1. Biology of Cognition
Dr. Tom Froese

2. New cognitive science (4E)

3. Oustanding issues
Many advances, but core questions of cognitive are still left unanswered.
How to define a body?
How to define agency?
How to define an action?
How to define cognition?
Etc…
Enactivism tries to provide the answers.

4. Biology of cognition Systems biology by Maturana and Varela
Key textbooks:
Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (1980)
The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding (1987)
Non-representationalist theory of mind
Operational definitions of key concepts:
Structural coupling
Operational closure
Autopoiesis
Cognition
Languaging

5. Autopoesis as ultrastability
“an autopoietic machine is an homeostatic (or rather a relationsstatic) system which has its own organization (defining network of relations) as the fundamental variables which it maintains constant”
(Maturana and Varela 1980, p. 79)

6. Autopoiesis = cellular self-production
The autopoietic organization is defined as a unit by a network of production of components (chemical reactions) which
participate recursively in the same network of production of components (chemical reactions) that produced them, and
carry out the network of production as a unit in the space in which the components exist.
Rudrauf et al. (2003)

8. Autopoiesis?

9. First computer model of autopoiesis
Varela, Maturana and Uribe (1974)

10. Break and repair
Varela, Maturana and Uribe (1974)

11. Tesselation automaton
The enlarged inset shows the processes occurring in a thin volume just under the membrane (catalytic production of B, and B components entering the membrane to become components).
The reaction C → D represents the disintegration of a C component, leaving a hole in the membrane.
B components are normally confined by the membrane, but can be lost through holes.
Bourgine and Stewart (2004)

12. Autopoiesis+
Ikegami and Suzuki (2008)

13. Model operation
Ikegami and Suzuki (2008)

14. Shapes and movement
Ikegami and Suzuki (2008)

15. Autopoietic chemotaxis
Ikegami and Suzuki (2008)

16. Minimal model of autopoiesis
Froese, Virgo and Ikegami (2014)

17. Minimal model of life?
The individuated reaction-diffusion systems in the model exhibit:
- spontaneous self-movement: motility?
- chemical gradient following/avoidance: sense-making?
- mutual interaction via chemical traces: social interaction?
Froese, Virgo and Ikegami (2014)

18. More circularities of the animal
Three levels of circular causality are distinguished in the figure:
the level of the central nervous system as a closed dynamical system;
the level of the sensory-motor mutual definition of the state of the brain and of the body;
and the level of the ongoing coupling between the autonomous system and its surroundings, including potential inter-individual interactions.
(Rudrauf et al. 2003)

19. Computationalism
Di Paolo (2015)

20. Is there an autonomous system?
Di Paolo (2015)

21. Operational closure
Di Paolo (2015)

22. Biology of Cognition
Di Paolo (2015)

23. Enactivism
Di Paolo (2015)

24. New foundations of cognitive science
The system creates its own body and its own boundary.
It defines what it is as an individual within a niche without depending on the observer’s distinction.
It defines its own intrinsic goals and has a meaningful perspective on the world.
(Thompson 2007).
It is concerned because its existence is precarious.
Weber and Varela (2002); Jonas (1992)
It realizes an action when it regulates its coupling with the environment in relation to the satisfaction of its goals.
Barandiaran et al. (2009)

25. What is cognition?
“Due to the relative independence of the nervous system from metabolic-constructive processes, i.e., the hierarchical decoupling of its electro-chemical activity, the normative regulation of sensorimotor interaction is underdetermined by basic material and energetic needs.
The essential upshot of this relative independence is that the stability of an autonomous cognitive structure largely depends on the electro-chemical activity of the nervous system as well as the way that this structure is coupled to sensorimotor cycles.
Only an agent that is capable of regulating its sensorimotor cycles in this non-metabolic manner can be characterized by a form of cognitive agency.”
Froese and Di Paolo (2011, p. 18)

26. What is cognition? “We can define cognitive interaction as follows:
Cognition is the regulated sensorimotor coupling between a cognitive agent and its environment,
where the regulation is aimed at aspects of the coupling itself
so that it constitutes an emergent autonomous organization in the domains of internal and relational dynamics,
without destroying in the process the agency of that agent (though the latter’s scope can be augmented or reduced).”
Froese and Di Paolo (2011, p. 18)

27. The “cognitive gap” Froese and Di Paolo (2009)
Pfeifer and Bongard (2007)

28. The question of the “other”
Varela’s (2000) vision of the future of the cognitive sciences

29. Froese and Di Paolo (2011). The Enactive Approach: Theoretical Sketches From Cell to Society. P&C

30. How to scale from life to mind?
The life-mind continuity thesis has to
overcome the “cognitive gap” – e.g. how
to explain the transition from bacterial
chemotaxis to human cognition?
Adopt a developmental perspective
Drop the individualist perspective
Sociality all the way down the life-mind continuity?
No culture without social interaction.
No mind without social interaction!
No life without social interaction?
Froese and Di Paolo (2009). Sociality and the life-mind continuity thesis. PCS

31. Enactivism
Di Paolo (2015)

32. Multi-agent systems
Multi-agent system: Mutual modulation of sensorimotor interaction resulting in autonomous interaction process.
Froese and Di Paolo (2011)

33. References
Barandiaran, X., Di Paolo, E. A., & Rohde, M. (2009). Defining agency: Individuality, normativity, asymmetry, and spatio-temporality in action. Adaptive Behavior, 17(5),
Bourgine, P., & Stewart, J. (2004). Autopoiesis and cognition. Artificial Life, 10(3),
Di Paolo, E. A. (2015). El enactivismo y la naturalización de la mente. In D. Pérez Chico & M. G. Bedia (Eds.), Nueva Ciencia Cognitiva: Hacia una Teoría Integral de la Mente (in press). Zaragoza: PUZ
Froese, T., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2009). Sociality and the life-mind continuity thesis. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(4),
Froese, T., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2011). The enactive approach: Theoretical sketches from cell to society. Pragmatics & Cognition, 19(1), 1-36
Froese, T., Virgo, N., & Ikegami, T. (2014). Motility at the origin of life: Its characterization and a model. Artificial Life, 20(1), 55-76

34. References
Ikegami, T., & Suzuki, K. (2008). From homeostatic to homeodynamic self. BioSystems, 91(2),
Jonas, H. (1992). The burden and blessing of mortality. The Hastings Center Report, 22(1), 34-40
Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambhala
Pfeifer, R., & Bongard, J. C. (2007). How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: A New View of Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

35. References
Rudrauf, D., Lutz, A., Cosmelli, D., Lachaux, J.-P., & Le Van Quyen, M. (2003). From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology: Francisco Varela's exploration of the biophysics of being. Biological Research, 36(1), 27-65
Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Varela, F. J. (2000). Steps to a Science of Inter-Being: Unfolding the Dharma Implicit in Modern Cognitive Science. In G. Watson, S. Batchelor & G. Claxton (Eds.), The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and our Day-to-Day Lives (pp ). Boston, MA: Weiser Books
Varela, F. J., Maturana, H. R., & Uribe, R. (1974). Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. BioSystems, 5,
Weber, A., & Varela, F. J. (2002). Life after Kant: Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1,

36. Homework
Please read:
Harvey, I., Di Paolo, E. A., Wood, R., Quinn, M., & Tuci, E. A. (2005). Evolutionary robotics: A new scientific tool for studying cognition. Artificial Life, 11(1-2), 79-98