo-experiments, which are raised in this context, their bioethical assessment and the related social perspectives, the venue in Munich offers an excellent platform owing to the research centers of Weihenstephan (TU München) and Martinsried (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität). Again it is noteworthy, that the appeal to young people of topics like systems biology and bioinformatics is closely linked with their mastery of 'culture techniques' in information, communication and computer technology.

    It becomes increasingly clear, that nowadays our image of nature emerges by and large with the help of computers—in silico, in vitro, and in vivo! Our image of the universe emerges in the computer as well: cosmologists record pictures of an early stage of the universe by registering weak light signals with sensitive space probes and processing them to yield colorful computer images. In the microcosm, elementary particle physicists decipher the smallest building blocks of nature with supercomputers, that are interconnected in large clusters. The World Wide Web was invented at CERN, the European high energy research center in Geneva, to ... (nicht ganz korrekt, exchange research results.)

    Mankind's image of nature has always depended on the methods of observation that were available at a time. Sense organs as observation instruments provide humans with perspectives of nature that differ from other organisms. Up to the Renaissance, observation of nature was based only on sense organs. In modern science, telescopes and microscopes have come to play a crucial role. Today, the precision and resolution of images depends on the computational power of computers. The informatization of nature and society constitutes an epistemological and ethical challenge to philosophy.


    The central topics of ECAP10 will be addressed by 5 internationally renowned keynote speakers:

    Manfred Broy (Lehrstuhl für Informatik/TU München, Leibniz-Preis, Konrad Zuse-Award):
    „Logic, Modelling, and Computation“

    Rolf Pfeifer(Labor für Künstliche Intelligenz, Universität Zürich):
    „Robotics, Embodied Intelligence, and Philosophy“

    Jordi Vallverdú (Department for Philosophy of Science and Computing, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ):
    „Affective Computing, Ambient Emotion, and Philosophy“

    Hans V. Westerhoff (Department of Molecular Cell Physiology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam):
    „Biocomputing, Systems Biology, and Philosophy“

    Arndt Bode (Direktor des Leibniz-Rechenzentrums, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften):
    „Supercomputing and Complexity“


    Program Committee:
    Klaus Mainzer, Lehrstuhl für Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, Carl von Linde Akademie, TU München (Program Chair)

    Ralf Baumeister, Lehrstuhl für Bioinformatik, Direktor des Zentrums für Biosystemanalyse (ZBSA), Universität Freiburg i.B.

    Eric Bourreau, Laboratoire d’Informatique Robotique Microélectronique (LIRMM) de l’Université Montpellier 2 et du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Frankreich

    Philip Brey, Department for Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Science, University of Twente, Niederlande

    Martin Buss, Lehrstuhl für Steuerungs- und Regelungstechnik, Koordinator des Exzellenzclusters CoTeSys (Cognition in Technical Systems), TU München

    Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Department of Philosophy, Mälardalen University, Schweden

    Luciano Floridi, Department for Philosophy of Information, Oxford University, UK

    Ruth Hagengruber, Lehrstuhl für Philosophie, Universität Paderborn

    Christoph von der Malsburg, Lehrstuhl für Neuroinformatik, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study
    (FIAS), Frankfurt a.M.

    Thomas Roth-Berghofer, German Research Center for AI DFKI, Kaiserslautern

    Luc Steels, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Free University of Brussels, Belgien und Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris 5

    Jordi Vallverdú, Department for Philosophy of Science and Computing, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spanien

    Walter Zimmerli, Präsident der Technischen Universität Cottbus

    Contributed papers (Call for Papers) are presented in 10 Tracks after being evaluated and coordinated by the Track Chairs:

    I. Philosophy of Computer Science

    Track Chair: Raymond Turner (University of Essex)

    II. Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

    Track Chair: Thomas Roth-Berghofer (DFKI)

    III. Robotics and Cognitive Systems

    Track Chair: Eric Bourreau (CNRS)

    IV. Affective Computing and Ambient Emotions

    Track Chair: Jordi Vallverdú (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

    V. Neurocomputing and Cognitive Systems

    Track Chair: Günther Palm (Universität Ulm)

    VI. Biocomputing, Systems Biology and Complex Systems

    Track Chair: Hans V. Westerhoff (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam)

    VII. Computational Mind:

    Track Chair: Ruth Hagengruber (Universität Paderborn)

    VIII. Information Ethics, Roboethics, and Philosophy of Mind

    Track Chair: Holm Tetens (FU Berlin)

    IX. Computing Technology and Information Society

    Track Chair: Klaus Kornwachs (TU Cottbus)

    X. Computing and Cultural Diversity

    Track Chair: Jutta Weber (TU Braunschweig/Universität Uppsala) and Doris Allhuter (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
    Questo contributo è stato modificato in data 08/05/2010 alle ore 20:43.
    • 08/05/2010, 15:34