EECS Publication
Making Meaning in Computers
Bruce MacLennan
Synthetic ethology was developed as a methodology for constructing experiments in which artificial agents could exhibit real (i.e., not simulated) intentionality and other mental phenomena. This report has two purposes. The first is to review the motivations for synthetic ethology as an experimental methodology and to explain how it can be used to investigate intentionality and meaning, and the mechanisms from which they emerge, with an especial emphasis on communication and language. The second purpose is to reconsider these issues with the hindsight of fifteen years, and discuss new approaches to the use of synthetic worlds in the scientific investigation of problems in epistemology and cognitive science.
Published 2005-04-01 05:00:00 as ut-cs-05-549 (ID:151)