Life, Mind, and Robots : The Ins and Outs of Embodied Cognition

• Many believe that the major problem facing traditional arti-ficial intelligence (and the functional theory of mind) is how to connect intelligence to the outside world. Some turned to robotic functionalism and a hybrid response, that attempts to rescue symbolic functionalism by grounding the symbol system with a connectionist hook to the world. Others turned to an alternative approach, embodied cognition, that emer-ged from an older tradition in biology, ethology, and behavioural model-ling. Both approaches are contrasted here before a detailed exploration of embodiment is conducted. In particular we ask whether strong embo-diment is possible for robotics, i.e. are robot\minds" similar to animal minds, or is the role of robotics to provide a tool for scientific explora-tion, a weak embodiment? We define two types of embodiment, Loebian and Uexkullian, that express two different views of the relation between body, mind and behaviour. It is argued that strong embodiment, either Loebian or Uexkullian, is not possible for present day robotics. However, weak embodiment is still a useful way forward. © 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Artificial intelligence

Biology

Behavioural modelling

Embodied cognition

Functional theory

Scientific exploration

Symbol systems

Robotics

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)