Information-Processing and Embodied, Embedded, Enactive Cognition. Morphological Computing and Evolution of Cognition. Part 3

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is the third in series dedicated to Information-Processing and Embodied, Embedded, Enactive Cognition. The first Special Issue was devoted to enactive cognition, the second to morphological computing and cognitive agency:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/enactive_cognition
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/cognitive_agency

Continuing the theme of information-processing in embodied, embedded, enactive cognition, with morphological computing, present issue will focus on evolutionary and developmental aspects of cognition, from minimal/basal cognition of single cells up in complexity.

When talking about cognition, it is typically assumed as human capacity, seldom including animal cognition and hardly ever cognition of plants and other living organisms. Moreover, cognition is often argued to conflict with computational models, where computation is understood as symbol manipulation. It has been claimed that embodiment contradicts computational cognition, and that dynamical systems are not computational. Those supposed antinomies have been demonstrated to be false. If computation is understood as information processing in nature (natural computation/ physical computation/ analog computation / unconventional computation/) it is both embodied and dynamic.

Recent work of (Piccinini 2020) addresses biological cognition as result of neurocomputation. Even though this approach goes a step beyond conventional understanding of cognition as exclusive human capacity, it stops at organisms with nervous systems. However, “cognitive operations we usually ascribe to brains—sensing, information processing, memory, valence, decision making, learning, anticipation, problem solving, generalization and goal directedness—are all observed in living forms that don’t have brains or even neurons.” (Levin et al. 2021). Generalizing cognition, a step further from organisms with nervous systems to all living forms, brings new understanding of the mechanisms of life interpreted as cognitive process, and its different aspects like morphology and growth (Friston, Levin, Sengupta and Pezzulo 2014; Pezzulo and Levin 2015).

Based on contemporary empirical and theoretical knowledge of cognition and its evolution and development in nature (Walker, Davies, and Ellis 2017) from basal/ basic/ primitive/ elementary/ cellular to complex form of human cognition (Manicka and Levin 2019; Levin et al. 2021; Lyon et al. 2021; Stewart 1996; Dodig-Crnkovic 2014) modelled on natural information processing (natural computation), helps identifying generative mechanisms of cognition, also in form of morphological intelligence (Ghazi-Zahedi, 2019).

For this Special Issue, we invite contributions bringing new insights into the topics of:

• Embodied, Embedded and Enactive cognition
• Morphological computing, theories, and frameworks
• Physical dynamics as computational resource
• Reservoir computing with Liquid or Echo State Machines
• Evolutionary aspects of cognition
• Minimal/basal cognition and evolution
• Modeling cognitive architectures and processes
• Neuromorphological computing
• Evolutionary robotics and evolutionary computation and embodied systems
• Developmental systems, computational processes, and embodiment
• Morphological and evolutionary aspects of affective, cognitive, and social interaction
• Cognition and new evolutionary synthesis

Comparative research on the differences between various of natural systems and natural and artificial systems, and the role played by different morphologies (sensory and motor) or reservoirs in cognitive computation.

Dr. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
Dr. Marcin Miłkowski
Dr. Przemysław Nowakowski
Guest Editors

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