Disseminated Computation, Cognitive Domestication of New Ignorant Substrates, and Overcomputationalization

Lorenzo Magnani

doi:10.3390/proceedings2020047029

Abstract

Eco-cognitive computationalism considers computation in the context of following some of the main tenets advanced by the recent cognitive science views on embodied, situated and distributed cognition. It is in the framework of this eco-cognitive perspective that we can usefully analyze the recent attention in computer science devoted to the importance of the simplification of cognitive and motor tasks caused in organic entities by the morphological features: ignorant bodies can be domesticated to become useful “mimetic bodies”, that is to be able to render an intertwined computation simpler, resorting to that “simplexity” of animal embodied cognition, which represents one of the main qualities of organic agents. Through eco-cognitive computationalism we can clearly acknowledge that the concept of computation changes, depending on historical and contextual causes and we can build an epistemological view that illustrates the “emergence” of new kinds of computations, such as the one regarding morphological computation. This new perspective shows how the computational domestication of ignorant entities can originate new unconventional cognitive embodiments. I also introduce the concept of overcomputationalism, showing that my proposed framework helps us see the related concepts of pancognitivism, paniformationalism and pancomputationalism in a more naturalized and prudent perspective, avoiding the excess of old-fashioned ontological or metaphysical overstatements.

Highlights

“Disseminated Computation, Cognitive Domestication of New Ignorant Substrates, and Overcomputationalization” first of all aimed at presenting “eco-cognitive computationalism”, which sees computation as active in physical entities suitably transformed so that they become what I call “cognitive mediators”, in which data can be encoded and decoded to obtain fruitful results. This perspective is related the study of computation in the context of some of the main tenets advanced by the recent cognitive science views on embodied, situated and distributed cognition, an interdisciplinary perspective that I have recently illustrated in my book The Abductive Structure of Scientific Creativity [1]
I think that the main advantage of speaking of the transformation of “ignorant” entities into cognitive ones through computation derives from its capacity to stress the dynamic character of processes of the attribution of cognitive roles to external entities. This idea is certainly related to the studies in the area of evolutionary theories—especially the ones on cognitive niche construction [2]—and to the recent tradition of studies in the area of cognitive science called Proceedings 2020, 47, 29; doi:10.3390/proceedings2020047029
Domestication of New Substrates: Morphological Computing. It is in this eco-cognitive perspective that I analyze the recent attention in computer science devoted to the importance of what I call the cognitive domestication of new substrates, such as in the case of morphological computation: this new area of research shows how the computational domestication of ignorant substrates can originate new unconventional cognitive embodiments, which expand the processes of computationalization already occurring in our societies

Summary

Introduction

“Disseminated Computation, Cognitive Domestication of New Ignorant Substrates, and Overcomputationalization” first of all aimed at presenting “eco-cognitive computationalism”, which sees computation as active in physical entities suitably transformed so that they become what I call “cognitive mediators”, in which data can be encoded and decoded to obtain fruitful results.

Results

Conclusion