with Peter Cariani, July 2nd 2008
Various systems ranging from growing children to sophisticated robots experience the world, and, after a series of trials and errors, acquire the necessary independence to remodel themselves, giving rise to new behaviors and functions. This reveals a type of epistemological autonomy, that is, the system’s creative capacity to learn on its own and adjust itself for a better fit with the external environment.
Also watch the lectures Emergence and Cybernetics, Emergence and Aesthetics, Emergence and Chaos.
Peter Cariani is a biologist with a Ph.D. in systems science from Binghamton University, University USA. His interests include a wide variety of scientific and philosophical questions, such as cybernetics, theoretic biology, autonomous systems and neurology. He is currently an instructor at Harvard Medical School and a professor of musical cognition at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).