BICS 2010: Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems Conference

Madrid, Spain, July 14-16, 2010
www.bicsconference.org  
Ricardo Sanz, General Chair
Sponsored by ICSC

[Due to several requests, the submission deadline for BICS 2010 has been extended to: January 18, 2010] 

BICS 2010 is a multitrack conference organised around four strongly related symposia (NC 2010, BIS 2010, CNS 2010 and MoC 2010). The three previous BICS conferences were BICS 2008 (Sao Luis, Brasil), BICS 2006 (Lesbos, Greece) and BICS 2004 (Stirling, UK).

Conference Symposia

- Sixth International ICSC Symposium on Neural Computation (NC 2010) Fifth International ICSC
- Symposium on Biologically Inspired Systems (BIS 2010).
- Fourth International ICSC Symposium on Cognitive Neuroscience (CNS 2010).
- Third International ICSC Symposium on Models of Consciousness (MoC 2010).

Motivation

Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems - BICS 2010 aims to bring together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic and synthetic methods both to understand the astonishing processing properties of biological systems and, specifically those of the living brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance engineering methods for building artificial systems with higher levels of cognitive competence.

BICS 2010 is a meeting point of cognitive systems engineers and brain scientists where cross-domain ideas are fostered in the hope of getting new emerging insights on the nature, operation and extractable capabilities of brains. This multiple approach is necessary because the progressively more accurate data about brains is producing a growing need of both a quantitative and theoretical understanding and an associated capacity to manipulate this data and translate it into engineering applications rooted in sound theories.

BICS 2010 is intended for both researchers that aim to build brain inspired systems with higher cognitive competences, and as well to life scientists who use and develop mathematical and engineering approaches for a better understanding of complex biological systems like the brain.

BICS 2010 is organized around four major interlaced focal symposia that are organized into patterns that encourage cross-fertilization across the symposia topics. This emphasizes the role of BICS as a major meeting point for researchers and practitioners in the areas of biological and artificial cognitive systems. Debates across disciplines will enrich researchers with complementary perspectives from diverse scientific fields.

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First Issue of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness Available

The first issue of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness is available online (Vol. 1. Issue 1. June 2009)! This new journal, exclusively dedicated to the field of Machine Consciousness (aka Artificial Consciousness), has started its publication with an outstanding collection of papers from the leading MC researchers in the world.

This very first issue of IJMC includes papers from Igor Aleksander, John G. Taylor, Bernard J. Baars, Stan Franklin, Antonio Chella, Riccardo Manzotti, Ron Chrisley, Anil Seth, Carlos Hernández, Ignacio López, Ricardo Sanz, Sidney D’Mello, Uma Ramamurthy, Alexei V. Samsonovich, Kenneth A. De Jong, Anastasia Kitsantas, Eva Hudlicka, and Piotr Boltuc. See below for the complete table of contents.

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Damasio Consciousness Model

According to Damasio, a thing achieves self-awareness when its brain models its body, the outside world, and their interactions. At this point, the thing is self-aware, but only from moment to moment. It is not a very interesting creature. If its brain also remembers the past, then the thing is aware of itself as something which has a life history. Now, if this individual is here today, then aeons ago its species has learned to have innate regulations for survival, such as to fear danger and crave food. Armed with emotions such as these, this self-aware thing-with-life-history becomes motivated because it seeks joy, avoids pain, fears death. It becomes lively.

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Knowledge, Understanding and Consciousness

12 October 2009, St. Louis, MO, USA
Workshop on Machine Consciousness within the KIMAS'09 Conference

There is an increasing interest in investigating the possibility of equipping machines with consciousness mechanisms. The rationale behind it may be just a further attempt to mimic biological minds but can be also a search for better performing architectures for machines. Whatever the reason one of the main problem is the still evolving understanding of biological consciousness.

The scientific study of consciousness has already provided some plausible models of this elusive phenomena. In some cases the postulated models stress its evolutionary functional value. This has led to an increasing interest from engineering, represented in the emergent community of machine consciousness, in the implementation of this functionality in machines, so as to provide them with enhanced cognitive capabilities for improved performance. However, a deeper theoretical comprehensive theory is needed in order to properly transfer the biologically inspired architectures into robust, functional implementations. 

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No MRDS Simulation Competition at RoboCup 2009

Although Microsoft is still supporting RoboCup as sponsor, partnership with RoboCup has been relocated from Robotics Developer Studio team to Microsoft Research – Human-Robot Interaction.

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Mind that Abides. Panpsychism in the new millennium

Edited by David Skrbina. University of Michigan at Dearborn
Advances in Consciousness Research, 75
Benjamins Publishing Company.
2009. xiv, 401 pp. John.

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