Traces of thinking: a stigmergic approach to 4E cognition

Abstract

Abstract This paper outlines an approach to analysing minimal cognition that brings out its social and historical dimensions. It proposes a model, the coordinated systems approach (CSA), which understands cognition as a coordinated coalition of loosely autonomous processes responsible for goal-directedness in a system. On this view, even individual cognition has something of a social flavour to it. The central concept of the paper is stigmergy: a process where the material trace of actions of system elements in their environment is a sign that coordinates a group of semi-autonomous processes in future actions – this is the social dimension. The historical dimension refers to longer term processes which establish the coordinative power of the sign and endow it with normative force. According to this proposal, a full explanation of cognitive capabilities should reference both dimensions. In the second half of the paper the CSA is let loose on some puzzles in 4E cognition. Can the model deal with old problems such as that of cognitive bloat, or new problems such as the supposed external memory of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum? Potentially, the approach could be used to analyse minimal cognitive phenomena over a range of scales from bacteria to human beings.