Traces of thinking: a stigmergic approach to 4E cognition
Synthese June 23, 2025 Ric Sims 1 citation
Cognition, even in its simplest forms, has social and historical dimensions. The coordinated systems approach (CSA) models cognition as a coalition of loosely autonomous processes that together produce goal-directed behavior. The key mechanism is stigmergy, where the material traces left by one process in the environment serve as signs that coordinate future actions of other processes. The historical dimension refers to longer-term processes that establish these signs' coordinative power and normative force. The paper applies CSA to puzzles in 4E cognition, such as cognitive bloat and the slime mold Physarum polycephalum's external memory, suggesting the approach can analyze minimal cognition across scales from bacteria to humans.