Abstract
We will outline a theory of agency cast in theoretical psychology, viewed as a branch of a non-eliminativist biology. Our proposal will be based on an evolutionary view of the nature and functioning of the mind(s), reconsidered in a radically subjectivist, radically constructivist framework. We will argue that the activities of control systems should be studied in terms of interaction. Specifically, what an agent does belongs to the coupling of its internal dynamics with the dynamics of the external world. The internal dynamics, rooted in the species' phylogenetic history as well as in the individual's ontogenetic path, (a) determine which external dynamics are relevant to the organism, that is, they create the subjective ontology that the organism senses in the external world, and (b) determine what types of activities and actions the agent is able to conceive of and to adopt in the current situation. The external dynamics that the organism senses thus constitute its subjective environment. This notion of coupling is basically suitable for whichever organism one may want to consider. However, remarkable differences exist between the ways in which coupling may be realized, that is, between different natures and ways of functioning of control systems. We will describe agency at different phylogenetic levels: at the very least, it is necessary to discriminate between non-Intentional species, Intentional species, and a subtype of the latter called meta-Intentional. We will claim that agency can only be understood in a radically subjectivist perspective, which in turn is best grounded in a view of the mind as consciousness and experience. We will thus advance a radically constructivist view of agency and of several correlate notions (like meaning and ontology).
Highlights
If not all, research paradigms in psychology and in the cognitive sciences agree that the mind is a control system
Artificial intelligence, Artificial life, and autonomous robotics have a necessary focus on control systems, and the same holds for the most recent trend in scientific psychology, namely the attempt at the integration and cross-fertilization of psychology and the neurosciences
The nature of the relation occurring between an organism and its environment depends, in the last analysis, on the interaction between its genotype, its phenotype, its idiosyncratic developmental paths, and the environment itself
Summary
If not all, research paradigms in psychology and in the cognitive sciences agree that the mind is a control system. If behaviorists acknowledged that minds exist at all, they would probably say that they are such systems. Classic information-processing and computational psychologists have often talked explicitly of the mind in such terms. Allen Newell, for example, one of the leading figures in classical cognitive science, wrote that the mind is “the control system that guides the behaving organism in its complex interactions with the dynamic real world” Artificial intelligence, Artificial life, and autonomous robotics have a necessary focus on control systems, and the same holds for the most recent trend in scientific psychology, namely the attempt at the integration and cross-fertilization of psychology and the neurosciences
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