Quick T., Dautenhahn K., Nehaniv C. & Roberts G. (1999) On bots and bacteria: Ontology independent embodiment [Construction of one’s own reality]. In: Floreano D., Nicoud J.-D. & Mondada F. (eds.) Advances in artificial life: Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Artificial Life. Springer, Heidelberg: 339–343. https://cepa.info/7277
Quick T., Dautenhahn K., Nehaniv C. & Roberts G.
(
1999)
On bots and bacteria: Ontology independent embodiment [Construction of one’s own reality].
In: Floreano D., Nicoud J.-D. & Mondada F. (eds.) Advances in artificial life: Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Artificial Life. Springer, Heidelberg: 339–343.
Fulltext at https://cepa.info/7277
A framework for understanding and exploiting embodiment is presented which is not dependent on any specific ontological context. This framework is founded on a new definition of embodiment, based on the relational dynamics that exist between biological organisms and their environments, and inspired by the structural dynamics of the bacterium Escherichia coli. Full recognition is given to the role played by physically instantiated bodies, but in such a way that this can be meaningfully abstracted within the constraints implied by the term ‘embodiment’, and applied in a variety of operational contexts. This is illustrated by ongoing experimental work in which the relational dynamics that exist between E. coli and its environment are applied in a variety of software environments, using Cellular Automata (CA) with artificial’ sensory’ and’ effector’ surfaces, producing qualitatively similar’ chemotactic’ behaviours in a variety of operational domains.
van Duijn M. V., Keijzer F. A. & Franken D. (2006) Principles of minimal cognition: Casting cognition as sensorimotor coordination. Adaptive Behavior 14(2): 157–170.
van Duijn M. V., Keijzer F. A. & Franken D.
(
2006)
Principles of minimal cognition: Casting cognition as sensorimotor coordination.
Adaptive Behavior 14(2): 157–170.
Within the cognitive sciences, cognition tends to be interpreted from an anthropocentric perspective, involving a stringent set of human capabilities. Instead, we suggest that cognition is better explicated as a much more general biological phenomenon, allowing the lower bound of cognition to extend much further down the phylogenetic scale. We argue that elementary forms of cognition can already be witnessed in prokaryotes possessing a functional sensorimotor analogue of the nervous system. Building on a case-study of the Escherichia coli bacterium and its sensorimotor system, the TCSTsystem, we home in on the characteristics of minimal cognition, and distinguish it from more basic forms of ontogenetic adaptation. In our view, minimal cognition requires an embodiment consisting of a sensorimotor coupling mechanism that subsumes an autopoietic organization; this forms the basis of the growing consensus that the core of cognition revolves around sensorimotor coupling. We discuss the relevance of our interpretation of minimal cognition for the study of cognition in general.