Dynamic statistical models of biological cognition: insights from communications theory

Maturana's cognitive perspective on the living state, Dretske's insight on how information theory constrains cognition, the Atlan/Cohen cognitive paradigm, and models of intelligence without representation, permit construction of a spectrum of dynamic necessary conditions statistical models of signal transduction, regulation, and metabolism at and across the many scales and levels of organisation of an organism and its context. Nonequilibrium critical phenomena analogous to physical phase transitions, driven by crosstalk, will be ubiquitous, representing not only signal switching, but the recruitment of underlying cognitive modules into tunable dynamic coalitions that address changing patterns of need and opportunity at all scales and levels of organisation. The models proposed here, while certainly providing much conceptual insight, should be most useful in the analysis of empirical data, much as are fitted regression equations.