Natural Computing/ Unconventional Computing and its Philosophical Significance

Other text in scientific journal, 2012

For the Turing year 2012, AISB (The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour) and IACAP (The International Association for Computing and Philosophy) merged their annual symposia/conferences to form the AISB/IACAP World Congress. The congress took place 2–6 July 2012 at the University of Birmingham, UK. The Congress was inspired by a desire to honour Alan Turing, and by the broad and deep significance of Turing's work to AI, the philosophical ramifications of computing, and philosophy and computing more generally. The Congress was one of the events forming the Alan Turing Year. The Congress consisted mainly of a number of collocated Symposia on specific research areas, together with six invited Plenary Talks. All papers other than the Plenaries were given within Symposia. This format is perfect for encouraging new dialogue and collaboration both within and between research areas. This volume forms the proceedings of one of the component symposia. We are most grateful to the organizers of the Symposium for their hard work in creating it, attracting papers, doing the necessary reviewing, defining an exciting programme for the symposium, and compiling this volume. We also thank them for their flexibility and patience concerning the complex matter of fitting all the symposia and other events into the Congress week