The following list of questions is meant to serve as a study guide and to help you with your essays and/or projects.

This is not meant as a list of possible essay topics (some of these questions are easy!) but may help you find one.

Suggestions welcome.
 
 

What is an adaptive system?

Is adaptation observer-dependent? Always? Never?

How many different meanings of adaptation can you think of?

What is a framework of normativity?

For the purpose of designing intelligent machines, should it not be sufficient to work with a task-based definition of adaptation?

Discuss the differences between law and constraint, variable and parameter, state and transformation? Are they always clear-cut distinctions?
 

What were the initial aims of cybernetics as a movement?

Can it be said to have failed?

What were its origins and what happened to it as a discipline?

Describe at least one important or influential piece of work by each of the following cyberneticians: N. Wiener, W. McCulloch, J. von Neumann, G. Bateson, G. Pask?

What are the basic components in the design of Grey Walter's tortoises?

How are their different forms of behaviour achieved?

Could you think of any additional interesting behaviours that they could achieve (maybe with some minor modifications)?

What cybenertic ideas have been `re-discovered' by work on New AI? Were these ideas ever forgotten?
 

What is a state-determined system?

Is purposeful behaviour downplayed by Ashby?

What are essential variables?

Are there any organismic variables that are non-essential?

How can ultrastability lead to adaptation?

What kind of adaptation is involved in this framework (e.g., suborganismic, organismic, evolutionary)?

Why `double feedback'?

Can you think of a framework achieving the same results with `single' feedback? Or just differently?

What happens if an essential variable goes out of bounds? Does the organism die? Should it die according to the definition? How can this problem be overcome?

Adaptation means stability? Can an ultrastable systen NOT adapt? Will it adapt to any possible disturbance?

Why did Ashby choose random step-functions as the form of parametrical change in ultrastable systems? How would you defend this choice?

Isn't time to adaptation a problem? Is it addressed in Ashby's framework?

Can we say that modern examples in behaviour-based robotics or evolutionary robotics are adaptive in Ashby's sense? In what sense if not?
 

What does autopoiesis mean?

How is the autopoietic approach different from others regarding the definition of life?

What is axiomatic in autopoietic theory? Are these axioms reasonable? Could they be dropped? To what consequence?

Explain the criteria for distinguishing autopoietic systems?

Can the idea of autopoiesis said to be teleological? And mechanistic?

How do we reconcile the all or nothing character of autopoiesis (and autonomy and adaptation) with the fact that living systems can suffer minor and major breakdowns? Is an organism autopoietic a few seconds before its death?

Can we learn anything from abstract simulation models of autopoiesis or are they giving us no new information?

Are artificial chemical autopoietic systems alive?

Why has autonomy anything to do with organisational closure?

Can a system be autonomous and not alive?

What's the relation between autonomy and identity?

Is this the kind of autonomy we would like to see in robots? What would be the consequences of that?

Does organisational closure mean no interaction with the outside? If not, what does it mean, and what kind of interactions can ocurr?

In what sense can the nervous system said to be autonomous? Isn't it part of the living organism?

What does the closure of the nervous system imply for concepts like localisation of function or internal representations? Should such concepts be abandoned?

Is autopoiesis a scientific theory? If not, is it completely worthless? If it is better described as a language or a dogma, what other languages or dogmas can you think of (especially in current biology, cognitive sciences) that would not qualify as scientific theories either?
 

Is viability all that's necessary to understand adaptation?

What is mal-adaptation? Give examples

Why is it important to enact different behaviours in order to adapt to visual distortions?

Can humans adapt to any visual distortion? If not, then which can be adapted to and why?

How is an ecological invariant formed?

How can behavioural and perceptual habits lead to an expanded theory of adaptive behaviour?

What is the relation between the development of perceptual systems and their adaptive properties?

What is visually-guided behaviour? What is the role of eyes in such behaviour?

Why is camera control essential for learning to "see" using tactile (or other) sensory-substitution devices?

Can perception of our own body be manipulated? How?

What is perception all about?

EVOLUTION

Describe in detail how Darwin's ideas of evolution by common descent and natural selection differ from other ideas prevalent before and during his time.

Why was blending inheritance problematic and Mendelian inheritance not?

What is Weismann's barrier?

Discuss how reasonable are the various assumptions of the adaptationist program and their criticisms.

What is niche construction and how could it affect the course of evolution?

What are the common themes along many of the major transitions in evolution? How can they be explained in general terms?

Is there a tendency towards more complexity in evolution? If yes, why, if not why not, if sometimes, when?

Name and discuss the  importance of non-selective factors in evolution. How can you be certain that one factor plays a more important role than others?

What is an ESS?

Briefly describe the main points of kin, group and multilevel selection?

Discuss the potentials and limitations of the many modelling tools available for studying evolution

Is the meaning of evolutionary adaptation uniform?

How do evolution and lifetime learning interact?
 

What are the similarities and differences between artificial and natural evolution?

What are the pros and cons of evolutionary computing as compared to reinforcement learning?

Can artificial evolution ever be 'open-ended'?

What are 99% of all real-life controllers like? What is the assumption made about the systems they control?

What are the ways to cope with non-linearities in control? What are their limitations?

What's adaptive control?

What are the concrete meanings of embodiment, situatedness and dynamics in a robotics context? Give examples.

What's the subsumption architecture and exactly how is it biologically-inspired? What are its predecessors?

Why evolve robots?

What's the method to build a fitness function?

When is an evolved robot a good scientific model?

What distinguishes the neurorobotic approach from other 'biologically-inspired' approaches?

What is the best level of detail at which to model the brain?  Are there any advantages to having large numbers of simulated neurons?
What are the disadvantages?

Could a 'neurorobot' ever be conscious?  Could be self-conscious?