Abstract
This article presents a naturalist approach to cognition understood as a network of info-computational, autopoietic processes in living systems. It provides a conceptual framework for the unified view of cognition as evolved from the simplest to the most complex organisms, based on new empirical and theoretical results. It addresses three fundamental questions: what cognition is, how cognition works and what cognition does at different levels of complexity of living organisms. By explicating the info-computational character of cognition, its evolution, agent-dependency and generative mechanisms we can better understand its life-sustaining and life-propagating role. The info-computational approach contributes to rethinking cognition as a process of natural computation in living beings that can be applied for cognitive computation in artificial systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lyon, P.: The biogenic approach to cognition. Cognitive Processing 7, 11–29 (2005)
Neisser, U.: Cognitive psychology. Appleton-Century Crofts (1967)
Rozenberg, G., Kari, L.: The many facets of natural computing. Communications of the ACM 51, 72–83 (2008)
Modha, D.S., Ananthanarayanan, R., Esser, S.K., Ndirango, A., Sherbondy, A.J., Singh, R.: Cognitive computing. Communications of the ACM 54(8), 62–71 (2011)
Maturana, H., Varela, F.: Autopoiesis and cognition: the realization of the living. D. Reidel Pub. Co. (1980)
Maturana, H.: Biology of Cognition. Defense Technical Information Center (1970)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G., Giovagnoli, R.: Computing Nature. Springer (2013)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G., Burgin, M.: Information and Computation. World Scientific Pub. Co. Inc. (2011)
van Duijn, M., Keijzer, F., Franken, D.: Principles of minimal cognition: Casting cognition as sensorimotor coordination. Adaptive Behavior 14, 157–170 (2006)
Ben-Jacob, E., Shapira, Y., Tauber, A.: Seeking the foundations of cognition in bacteria. Physica A 359, 495–524 (2006)
Ben-Jacob, E.: Social behavior of bacteria: from physics to complex organization. The European Physical Journal B 65(3), 315–322 (2008)
Ben-Jacob, E.: Learning from bacteria about natural information processing. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1178, 78–90 (2009)
Ng, W.L., Bassler, B.L.: Bacterial quorum-sensing network architectures. Annual Review of Genetics 43, 197–222 (2009)
Waters, C.M., Bassler, B.L.: Quorum sensing: Cell-to-cell communication in bacteria. Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology 21, 319–346 (2005)
Pombo, O., Torres, J., Symons, J. (eds.): Special Sciences and the Unity of Science. Springer (2012)
Rosen, R.: Anticipatory Systems. Pergamon Press (1985)
Popper, K.: All Life is Problem Solving. Routledge (1999)
Floridi, L.: Informational realism. In: Weckert, J., Al-Saggaf, Y. (eds.) Selected Papers from Conference on Computers and Philosophy, vol. 37, pp. 7–12. Australian Computer Society, Inc. (2003)
Sayre, K.M.: Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1976)
Stonier, T.: Information and meaning: an evolutionary perspective. Springer (1997)
Zeilinger, A.: The message of the quantum. Nature 438, 743–743 (2005)
Vedral, V.: Decoding reality: the universe as quantum information. Oxford University Press (2010)
Chaitin, G.: Epistemology as information theory: From leibniz to omega. In: Dodig Crnkovic, G. (ed.) Computation, Information, Cognition, The Nexus and The Liminal, pp. 2–17. Cambridge Scholars Pub. (2007)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G.: Dynamics of information as natural computation. Information 2(3), 460–477 (2011)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G.: Investigations into Information Semantics and Ethics of Computing. Mälardalen University Press (2006)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G.: Information, computation, cognition. Agency-based hierarchies of levels. In: Müller, V.C. (ed.) Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence (Synthese Library). Springer (forthcoming, 2014)
Bateson, G.: Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University of Chicago Press (1972)
McGonigle, D., Mastrian, K.: Introduction to information, information science, and information systems. In: Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge. Jones & Bartlett (2012)
Hewitt, C.: What is Commitment? Physical, Organizational, and Social. In: Noriega, P., Vázquez-Salceda, J., Boella, G., Boissier, O., Dignum, V., Fornara, N., Matson, E. (eds.) COIN 2006. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4386, pp. 293–307. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Kauffman, S.: At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. Oxford University Press (1995)
Kauffman, S.: Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. Oxford University Press (1993)
Deacon, T.: Incomplete Nature. How Mind Emerged from Matter. W. W. Norton and Company (2011)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G., Müller, V.: A dialogue concerning two world systems: Info-computational vs. mechanistic. In: Dodig Crnkovic, G., Burgin, M. (eds.) Information and Computation, pp. 149–184. World Scientific (2011)
Cooper, S.B.: Turing’s Titanic Machine? Communications of the ACM 55(3), 74–83 (2012)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G.: Significance of Models of Computation from Turing Model to Natural Computation. Minds and Machines 21(2), 301–322 (2011)
Hewitt, C.: What is computation? Actor model versus Turing’s model. In: Zenil, H. (ed.) A Computable Universe, Understanding Computation and Exploring Nature As Computation. World Scientific Publishing Company/Imperial College Press (2012)
Abramsky, S.: Information, processes and games. In: Benthem van, J., Adriaans, P. (eds.) Philosophy of Information, pp. 483–549. North-Holland (2008)
Goertzel, B.: Chaotic Logic. Language, Thought, and Reality from the Perspective of Complex Systems Science. Plenum Press (1994)
Kampis, G.: Self-Modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science: A New Framework for Dynamics, Information, and Complexity. Pergamon Press (1991)
Rozenberg, G., Bäck, T., Kok, J. (eds.): Handbook of Natural Computing. Springer (2012)
MacLennan, B.: Natural Computation and Non-Turing Models of Computation. Theoretical Computer Science 317(1), 115–145 (2004)
Nunes de Castro, L.: Fundamentals of natural computing: An overview. Physics of Life Reviews 4, 1–36 (2007)
Cardelli, L.: Artificial biochemistry. In: Condon, A., Harel, D., Kok, J., Salomaa, A., Winfree, E. (eds.) Algorithmic Bioprocesses, pp. 429–462. Springer (2009)
Burgin, M.: Super-Recursive Algorithms. Springer-Verlag New York Inc. (2005)
Wegner, P.: Interactive foundations of computing. Theoretical Computer Science 192(2), 315–351 (1998)
Valiant, L.: Probably Approximately Correct: Nature’s Algorithms for Learning and Prospering in a Complex World. Basic Books (2013)
Chaitin, G.: Life as evolving software. In: Zenil, H. (ed.) A Computable Universe, Understanding Computation and Exploring Nature As Computation. World Scientific (2012)
Dodig-Crnkovic, G.: The info-computational nature of morphological computing. In: Müller, V.C. (ed.) Theory and Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, pp. 59–68. Springer (2012)
Landauer, R.: Information is physical. Physics Today 44, 23–29 (1991)
Harms, W.F.: Naturalizing epistemology: Prospectus 2006. Biological Theory 1, 23–24 (2006)
Okasha, S.: Review of William F. Harms, Information and Meaning in Evolutionary Processes. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 12 (2005)
Godfrey-Smith, P.: Environmental complexity and the evolution of cognition. In: Sternberg, R., Kaufman, J. (eds.) The Evolution of Intelligence, pp. 233–249. Lawrence Elrbaum Associates (2001)
Jablonka, E., Lamb, M.: Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. MIT Press (2005)
Shapiro, J.A.: Evolution: A View from the 21st Century. FT Press Science (2011)
Bechtel, W.: Representations and cognitive explanations: Assessing the dynamicist’s challenge in cognitive science. Cognitive Science 22(3), 295–318 (1998)
Wolfram, S.: A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media (2002)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dodig-Crnkovic, G. (2014). Modeling Life as Cognitive Info-computation. In: Beckmann, A., Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Meer, K. (eds) Language, Life, Limits. CiE 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8493. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08019-2_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08019-2_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08018-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08019-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)