About Spatial Representation and Logic
The way in which human beings comprehend their spatial environment has always been at the core of philosophical attention. At the beginning of the 20th century, philosophers started developing formal ontological theories that should capture the structural relationships among things in space, thereby giving rise to qualitative geometries. In more recent years, qualitative geometry has become increasingly popular among computer scientists whose aim is to model human behaviour in a natural environment. Our workshop focused on both formal ontological theories of spatial representation, and their applications in computer science.
Slides
Felix Lindner
Considered Robot Behaviour in Social Space
In these slides, it is shown how mereology can prove useful in modelling socially adequate robot behaviour. Starting from the notion of social space used in anthropology, the notion of affordance space is defined in formal mereological terms.
Report
The Fall Meeting 2012 on spatial representation and logic took place at the University of Lausanne the 11th of October. People from various backgrounds coming from different Swiss Universities participated in this event. A tutorial given by Achille Varzi (Columbia University) opened the day. He presented the philosophical perspective on spatial representation showing the issues that arise when building a logic of space. In particular, he defined and discussed mereotopological approaches to spatial logic. After a home-cooked lunch offered by the SGSLPS, the participants headed for the afternoon session. In line with the morning talk, Damiano Costa (University of Geneva) further developed the philosophical perspective on the relation between entities and space making the link from mereotopology to location theory. He then gave some insight into his current research on the question of location in time. The last presentation lead us from philosophy to applications in artificial intelligence. The computer scientist Felix Lindner (Universität Hamburg) showed how mereology can prove useful in modelling socially adequate robot behaviour. Starting from the notion of social space used in anthropology, he defined the concept of affordance space together with its formal mereological counterpart. The truly interdisciplinary nature of the day gave rise to insightful discussions. The event concluded with a drink followed by a dinner at the Simplon café in a convivial atmosphere.