In this article, we propose some fundamental requirements for the appearance of adaptivity. We argue that a basic metabolic organization, taken in its minimal sense, may provide the conceptual framework for naturalizing the origin of teleology and normative functionality as it appears in living systems. However, adaptivity also requires the emergence of a regulatory subsystem, which implies a certain form of dynamic decoupling within a globally integrated, autonomous system. Thus, we analyze several forms of minimal adaptivity, including the special case of motility. We go on to explain how an open-ended complexity growth of motility-based adaptive agency, namely, behavior, requires the appearance of the nervous system. Finally, we discuss some implications of these ideas for embodied robotics.

Key words: naturalist approach to normativity, autonomous systems, adaptivity, minimal agency, decoupling of the nervous system, definition of adaptive behavior

Connectionism and classicism, it generally appears, have at least this much in common: both place some notion of internal representation at the heart of a scientific study of mind. In recent years, however, a much more radical view has gained increasing popularity. This view calls into question the commitment to internal representation itself. More strikingly still, this new wave of anti-representationalism is rooted not in ‘armchair’ theorizing but in practical attempts to model and understand intelligent, adaptive be-havior. In this paper we first present, and then critically assess, a variety of recent antirepresentationalist treatments. We suggest that so far, at least, the sceptical rhetoric outpaces both evidence and argument. Some probable causes of this premature scepticism are isolated. Nonetheless, the anti-representationalist challenge is shown to be both important and progressive insofar as it forces us to see beyond the bare representa-tional/non-representational dichotomy and to recognize instead a rich continuum of degrees and types of representationality.

Key words: Internal representation, scientific study, adaptive behavior, radical view, rich continuum.

A goal of perception is to estimate true properties of the world. A goal of categorization is to classify its structure. Aeons of evolution have shaped our senses to this end. These three assumptions motivate much work on human perception. I here argue, on evolutionary grounds, that all three are false. Instead, our perceptions constitute a species-specific user interface that guides behavior in a niche. Just as the icons of a PC’s interface hide the complexity of the computer, so our perceptions usefully hide the complexity of the world, and guide adaptive behavior. This interface theory of perception offers a framework, motivated by evolution, to guide research in object categorization. This framework informs a new class of evolutionary games, called interface games, in which pithy perceptions often drive true perceptions to extinction.

Against the background of the emerging holistic view of language based on physicalism (the embodiment of mind) and an understanding that language is a biological phenomenon rooted in semiosis as the experience of life, it is argued that a new philosophical framework for cognition and language is currently taking shape. This philosophy is best characterized as a synthesis of ideas developed in cognitive linguistics, semiotics and biology. These ideas bear directly on autopoiesis as the theory of the living which possesses a greater explanatory power as it assumes the experiential nature of language. Autopoiesis allows for deeper insights into the essence of language which is viewed as a kind of adaptive behavior of an organism involving a meaning system constituted by signs of signs, thus making unification of (humanistic) science an attainable goal.

Key words: cognition, semiotics, biology, experience, meaning, life.

The traditional approach to writing in terms of the code model of language leads to functional illiteracy, affecting individual and social cognition as adaptive behavior in a consensual domain of co-ordinated interactions, or languaging. Leaning on the biology of cognition, the paper emphasizes the orientational function of texts in establishing a culture-specific relational domain of linguistic interactions sustaining the unity of a languaging community as a living system distributed across space and time. The exploding use of Anglicisms in modern Russian public texts is indicative of dramatic changes in language and culture that may be described as hybridization. Based on an analysis of a large sample of Russian hybrid public texts, it is suggested that unhindered cross-cultural interaction poses new challenges for cognitive development of language-specific cultures outside the Anglo-American world, making real the danger of losing their cultural identity. Relevance: The biology of cognition principles are applied in analyzing an ongoing large-scale linguistic change caused by a shift in the orientational values of Russian society as a living system.

A constructivist approach to cognition assumes the minimal and the simplest set of initial principles or mechanisms, embeds them in realistic circumstances, and lets the entire system evolve under close observation. This paper presents a line of research along this approach trying to connect embodiment to social cognition. First, we show that a mere physical body, when driven toward some task goal, provides a clear information structure, for action execution and perception. As a mechanism of autonomous exploration of such structure, “embodiment as a coupled chaotic field” is proposed, with experiments showing emergent and adaptive behavior. Scaling up the principles, a simulation of the fetal/neonatal motor development is presented. The musculo-skeletal system, basic nervous system, and the uterus environment are simulated. The neural-body dynamics exhibit spontaneous exploration of a variety of motor patterns. Lastly, a robotic experiment is presented to show that visual-motor self-learning can lead to neonatal imitation.

Key words: embodiment, actions, symbols, information structure, emergent behavior, learning, imitation, fetus, cortical maps, body schema/image, coupled chaos system

The Viable System Model (VSM) was described by British cybernetician Stafford Beer in his books Brain of the Firm (1972), The Heart of Enterprise (1979), and Diagnosing the System for Organizations (1985). The VSM is a model of organizational structure that is based on the structure of the human nervous system. Beer notes that the human nervous system as a device for information processing and decision-making is the result of millions of years of evolution. Imitating it may have some advantages. The Viable System Model is based on Ross Ashby’s theory of adaptive behavior and his Law of Requisite Variety. For a further explanation of Ashby’s work, see the definition of “cybernetics.”

This paper proposes a new concept to use Artificial Life approach to construct intelligence as adaptive behavior based on the neuron-like computational elements. In the paper we outline a computational model for the simulation of adaptive behavior. Examples are given to demonstrate the computational model for creating simple behaviors.

How might one account for the organization in behavior without attributing it to an internal control structure? The present article develops a theoretical framework called behavioral dynamics that inte- grates an information-based approach to perception with a dynamical systems approach to action. For a given task, the agent and its environment are treated as a pair of dynamical systems that are coupled mechanically and informationally. Their interactions give rise to the behavioral dynamics, a vector field with attractors that correspond to stable task solutions, repellers that correspond to avoided states, and bifurcations that correspond to behavioral transitions. The framework is used to develop theories of several tasks in which a human agent interacts with the physical environment, including bouncing a ball on a racquet, balancing an object, braking a vehicle, and guiding locomotion. Stable, adaptive behavior emerges from the dynamics of the interaction between a structured environment and an agent with simple control laws, under physical and informational constraints.

Key words: perception and action, perceptual–motor control, dynamical systems, self-organization, locomotion