Biopsychism: life between computation and cognition

Abstract

The computational metaphor of organisms as phenotypic automata controlled by a genetic programme has been replaced by the cognitive metaphor of organisms as intelligent agents making decisions about how to use their genomic and environmental resources. This metaphor facilitates novel ways of thinking about organisms that defy the assumptions of the old machine metaphor. But like all metaphors, the cognitive metaphor discloses important similarities at the expense of eclipsing significant dissimilarities. I argue that although cognitivism carries with it the crucial insight that living organisms are agents rather than mere automata, this metaphor distorts the nature of biological agency by over-intellectualizing, which risks eliminating the distinction between life and mind. I trace the Cartesian root of these metaphors and argue that it generates a dilemma between mechanism and intellectualism. To capture the middle path that most organisms occupy between these two extremes, I propose an ecological account of natural agency.

Agential autonomy and biological individuality

“…The recent organismal turn in biology fueled by evo‐devo has motivated new ways of thinking about the nature of organisms and the role they play in fundamental biological processes such as development, inheritance, adaptation, and evolution (Baedke, 2019; Baedke & Fábregas‐Tejeda, 2023; Huneman, 2010; Lewontin, 2000; Moreno & Mossio, 2015; Nicholson, 2013; Walsh, 2015). One important line of thinking holds that this turn signals a shift from a conception of organisms as survival machines passively controlled by a genetic program encoded in their DNA and “designed” by environmental selection (e.g., Dawkins, 1976; Dennett, 1995; Jacob & Monod, 1961; Lewens, 2007; Mayr, 1961), to a conception of organisms as agents enacting their genomic and environmental conditions of existence in pursuit of their way of life (Barandiaran et al, 2009; Fulda, 2020; Soto & Sonnenschein, 2020; Thompson, 2007; Turner, 2017). Intuitively speaking, an agent is any entity that has the capacity to act for a goal or purpose or to behave purposively in the world or to bring about the appropriate means to attain its goals under the relevant circumstances.…”

“…There are various accounts of biological agency (e.g., Arnellos & Moreno, 2015; Barandiaran et al, 2009; Burge, 2009; Corning et al, 2023; Desmond & Huneman, 2020; Gunawardena, 2022; Kauffman, 2000; Lewens, 2007; McShea, 2012; Moreno & Mossio, 2015; Okasha, 2018; Skewes & Hooker, 2009; Thompson, 2007; Turner, 2017). One of the most developed and the most useful for my purposes is the ecological or dynamical account according to which, agency is the gross dynamical property of a goal‐directed system to bias its repertoire in response to what its conditions afford (Fulda, 2016, 2017, 2020; Sultan et al, 2022; Walsh, 2012, 2015, 2018). 3 This approach is motivated by recent theoretical, empirical, and philosophical developments in evo‐devo.…”

“…A state of affairs G is a goal then only if there is a system S that tends to attain and maintain G in a hypothetically invariant way, that is, by biasing its repertoire in response to its affordances. Because goals are not intrinsically normative state of affairs (Bedau, 1992) and because having a goal does not presuppose having an intention or desire, this account is naturalistic (Fulda, 2017; 2020).…”

What Is Consciousness? Integrated Information vs. Inference

“…The position that consciousness is coextensive with life is known as biopsychism [46,[49][50][51][52][53]. Biopsychic theories offer a solution to a major challenge faced by neurobiological theories of consciousness that hold consciousness to require a nervous system.…”

“…When we insist that nonconscious life exists, we then face the problem of stating what differentiates us from these nonconscious lifeforms. By taking a biopsychist perspective in which we hold all living systems to be conscious [49][50][51][52][53], we can avoid these problems and see the connection between the physical and experiential in the necessity of inferring the nature of the world beyond our boundaries in service of our physical survival.…”