Post:	Reader in Philosophy
Other posts:	Reader in Philosophy (COGS Research)
Location:	Pevensey 3 5C14
Email:	R.L.Chrisley@sussex.ac.uk
Telephone numbers
Internal:	8581 or 8195
UK:	(01273) 678581 or (01273) 678195
International:	+44 1273 678581 or +44 1273 678195

Biography

Director, Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS)
Director, Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programme in Cognitive Science
Director, MA in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Click here to view his homepage.

Research

• Artificial mentality, especially artificial intelligence, artificial emotion and artificial consciousness ("machine consciousness")
• Non-conceptual representation and experience (e.g., animal and infant cognition)
• Philosophy of computation
• Philosophy of mind

A significant strand in Ron's research focuses on non-conceptual content: ways of representing the world that are less objective than we usually think adult human cognition is. For example, he is interested in how animals and robots navigate through and represent space, as well as how infants represent their environment before they have the concept of object. On the philosophical side of things, this interest compels him to look for a means of talking precisely about these pre-objective representations. On the scientific side of things, he is looking to develop an appropriate computational architecture for psychological theories of pre-objective representation. There are several reasons to believe that connectionist architectures are more suited to non-conceptual analyses than are classical architectures. In the past he has developed a connectionist architecture that permits an autonomous robot to build cognitive maps of its environment. He has also investigated how this architecture might also be used as a model of both the both systematic and non-systematic aspects of human visual object representation. Ron has several other research interests, including the philosophy of computation (What is computation? Under what conditions can we say that a physical system implements a computation? To what extent must we make reference to the environment of a computational system when characterizing/explaining it?), problems in the theory of representation/content (the disjunction problem, critiques of teleosemantics, etc.), and conceptual issues surrounding the problems of consciousness.

Teaching

For 2003-2004:

• Postgraduate courses:
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • (Issues in) Philosophy of Cognitive Science 1: The Representational Theory of Mind
  • (Issues in) Philosophy of Cognitive Science 2: Mind Embodied and Embedded
  • (Issues in) Emotion and Consciousness
• Supervising 9 research students

Selected publications

2008

Painting an experience: Las Meninas, consciousness, and the aesthetic mode in Journal of Consciousness Studies Volume 15 pp. 38-43

2007

Machine Consciousness: Embodiment and Imagination (with Robert Clowes and Steve Torrance) in Journal of Consciousness Studies Volume 14 pp. 7-14

Natural Intensions in Interdisciplines.org conference: "Adaptation and Representation"

Robotic Specification of the Non-Conceptual Content of Visual Experience (with Joel Parthemore) in Proceedings of the AAAI Fall Symposium on "Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence: Theoretical foundations and current approaches"

Synthetic Phenomenology: Exploiting Embodiment to Specify the Non-Conceptual Content of Visual Experience (with Joel Parthemore) in Journal of Consciousness Studies Volume 14 pp. 44-58

2006

Consciousness as Depiction: Review of The World in my Mind, My Mind in the World: Key Mechanisms of Consciousness in People, Animals and Machines by Igor Aleksander in Trends in Cognitive Sciences Volume 10

2005

Abstract of “Two problems for Higher-Order Thought Theories of Consciousness” in Psyche Volume 11

More Things than are Dreamt of in your Biology: Information Processing in Biologically-inspired Robots (with Sloman, A) in Cognitive Systems Research Volume 6 pp. 145-174

Next-generation approaches to machine consciousness (with Robert Clowes and Steve Torrance) in Proceedings of the AISB05 Symposium on Next Generation approaches to Machine Consciousness: Imagination, Development, Intersubjectivity, and Embodiment Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour

The SEER Project: Robotic Experiments in Subsymbolic Psychology (with Anthony Morse) in Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour Quarterly pp. 3 and 8

The architectural basis of affective states and processes (with Sloman, A and Scheutz, M) Fellous, J. and Arbib, M., ed., in Who needs emotions?: The brain meets the robot Oxford: Oxford University Press pp. 203-244 ISBN 0195166191

2004

Artificial Intelligence Richard Gregory, ed., in The Oxford Companion to the Mind (second edition) Oxford: Oxford University Pres pp. 61-63 ISBN 0-19-866224-6

2003

“Embodiment” (with Tom Ziemke) in Macmillan Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science Macmillan ISBN 0-333-79261-0

Embodied artificial intelligence in Artificial Intelligence Volume 149 pp. 131-150

Virtual machines and consciousness (with Sloman, A) in Journal of Consciousness Studies Volume 10 pp. 133-172

2002

How Velmans’ conscious experiences affected our brains (with Aaron Sloman) in Journal of Consciousness Studies Volume 9 pp. 58-63

Some foundational issues concerning anticipatory systems in International Journal of Computing Anticipatory Systems Volume 11 pp. 3-18

2001

A View From Anywhere: Prospects for an Objective Understanding of Consciousness Pylkkänen, P. and Vadén, T., ed., in Dimensions of Conscious Experience (Advances in Consciousness Research 37) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing pp. 3-13 ISBN 158-8-11125-3

2000

Artificial Intelligence: Critical Concepts Routledge: Routledge ISBN 0 415 1933 11

1999

Singular Terms and Reference: Evans and ‘Julius’ Electronic Journal of Analytical Philosophy: Electronic Journal of Analytical Philosophy pp. 17 pp ISBN 1071 5800

1996

Non-conceptual Psychological Explanation: Content and Computation

1995

Why Everything Doesn’t Realize Every Computation Minds and Machines: Minds and Machines Volume 4 pp. 403 - 420 ISBN 0924 6495