Naturalizing relevance realization: why agency and cognition are fundamentally not computational.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2024 Johannes Jaeger, Anna Riedl, Alex Djedovic et al. 35 citations
Organisms solve problems in a way that fundamentally differs from algorithmic computation. Before an organism can apply logical rules, it must first determine what is relevant—turning ill-defined problems into well-defined ones. This ability to realize relevance is present in all living beings, from bacteria to humans, and arises from their autopoietic, anticipatory, and adaptive organization. The process of relevance realization cannot be fully captured by formal algorithms, implying that organismic agency, cognition, and consciousness are not computational in nature. Instead, relevance is realized through an adaptive, emergent triadic dialectic—a metabolic and ecological-evolutionary co-constructive dynamic—that allows an agent to continuously maintain a grip on its reality. Being alive means making sense of one's world through embodied ecological rationality, a key characteristic distinguishing life from non-living matter.