Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic

Cognition and intelligence are central concepts in cognitive science, biology, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence, yet these disciplines offer conflicting accounts of what each of them means and how the two notions are related. In many accounts the two notions are used interchangeably, while in others intelligence is defined independently of cognitive processes. Dominant human-centered traditions identify cognition with mental processes associated with brains, whereas life-centered perspectives attribute cognitive capacities to all living systems. This article proposes a relational, life-centered, info-computational framework in which cognition is the ongoing autopoietic and sense-making organization of living systems, while intelligence is the degree of competence with which such organization achieves goal-directed problem solving under novelty, perturbation, and uncertainty. Cognition exists in degrees across living systems, from basal cellular sensing and regulation to increasingly complex cognitive organizations, while intelligence correspondingly appears in degrees in the ability to solve cognitive problems. Current artificial systems can exhibit engineered or derivative intelligence and may implement cognition-like functions, but they are not cognitive in the biological sense. The resulting framework clarifies how human-centered, life-centered, computational, and artificial intelligence can be related.

Modern computational natural philosophy conceptualizes the universe in terms of information and computation, establishing a framework for the study of cognition and intelligence. Despite some critiques, this computational perspective has significantly influenced our understanding of the natural world, leading to the development of AI systems like ChatGPT based on deep neural networks. Advancements in this domain have been facilitated by interdisciplinary research, integrating knowledge from multiple fields to simulate complex systems. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, represent this approach's capabilities, utilizing reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF). Current research initiatives aim to integrate neural networks with symbolic computing, introducing a new generation of hybrid computational models.

Information is a basic structure of the world, while computation is a process of the dynamic change of information. This book provides a cutting-edge view of world's leading authorities in fields where information and computation play a central role. It sketches the contours of the future landscape for the development of our understanding of information and computation, their mutual relationship and the role in cognition, informatics, biology, artificial intelligence, and information technology. This book is an utterly enjoyable and engaging read which gives readers an opportunity to understand and relate phenomena seemingly unrelated in a completely new light — especially the connections between information, computation, cognition and life. Contents: Cybersemiotics and the Question of Knowledge (Søren Brier) Information Dynamics in a Categorical Setting (Mark Burgin) Mathematics as a Biological Process (G J Chaitin) Information, Causation and Computation (John Collier) From Descartes to Turing: The Computational Content of Supervenience (S Barry Cooper) A Dialogue Concerning Two World Systems: Info-Computational vs Mechanistic (Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic & Vincent C Müller) Does Computing Embrace Self-Organization? (Wolfgang Hofkirchner) Analysis of Information and Computation in Physics Explains Cognitive Paradigms: From Full Cognition to Laplace Determinism to Statistical Determinism to Modern Approach (Vladik Kreinovich, Roberto Araiza & Juan Ferret) Bodies — Both Informed and Transformed Embodied Computation and Information Processing (Bruce J MacLennan) Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations: An Evolutionary Approach (Christophe Menant) Interior Grounding, Reflection, and Self-Consciousness (Marvin Minsky) A Molecular Dynamic Network: Minimal Properties and Evolutionary Implications (Walter Riofrio) Super-recursive Features of Evolutionary Processes and the Models for Computational Evolution (Darko Roglic) Towards a Modeling View of Computing (Oron Shagrir) What's Information, for an Organism or Intelligent Machine? How can a Machine or Organism Mean? (Aaron Sloman) Inconsistent Knowledge as a Natural Phenomenon: The Ranking of Reasonable Inferences as a Computational Approach to Naturally Inconsistent (Legal) Theories (Kees (CNJ) de Vey Mestdagh & Jaap Henk (JH) Hoepman) On the Algorithmic Nature of the World (Hector Zenil & Jean-Paul Delahaye)