Snip!t from collection of Alan Dix

<td>&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top"><br><br>The notion of representation plays a central role in philosophy, biology, ethology, linguistics and neuroscience. However, despite its importance, it still has not received an entirely satisfactory definition. <p> One crucial question is whether it can be given a biological basis, or, in more philosophical terms, whether it can be naturalized. </p><ul> <li>If there are innate representations, are they adaptations, i.e., are they optimal relative to the environmental pressures, which are supposed to have triggered them?</li> <p> </p><li>If, as seems possible, the notion of adaptation should be modified, what would the consequences be for an adaptation-based notion of representation?</li> <p> </p><li>If one adopts an externalist view of adaptation in as much as representational systems are optimal responses to external (environmental) pressures, does that automatically leads to an externalist semantic view according to which the content of a representation is determined by the external object being represented?</li> </ul> <p> Given all these queries, it is high time to synthesize the point of view of biologists and their work on the notion of adaptation with the considerations of the scientists who work on the evolved knowing systems. It is at least relevant if not necessary to redefine the notions of 'evolving' system and 'cognitive' system. </p><p> It is the goal of the present web conference to engage these pressing questions and to bring together the points of views of theoretical biologists and philosophers on the notion of adaptation and of the scientists which use it in everyday practice to formulate experimental protocols, which, hopefully, will lead to explanations of animat or animal behavior. </p></td>