Abstract
All epistemic agents physically consist of parts that must somehow comprise an integrated cognitive self. Biological individuals consist of subunits (organs, cells, and molecular networks) that are themselves complex and competent in their own native contexts. How do coherent biological Individuals result from the activity of smaller sub-agents? To understand the evolution and function of metazoan creatures’ bodies and minds, it is essential to conceptually explore the origin of multicellularity and the scaling of the basal cognition of individual cells into a coherent larger organism. In this article, I synthesize ideas in cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental physiology toward a hypothesis about the origin of Individuality: “Scale-Free Cognition.” I propose a fundamental definition of an Individual based on the ability to pursue goals at an appropriate level of scale and organization and suggest a formalism for defining and comparing the cognitive capacities of highly diverse types of agents. Any Self is demarcated by a computational surface – the spatio-temporal boundary of events that it can measure, model, and try to affect. This surface sets a functional boundary - a cognitive “light cone” which defines the scale and limits of its cognition. I hypothesize that higher level goal-directed activity and agency, resulting in larger cognitive boundaries, evolve from the primal homeostatic drive of living things to reduce stress – the difference between current conditions and life-optimal conditions. The mechanisms of developmental bioelectricity - the ability of all cells to form electrical networks that process information - suggest a plausible set of gradual evolutionary steps that naturally lead from physiological homeostasis in single cells to memory, prediction, and ultimately complex cognitive agents, via scale-up of the basic drive of infotaxis. Recent data on the molecular mechanisms of pre-neural bioelectricity suggest a model of how increasingly sophisticated cognitive functions emerge smoothly from cell-cell communication used to guide embryogenesis and regeneration. This set of hypotheses provides a novel perspective on numerous phenomena, such as cancer, and makes several unique, testable predictions for interdisciplinary research that have implications not only for evolutionary developmental biology but also for biomedicine and perhaps artificial intelligence and exobiology.
Highlights
I illustrate these hypotheses from the perspective of developmental bioelectricity, which evolution has robustly exploited for cognitive scaling; the same general scheme applies to any similar mechanism, whether chemical, physical, or other
We have previously argued that the deep evolutionary conservation of ion channel and neurotransmitter mechanisms highlights a fundamental isomorphism between developmental and behavioral processes
The evolutionary pressure to survive in a challenging world leads from simple homeostasis to infotaxis, memory, anticipation, spatio-temporal scale-up of measurement and prediction, and large-scale global goals. The implications of these hypotheses extend beyond philosophy and evolutionary biology
Summary
Why did some competent unicellular organisms join together to form complex bodies, and how do they cooperate during highly robust embryogenesis and regeneration of anatomical structures? Why does this process break down during carcinogenic defection from the body plan? How can we best understand and control biological systems that consist of numerous nested levels of organization, such as bacteria and biofilms, which can functionally interact with the host’s cells, tissues, and organs? How are lower level (molecular and cellular) activities harnessed toward adaptive system-level outcomes during regulative development and adaptation to novel stressors? What is the relationship between the ability of cells to implement invariant organ-level morphogenetic goal states and the purposive activity of brains? What dynamics enable the scaling of cognitive capacities from the simple memory functions found in bacteria to those of sophisticated minds?. Much more work is needed to fully flesh out this rubric in a way that makes it immediately applicable in ethology, AI, and artificial life One implication of this view is that there is not necessarily one unique primary level of organization; rather, Individuals existing at different levels in a given system can be putatively revealed by experiment and analysis that identifies allostatic set points - the goals of systems defined at different levels of organization and the spatio-temporal boundaries of measurements and actions taken by such mechanisms at each level. Another consequence is that the cybernetics of associative learning in networks is agnostic as to the spatio-temporal scale and physical implementation, being widespread from molecular networks and inorganic physics to whole evolving populations (Cragg and Temperley, 1955; Mcgregor et al, 2012; Power et al, 2015; Watson and Szathmary, 2016; Kouvaris et al, 2017; Lopez Garcia De Lomana et al, 2017)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
