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Photos: Christian Blei
The symposium was 9th in the series of Herbstakademie meetings dedicated to the topic of complex systems in psychology. In continuation of the Gstaad Herbstakademie of March 1997, we organized a thematic meeting centering on self-organization / synergetics of cognition and action. A focal point of the symposium was the discussion of the information processing view in psychology and cognitive science. The approach of symbolic information processing has resulted in incomplete solutions to fundamental problems of our understanding of cognition and action. One such problem is to understand volition and intentionality. Related problems arise from issues such as representation, constructivism and situatedness. The consequences of this discussion for psychology and cognitive science were examined. The aim of the Monte Verità symposium was to bring together representatives (as well as critics) of a dynamical systems approach to cognition from various disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, AI, philosophy and systems theory. We think that this joining of forces (and debating of different perspectives) will prove beneficial for an understanding of foundational issues and for applications to psychology.
INVITED LECTURES
Esther Thelen (developmental psychology, Indiana/USA) Richard Eiser (social psychology, Sheffield/UK) Hermann Haken (synergetics, Stuttgart/Germany) Scott Kelso (complex systems, Boca Raton/USA) Michael Mahoney (clinical psychology, Denton/USA) Richard Shiffrin (cognitive psychology, Indiana/USA) Laurent Pezard (cognitive science, Paris/France)
ORGANIZERS
Wolfgang Tschacher Psychiatry Services, University of Bern, Laupenstrasse 49, CH-3010 Bern tschacher@spk.unibe.ch
Jean-Pierre Dauwalder Department of psychology, University of Lausanne, BFSH 2, CH-1015 Lausanne Jean-Pierre.Dauwalder@ip.unil.ch
To all participants – thank you for the reflective and serene days of the Monte Verità Herbstakademie! Jean-Pierre and Wolfgang
additional Herbstakademie series organizers: E. J. Brunner (Jena), G. Schiepek (Munich)
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