Members of the ISHPSSB community are warmly invited to submit to the
following conference.


Artificial Life XI


The Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of
Living Systems

5th - 8th August 2008, Winchester, UK


http://www.alifexi.org/


Artificial life investigates the fundamental properties of living
systems through simulating and synthesizing biological entities and
processes in artificial media. The latest conference in the Artificial
Life series, ALifeXI, takes place this summer, in Winchester, UK; see
http://www.alifexi.org

 
A general call for participation follows, but some points of note are: 


*       The conference has some great keynote speakers: Stuart Kauffman,
Eva Jablonka, Peter Schuster, Takashi Ikegami and Andrew Ellington, see
http://www.alifexi.org/keynotes/

*       It allows for abstract as well as full paper submission, but
with no distinction in presentation time at the conference (details
below).  

*       The organisers are committed to keeping the costs of
registration and accommodation as low as possible. Details will be
available shortly at http://www.alifexi.org/registration/

*       The event will perhaps be especially beneficial to PhD students
who would benefit from exposure to a wider range of biological ideas. 

*       A themed session on Philosophical Issues is scheduled (details
below). 


OVERVIEW

Artificial life investigates the fundamental properties of living
systems through simulating and synthesizing biological entities and
processes in artificial media.  Summer 2008 will see the international
ALife conference hosted by the University of Southampton, UK, bringing
the meeting to Europe for the first time in its 21-year history.  Over
the last two decades, some of the highly speculative ideas that were
discussed at the field's inception have matured to the extent that new
conferences and journals devoted to them are being established:
synthesising artificial cells, simulating massive biological networks,
exploiting biological substrates for computation and control, and
deploying bio-inspired engineering are all now cutting-edge practice.
The ALIFE XI conference provides an opportunity for those working across
these topics to get together and exchange ideas and results.  To this
end, the conference will present a selection of the best current work in
the field, highlight new directions for investigation, and present
high-profile keynote speakers. 
 

Papers are welcome in all areas of the field, including:


*       Synthesis and origin of life, self-organization,
self-replication, artificial chemistries 

*       Evolution and adaptation, evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary
games, coevolution, major evolutionary transitions, levels of selection,
ecosystems 

*       Development, differentiation, and regulation; generative
representations

*       Synthetic biology 

*       Self-organizing technology, self-* computing and computational
ecosystems

*       Unconventional and biologically inspired computing

*       Bio-inspired robots and embodied cognition, autonomous agents,
evolutionary robotics 

*       Collective behavior, communication, cooperation 

*       Artificial consciousness; the relationship between life and mind

*       Philosophical, ethical, and cultural implications

*       Mathematical and philosophical foundations of ALife, new and
creative syntheses

 

Several artificial life themes have been proposed as live research
topics around which conference sessions may organise.  See
http://www.alifexi.org/themes/ for full details. Some members of the
ISHPSSB community will perhaps be particularly interested in the
Philosophical Issues theme, description as follows:

 

Since its inception the field of ALife has actively engaged with the
philosophical dimensions and implications of its subject matter. This
session will be the platform for a state-of-the-art examination of
certain key conceptual and methodological questions that focus this
important aspect of ALife research. Such questions include (but are not
limited to): What is life? What is biological autonomy, and how is it
important to our understanding of living or life-like systems? What is
emergence, and how is it important to our understanding of living or
life-like systems? What role does the concept of information play in our
understanding of living or like-like systems? How are we to
conceptualize the relationship between evolution and development? Are
ALife systems (or some specified sub-class of them) simulations of life,
models of life, realizations of life, or is there some other relation to
be specified and explored? What is the relationship between life and
cognition? In addition to exploring some of these questions, the session
(or sessions) will endeavour to break new ground for the field, by
proactively encouraging submissions from more mainstream philosophers of
biology, thus bringing ALife into productive contact with a community
that has overlapping concerns.

 

The proposer of the Philosophical Issues themed session is Mike Wheeler.
If you would like to discuss a potential submission to this session,
please contact him (m.w.wheeler@stir.ac.uk).    

 

LOCATION

The conference will be held in Winchester, a beautiful historic city in
southern England known for its 11th-century cathedral and 12th-century
castle.  Winchester is set in forested countryside about an hour
southwest of London and Heathrow airport, and a few miles from the host
institution, the University of Southampton. 

 

PAPER/ABSTRACT FORMAT

There are two options for submission: either full paper format or
abstract format.  Full papers have an 8 page maximum length, while
abstracts are limited to 500 words.  Every submission will be subject to
full peer review.  All accepted submissions will be allocated an oral
presentation slot with no distinction being made between the two
submission formats.  All formatting guidelines (including word and latex
style files) and submission instructions will soon be available on the
conference submission page.

 

PUBLICATION

Every accepted full-paper and abstract submission will be published by
MIT Press in a single online open-access proceedings volume.  The best
15-20 papers will have the opportunity to be published in special issues
of the MIT Press journal Artificial Life.

 

IMPORTANT DATES

-          29 February 2008: Full paper submission deadline

-          18 April 2008: Notice of acceptance for full papers

-          25 April 2008: Abstract submission deadline

-          9 May 2008: Camera ready deadline

-          5-8 August 2008: Conference dates

 

ORGANIZATION

Seth Bullock (chair), Jason Noble, Richard Watson, Mark Bedau

 

HOST INSTITUTION

School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton,
UK

 

CONTACT

For further information about the conference program, travel,
accommodation, and local arrangements, please see http://www.alifexi.org
For questions about the submission and reviewing
process, please email submissions@alifexi.org. For all other questions,
contact questions@alifexi.org

Back to ISHPSSB Listserv on the Web