Inman Harvey, with an academic background in mathematics, philosophy and social anthropology, was a founding member of the Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems (EASy) group at the University of Sussex. His interests include evolutionary robotics, artificial life, a dynamical systems perspective on cognitive science, and Gaia theory.
Harvey I. (2008) Misrepresentations. In: Bullock S., Noble J., Watson R. & Bedau M. (eds.) Artificial life XI: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the simulation and synthesis of living systems. MIT Press, Cambridge MA: 227–233.
Open peer commentary on the article “Homeostats for the 21st Century? Simulating Ashby Simulating the Brain” by Stefano Franchi. Upshot: It is a mistake to characterise Ashby’s view of life (from the 1950s) as passive, abstractly modelled in part by the homeostat; one should distinguish the stasis of homeostasis from the activity of the (model) organism. Likewise mistaken is the accusation of contingency; one should distinguish the purposeless mechanism from the purposeful (model) organism. There is no basic conflict between Ashby’s view and later developments in a similar tradition; technical advances are not the same as foundational gaps.
Harvey I. (2017) Going round in circles. In: Knibbe C., Beslon G., Parsons D., Misevic D., Rouzaud-Cornabas J., Bredèche N., Hassas S., Simonin O. & Soula H. (eds.) Proceedings of ECAL 2017. The MIT Press, Cambridge MA: 198–199. https://cepa.info/5430
Life and cognition are inherently circular dynamical processes, and people have difficulty understanding circular causation. We give case studies illustrating some resulting confusions, and propose that the problems may lie in failing to properly distinguish between similar concepts used in different levels of description of a system, typically local and global levels.
Harvey I. (2018) Misunderstood Circular Causation: “Who Implements Autonomy?” and “What Stabilises the Daisies?”. Constructivist Foundations 13(3): 374–376. https://cepa.info/5304
Open peer commentary on the article “What Is a Cognizing Subject? Construction, Autonomy and Original Causation” by Niall Palfreyman & Janice Miller-Young. Upshot: When a phenomenon, or a concept such as autonomy, is the outcome of circular causality then analysis in terms of linear causation is a recipe for misunderstanding. The Daisyworld parable as used here is an ideal testbed to illustrate such resulting confusions.
Harvey I. (2019) Circular causation, circular cognition: A tour around some common confusions. Artificial Life 25(4): 334–351.
Life and cognition are inherently circular dynamical processes, and people have difficulty understanding circular causation. I give case studies illustrating some resulting confusions, and propose that the problems may lie in failing to properly distinguish between similar concepts used to describe both local and global features of a system. I analyze how explanations in terms of circular causation work and how they rely on principles of normal settlement. Even though they typically will not explain the origins of phenomena (that is the province of linear causal explanation), circular explanations have predictive power for any persisting (i.e., stable or metastable) phenomena.
Though my motives may differ somewhat, I agree with the target article Villalobos and Razeto-Barry, (VR; 2019) in rejecting the tentative claims of Virgo, Egbert and Froese, (VEF; 2011) and others that the relevant boundaries for autopoietic systems may extend beyond their physical boundary. I appeal to a habeas corpus principle: the boundary that matters is that which allows an individuated self-maintaining entity to survive transfer from one environment to another.
Making sense of the world around us is likened to the task of staying afloat on a stormy sea while rebuilding our craft of ideas and concepts as we go. This metaphor is pursued through successive stages of cognitive development, and more sophisticated appreciation of multiple perspectives; from pre-theoretical to folk science to the theoretical, from individual to social to inter-subjective agreement. This inescapably generates reflections on the relationships between embodied and situated Life and Cognition.
Making sense of the world around us is likened to the task of staying afloat on a stormy sea while rebuilding our craft of ideas and concepts as we go. This metaphor is pursued through successive stages of cognitive development, and more sophisticated appreciation of multiple perspectives; from pre-theoretical to folk science to the theoretical, from individual to social to inter-subjective agreement. This inescapably generates reflections on the relationships between embodied and situated Life and Cognition.
Izquierdo E. & Harvey I. (2007) The dynamics of associative learning in an evolved situated agent. In: al A. C. F. (ed.) ECAL 2007: Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Artificial Life. Springer, Berlin: 365–374.