DISI
18 Jan 2025 - 08 Jul 2026
- Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
- Home - DISI this is a regular gathering, lots of WS people involved including Jacob Foster, Michael Garfield
- Ah maybe Templeton funded? Diverse Intelligences | Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
- OK describe to me the current research topics of DISI and where I might fit in. Ask ClaudeAsk Claude
- Based on the DISI website and Templeton World Charity Foundation's Diverse Intelligences priority area, here's what I can tell you:
Core Research Focus Areas
- DISI's main intellectual territory:
- Non-human intelligence (animal cognition, collective intelligence, microbial/plant cognition)
- Artificial/synthetic intelligence
- The philosophy and science of mind beyond anthropocentric frameworks
- What counts as agency, cognition, learning across radically different substrates
- Templeton's framing emphasizes "expanding the science of mind" - pushing boundaries of what intelligence is, not just how it works in humans/mammals
Where "Agential Refactoring" Might Fit
- Your interest in agential refactoring - essentially reconceptualizing what counts as an agent, and how agent-boundaries are drawn - sits naturally in:
- Minimal cognition debates (Barandiaran, Di Paolo tradition)
- Markov blanket formalisms for individuating agents
- Scale-free accounts of agency (active inference crowd)
- The evolution of agency question
Honest Assessment of Your Fit
- You'd need to show connection to empirical programs, not just conceptual work. DISI skews toward researchers with:
- Specific non-human systems they study
- Formal modeling capacity
- What's your actual angle on agential refactoring? That would help me be more specific.
- Based on the DISI website and Templeton World Charity Foundation's Diverse Intelligences priority area, here's what I can tell you:
Core Research Focus Areas
- DISI's main intellectual territory:
- Non-human intelligence (animal cognition, collective intelligence, microbial/plant cognition)
- Artificial/synthetic intelligence
- The philosophy and science of mind beyond anthropocentric frameworks
- What counts as agency, cognition, learning across radically different substrates
- Templeton's framing emphasizes "expanding the science of mind" - pushing boundaries of what intelligence is, not just how it works in humans/mammals
Where "Agential Refactoring" Might Fit
- Your interest in agential refactoring - essentially reconceptualizing what counts as an agent, and how agent-boundaries are drawn - sits naturally in:
- Minimal cognition debates (Barandiaran, Di Paolo tradition)
- Markov blanket formalisms for individuating agents
- Scale-free accounts of agency (active inference crowd)
- The evolution of agency question
Honest Assessment of Your Fit
- You'd need to show connection to empirical programs, not just conceptual work. DISI skews toward researchers with:
- Specific non-human systems they study
- Formal modeling capacity
- What's your actual angle on agential refactoring? That would help me be more specific.