Epistemic Autonomy in Models of Living Systems

Abstract

This paper 1 discusses ontological implications of embodied AI for Artificial Life models. The importance of robotic systems for ALife lies in the fact that they are not purely formal models and thus have to address issues of semantic adaptation and epistemic autonomy, which means the system's own ability to decide upon the validity of measurements. Epistemic autonomy in artificial systems is a difficult problem that poses foundational questions. The proposal is to concentrate on biological transformations of epistemological questions that have lead to the development of modern ethology. Such a view suggests to take a Heideggerian stance and leads to a reformulation of modern ontological conceptions by means of a clear and scientific notion of finality and anticipation. The argument is to take this ontological position as a framework within which ALife models should be developed. Key words: epistemic autonomy, embodied AI, epistemology, robotics, theoretical biology, finality, teleo...