scholarly journals A continuum of intentionality: linking the biogenic and anthropogenic approaches to cognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Sims
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Vast Array ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Evolutionary Function ◽  
The Continuum

AbstractBiogenic approaches investigate cognition from the standpoint of evolutionary function, asking what cognition does for a living system and then looking for common principles and exhibitions of cognitive strategies in a vast array of living systems—non-neural to neural. One worry which arises for the biogenic approach is that it is overly permissive in terms of what it construes as cognition. In this paper I critically engage with a recent instance of this way of criticising biogenic approaches in order to clarify their theoretical commitments and prospects. In his critique of the biogenic approach, Fred Adams (Stud Hist Philos Sci 68:20–30, 10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.11.007, 2018) uses the presence of intentional states with conceptual content as a criterion to demarcate cognition-driven behaviour from mere sensory response. In this paper I agree with Adams that intentionality is the mark of the cognitive, but simultaneously reject his overly restrictive conception of intentionality. I argue that understanding intentionality simpliciter as the mark of the mental is compatible with endorsing the biogenic approach. I argue that because cognitive science is not exclusively interested in behaviour driven by intentional states with the kind of content Adams demands, the biogenic approach’s status as an approach to cognition is not called into question. I then go on to propose a novel view of intentionality whereby it is seen to exist along a continuum which increases in the degree of representational complexity: how far into the future representational content can be directed and drive anticipatory behaviour. Understanding intentionality as existing along a continuum allows biogenic approaches and anthropogenic approaches to investigate the same overarching capacity of cognition as expressed in its different forms positioned along the continuum of intentionality. Even if all organisms engage in some behaviour that is driven by weak intentional dynamics, this does not suggest that every behaviour of all organisms is so driven. As such, the worry that the biogenic approach is overly permissive can be avoided.

Discontinuous and continuous transitions of collective behaviors in living systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Li ◽  
Tingting Xue ◽  
Yu Sun ◽  
Jingfang Fan ◽  
Hui Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Collective Motion ◽  
Finite Size ◽  
Continuous Phase ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Finite Size Scaling ◽  
Continuous Transition ◽  
Collective Behaviors ◽  
Large Groups

Abstract Living systems are full of astonishing diversity and complexity of life. Despite differences in the length scales and cognitive abilities of these systems, collective motion of large groups of individuals can emerge. It is of great importance to seek for the fundamental principles of collective motion, such as phase transitions and their natures. Via an eigen microstate approach, we have found a discontinuous transition of density and a continuous transition of velocity in the Vicsek models of collective motion, which are identified by the finite-size scaling form of order-parameter. At strong noise, living systems behave like gas. With the decrease of noise, the interactions between the particles of a living system become stronger and make them come closer. The living system experiences then a discontinuous gas-liquid like transition of density. The even stronger interactions at smaller noise make the velocity directions of particles become ordered and there is a continuous phase transition of collective motion in addition.

scholarly journals Integrative concept of homeostasis: translating physiology into medicine

F1000Research ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 299
Author(s):  
Ivan Spasojević
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Initial Condition ◽  
Adult Human ◽  
Input Side ◽  
Tremendous Amount ◽  
To Come ◽  
Integrative Concept ◽  
The One ◽  
Reductionist Approach

To truly understand living systems they must be viewed as a whole. In order to achieve this and to come to some law that living systems comply with, the reductionist approach, which has delivered a tremendous amount of data so far, should be complemented with integrative concepts. The current paper represents my humble attempt towards an integrative concept of homeostasis that would describe the (patho)physiological setup of adult human/mammal system, and that might be applicable in medicine. Homeostasis can be defined as time- and initial-condition-independent globally stabile state of non-equilibrium of a living system in which the interactions of system with the surroundings and internal processes are overall in balance or very near it. The presence of homeostasis or the shift from homeostasis of an adult human/mammal system can be described by equation that takes into account energy and informational input and output, catabolism and anabolism, oxidation and reduction, and entropy, where changes in the input should equal changes in the output within a specific period of time. Catabolism and oxidation are presented on the input side since the drive of the surroundings is to decompose and oxidize living systems, i.e. systems are under constant 'catabolic and oxidative pressure'. According to the equation, homeostasis might be regained by changing any of the input or output components in a proper manner (and within certain limits), not only the one(s) that has/have been changed in the first place resulting in the deviation from homeostasis.

Perceptual Experience, Conscious Content, and Non-Conceptual Content

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uriah Kriegel ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
The Face ◽  
Content Of Experience ◽  
Representational Approach

One of the promising approaches to the problem of perceptual consciousness has been the representational theory, or representationalism. The idea is to reduce the phenomenal character of conscious perceptual experiences to the representational content of those experiences. Most representationalists appeal specifically to non-conceptual content in reducing phenomenal character to representational content. In this paper, I discuss a series of issues involved in this representationalist appeal to non-conceptual content. The overall argument is the following. On the face of it, conscious perceptual experience appears to be experience of a structured world, hence to be at least partly conceptual. To validate the appeal to non-conceptual content, the representationalist must therefore hold that the content of experience is partly conceptual and partly non-conceptual. But how can the conceptual and the non-conceptual combine to form a single content? The only way to make sense of this notion, I argue, leads to a surprising consequence, namely, that the representational approach to perceptual consciousness is a disguised form of functionalism.

Art as a Living System: Interactive Computer Artworks

Leonardo ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christa Sommerer ◽  
Laurent Mignonneau
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Time Interaction ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Interactive Installations

The authors design computer installations that integrate artificial life and real life by means of human-computer interaction. While exploring real-time interaction and evolutionary image processes, visitors to their interactive installations become essential parts of the systems by transferring the individual behaviors, emotions and personalities to the works' image processing. Images in these installations are not static, pre-fixed or predictable, but “living systems” themselves, representing minute changes in the viewers' interactions with the installations' evolutionary image processes.

Deely’s Extension of Peirce’s Thirdness

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna E. West ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Living Systems ◽  
Brief Treatment ◽  
Final Interpretation ◽  
Argument Proceeds ◽  
The Continuum

According to Deely, Peirce’s renovation of Saussure’s semiology to create his division of signs was far-reaching; it incorporates their use within non-living systems. Deely’s rationale is founded upon consideration of Peirce’s concept of individual/the continuum, and reality/existence. Deely’s argument proceeds as follows: it is not uniqueness or unique conscious reflection which qualifies sign use, but the habits to which animate and inanimate systems become subject. In posing his argument, Deely draws upon Krampen’s claim that signs permeate the plant world, in the Thirdness of plant reactions to experiences. This clearly illustrates the significant impact of Secondness in semiosis. Deely’s further (but brief) treatment of how potential eventualities qualify as real reveals Deely’s final interpretation of Peirce’s sign legacy. It brings to light Peirce’s insistence that possibility (that which is yet to transpire) may influence semiosis more substantially than mere actuality. In fact, potential habit-change represents Peirce’s most mature semiotic—what obviates the existence and use of signs in living and nonliving systems alike is not the degree of awareness/consciousness of what inhabits signs, but changes in reactivity (a form of pregenerative thirdness).

scholarly journals REPLICATION AND EVOLUTION OF QUANTUM SPECIES

2004 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
pp. R27-R38 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARUN K. PATI
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Information ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Closed Universe ◽  
Basic Features

We dwell upon the physicist's conception of 'life' since Schrödinger and Wigner through to the modern-day language of living systems in the light of quantum information. We discuss some basic features of a living system such as ordinary replication and evolution in terms of quantum bio-information. We also discuss the principle of no-culling of living replicas. We show that in a collection of identical species there can be no entanglement between one of the mutated copies and the rest of the species in a closed universe. Even though these discussions revolve around 'artificial life' they may still be applicable in real biological systems under suitable conditions.

scholarly journals Systèmes vivants : Lois locales et globales, invariance d'échelle

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 195-218
Author(s):  
Pierre Bricage
Keyword(s):  
Power Law ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Duration Time ◽  
Constructal Law ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Qualitative Characteristics ◽  
Organizing Principles

To survive that is 'to eat and not to be eaten', to live on [9, 11]. Any living system [10], to survive and live on [9], whatever is its spatial [28] and temporal [23, 29, 35] level of organization, owns 7 invariant qualitative characteristics (degrees of freedom) [19]. Any alive system is formed by embedding and juxtapositions [17] of pre-existing systems [22]. How are the local quantitative laws, of their spatial-temporal structuring and functioning, associated with these qualitative characteristics independently from the dimensional scales? How are they independent/dependent from the new global level of organization and the local situations of emergence? How do the local actors become mutually integrated into their global whole? And reversely (systemic constructal law [4]), why and how is the global whole reciprocally integrating the local parceners [18, 20]? At every level of organization, the evolution of the living systems obeys 5 organizing principles of emergence [33] and the space (the volume of the adult system VA) and the duration (time of generation tg) are linked through a power law (generalized Kepler's 3rd law like VA2 = C.tg3), a law of growth (figure 3) and exchange (figure 4). As all the sub-systems which live in it, the whole Universe is living in an ecoexotope that it can share with other Universes.

scholarly journals Artefacts: the big picture in broad terms

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
André Leclerc
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Cognitive Agent ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Sustained Activity ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
Full Sense ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

My aim in this programmatic paper is to explore the relationship among three important notions: intentionality, disposition and artefact. There wouldn’t be artefacts without what I call “intentional work,” a sustained activity directed to the production of some good. I first present contextualism as a method. Then I use it to delimit the problematic concept ARTEFACT, with the intention to apply it to repertoires of mental dispositions that affect directly our personal identity. The unavoidable but loose criterion of human intervention is used, at least to some degree. Attitudes are intentional states with conceptual content, and concepts are dispositions. We acquire concepts during our lives, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes explicitly through definition of some kind, and each cognitive agent has a unique repertoire of concepts and a unique idiolect as well. The idea that our mental representations (at least some of them) are artefacts might sound strange at first sight, but I shall try to show that it makes full sense. Most of our mental dispositions –those provided with a conceptual content– are themselves artefacts. At the end, we are all different psychologically and culturally because our idiolects and repertoires of concepts are different. For a large part, what makes our species so special is an ongoing process through which homo sapiens makes itself what it is.Keywords: Intentionality, disposition, artefact, contextualism, repertoire.

Living Machines

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony J. Prescott ◽  
Paul F. M. J. Verschure
Keyword(s):  
Biological Systems ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
Biological Component

Biomimetics is the development of novel technologies through the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems. Biohybrid systems are formed by at least one biological component—an already existing living system—and at least one artificial, newly engineered component. The development of either biomimetic or biohybrid systems requires a deep understanding of the operation of living systems, and the two fields are united under the theme of “living machines”—the idea that we can construct artifacts that not only mimic life but share some of the same fundamental principles. This chapter sets out the philosophy and history underlying this Living Machines approach and sets the scene for the remainder of this book.

Use of Living Systems to Teach Basic Engineering Concepts

2010 ◽  
pp. 96-107
Author(s):  
Kauser Jahan ◽  
Jess W. Everett ◽  
Gina Tang ◽  
Stephanie Farrell ◽  
Hong Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Cumberland County ◽  
Engineering Discipline ◽  
Rowan University ◽  
Rapid Dissemination ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Aquatic Sciences ◽  
Dynamic Website

Engineering educators have typically used non-living systems or products to demonstrate engineering principles. Each traditional engineering discipline has its own products or processes that they use to demonstrate concepts and principles relevant to the discipline. In recent years engineering education has undergone major changes with a drive to incorporate sustainability and green engineering concepts into the curriculum. As such an innovative initiative has been undertaken to use a living system such as an aquarium to teach basic engineering principles. Activities and course content were developed for a freshman engineering class at Rowan University and the Cumberland County College and K-12 outreach for the New Jersey Academy for Aquatic Sciences. All developed materials are available on a dynamic website for rapid dissemination and adoption.

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