Evidence for a failure of the traditional understanding of neural representation converges from several fields. Neuroscientific results in the last decade have shown that single cell representations with hierarchical processing towards representing units seems not the way the cortex represents environmental entities. Instead, distributed cell ensemble coding has become a popular concept for representation, both in computational and in empirical neuroscience. However, new problems arise from the new concepts. The problem of binding the distributed parts into a uniform percept can be "solved" by introducing synchronization of the member neurons. A deeper (epistemological) problem, however, is created by recurrent architectures within ensembles generating an internal dynamics in the network. The cortical response to an environmental stimulus is no longer dominated by stimulus properties themselves, but to a considerable degree by the internal state of the network. Thus, a clear and stable reference between a representational state (e.g. in a neuron, a Hebbian ensemble, an activation state, etc.) and the environmental state becomes questionable. Already learned experiences and expectancies might have an impact on the neural activity which is as strong as the stimulus itself. Since these internally stored experiences are constantly changing, the notion of (fixed) representations is challenged. At this point, system theory and constructivism, both investigating the interaction between environment and organism at an abstract level, come into the scene and turn out to provide helpful epistemological concepts. The goal of this conference is to discuss these phenomena and their implications for the understanding of representation, semantics, language, cognitive science, and artificial life.

    Contrary to many conferences in this field, the focus is on interdisciplinary cooperation and on conceptual and epistemological questions, rather than on technical details. We are trying to achieve this by giving more room to discussion and interaction between the participants (e.g., invited comments on papers, distribution of papers to the participants before the conference, etc.). According to the interdisciplinary character of cognitive science, we welcome papers/talks from the fields of artificial life, empirical, cognitive, and computational neuroscience, philosophy (of science), epistemology, anthropology, computer science, psychology, and linguistics.

    The conference is centered around but not restricted to the following topics:

1. Representation - epistemological concepts and findings from (computational) neuroscience, cognitive science (recurrent neural architectures, top-down processing, etc.), and philosophy;
2. Alternatives to representation - applying constructivism to cognitive systems;
3. Modeling language, communication, and semantics as a dynamical, evolutionary and/or adaptive process;
4. Representation and cognition in artificial life;
5. What is the role of simulation in understanding cognition?

Notes:

The focus of a plenary discussion was not be on details, but rather on conceptual, interdisciplinary and integrative issues!

M. Peschl	Univ. of Vienna (A)
A. Riegler	Univ. of Zurich (CH)

R. Born	Univ. of Linz (A)
G. Dorffner	Univ. of Vienna (A)
E. v. Glasersfeld	Univ. of Amherst, MA (USA)
S. Harnad	Univ. of Southampton (GB)
M. Peschl	Univ. of Vienna (A)
A. Riegler	Univ. of Zurich (CH)
H. Risku	Univ. of Skovde (S)
M. Scheutz	University of Indiana (USA)
W. Singer	Max Planck Institut für Hirnforschung, Frankfurt (D)
S. Sjölander	Linköping University (S)
A. v. Stein	Neuroscience Institute, La Jolla (USA)