One of these efforts was the EU Funded ICEA Project. The IST 027819 ICEA Integrating Cognition, Emotion and Autonomy was a four-year project, funded by IST Cognitive Systems Unit. The Project was focused on brain-inspired cognitive architectures, robotics and embodied cognition, bringing together cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, psychologists, computational modelers, roboticists and control engineers. The primary aim of the project is to develop a novel cognitive systems architecture integrating cognitive, emotional and bioregulatory (self-maintenance) processes, based on the architecture and physiology of the mammalian brain.

The works but extremely interesting and the teams involved were mostly very active and dedicated to the work. However, the results obtained -basically more elaborated scientific ideas- didn't have a translation in a concrete architectural implementation of a system that could prove the insights. Different systems wer implemented -real, simulated- but the overall picture was a bit lost.

We need stronger tema integration and specially more convergent objectives to get these types of activities produce the expected and potential results. This is not an easy taks however, as the goal of a cognitive psychologist of an industrial control engineer seem so far a part that convergence sounds more lie a myth than a real, strategical possibility.

All this said, something in fully basic: technology departs from science. Mind engineering must depart from mind since and hence, convergence is necessary. This will only happen if we broaden the tagets and pursue a General Theory of Mind not trapped in the details of rat brains or humanoid robot computer-laden hearths.

El propósito del ejercicio era leer un artículo clásico del ámbito de la inteligencia artificial y realizar un breve comentario personal sobre él (Turing - Computing Machinery and Intelligence). Yo esperaba que hubiera alguien que lo leyera con interés y que escribiera un ensayo personal entre un mar de ensayos con comentarios rutinarios sobre el articulo.

Mi sorpresa ha sido lo contrario: los ensayos rutinarios son los menos; estando rodeados de un mar de opiniones, impresiones, juicios, esperanzas y miedos que me han hecho disfrutar de ver tantas mentes jóvenes, tan vivas y tan capaces de pensar por sí mismas. Ha sido sorprendente descubrir, en esta generación acusada de pasividad y desapego- chispas de alegría intelectual.

Mónica, una de mis alumnas, dice,

"Me gustaría ver como un computador puede sorprendernos. No me refiero con ello a los posibles fallos físicos o de software. Hablo de ser capaz de utilizar una metáfora o decirnos que le gustaría poseer la Luna. Y un ordenador no hará eso nunca a no ser que el programador quiera. Un niño querrá cogerla sólo con mirarla. Le parecerá bonita de manera innata, y querrá poseerla." -- Mónica Romero

En estos tiempos de crisis de la ciencia y la tecnología, me han devuelto una cierta esperanza. Estoy seguro de que alguno de ellos construirá El robot que poseyó la Luna. Un gran proyecto y un gran título para una novela de Lem o Heinlein.

In the past formal and abstract models have attempted to shed light on the topics of the Mind and Brain, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. This has created a vast proliferation of information, which is currently lacking any one dominant model for understanding the mental processes. The Journal of Mind Theory we are trying to create is an attempt to tackle these problems.

The journal’s aim is to consolidate and explore these formal and abstract tools for modeling cognitive phenomena, creating a more cohesive and concrete formal approach to understanding the mind/brain, striving for precision and creating clarity in this topic of interest.

What follows is a list of questions by Jaime Gomez (JG) and answers from Ricardo Sanz (RS) on these issues.

In a sense, waves of change are opportunities to clean, redefine and make target in new educational objectives, getting rid of bad habits and arthritic practices from the past. However, in the Spanish context, this is happening without any renovation on the human teams that are going to perform this change.

The question simply is:

Who can expect that content change will happen in the hands of professors that have been teaching the same post-WWII doctrine during the last 30 years ?

Who can really expect that the focus on new educational practices -e.g. project-based leaning- can be driven by professors that stopped doing any real work 20 years ago ?