Substrate-Agnostic Agent Characteristics and Behavior

This position asks which characteristics of an agent survive being described independently of what that agent is made of. You would take a single existing framework, move its commitments off the substrate they were developed on, and establish precisely where they break.

The role runs as one of a pair. Its companion, Historical Analysis of Mind, Mental Health, and Individual Characteristics, approaches the same underlying question from the historical side. Both ask which parts of the inherited account of persons, minds, and agency still hold; this one takes the contemporary and mechanistic side.

What we are looking for is the framework you would take on and how you would go about it.

The question here is which characteristics of agents survive being described independently of what the agent is made of. Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow set this up in 1943 by defining purposeful behavior in terms of feedback rather than in terms of the composition of the system, and the line runs forward through Michael Levin’s work on agential materials and basal cognition, Josh Bongard’s work on evolved and designed embodiment, and the topology and substrate-independence literature around them.

The work of this position is narrower than developing a general account, which does not finish on a semester clock. Take one existing framework. Move its commitments off the substrate they were built on. Name precisely where they break, and say what the break tells you about the framework.

Proposals may take one of these, or bring another that fits the scope above.

TAME. Levin’s framework is explicitly built to scale across substrates. That makes it the most direct test case: identify which of its commitments are doing substrate-independent work and which are carrying assumptions from the biological systems it was developed on, and say where the difference shows.

The 1943 feedback account of purpose. The origin case for the whole line. Purpose defined behaviorally, by feedback structure rather than by material. It has had eighty years to be applied to systems its authors did not anticipate. Where does the definition still carve, and where does applying it to a new class of system produce results that are clearly wrong.

Graduate students, postgraduate researchers, early career researchers, and undergraduates prepared to work at that level. Familiarity with research practice and academic publishing is expected. Comfort with formal, computational, or mechanistic treatments of cognition and behavior is the strongest signal for this position. Familiarity with the history and philosophy of cognitive science is desired.

A proposal of 500 to 1000 words covering four things:

1. The framework and the claim. Which framework you would work on, and what a falsifiable claim about it would look like. The form we are after is “this framework’s commitment to X fails when moved to Y, for this specific reason.” A survey does not meet the standard.
2. Your approach. How you would actually get at it. What sources and methods, and what you would do first to find out whether the strand is tractable at all.
3. A timeline for the term, from mid-September to the first week of December, in three or four phases rather than week by week, with a midpoint you could be held to.
4. What you want from the term, including whether you would prefer to lead a strand or join one.

Also submit a CV. A letter of recommendation is optional and there is a slot for one. Not including a letter will not count against your proposal.

These positions are unpaid. We do not offer stipends.

We will work with your university to arrange experiential learning or internship credit where your program allows it, and we welcome applicants who bring their own funding or fellowship support. If either applies to you, say so in your proposal and we will work out the arrangement.

We read for whether the claim is genuinely arguable, whether the scope is achievable within the term, whether the approach shows real familiarity with the material, and whether your own interest in the question is legible.

Every proposal is read in full by a person. Nothing in this process runs through keyword matching, automated ranking, or AI screening of any kind, and there are no recorded interviews without a person present. If we interview you, you will be talking with someone who can answer your questions.

If the question interests you but a full proposal is more than you want to write, or you are earlier in your training than this position assumes, write to start@jopro.org. You can ask about involvement generally, or pitch a role you would create for yourself. This is a different entry point, not a lesser one.

Separately, JOPRO and Orthogonal Research and Education Lab are accepting project proposals for the fall term. If you want to lead or co-lead work in this area rather than join it, contact Jesse Parent and Bradly Alicea directly.