Anticipation: Beyond synthetic biology and cognitive robotics.
Bio Systems October 1, 2016 Slawomir J Nasuto, Yoshikatsu Hayashi 27 citations
Current robotic technologies cannot have intentional states beyond what is possible within the sensorimotor variant of embodied cognition. Anticipation is an emerging concept that bridges philosophical theories about life and cognition with empirical biological and cognitive sciences grounded in reductionist and Newtonian causality. To advance, cognitive robotics needs new platforms and a conceptual framework for investigating autonomy and purposeful behavior. Hybrid systems combining robotics with neuronal cultures offer experimental platforms where different dimensions of enactivism—sensorimotor processes and constitutive foundations of biological autonomy including anticipation—can be studied in an integrated way. This approach may unify theoretical and empirical biological sciences where reductionist approaches have faltered.