Joachim De Beule

My main interests of research are, in arbitrary order, artificial intelligence, evolution, language, semiotic dynamics, signalling games, cybernetics and biosemiotics. The common denominator between all these fields is semantics, so one could say I am after the meaning of meaning. A very short and gentle introduction to some of the issues involved is an editorial I wrote for the Biosemiotics journal. My view on the relation between cultural and genetic evolution is that a full understanding of evolution requires to take into account the interplay between two evolutionary mechanisms, namely differential reproduction and conventionalization. This view is illustrated in a recent paper on the tragedy of the commune in the Hawk-Dove game. My view on language is that it is the emergent result of a second order conventionalization process among interacting language users.  Through languaging, we can achieve joint control and the coordination of our goals, thereby effectively becoming more as a single organism. A paper that explains this in more detail is in the making.