Exploring Robotic Minds

Jun Tani is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

Jun Tani . . . has taken neurorobotics (and perhaps neurophilosophy) to the next level; through the creation (or perhaps tutelage) of robots that show true intentionality and can engage with us (through mimicry), much like a small child. This book is a beautifully articulated review of his work and offers some compelling conclusions about the nature of mind. It is both didactic and groundbreaking; covering the fundaments of representation and embodied cognition through to the emergence of mirror neurons and free will in synthetic brains. In brief, Tani creates a 'perfect storm' by combining three key ingredients; namely, embodiment or enactivism, dynamical systems theory and active recognition or inference.... In short, this is a carefully crafted survey of deep ideas that are substantiated by ingenious experiments in robotics and machine learning.

• Foreword by Frank E. RitterPrefacePart I On the Mind1. Where do we begin with mind?2. Cognitivism2.1 Composition and recursion in symbol systems2.2 Some cognitive models2.3 The symbol grounding problem2.4 Context2.5 Summary3. Phenomenology3.1 Direct experience3.2 The subjective mind and objective world3.3 Time perception: How can the flow of subjective experiences be objectified?3.4 Being-in-the-world3.5 Embodiment for mind3.6 Stream of consciousness and freewill3.7 Summary4. Introducing the brain and brain science4.1 Hierarchical brain mechanisms for visual recognition and action generation4.2 A new understanding of action generation and recognition in the brain4.3 How can intention arise spontaneously and be aware consciously? 4.4 Deciding between the conflicting evidence4.5 Summary5. Dynamical systems approach for embodied cognition5.1 Dynamical systems5.2 Gibsonian and Neo-Gibsonian approaches5.3 Behavior-based robotics5.4 Modeling the brain at different levels5.5 Neural network models5.6 Neurorobotics with the dynamical systems perspectives5.7 SummaryPart II Emergent minds: Findings from robotics experiments6. New proposals6.1 Robots with subjective views6.2 Engineering subjective views into neurodynamic models6.3 The subjective mind and the objective world as an inseparable entity7. Predictive learning about the world from actional consequences7.1 Development of compositionality: The symbol grounding problem7.2 Predictive dynamics and self-consciousness7.3 Summary8. Mirroring action generation and recognition with articulating sensory-motor flow 8.1 A mirror neuron model: RNNPB8.2 Embedding multiple behaviors in distributed representation8.3 Imitating others by recognizing their mental states8.4 Binding language and actions8.5 Summary9. Development of functional hierarchy for action9.1 Self-organization of functional hierarchy in multiple timescales9.2 Robotics experiments on developmental training of complex actions9.3 Summary10. Freewill for action10.1 Dynamic account of spontaneous behaviors 10.2 Freewill, consciousness, and postdiction10.3 Summary11. Conclusions11.1 Compositionality in cognitive mind11.2 Phenomenology11.3 Objective science and subjective experience11.4 Future directions11.5 Summary of the bookGlossary for abbreviationsReferencesIndex