Biology and Philosophy 36 (2):1-27 (2021)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
A mark of the cognitive should allow us to specify theoretical principles for demarcating cognitive from non-cognitive causes of behaviour in organisms. Specific criteria are required to settle the question of when in the evolution of life cognition first emerged. An answer to this question should however avoid two pitfalls. It should avoid overintellectualising the minds of other organisms, ascribing to them cognitive capacities for which they have no need given the lives they lead within the niches they inhabit. But equally it should do justice to the remarkable flexibility and adaptiveness that can be observed in the behaviour of microorganisms that do not have a nervous system. We should resist seeking non-cognitive explanations of behaviour simply because an organism fails to exhibit human-like feats of thinking, reasoning and problem-solving. We will show how Karl Friston’s Free-Energy Principle can serve as the basis for a mark of the cognitive that avoids the twin pitfalls of overintellectualising or underestimating the cognitive achievements of evolutionarily primitive organisms. The FEP purports to describe principles of organisation that any organism must instantiate if it is to remain well-adapted to its environment. Living systems from plants and microorganisms all the way up to humans act in ways that tend in the long run to minimise free energy. If the FEP provides a mark of the cognitive, as we will argue it does, it mandates that cognition should indeed be ascribed to plants, microorganisms and other organisms that lack a nervous system.
|
Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) |
Categories |
No categories specified (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | |
DOI | 10.1007/s10539-021-09788-0 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience.Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson & Eleanor Rosch - 1991 - MIT Press.
Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind.Andy Clark - 2016 - Oxford University Press USA.
View all 52 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Free energy: a user’s guide.Stephen Francis Mann, Ross Pain & Michael D. Kirchhoff - 2022 - Biology and Philosophy 37 (4):1-35.
A Continuum of Intentionality: Linking the Biogenic and Anthropogenic Approaches to Cognition.Matthew Sims - 2021 - Biology and Philosophy 36 (6):1-31.
Modelling Ourselves: What the Free Energy Principle Reveals About Our Implicit Notions of Representation.Matt Sims & Giovanni Pezzulo - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):7801-7833.
Extended Predictive Minds: Do Markov Blankets Matter?Marco Facchin - forthcoming - Review of Philosophy and Psychology:1-30.
Similar books and articles
Free Energy and the Self: An Ecological–Enactive Interpretation.Julian Kiverstein - 2020 - Topoi 39 (3):559-574.
Computational Enactivism Under the Free Energy Principle.Tomasz Korbak - 2019 - Synthese 198 (3):2743-2763.
A Problem of Scope for the Free Energy Principle as a Theory of Cognition.Andrew Sims - 2016 - Philosophical Psychology 29 (7):967-980.
Species of Realization and the Free Energy Principle.Michael David Kirchhoff - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (4):706-723.
Self-Supervision, Normativity and the Free Energy Principle.Jakob Hohwy - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):29-53.
Superdupersizing the Mind: Extended Cognition and the Persistence of Cognitive Bloat.Sean Allen-Hermanson - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (3):791-806.
Out on a Limb? On Multiple Cognitive Systems Within the Octopus Nervous System.Sidney Carls-Diamante - 2019 - Philosophical Psychology 32 (4):463-482.
Multiscale Integration: Beyond Internalism and Externalism.Maxwell J. D. Ramstead, Michael D. Kirchhoff, Axel Constant & Karl J. Friston - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 1):41-70.
Where There is Life There is Mind: In Support of a Strong Life-Mind Continuity Thesis.Michael David Kirchhoff & Tom Froese - 2017 - Entropy 19.
Multifractal Dynamics in the Emergence of Cognitive Structure.James A. Dixon, John G. Holden, Daniel Mirman & Damian G. Stephen - 2012 - Topics in Cognitive Science 4 (1):51-62.
A Universal Ethology Challenge to the Free Energy Principle: Species of Inference and Good Regulators.Thomas van Es & Michael D. Kirchhoff - 2021 - Biology and Philosophy 36 (2):1-24.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2021-04-02
Total views
43 ( #265,394 of 2,519,807 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
9 ( #79,144 of 2,519,807 )
2021-04-02
Total views
43 ( #265,394 of 2,519,807 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
9 ( #79,144 of 2,519,807 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads