Naturalizing relevance realization: why agency and cognition are fundamentally not computational.

The way organismic agents come to know the world, and the way algorithms solve problems, are fundamentally different. The most sensible course of action for an organism does not simply follow from logical rules of inference. Before it can even use such rules, the organism must tackle the problem of relevance. It must turn ill-defined problems into well-defined ones, turn semantics into syntax. This ability to realize relevance is present in all organisms, from bacteria to humans. It lies at the root of organismic agency, cognition, and consciousness, arising from the particular autopoietic, anticipatory, and adaptive organization of living beings. In this article, we show that the process of relevance realization is beyond formalization. It cannot be captured completely by algorithmic approaches. This implies that organismic agency (and hence cognition as well as consciousness) are at heart not computational in nature. Instead, we show how the process of relevance is realized by an adaptive and emergent triadic dialectic (a trialectic), which manifests as a metabolic and ecological-evolutionary co-constructive dynamic. This results in a meliorative process that enables an agent to continuously keep a grip on its arena, its reality. To be alive means to make sense of one's world. This kind of embodied ecological rationality is a fundamental aspect of life, and a key characteristic that sets it apart from non-living matter.

Fear of the unknown as a mechanism of the inverse relation between life meaning and psychological distress.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Although there is accumulating evidence for an inverse relation between life meaning and psychological distress, little is known about the mechanisms of this relation. Using cross-sectional, observational methods, this research examined fear of uncertainty as one potential mechanism. DESIGN AND METHODS: Study 1 (N = 141) was completed with a convenience sample, a unidimensional measure of life meaning, and general measures of anxiety and depression. Study 2 (N = 152) was completed with a sample prescreened for anxiety, a multidimensional measure of life meaning, and clinical measures of anxiety and depression. RESULTS: The results from both studies generally showed an inverse relation between life meaning and psychological distress. Study 2 further indicated that these relations were stronger for the meaning subscale of perceiving life as coherent/comprehensible than the subscales assessing whether participants' lives are perceived as purposeful or significant. Mediation analyses in both studies showed indirect effects of life meaning on psychological distress through fear of uncertainty. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support and extend previous research by showing that (i) meaning-as-comprehension may be particularly important in regards to psychological distress, and (ii) fear of uncertainty may mediate the inverse relation between meaning and measures of anxiety and depression.

Distributed Cognition and the Experience of Presence in the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.

Although research on presence in virtual environments has increased in the last few decades due to the rise of immersive technologies, it has not examined how it is achieved in distributed cognitive systems. To this end, we examine the sense of presence on the Martian landscape experienced by scientific team members in the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission (2004-2018). How this was achieved is not obvious because the sensorimotor coupling that typically underlies presence in mundane situations was absent. Nonetheless, we argue that the Three-Level model can provide a framework for exploring how presence was achieved. This account distinguishes between proto-presence, core-presence, and extended-presence, each level dependent on being able to respond effectively to affordances at a particular level of abstraction, operating at different timescales. We maintain that scientists' sense of presence on Mars involved core-presence and extended-presence rather than proto-presence. Extended-presence involved successfully establishing distal intentions (D-intentions) during strategic planning, i.e., long term conceptual goals. Core-presence involved successfully enacting proximal intentions (P-intentions) during tactical planning by carrying out specific actions on a particular target, abstracting away from sensorimotor details. This was made possible by team members "becoming the rover," which enhanced their ability to identify relevant affordances revealed through images. We argue, however, that because Mars exploration is a collective activity involving shared agency by a distributed cognitive system, the experience of presence was a collective presence of the team through the rover.