On this page you will find a selection of events related to the research project 'The Origins of Goal-directedness'. We regularly organize events to exchange ideas and deepen our insights. If you want to further explore the origin and evolution of goal-directedness, we recommend first reading our research story before diving into our list of publications. We are also building a lexicon to explain the concepts we use. If you have a research question or an interest to collaborate, you are mostly welcome to contact our research team at clea@vub.be.
International ArtScience Symposium
SYSTEMS AT PLAY #2 :
A SELF-ORGANISING
SYMPOSIUM ON
SELF-ORGANISATION
& PLAY
Brussels, June 2023
Harnessing both play and self-organisation, the first "Systems At Play" symposium in February was successful in generating many new collaborations, community and momentum. It can be said to have truly emerged into a living demonstration of the autopoiesis, and the origins of goal directedness. So much so that a new self-organising symposium emerged just 4 months later, brought together by many of the initial participants as well as new ones.
For more information, please visit the "Systems At Play #2" event page.
International ArtScience Symposium
SYSTEMS AT PLAY:
A SELF-ORGANISING
SYMPOSIUM ON
SELF-ORGANISATION
Brussels, February 2023
The Center Leo Apostel for Transdisciplinary Studies (CLEA) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), has organised its first international artscience symposium: ‘Systems At Play: The Self-Organising Symposium on Self-Organisation’ in Brussels on February 15 until 18, 2023.The symposium started from the idea that art and science are mutually beneficial means of perception and insight creation. It thus provided a transdisciplinary contact zone for artists and scientists to meet, exchange, think, share, take time, and, ultimately, play together. Our starting points were the ideas of ‘emergence’, ‘self-organisation’, and ‘goal-directedness’. More specifically, participating artists and scientists were invited to collectively tackle creative challenges in an embodied way. We have fed and facilitated this process with presentations, conversations, workshops and live games during the day, and performances, talks and film screenings during the evening. Rather than simply organise a symposium simply about self-organisation, we have attempted to organise a self-organising symposium on self-organisation, one that determined its own final goals through all our interactions together. The symposium has become a shared research object, as well as a strange loop in which topic and method merged and multiplied.
For more information, please look here.
Seminars 2022/23
HIGHLIGHTS
Below is a selection of CLEA seminars related to the Origins of Goal-directedness. The full list of 'Science of Purpose' seminars organised by CLEA in 2022/23 can be found here.
Emergence and Self Organization by Prof. Francis Heylighen (UM6P Science Week 2023 Complexity Summit). See video. Drawing header above by Sophie Lenormand.
Origins of Goal-directedness by Prof. Francis Heylighen (Alife 22 conference). See video.
Relational Agency by Prof. Francis Heylighen (CLEA Fridays). See video or summary text.
How Goals Emerge by Dr. Evo Busseniers (Alife 22 conference). See video.
Distributed Chemical Organizations: Theory and Examples by Dr. Stephan Peter (Granada Workshop 2022). See video.
Introduction to Chemical Organization Theory by Dr. Tomas Veloz (Granada Workshop 2022). See video.
Can we hear self-organization? by Dr. Tomas Veloz (Series COT and music). See video.
Modeling Biological Autonomy by Prof. Matteo Mossio (CLEA Fridays). See video or summary text.
Self-Causation, Evolutionary Hierarchies, and Time by Prof. Nathalie Gontier (CLEA Fridays). See video or summary text.
How to change autonomously by Evo Busseniers (CLEA Fridays). See video or summary text.
ALIFE22 conference
ORIGINS OF
GOAL-DIRECTEDNESS
WORKSHOP SESSIONS
Trento, July 2022
This workshop was streamed live from CLEA to the Artifical Life conference 'ALIFE22' in Trento, Italy (18-22 July 2022). The workshop was based on the project "The Origins of Goal-directedness", which aims at developing a scenario for the self-organization of goal-directed systems out of networks of (chemical) reactions applying the Chemical Organization Theory (COT).
Francis Heylighen gave an introductory talk on the 'problem' of goal-directedness. Peter Dittrich talked about contingent mappings and molecular codes as footprints of goal-directedness. Tomas Veloz explained how you can represent goal-directedness using reaction networks. How goals can emerge and change, was highlighted by Evo Busseniers. Olaf Witkowski talked about intelligence as it could be: exploring artificial controllability, perception spaces, and care light cones. Daniela Flores closed the workshop with a talk on the origin of the form, patterns and homology. She reflected on what goals are in vertebrate evolution and embryology.
For more information, please look here.
Workshop University of Granada
FROM ORGANIZATIONS TO
GOAL-DIRECTEDNESS:
SYSTEMIC AND
INTER-DISCIPLINARY
MODELING
Granada, February 2022
During this three-day workshop we covered recent developments of conceptual and philosophical frameworks, mathematical models, and applied cases of phenomena where the reductionist paradigm fails due to the systemic nature of the object of study. We have put particular focus on the goals of such objects. Of special interest were interdisciplinary phenomena with several entities and complex contextual interactions, such as ecological systems, human-environment relations, socio-technological adaptations, and creativity-able systems.
For more information, please look here.
ArtScience research
COT x MUSIC SEMINARS
The COT x Music seminars are part of the research and dissemination activities of the project "The Origins of Goal-directedness'. The basic idea of this project is to use Chemical Organization Theory (COT) to explain how systems of reactions self-organize so as to become autopoietic (self-maintaining) and goal-directed.
To complement the mathematical/ computer models we use in this project, we also explore potential ArtScience implementations of our ideas. We are particularly interested in musical renderings of processes of self-organization. The COT x Music seminar cycle thus wants to discuss the relations between COT and related topics in systems biology and artificial life, and Generative Music (which is music created by algorithmic structures), and other forms of generative and adaptive art.
For more information, please look here.