Excerpt: Constructivism as a philosophical orientation has been widely accepted in mathematics and science education only since the early 1980s. As it became more broadly accepted, it also became clear that there were incongruous images of it. In 1984, Ernst von Glasersfeld introduced a distinction, echoed in Steier’s paper at this conference, between what he called “naive” constructivism and “radical” constructivism. At the risk of oversimplification, suffice it to say that naive constructivism is the acceptance that learners construct their own knowledge, while radical constructivism is the acceptance that naive constructivism applies to everyone – researchers and philosophers included. Von Glasersfeld’s distinction had a pejorative ring to it, and rightly so. Unreflective acceptance of naive constructivism easily became dogmatic ideology, which had and continues to have many unwanted consequences. On the other hand, I will attempt to make a case that to do research we must spend a good part of our time acting as naive constructivists, even when operating within a radical constructivist or ecological constructionist framework. To make clear that the orientation I have in mind is not unreflexive, I will call it “utilitarian” constructivism, and will use Steier’s and Spiro’s papers as a starting point in its explication.

An attempt is made to present an idea of morals and ethics without essentialism and without normative presuppositions. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, morals is defined as a code, or a distinction between right and wrong. Moral observation is using the moral code with a view of designating one or the other side of the code. In order to distribute the two sides, the code must be combined with a program which must be interpreted in concrete situations. As both code, program and interpretation may be contested, morals is a controversial affair. Despite classical ambitions, its validity is not universal, but local. Moral pluralism is used as point of departure for a new concept of ethics, using an extreme reduced version of the Apel-Habermasian idea of discourse ethics, but without any normative idea of rationality. Ethics has to do with shared values among parties with different moral positions. This concept of ethics may be used in organizations, which are defined as autopoietic systems with decisions as the self-created elements. Ethics may be used as a new premise for decision making in organizations and may compensate for problems which are inherent in using the normal codes of money and power. Four problem areas are dealt with: the problem of identity, the problem of blindness, the problem of non-knowledge, and the problem of control of the uncontrollable.

An attempt is made to present and organize some basic concepts from the universal systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Working in the theoretical tradition of autopoiesis and second order cybernetics the point of departure is not ontology but distinction and observation. The basic distinction is the distinction between system and environment. Concentrating on social systems the element of which are ephemeral communications Luhmann operates with concepts as self-reference, time, and paradox in constructivist systems science. As Luhmann considers modern society in functional subsystems such as economy, science and politics he presents a picture of society with no center and no important place for the individual.

Excerpt: Review of Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis, John Mingers. New York: Plenum, 1995. 246 pp. £45 (hbk). ISBN 0–306–44797–5.

The lack within AL of an agreed-upon notion of life and of a set of criteria for identifying life is considered. I propound a reflection upon the codified nature of the organization of living beings. The necessity of a guiding notion based on the coding is defended. After sketching some properties of the genetic code I proceed to consider the issue of functionalism as strategy for AL. Several distinctions ranging from plain multiple realizability to total implementation independence are made, arguing that the different claims should not be confused. The consideration of the semantic and intrinsically meaningful nature of the code leads to discuss the “symbol grounding” in AL. I suggest the principle of Semantic Closure as a candidate for confronting both problems inasmuch as it can be considered an accurate guiding notion to semantically ground Artificial Life.

This paper describes a method for a computer exploration of formation of structures based on the network of autonomous units. This method has a biological correspondence with morphogenetic processes. The interactions in the network of autonomous units are modeled by two kinds of forces: repulsive and attractive forces. When and what kind of forces are active at each unit is based on genetic information and environmental factors. Genetic information enables the use of evolutionary algorithms to evolve the interactions and thus to create new structures. Environmental factors provide the needed restrictions for the space of possible structures. Depending on what meaning is given to the units, the system is capable of simulating various kinds of emergent phenomena. For example, in the case where units are interpreted as cells, where the repulsive and attractive forces represent collision and adhesion forces, a formation of multicellular organism can be achieved.

This paper presents a novel reading of ideas on temporal binding as a key for cognitive operations by means of fast (gamma band) phase synchrony. We advocate a view of binding of widely distributed cell assemblies transiently locked in a neural hypergraph which serves as a reference point to incorporate or interpret other less coherent concurrent neural events. The paper traces in some detail the empirical evidence concerning the gamma binding process and presents some implications for the constitution of a unified cognitive-mental space. Relevance: 

Key words: Cell assemblies, cognitive operations, gamma binding, neural hypergraph, phase synchrony.