Does a robot have an Umwelt?
| Abstract | It is argued that the notion of Umwelt is relevant for contemporary discussions within theoretical biology, biosemiotics, the study of Artificial Life, Autonomous Systems Research and philosophy of biology. Focus is put on the question of whether an artificial creature can have a phenomenal world in the sense of the Umwelt notion of Jakob von Uexküll, one of the founding figures of biosemiotics. Rather than vitalism, Uexküll's position can be interpreted as a version of qualitative organicism. A historical sketch of Autonomous Systems Research (ASR) is presented to show its theoretical roots and fruitful opposition to traditional AI style robotics. It is argued that these artificial systems are only partly 'situated' because they do not in the full sense of the word experience an Umwelt. A deeper understanding of truly situated autonomous systems as being a kind of complex selforganizing semiotic agents with emergent qualitative properties must be gained, not only from the broad field of theoretical biology, but also from the perspective of biosemiotics in the Uexküll tradition. The paper is thus an investigation of a new notion of autonomy that includes a qualitative aspect of the organism. This indicates that the Umwelt concept is not reducible to purely functional notions. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesMorten Tønnessen (2003). Umwelt Ethics. Sign Systems Studies 31 (1):281-299.
Prisca Augustyn (2009). Translating Jakob von Uexküll — Reframing Umweltlehre as Biosemiotics. Sign Systems Studies 37 (1-2):281-297.
Solomon Marcus (2001). Conway's Game of Life and the Ecosystem Represented by Uexküll's Concept of Umwelt. Sign Systems Studies 29 (1):63-69.
John Deely (2004). Semiotics and Jakob von Uexküll's Concept of Umwelt. Sign Systems Studies 32 (1-2):11-33.
Kalevi Kull, Terrence Deacon, Claus Emmeche, Jesper Hoffmeyer & Frederik Stjernfelt (2009). Theses on Biosemiotics: Prolegomena to a Theoretical Biology. Biological Theory 4 (2):167-173.
Mihhail Lotman (2002). Umwelt and Semiosphere. Sign Systems Studies 30 (1):33-39.
Claus Emmeche (1994). The Computational Notion of Life. Theoria 9 (2):1-30.
Tommi Vehkavaara (2003). Natural Self-Interest, Interactive Representation, and the Emergence of Objects and Umwelt. Sign Systems Studies 31 (2):547-586.
Torsten Rüting (2004). History and Significance of Jakob von Uexküll and of His Institute in Hamburg. Sign Systems Studies 32 (1-2):35-71.
Tobias Cheung (2004). From Protoplasm to Umwelt. Sign Systems Studies 32 (1-2):139-166.
Riin Magnus (2011). Time-Plans of the Organisms. Sign Systems Studies 39 (2-4):37-56.
Carlo Brentari (2009). Konrad Lorenz's Epistemological Criticism Towards Jakob von Uexküll. Sign Systems Studies 37 (3-4):637-659.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-12-22Total downloads14 ( #83,078 of 549,069 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,703 of 549,069 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
