The Interdisciplinary College is a 1-week spring school on brain sciences & artificial intelligence.
It is:
* Interdisciplinary: with courses from Neurobiology, Neuroscience and Neural Computation, Mathematical Modeling, Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Philosophy;
* Demanding: in a day-round programme, prime researchers give focussed introductions to their research, with highlighting evening lectures;
European-international: participants come from European countries, lecturers from all over the world;
* A social event: minds meet, music is played and friends are made in long evening and night sessions in the welcoming conference site at the Möhne lake.

Focus theme „Autonomy and Emotion”
Each year, the IK has a special focus theme, to which about 25% of the courses are dedicated. The focus in 2002 is Autonomy and Emotion.
Autonomy is something everybody trys to achieve. Emotions are the salt in our lives. Without them we would be zombies. However, little was known about the computational and neurobiological mechanisms of emotions and control. This has changed to some extent, and cognitive control and emotions not only appear to be related but also can be studied in unprecedented ways. What are their causes and driving forces? What regulatory mechanisms can be identified? Under which circumstances do they show up normally and what makes them distorted, suppressed or pathologically changed? Research on autonomy and emotion used to be focussed on living organisms, but recently has widened its scope to include artefacts such as robots, which can be programmed to act autonomously, guided by processes not unlike what we call emotions. Outstanding researchers and lecturers from brain sciences, biology, physics, artificial intelligence, philosophy, and cognitive science are presenting the state of the art of the work in their respective fields to provide an in-depth interdisciplinary discourse and overview on this fascinating and highly relevant topic.

http://www.tzi.de/ik2002/home.html?lang=en