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Sensorimotor teleology and goal-directedness. An organismic framework for normative behaviour
Barandiaran, X. E., & Rama, T. (2026). Sensorimotor teleology and goal-directedness. An organismic framework for normative behaviour. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Advance online publication (in press). Accepted manuscript
PreprintAbstract
The explanation of behavioural error is a mandatory prerequisite for any naturalistic project of intentionality. Mainstream teleosemantics, rooted in the evolutionary theory of selected functions, has addressed this explanatory goal by drawing on an evolutionary account of teleology and normativity. This paper takes a teleosemantic route but follows a different biological background, namely the organismic or autonomous organizational account of natural teleology and normativity. Although departing from the biological domain, the theory of autonomous systems has been recently extended to the cognitive domain through sensorimotor theory. The key concept in the analysis of normative behaviour, carried over from earlier work, is that of dynamic presupposition: goal-directed behaviour is based on networked dependency between sensorimotor coordination patterns. Our main contribution is to define minimal (necessary and sufficient) requirements for the characterization of goal-directed behaviour that discloses a naturalized sense of normativity. The introduction of these requirements is closely related to our teleosemantic route: to provide a criterion for evaluating normative behaviour that can be interpreted in terms of a particular conception of natural teleology. We argue that organism teleosemantics is a suitable frame for interpreting these requisites. After presenting and discussing the individual elements of our proposal, we turn to a specific and classic case study: Piaget's A-not-B error. We use empirical data available from this case to show how infant behaviour can meet our minimal requirements and the multiple forms of normativity that it brings forth.
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Socialecological affective arrangements: diving with a small sea of many seas
Cabello, V., Barandiaran, X., Gonzalez-Mon, B., Zaragoza, J. M., Siqueiros, J. M., & Brugnach, M. (2026). Socialecological affective arrangements: diving with a small sea of many seas [Preprint]. https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/29264/
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Organizational Accounts of Malfunction: The Dual-Order Approach and the Normative Field Alternative
Barandiaran, X. E. (2026). Organizational Accounts of Malfunction: The Dual-Order Approach and the Normative Field Alternative. Biological Theory, 21(1), 51-69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-025-00500-z
Abstract
The notion of malfunction is critical to biological explanation. It provides a test bed for the normative character of functional attribution. Theories of biological functioning must permit traits to operate but, at the same time, be judged as malfunctioning (in some naturalized, nonarbitrary sense). Whereas malfunctioning has attracted the most attention and discussion in evolutionary etiological approaches, in systemic and organizational theories it has been less discussed. The most influential of the organizational approaches (by Saborido, Moreno, and Mossio) takes a dual-order approach to malfunctions, as a set of functions that fit first-order constitutive norms but fail to obey second-order regulatory ones. We argue that this conception is unnecessarily complicated (malfunctions do not need to arise as a result of two conflicting orders of norms) and too narrow (it excludes canonical cases of malfunctioning). We provide an alternative organizational account grounded on viability theory. The dynamics of the traits that constitute an organism define the normative field of its viability space: sugar must be replaced at a certain rate, blood must be pumped at a certain pace, and so on. A trait operates normatively when its effects on the viability space correlate positively with the normative field. Three senses of dysfunctionality might be distinguished: subfunctional operations are those that positively correlate with the normative field but quantitatively fail to match the required speed; malfunctional operations are those that do not positively correlate with the normative field; and nonfunctional traits either don’t operate at all or operate with null effect on the normative field.
HTML Full PDF Text Audio PodcastSummary
Autonomy and organization
The organizational approach locates function in the web of processes that constitute and sustain a living system, rather than in evolutionary history or statistical averages. What individuates a living thing is a continuous, far-from-equilibrium activity: some dissipative structures are self-producing, so their very parts are a product of the system they compose. Genuine autonomy requires the system to be recursively self-maintaining, often cashed out through constraint closure. On this view functions are fundamentally relational.
This yields a compact criterion: the normative function of a trait A is to operate according to the dynamic presupposition of other traits within a recursively self-maintaining organization.
Viability space
Following Ashby, essential or critical variables define the viability of a system. Their combined space can be partitioned into a viable region (which the system can hold indefinitely under stable conditions) and a precarious region (where the system is still alive but will inevitably die if nothing changes). For each point of the precarious region there is a minimal behavior or regulation necessary for survival. Stability is not to be assumed in nature.
The normative field
The core idea: dysfunction is a failure of a trait to make its necessary contribution, at the required pace or direction, to the system's ongoing viability, in the manner other traits dynamically presuppose. Its positive counterpart is the normative field.
“A normative field can be defined as the minimum constant parametric change, for each point of the precarious region, necessary to avoid the irreversible disintegration of the system.”— Barandiaran 2026, p. 58
From this follows the criterion of proper functioning: a trait operates normatively (or functions properly) when its operations positively correlate with the normative field. Normativity expresses a genuine “must” — the minimum the system needs to do.
“You can eat more than what your body needs, but there is only a certain minimum amount that you need to eat, that you must eat.”— Barandiaran 2026, p. 58
Because organisms rarely leap from null to full satisfaction of a need, the field is expressed as a rate: far from starvation one need only slowly increase intake; close to it one must increase it much faster. This graduality makes intelligible the vocabulary of biological stress, decay, and clinical terms like bradycardia, dyspnea, or hypoxia.
The minimal model
Metabolic activity is reduced to a single metabolite concentration [A] whose fate depends on food intake [F]. For low food the only outcome is death; for higher food a stable living equilibrium appears. This carves the space into a viable region, a precarious region (starvation unless [F] rises at the right pace), and a terminal region (already too late). The normative field is the positive change in [F] required at each precarious point to reverse the trajectory toward death. The same structure generalizes: [F] can be external (food reached by a bacterium's motility) or internal (oxygen supply, heart rate). So the sensorimotor system of a bacterium operates normatively if it makes the bacterium move up the food gradient at the rate necessary to keep [A] within the viable region.
Three senses of dysfunction
Correlation with the normative field lets the account draw distinctions coarser theories blur.
“Subfunctional operations are those that positively correlate with the normative field but quantitatively fail to match the required speed.”— Barandiaran 2026, p. 61
By contrast, malfunctional operations do not positively correlate with the field — either negatively correlating or not correlating at all. Nonfunctional traits either don't operate or operate with null effect. A qualification keeps the account from overreaching: traits are dysfunctional only when they have to operate and they don't, or when they are dynamically presupposed to do so and cannot. Temperature regulation shows all three: moving temperature the right way too slowly (subfunction), driving it the wrong way (malfunction), or failing to act at all (nonfunction).
Attribution and compensation
Naming what is dysfunctioning is not yet naming which part is responsible. The approach pinpoints the locus by systematically simulating changes in each trait within its local mechanistic feasibility ranges and the system's organizational presuppositions, until a feasible restoring intervention is found. This can even separate the trait identified as dysfunctional from the deeper causal source. Compensation does not hide dysfunction, because compensations carry a traceable cost on viability: when one kidney is lost, the other compensates by hypertrophy and hyperfiltration, but prolonged hyperfiltration strains the nephrons and eventually harms the organism. It is the organizational presupposition — two kidneys with a specific filtration rate — not evolutionary history, that lets us identify the dysfunction despite active compensation. A torn ACL tells the same story.
The nature of norms
The account offers an operational bridge to systems biology, metabolic modeling, and the biomarker thresholds familiar from clinical tests — yet the judgment of a biomarker's state remains ultimately individual, centered on the organism and its autonomous organization. Origin is irrelevant to functionality: a random mutation, a developmental novelty, or a learned behavior can be functional on the same footing as historically selected traits.
“The origin might be chance, but it is the effect and the way in which the variation of a trait fits into the network of self-maintaining processes and presuppositions that makes it functional or dysfunctional.”— Barandiaran 2026, p. 65
Norms can be understood as transcendental yet immanent — conditions of possibility for the organism's existence, arising from within its own dynamics. Functions are explanatory without being efficiently causal. By modeling norms as fields of minimally required parametric changes that pull the system away from terminal regions, the approach grounds normative judgment without presupposing stable reference classes, selected effects, or statistical normality.
“It is ultimately the autonomy of each living organization (in its open and interdependent singularity and becoming) that marks the horizon of normative judgments.”— Barandiaran 2026, p. 66
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Outonomy: Fleshing out the Concept of Autonomy Beyond the Individual
Barandiaran, X. E., & Etxeberria, A. (Eds.) (2026). Outonomy: Fleshing out the Concept of Autonomy Beyond the Individual. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-05501-9
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Transforming agency: On the mode of existence of large language models
Barandiaran, X. E., & Almendros, L. S. (2025). Transforming agency: On the mode of existence of large language models. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-025-10094-3
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This paper investigates the ontological characterization of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Between inflationary and deflationary accounts, we pay special attention to their status as agents. This requires explaining in detail the architecture, processing, and training procedures that enable LLMs to display their capacities, and the extensions used to turn LLMs into agent-like systems. After a systematic analysis we conclude that a LLM fails to meet necessary and sufficient conditions for autonomous agency in the light of embodied theories of mind: the individuality condition (it is not the product of its own activity, it is not even directly affected by it), the normativity condition (it does not generate its own norms or goals), and, partially the interactional asymmetry condition (it is not the origin and sustained source of its interaction with the environment). If not agents, then… What are LLMs? We argue that ChatGPT should be characterized as an interlocutor or linguistic automaton, a library-that-talks, devoid of (autonomous) agency, but capable to engage performatively on non-purposeful yet purpose-structured and purpose-bounded tasks. When interacting with humans, a “ghostly” component of the human-machine interaction makes it possible to enact genuine conversational experiences with LLMs. Despite their lack of sensorimotor and biological embodiment, LLMs textual embodiment (the training corpus), digital extended interface embodiments, and resource-hungry computational embodiment, significantly transform existing forms of machine automatism and human agency. Beyond assisted and extended agency, the LLM-human coupling can produce midtended forms of agency, closer to the production of intentional agency than to the extended instrumentality of any previous technologies.
Talks (3) ▾
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Generative midtended cognition and Artificial Intelligence: thinging with thinging things
Barandiaran, X. E., & Pérez-Verdugo, M. (2025). Generative midtended cognition and Artificial Intelligence: thinging with thinging things. Synthese, 205(4), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-025-04961-4
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This paper introduces the concept of “generative midtended cognition”, that explores the integration of generative AI technologies with human cognitive processes. The term “generative” reflects AI’s ability to iteratively produce structured outputs, while “midtended” captures the potential hybrid (human-AI) nature of the process. It stands between traditional conceptions of intended creation, understood as steered or directed from within, and extended processes that bring exo-biological processes into the creative process. We examine the working of current generative technologies (based on multimodal transformer architectures typical of large language models like ChatGPT) to explain how they can transform human cognitive agency beyond what the conceptual resources of standard theories of extended cognition can capture. We suggest that the type of cognitive activity typical of the coupling between a human and generative technologies is closer (but not equivalent) to social cognition than to classical extended cognitive paradigms. Yet, it deserves a specific treatment. We provide an explicit definition of generative midtended cognition in which we treat interventions by AI systems as constitutive of the agent’s intentional creative processes. Furthermore, we distinguish two dimensions of generative hybrid creativity: 1. Width: captures the sensitivity of the context of the generative process (from the single letter to the whole historical and surrounding data), 2. Depth: captures the granularity of iteration loops involved in the process. Generative midtended cognition stands in the middle depth between conversational forms of cognition in which complete utterances or creative units are exchanged, and micro-cognitive (e.g. neural) subpersonal processes. Finally, the paper discusses the potential risks and benefits of widespread generative AI adoption, including the challenges of authenticity, generative power asymmetry, and creative boost or atrophy.
Talks (2) ▾
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Sensorimotor Norms and Social Norms: A Pluralistic Proposal
Prokop, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2026). Sensorimotor Norms and Social Norms: A Pluralistic Proposal. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-026-00805-3
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The performance of complex motor and craft skills is a norm-governed process, reliant on an agent’s sensitivity to standards of correct and incorrect performance. Whilst norm-governed practical skills tend to be understood in terms of social norms, this paper proposes an alternative, pluralistic perspective, which recognises socially underdetermined normative dimensions in practical skills. Specifically, drawing on the enactive approach, we argue that sensorimotor norms, understood as situated patterns of sensorimotor organisation, constitute skill-guiding normative standards which are not fully captured by social rules and expectations. We demonstrate the value of this pluralistic perspective for the explanation of skill-related norms by showing how it delivers a better interpretation of a recent proposal about the skill-based evolution of social norms, namely Jonathan Birch’s ‘skill hypothesis’. Building on this discussion, we then elaborate on the explanatory benefits of our proposal for making sense of cases of norm change and innovation in the context of practical skills and highlight its potential to address challenges connected to the origins and development of social norms. We conclude that a pluralistic perspective which takes account of both sensorimotor and social norms is better suited to explain essential features of norm-governed motor and craft skills than a view which limits itself to the consideration of social norms.
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Outonomy, the Very Idea
Barandiaran, X. E., & Etxeberria, A. (2026). Outonomy, the Very Idea. In X. E. Barandiaran, & A. Etxeberria (Eds.), Outonomy: Fleshing out the Concept of Autonomy Beyond the Individual (pp. 3-12). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-05501-9_1
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The concept of autonomy, as the capacity of a system to govern itself according to its own normativity, is central to modernity. Its theoretical significance spans across various scientific and philosophical fields. Traditionally, however, autonomy has been conceived as arising within the boundaries attributed to the individual in an abstract, internalist and self-sufficient manner. During the last decades, this conception has been challenged at different scales and requires a revision that crosses the boundaries of the individual and takes into account the material embeddedness, open interactivity, and deep interdependency of natural and social phenomena. We propose that autonomous systems are better understood as emerging-from and depending-on different scales of interactivity, collectivity, extensionality, environmentality, and through the lenses of integrativity and sustainability. This updated approach we call Outonomy.
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Autonomy and Technology: From Instrumentalism to Technocomplexity
Calleja-López, A., Pérez-Verdugo, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2026). Autonomy and Technology: From Instrumentalism to Technocomplexity. In X. E. Barandiaran, & A. Etxeberria (Eds.), Outonomy: Fleshing out the Concept of Autonomy Beyond the Individual (pp. 111-120). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-05501-9_11
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In this chapter, we briefly present different visions of the relationships between technology and autonomy. We accomplish this by a historical and (partly) dialectical exploration of three positions. We start with the modern thesis by which autonomous humans instrumentalize tools and techniques for their own benefit and self-determination. Next, we address the antithesis: the notion that technological systems have become autonomous, subordinating people to their own self-maintenance. Finally, we explore a synthetic position, which underlines that the only space for autonomy in a technologically mediated world is a technopolitical autonomy that takes the individual beyond itself, back to the ontotechnical constitution of its being, and forward into a personal and collective, ethical and political, participation in its becoming.
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Autonomy and Its Limits in Social-Ecological Systems
Cabello, V., Merlo, A., Mancilla, M., Siqueiros, J. M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2026). Autonomy and Its Limits in Social-Ecological Systems. In X. E. Barandiaran, & A. Etxeberria (Eds.), Outonomy: Fleshing out the Concept of Autonomy Beyond the Individual (pp. 121-130). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-05501-9_12
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Traditionally, autonomy has been perceived through the lens of individualism and internalism, a view increasingly challenged by contemporary philosophical approaches, as well as by the context of global sustainability. Environmental challenges underline the need to shift from Earth-imposed limits to social-ecological limitations to achieve autonomy, democracy, and sustainability. In the realm of sustainability sciences, the concept of social-ecological systems has been developed to explore the interdependencies between humans and their environments. Despite the significance of autonomy in discussions around sustainability, its exploration within this field remains limited. This chapter aims to discuss the potential contribution of the concept of outonomy for social-ecological systems and the planetary scale and, conversely, to open up the concept of autonomy to planetary-ecological dependencies.
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The Equilibration of Technical Objects: Uncovering Normative Layers of Sensorimotor Engagement
Pérez-Verdugo, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2025). The Equilibration of Technical Objects: Uncovering Normative Layers of Sensorimotor Engagement. Topoi. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-025-10259-4
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In this paper we argue that radically embodied approaches to cognition can be expanded to show that: (a) our sensorimotor engagements with technical objects can be normatively shaped in a direct manner (i.e. not necessarily involving symbolic processes), and that (b) this normativity is not only anchored in the agent but also partially supported by technical objects themselves. We depart from the enactive reinterpretation of Piagetian sensorimotor schemes and his theory of equilibration to establish how both agent-sided and environment-sided support structures (including artefacts) contribute to the autonomous self-maintenance of sensorimotor networks. We will then introduce technical behaviour as a regulatory transformation of the environment enacted to equilibrate certain sensorimotor structures. We will defend that technical objects, as products of technical behaviour, sediment these normative constraints in their material structure. Then, through the dynamics of assimilation and accommodation, we schematize how different scenarios give rise to canonical or alternative uses in the encounter of agents with artefacts. Finally, we will offer a complexification of the normative entanglement of objects and agents by introducing the sociohistorical notion of activity as developed within Activity Theory approaches as collectively articulating individual actions. Based on all of this, we will have offered a picture of technical objects as also radically embodying normative layers, without submitting to an overly-deterministic picture of artefacts as rigidly prescribing behaviour, or to the purely symbolic or culturalist interpretation of them.
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Attention is all they need: cognitive science and the (techno)political economy of attention in humans and machines
de la Torre, P. G., Pérez-Verdugo, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2025). Attention is all they need: cognitive science and the (techno)political economy of attention in humans and machines. AI & SOCIETY. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02400-z
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This paper critically analyses the “attention economy” within the framework of cognitive science and techno-political economics, as applied to both human and machine interactions. We explore how current business models, particularly in digital platform capitalism, harness user engagement by strategically shaping attentional patterns. These platforms utilize advanced AI and massive data analytics to enhance user engagement, creating a cycle of attention capture and data extraction. We review contemporary (neuro)cognitive theories of attention and platform engagement design techniques and criticize classical cognitivist and behaviourist theories for their inadequacies in addressing the potential harms of such engagement on user autonomy and wellbeing. 4E approaches to cognitive science, instead, emphasizing the embodied, extended, enactive, and ecological aspects of cognition, offer us an intrinsic normative standpoint and a more integrated understanding of how attentional patterns are actively constituted by adaptive digital environments. By examining the precarious nature of habit formation in digital contexts, we reveal the techno-economic underpinnings that threaten personal autonomy by disaggregating habits away from the individual, into an AI managed collection of behavioural patterns. Our current predicament suggests the necessity of a paradigm shift towards an ecology of attention. This shift aims to foster environments that respect and preserve human cognitive and social capacities, countering the exploitative tendencies of cognitive capitalism.
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Varieties of normativity and mental health: an enactive approach
García, E., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2025). Varieties of normativity and mental health: an enactive approach. Synthese, 205(2), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04854-y
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In recent years, (autonomy-centered) enactivism has been used to provide an integrative and relational account of mental conditions. A significant advancement lies in its naturalized and pluralistic treatment of normativity, which transcends traditional objectivist and normativist dichotomies. This article explores the varieties of normativity within this paradigm and their implications for understanding mental conditions. We address purported challenges associated with the integration of social normativity into the enactive naturalistic framework of cognition, particularly concerning mental conditions. Drawing upon the distinction between the constitution problem and the status problem, we conceptualize mental conditions as intersubjectively constituted with an intersubjectively negotiated status. Adopting a participatory sense-making perspective, we address three challenges posed by social movements: (1) Hermeneutical dilemmas related to the ontological openness of mental health categories. (2) The difficulties and urgency to mitigate epistemic injustices. (3) The complex attribution of (social) responsibility in psychological wellbeing. In conclusion, this perspective prompts a reevaluation of epistemological assumptions, advocating for a second-person and engaged perspective on mental conditions.
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The Organismic Turn. Teleosemantics after 4E
Barandiaran, X. E., & Rama, T. (2025). The Organismic Turn. Teleosemantics after 4E. In M. Heras-Escribano (Ed.), Analytic Philosophy and 4E Cognition (pp. 143-159). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003649359-13/organismic-turn-teleosemantics-4e-xabier-barandiaran-tiago-rama
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Emergence and Autonomous Agency
Barandiaran, X. E. (2025). Emergence and Autonomous Agency. RIEV, Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos, 70(2). https://doi.org/10.61879/riev702zkia202511
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Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos. RIEV, 70, 2
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Thermina: A minimal model of autonomous agency from the lens of stochastic thermodynamics
Aguilera, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2024). Thermina: A minimal model of autonomous agency from the lens of stochastic thermodynamics. In ALIFE 2024: Proceedings of the 2024 Artificial Life Conference. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00826
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Abstract. We introduce a minimal model of a thermodynamic agent capable of maintaining far-from-equilibrium states by actively harvesting and storing free energy from its environment. Inspired by minimal models of autonomy like Bittorio (Varela et al., 1991), our agent —labelled Thermina—gives shape to a theoretical framework for studying the interplay between thermodynamics and autonomy. By analytically studying the nonequilibrium steady state of the system, we distinguish between regions of ‘autonomous’ states —sustaining themselves out-of-equilibrium by harvesting free energy from the environment— and regions of ‘non-autonomous’ states —close to thermodynamic equilibrium and with very low chances of gathering free energy. Furthermore, we inspect the adaptive mechanisms that allow an agent to regulate its interaction with the environment to robustly maintain its nonequilibrium state. Studying in detail the behaviour of the system, we aim to provide insights into the broader question of how thermodynamic processes contribute to the emergence and maintenance of complex, adaptive behaviour in natural and artificial systems.
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Beyond fatalism: Gaia, entropy, and the autonomy of anthropogenic life on Earth
Merlo, A., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2024). Beyond fatalism: Gaia, entropy, and the autonomy of anthropogenic life on Earth. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 24, 61-75. https://doi.org/10.3354/esep00213
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The current disruption of ecosystems and climate systems can be likened to an increase in entropy within our planet. This concept is often linked to the second law of thermodynamics, which predicts a necessary rise in entropy resulting from all material and energy-related processes, including the intricate organisation of living systems. Consequently, discussions surrounding the ongoing crisis commonly carry an underlying sense of fatalism when referencing thermodynamic principles. In this study, we explore how the understanding of life has been harmonized with thermodynamics to show that entropy production is a consequence of heightened complexity in life rather than its breakdown. Furthermore, it is crucial to perform a thermodynamic analysis of the Earth system as a whole to dispel fatalistic assumptions. The extremum principles linked to thermodynamics do not foretell the precise evolution of complex organisations but rather set the thermodynamic boundaries associated with their development. Ultimately, treating the Earth system as an integrated autonomous entity in which life and human societies play pivotal roles is essential for charting a sustainable path forward for humanity. Understanding how to contribute to thermodynamic states that are more conducive to life, rather than hastening the journey towards chaotic states, is paramount for human survival and well-being in the Anthropocene era.
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Decidim, a Technopolitical Network for Participatory Democracy: Philosophy, Practice and Autonomy of a Collective Platform in the Age of Digital Intelligence
Barandiaran, X. E., Calleja-López, A., Monterde, A., & Romero, C. (2024). Decidim, a Technopolitical Network for Participatory Democracy: Philosophy, Practice and Autonomy of a Collective Platform in the Age of Digital Intelligence. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50784-7
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Personal Autonomy and (Digital) Technology: An Enactive Sensorimotor Framework
Pérez-Verdugo, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2023). Personal Autonomy and (Digital) Technology: An Enactive Sensorimotor Framework. Philosophy & Technology, 36(4), 84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00683-y
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Many digital technologies, designed and controlled by intensive data-driven corporate platforms, have become ubiquitous for many of our daily activities. This has raised political and ethical concerns over how they might be threatening our personal autonomy. However, not much philosophical attention has been paid to the specific role that their hyper-designed (sensorimotor) interfaces play in this regard. In this paper, we aim to offer a novel framework that can ground personal autonomy on sensorimotor interaction and, from there, directly address how technological design affects personal autonomy. To do this, we will draw from enactive sensorimotor approaches to cognition, focusing on the central notion of habits, understood as sensorimotor schemes that, in networked relations, give rise to sensorimotor agency. Starting from sensorimotor agency as a basis for more complex forms of personal autonomy, our approach gives us grounds to analyse our relationship with technology (in general) and to distinguish between autonomy-enhancing and autonomy-diminishing technologies. We argue that, by favouring/obstructing the enactment of certain (networks of) habits over others, technologies can directly act upon our personal autonomy, locally and globally. With this in mind, we then discuss how current digital technologies are often being designed to be autonomy-diminishing (as is the case of “dark patterns” in design), and sketch some ideas on how to build more autonomy-enhancing digital technologies.
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Cómo usar Decidim. Guía para administraciones públicas y grandes organizaciones.
Barandiaran, X. E. (2023). Cómo usar Decidim. Guía para administraciones públicas y grandes organizaciones. Decidim.org. https://xabier.barandiaran.net/?p=2843
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Este documento es un manual para aquellas organizaciones y administraciones públicas (ayuntamientos, gobiernos autonómicos y estatales, ministerios, etc.) que quieran ofrecer un servicio digital para la participación pública usando Decidim. La sociedad contemporánea está irreversiblemente atravesada por una red de servicios digitales o plataformas que reconfiguran el campo social. Las instituciones públicas y organizaciones sociales no son ajenas a este cambio pero generalmente no disponen de medios digitales propios. Existen, sin embargo, alternativas como Decidim que han permitido ya a más de 400 organizaciones en todo el mundo desplegar plataformas digitales capaces de articular la inteligencia colectiva de la ciudadanía en la producción de políticas públicas complejas. Decidim es toda una infraestructura digital libre, gratuita y abierta para la democracia participativa que permite desplegar una red social diseñada para desplegar procesos de participación, para estructurar y canalizar la actividad de diferentes órganos o asambleas, para realizar consultas, activar iniciativas ciudadanas o realizar grandes conferencias participativas. Este documento explica los elementos a tener en cuenta para contratar, configurar y poner en marcha un servicio digital para la democracia participativa a través de la plataforma Decidim. Explica su integración con otros servicios, así como recomendaciones de uso, despliegue y evaluación. Se detallan también una serie de principios tecnopolíticos que permiten diseñar mejor los procesos de participación, articular los órganos, y también hacer frente a los potenciales riesgos y explotar las oportunidades que ofrece Decidim dentro de las administraciones públicas.
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Active Role of Self-Sustained Neural Activity on Sensory Input Processing: A Minimal Theoretical Model
Santos, B. A., Gomes, R. M., Barandiaran, X. E., & Husbands, P. (2022). Active Role of Self-Sustained Neural Activity on Sensory Input Processing: A Minimal Theoretical Model. Neural Computation, 34(3), 686-715. https://doi.org/10.1162/neco_a_01471
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A growing body of work has demonstrated the importance of ongoing oscillatory neural activity in sensory processing and the generation of sensorimotor behaviors. It has been shown, for several different brain areas, that sensory-evoked neural oscillations are generated from the modulation by sensory inputs of inherent self-sustained neural activity (SSA). This letter contributes to that strand of research by introducing a methodology to investigate how much of the sensory-evoked oscillatory activity is generated by SSA and how much is generated by sensory inputs within the context of sensorimotor behavior in a computational model. We develop an abstract model consisting of a network of three Kuramoto oscillators controlling the behavior of a simulated agent performing a categorical perception task. The effects of sensory inputs and SSAs on sensory-evoked oscillations are quantified by the cross product of velocity vectors in the phase space of the network under different conditions (disconnected without input, connected without input, and connected with input). We found that while the agent is carrying out the task, sensory-evoked activity is predominantly generated by SSA (93.10%) with much less influence from sensory inputs (6.90%). Furthermore, the influence of sensory inputs can be reduced by 10.4% (from 6.90% to 6.18%) with a decay in the agent's performance of only 2%. A dynamical analysis shows how sensory-evoked oscillations are generated from a dynamic coupling between the level of sensitivity of the network and the intensity of the input signals. This work may suggest interesting directions for neurophysiological experiments investigating how self-sustained neural activity influences sensory input processing, and ultimately affects behavior.
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Using enactive robotics to think outside of the problem-solving box: How sensorimotor contingencies constrain the forms of emergent autononomous habits
Egbert, M. D., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2022). Using enactive robotics to think outside of the problem-solving box: How sensorimotor contingencies constrain the forms of emergent autononomous habits. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 16, 1-23. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2022.847054
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We suggest that the influence of biology in ‘biologically inspired robotics’ can be embraced at a deeper level than is typical, if we adopt an enactive approach that moves the focus of interest from how problems are solved to how problems emerge in the first place. In addition to being inspired by mechanisms found in natural systems or by evolutionary design principles directed at solving problems posited by the environment, we can take inspiration from the precarious, self-maintaining organization of living systems to investigate forms of cognition that are also precarious and self-maintaining and that thus also, like life, have their own problems that must be be addressed if they are to persist. In this vein, we use a simulation to explore precarious, self-reinforcing sensorimotor habits as a building block for a robot's behavior. Our simulations of simple robots controlled by an Iterative Deformable Sensorimotor Medium demonstrate the spontaneous emergence of different habits, their re-enactment and the organization of an ecology of habits within each agent. The form of the emergent habits is constrained by the sensory modality of the robot such that habits formed under one modality (vision) are more similar to each other than they are to habits formed under another (audition). We discuss these results in the wider context of: (a) enactive approaches to life and mind, (b) sensorimotor contingency theory, (c) adaptationist vs. structuralist explanations in biology, and (d) the limits of functionalist problem-solving approaches to (artificial) intelligence.
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Measuring Autonomy for Life-Like AI
Vakhrameev, D., Aguilera, M., Barandiaran, X. E., & Bedia, M. (2020). Measuring Autonomy for Life-Like AI. In The 2020 Conference on Artificial Life (pp. 589-591). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00308
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Current success of Artificial Intelligence (particularly in the application of Deep Learning techniques) is bringing some of its methods closer to Artificial Life and re-opening old questions, social fears and envisioned applications. The concept of autonomy has long guided research and progress in Artificial Life. We explore how this concept can contribute to evaluate the autonomy of contemporary AI systems.
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Defining Collective Identities in Technopolitical Interaction Networks
Barandiaran, X. E., Calleja-López, A., & Cozzo, E. (2020). Defining Collective Identities in Technopolitical Interaction Networks. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01549
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We are currently witnessing the emergence of new forms of collective identities and a redefinition of the old ones through networked digital interactions, and these can be explicitly measured and analysed. We distinguish between three major trends on the development of the concept of identity in the realm of the social: 1) an essentialist sense (based on conditions and properties shared by members of a group), 2) a representational or ideational sense (based on the application of categories by oneself or others), and 3) a relational and interactional sense (based on interaction processes between actors and their environments). The interactional approach aligns with current empirical and methodological progress in social network analysis. Moreover, it has been argued that within the network society, the notion of collective identity (Melucci, 1995) in the political field must be rethought as technologically mediated and interactive. We suggest that collective identities should be understood as recurrent, cohesive and coordinated communicative interaction networks. We here propose that such identities can be depicted by a) mapping and filtering a relevant interaction network, b) delimiting a set of communities, c) determining the strongly connected component(s) of such communities (the core identity) in a directed graph and d) defining the identity audiences and sources within the community. This technical graph-theoretical characterization is explained and justified in detail through a toy model and applied to three empirical case studies to characterize political identities in: party politics (communicative interaction in Twitter during the Spanish elections in 2018), contentious politics in confrontation (in Twitter) during Catalan strike for independence (2019) and the multitudinous identity of Spanish Indignados/15 social movement in Facebook fan pages (2011). We discuss how the proposed definition is useful to delimit and characterize the internal structure of collective identities in technopolitical interaction networks, we suggest how the proposed methods can be improved and complemented with other approaches and draw the theoretical implications of understanding collective identities as emerging from interaction networks in a progressive platformization of social interactions in a digital world.
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Autonomía tecnopolítica Qué significa y porqué Decidim es un buen ejemplo
Barandiaran, X. E. (2020). Autonomía tecnopolítica Qué significa y porqué Decidim es un buen ejemplo. In Decidim (Ed.), DecidimFest20: Democracia y tecnología en tiempos de emergencia. Ajuntament de Barcelona. https://xabier.barandiaran.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/barandiaran.pdf
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Artificial Democratic Life. Re-engineering the autonomy of the social, a research program
Barandiaran, X. E. (2019). Artificial Democratic Life. Re-engineering the autonomy of the social, a research program. In The 2019 Conference on Artificial Life (pp. 11-12). https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00131
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By Artificial Democratic Life we mean the design and deployment of artificial (digital) infrastructures aimed at enhancing or improving social democratic life. Artificial Life, as a discipline and as a community, has much to contribute to the contemporary challenge of redesigning democracy in the network era, in understanding and designing democracy as a form of life: one that evolves into increasingly higher complexity and diversity while preserving homeostatic invariants and designing the infrastructures capable to resiliently enhance it. We identify some opportunities and specific challenges that can be faced using Alife simulation techniques and conceptual resources.
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Towards modelling social habits: an organismically inspired evolutionary robotics approach
Bedia, M. G., Heras-Escribano, M., Cajal, D., Aguilera, M., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2019). Towards modelling social habits: an organismically inspired evolutionary robotics approach. In ALIFE 2019: The 2019 Conference on Artificial Life (pp. 341-348). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00185
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Abstract. There has been a revival of the notion of habit in the embodied and situated cognitive sciences. A habit can be understood as ‘a self-sustaining pattern of sensorimotor coordination that is formed when the stability of a particular mode of sensorimotor engagement is dynamically coupled with the stability of the mechanisms generating it’ (Barandiaran, 2008, p. 281). This view has inspired models of biologically-inspired homeostatic agents capable of establishing their own habits (Di Paolo and Iizuka, 2008). Despite recent achievements in this field, there is little written about how social habits can be established from this modelling perspective. We hypothesize that, when the stability of internal behavioural mechanisms is coupled to the stability of a behaviour and other agents are present during this behaviour, a social interdependence of behaviour takes place: a social habit is established. We provide evidence for our hypothesis with an evolutionary robotics simulation model of homeostatic plasticity in a phototactic behaviour. Agents evolved to couple internal homeostasis to behavioural fitness display social interdependencies in their behaviour. The social habit of these agents was not interrupted when blindness to phototactic stimuli was introduced as long as social perception remained active. This did not happen when internal homeostasis was not coupled to the fitness of the agent. The results allow us to propose a possible conjecture about the character of social habits and to offer a potential theoretical framework to understand how habits develop from neurodynamics to the level of social interaction.
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Tecnopolítica, municipalismo y radicalización democrática.
Barandiaran, X. E. (2019). Tecnopolítica, municipalismo y radicalización democrática. In L. Roth, A. Monterde, & A. Calleja-López (Eds.), Ciudades Democráticas. La revuelta municipalista en el ciclo post-15M (pp. 173-207). Icaria. http://ciudadesdemocraticas.tecnopolitica.net/capitulos/capitulo6.pdf
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Decidim: political and technopolitical networks for participatory democracy. White Paper
Barandiaran, X. E., Calleja-López, A., Monterde, A., & Romero, C. (2019). Decidim: political and technopolitical networks for participatory democracy. White Paper. Decidim.org (Ajuntament de Barcelona). https://docs.decidim.org/whitepaper/en/doc-info/
Abstract
Decidim [http://decidim.org], from the Catalan for "let’s decide" or “we decide”, is a digital infrastructure for participatory democracy, built entirely and collaboratively as free software. More specifically, Decidim is a web environment (a framework) produced in Ruby on Rails (a programming language) that allows anybody to create and configure a website platform, to be used in the form of a political network for democratic participation. The platform allows any organization (local city council, association, university, NGO, neighbourhood or cooperative) to create mass processes for strategic planning, participatory budgeting, collaborative design for regulations, urban spaces and election processes. It also makes possible to connect traditional in-person democratic meetings (assemblies, council meetings, etc.) with the digital world: sending meeting invites, managing registrations, streaming content, facilitating the publication of meeting minutes, etc. In addition, Decidim enables the structuring of government bodies or assemblies (councils, boards, working groups), the convening of consultations, referendums or channelling citizen or member initiatives to trigger different decision making processes. However, the Decidim project is much more than its technological features. Decidim is in itself a sort of crossroad of the various dimensions of networked democracy and society, a detailed practical map of their complexities and conflicts. We distinguish three general planes or dimensions of the project: the political (focused on the democratic model that Decidim promotes and its impact on public policies and organizations), the technopolitical (focused on how the platform is designed, the mechanisms it embodies, and the way in which it is democratically designed), and the technical (focused on the conditions of production, operation and success of the project: the factory, collaborative mechanisms, licenses, etc.).
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Dalle reti sociali alle reti (tecno)politiche
Calleja-López, A., Barandiaran, X. E., & Monterde, A. (2018). Dalle reti sociali alle reti (tecno)politiche. In D. Gambetta (Ed.), Datacrazia. Politica, cultura algoritmica e conflitti al tempo dei big data (pp. 350-361). D Editore.
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La diffusione sempre più pervasiva delle tecnologie digitali e l'aumento esponenziale delle capacità di calcolo stanno radicalmente trasformando la società, dalla politica alla ricerca scientifica, dai rapporti sociali alle forme di lavoro, in modo tutt'altro che trasparente. Pochissimi gruppi privati hanno la possibilità di determinare processi su scala globale, traendo enormi profitti dalle informazioni che ognuno di noi produce ogni giorno. Gli algoritmi, spesso descritti come strumenti neutrali e oggettivi, giudicano medici, ristoranti, insegnanti e studenti, concedono o negano prestiti, valutano lavoratori, influenzano gli elettori, monitorano la nostra salute. Datacrazia indaga, con spirito multidisciplinare e critico, i rischi e le potenzialità delle nuove tecnologie, provando a immaginare un futuro all'altezza delle nostre aspettative.
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Deliberative Platform Design: The Case Study of the Online Discussions in Decidim Barcelona
Aragón, P., Kaltenbrunner, A., Calleja-López, A., Pereira, A., Monterde, A., Barandiaran, X. E., & Gómez, V. (2017). Deliberative Platform Design: The Case Study of the Online Discussions in Decidim Barcelona. In International Conference on Social Informatics (pp. 277-287). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67256-4_22
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With the irruption of ICTs and the crisis of political representation, many online platforms have been developed with the aim of improving participatory democratic processes. However, regarding platforms for online petitioning, previous research has not found examples of how to effectively introduce discussions, a crucial feature to promote deliberation. In this study we focus on the case of Decidim Barcelona, the online participatory-democracy platform launched by the City Council of Barcelona in which proposals can be discussed with an interface that combines threaded discussions and comment alignment with the proposal. This innovative approach allows to examine whether neutral, positive or negative comments are more likely to generate discussion cascades. The results reveal that, with this interface, comments marked as negatively aligned with the proposal were more likely to engage users in online discussions and, therefore, helped to promote deliberative decision making.
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Autonomy and Enactivism: Towards a Theory of Sensorimotor Autonomous Agency
Barandiaran, X. E. (2017). Autonomy and Enactivism: Towards a Theory of Sensorimotor Autonomous Agency. Topoi, 36(3), 409-430. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9365-4
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The concept of “autonomy”, once at the core of the original enactivist proposal in The Embodied Mind (Varela et al. in The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1991), is nowadays ignored or neglected by some of the most prominent contemporary enactivists approaches. Theories of autonomy, however, come to fill a theoretical gap that sensorimotor accounts of cognition cannot ignore: they provide a naturalized account of normativity and the resources to ground the identity of a cognitive subject in its specific mode of organization. There are, however, good reasons for the contemporary neglect of autonomy as a relevant concept for enactivism. On the one hand, the concept of autonomy has too often been assimilated into autopoiesis (or basic autonomy in the molecular or biological realm) and the implications are not always clear for a dynamical sensorimotor approach to cognitive science. On the other hand, the foundational enactivist proposal displays a metaphysical tension between the concept of operational closure (autonomy), deployed as constitutive, and that of structural coupling (sensorimotor dynamics); making it hard to reconcile with the claim that experience is sensorimotorly constituted. This tension is particularly apparent when Varela et al. propose Bittorio (a 1D cellular automata) as a model of the operational closure of the nervous system as it fails to satisfy the required conditions for a sensorimotor constitution of experience. It is, however, possible to solve these problems by re-considering autonomy at the level of sensorimotor neurodynamics. Two recent robotic simulation models are used for this task, illustrating the notion of strong sensorimotor dependency of neurodynamic patterns, and their networked intertwinement. The concept of habit is proposed as an enactivist building block for cognitive theorizing, re-conceptualizing mental life as a habit ecology, tied within an agent’s behaviour generating mechanism in coordination with its environment. Norms can be naturalized in terms of dynamic, interactively self-sustaining, coherentism. This conception of autonomous sensorimotor agency is put in contrast with those enactive approaches that reject autonomy or neglect the theoretical resources it has to offer for the project of naturalizing minds.
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Sensorimotor Life: an enactive proposal
Di Paolo, E. A., Buhrmann, T., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2017). Sensorimotor Life: an enactive proposal. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198786849.001.0001
Cognitive Psychology & Cognition · Cognitive Science · Mind & Body · Enaction · Cognition · EnactivismFull PDFAbstract
How accurate is the picture of the human mind that has emerged from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science? Anybody with an interest in how minds work - how we learn about the world and how we remember people and events - may feel dissatisfied with the answers contemporary science has to offer. Sensorimotor Life draws on current theoretical developments in the enactive approach to life and mind. It examines and expands the premises of the sciences of the human mind, while developing an alternative picture closer to people's daily experiences. Enactive ideas are applied and extended, providing a theoretically rich, naturalistic account of meaning and agency. The book includes a dynamical systems description of different types of sensorimotor regularities or sensorimotor contingencies; a dynamical interpretation of Piaget's theory of equilibration to ground the concept of sensorimotor mastery; and a theory of agency as organized networks of sensorimotor schemes, as well as its implicatons for embodied subjectivity. Written for students and researchers of cognitive science, the authors offer a fuller view of the mind, a view better attuned to the experiences of people who live, work, love, struggle, and age, thrown into a world of meaningful relations they help create. Additionally, the book is of interest to neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and philosophers of science.
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Sensorimotor Agency
Di Paolo, E. A., Buhrmann, T., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2017). Sensorimotor Agency. In Sensorimotor Life: An enactive proposal (pp. 141-181). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198786849.001.0001
Full PDFAbstract
How accurate is the picture of the human mind that has emerged from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science? Anybody with an interest in how minds work - how we learn about the world and how we remember people and events - may feel dissatisfied with the answers contemporary science has to offer. Sensorimotor Life draws on current theoretical developments in the enactive approach to life and mind. It examines and expands the premises of the sciences of the human mind, while developing an alternative picture closer to people's daily experiences. Enactive ideas are applied and extended, providing a theoretically rich, naturalistic account of meaning and agency. The book includes a dynamical systems description of different types of sensorimotor regularities or sensorimotor contingencies; a dynamical interpretation of Piaget's theory of equilibration to ground the concept of sensorimotor mastery; and a theory of agency as organized networks of sensorimotor schemes, as well as its implicatons for embodied subjectivity. Written for students and researchers of cognitive science, the authors offer a fuller view of the mind, a view better attuned to the experiences of people who live, work, love, struggle, and age, thrown into a world of meaningful relations they help create. Additionally, the book is of interest to neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and philosophers of science.
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Funcionalidades y características de Decidim
Barandiaran, X. E., & Romero, C. (2017). Funcionalidades y características de Decidim (Decidim Documentation). Decidim.org (Ajuntament de Barcelona). https://decidim.org/pdf/features-roadmap-es.pdf
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Decidim's functionalities and features. Roadmap 2017-2018
Barandiaran, X. E., & Romero, C. (2017). Decidim's functionalities and features. Roadmap 2017-2018 (Decidim Documentation). Decidim.org (Ajuntament de Barcelona). https://decidim.org/pdf/features-roadmap-en.pdf
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Decidim: redes políticas y tecnopolíticas para la democracia participativa.
Barandiaran, X. E., Calleja, A., Monterde, A., Aragón, P., Linares, J., Romero, C., & Pereira, A. (2017). Decidim: redes políticas y tecnopolíticas para la democracia participativa. Recerca. Revista de pensament i anàlisi, 21, 137-150. https://doi.org/10.6035/Recerca.2017.21.8
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Decidim es una plataforma digital de democracia participativa desarrollada por el Ajuntament de Barcelona. Decidim es, además, un proyecto tecnopolítico que implica multitud de códigos más allá del informático. Distinguimos tres planos analíticos que sirven para conceptualizar de forma holística y sistemática el proyecto Decidim: un plano político, uno tecnopolítico, y un plano técnico. Decidim emerge como ejemplo de lo que denominamos “redes políticas” caracterizadas, frente a las “redes sociales”, por hacer del vínculo político y la construcción de inteligencia y voluntad colectivas el centro de su diseño y estructura. A su vez, la comunidad y los espacios “Metadecidim” operan como dispositivos para la democratización del software de Decidim y de la democracia en red en un sentido más amplio, constituyendo “redes tecnopolíticas”. Estas redes de nueva generación hacen de la plataforma una infraestructura público-común (financiada con dinero público y co-diseñada con la ciudadanía), abierta y libre para la democracia participativa, un proyecto que aspira a servir de dispositivo y modelo para la transformación política en un periodo de crisis de la hegemonía neoliberal.
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Guia sobre sobirania tecnològica a l'Ajuntament de Barcelona
Ruiz, J., Barandiaran, X. E., Boada Pla, M., Bastida Vila, A., de Treball, À., Bretschneider, E., Collazos, J. C., Bain, M., Marpons Ucero, G., & Domènech Bas, J. (2017). Guia sobre sobirania tecnològica a l'Ajuntament de Barcelona. Ajuntament de Barcelona. https://bcnroc.ajuntament.barcelona.cat/jspui/bitstream/11703/106302/1/guia_sobre_sobirania_tecnologica.pdf
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Guia de compra pública de TIC de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona
Ruiz, J., Barandiaran, X. E., Boada Pla, M., Bastida Vila, A., de Treball, À., Bretschneider, E., Collazos, J. C., Bain, M., Marpons Ucero, G., & Domènech Bas, J. (2017). Guia de compra pública de TIC de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona. Ajuntament de Barcelona. https://bcnroc.ajuntament.barcelona.cat/jspui/bitstream/11703/106505/1/guia_compra_publica_tic.pdf.pdf
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Framework for democratic governance of distributed architectures: DEcentralised Citizens Owned Data Ecosystem
Calleja-Lopez, A., Monterde, A., & Barandiaran, X. (2017). Framework for democratic governance of distributed architectures: DEcentralised Citizens Owned Data Ecosystem (Deliverable for DECODE DEcentralised Citizens Owned Data Ecosystem, H2020–ICT-2016-1, EU Funded Project no. 732546). DECODE. https://openaccess.uoc.edu/handle/10609/100368
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Plan de desarrollo Decidim Barcelona
Barandiaran, X. E., Pereira, A., Monterde, A., & Calleja-López, A. (2016). Plan de desarrollo Decidim Barcelona. Ajuntament de Barcelona City Council. https://decidim-barcelona.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/decidim/attachment/file/54/Plan_desarrollo_decidim.pdf
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Este documento detalla el futuro desarrollo de la plataforma digital de participación de l´Ajuntament de Barcelona, decidim.barcelona (disponible en URL https://decidim.barcelona). Los principales objetivos de la plataforma son articular, estandarizar, visualizar y comunicar todos los procesos de participación del Ajuntament de Barcelona y de la ciudad ofreciendo un servicio de infraestructura digital para la democracia directa y participativa a todas las escalas territoriales y asociativas de Barcelona. El documento detalla los objetivos de la plataforma, el flujo de desarrollo, las funcionalidades previstas, y un código ético-político.
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Extended Neural Metastability in an Embodied Model of Sensorimotor Coupling
Aguilera, M., Bedia, M. G., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2016). Extended Neural Metastability in an Embodied Model of Sensorimotor Coupling. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00076
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The hypothesis that brain organization is based on mechanisms of metastable synchronization in neural assemblies has been popularized during the last decades of neuroscientific research. Nevertheless, the role of body and environment for understanding the functioning of metastable assemblies is frequently dismissed. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the contribution of sensorimotor coupling to neural and behavioural metastability using a minimal computational model of plastic neural ensembles embedded in a robotic agent in a behavioural preference task. Our hypothesis is that, under some conditions, the metastability of the system is not restricted to the brain but extends to the system composed by the interaction of brain, body and environment. We test this idea, comparing an agent in continuous interaction with its environment in a task demanding behavioural flexibility with an equivalent model from the point of view of 'internalist neuroscience'. A statistical characterization of our model and tools from information theory allows us to show how (1) the bidirectional coupling between agent and environment brings the system closer to a regime of criticality and triggers the emergence of additional metastable states which are not found in the brain in isolation but extended to the whole system of sensorimotor interaction, (2) the synaptic plasticity of the agent is fundamental to sustain open structures in the neural controller of the agent flexibly engaging and disengaging different behavioural patterns that sustain sensorimotor metastable states, and (3) these extended metastable states emerge when the agent generates an asymmetrical circular loop of causal interaction with its environment, in which the agent responds to variability of the environment at fast timescales while acting over the environment at slow timescales, suggesting the constitution of the agent as an autonomous entity actively modulating its sensorimotor coupling with the world. We conclude with a reflection about how our results contribute in a more general way to current progress in neuroscientific research.
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Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M collective identity
Monterde, A., Calleja-López, A., Aguilera, M., Barandiaran, X. E., & Postill, J. (2015). Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M collective identity. Information, Communication & Society, 18(8), 930-950. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1043315
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Self-Organized Criticality, Plasticity and Sensorimotor Coupling. Explorations with a Neurorobotic Model in a Behavioural Preference Task
Aguilera, M., Barandiaran, X. E., Bedia, M. G., & Seron, F. (2015). Self-Organized Criticality, Plasticity and Sensorimotor Coupling. Explorations with a Neurorobotic Model in a Behavioural Preference Task. PLOS ONE, 10(2), e0117465. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0117465
Self-organization · Cognition · Cognitive science · Sensorimotor · Agency · Self-organized criticalityFull PDFAbstract
During the last two decades, analysis of 1/ƒ noise in cognitive science has led to a considerable progress in the way we understand the organization of our mental life. However, there is still a lack of specific models providing explanations of how 1/ƒ noise is generated in coupled brain-body-environment systems, since existing models and experiments typically target either externally observable behaviour or isolated neuronal systems but do not address the interplay between neuronal mechanisms and sensorimotor dynamics. We present a conceptual model of a minimal neurorobotic agent solving a behavioural task that makes it possible to relate mechanistic (neurodynamic) and behavioural levels of description. The model consists of a simulated robot controlled by a network of Kuramoto oscillators with homeostatic plasticity and the ability to develop behavioural preferences mediated by sensorimotor patterns. With only three oscillators, this simple model displays self-organized criticality in the form of robust 1/ƒ noise and a wide multifractal spectrum. We show that the emergence of self-organized criticality and 1/ƒ noise in our model is the result of three simultaneous conditions: a) non-linear interaction dynamics capable of generating stable collective patterns, b) internal plastic mechanisms modulating the sensorimotor flows, and c) strong sensorimotor coupling with the environment that induces transient metastable neurodynamic regimes. We carry out a number of experiments to show that both synaptic plasticity and strong sensorimotor coupling play a necessary role, as constituents of self-organized criticality, in the generation of 1/ƒ noise. The experiments also shown to be useful to test the robustness of 1/ƒ scaling comparing the results of different techniques. We finally discuss the role of conceptual models as mediators between nomothetic and mechanistic models and how they can inform future experimental research where self-organized critically includes sensorimotor coupling among the essential interaction-dominant process giving rise to 1/ƒ noise.
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Neurociencia y tecnopolítica: hacia un marco analógico para comprender la mente colectiva del 15M
Barandiaran, X. E., & Aguilera, M. (2015). Neurociencia y tecnopolítica: hacia un marco analógico para comprender la mente colectiva del 15M. In J. Toret (Ed.), Tecnopolítica y 15M. La potencia de las multitudes conectadas (pp. 163-211). Editorial UOC.
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Buen conocer / FLOK Society: modelos sostenibles y políticas públicas para una economía social del conocimiento común y abierto en Ecuador
Vila-Viñas, D., & Barandiaran, X. E. (Eds.) (2015). Buen conocer / FLOK Society: modelos sostenibles y políticas públicas para una economía social del conocimiento común y abierto en Ecuador. IAEN-CIESPAL. http://book.floksociety.org/ec/
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El proceso Buen Conocer / FLOK Society
Barandiaran, X. E., Vila-Viñas, D., & Vázquez, D. (2015). El proceso Buen Conocer / FLOK Society. In D. Vila-Viñas, & X. E. Barandiaran (Eds.), Buen conocer / FLOK Society: modelos sostenibles y políticas públicas para una economía social del conocimiento común y abierto en Ecuador (pp. 35-88). IAEN-CIESPAL.
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Ciencia: Investigación colaborativa, participativa y abierta.
Barandiaran, X. E., Araya, D., & Vila-Viñas, D. (2015). Ciencia: Investigación colaborativa, participativa y abierta. In D. Vila-Viñas, & X. E. Barandiaran (Eds.), Buen conocer / FLOK Society: modelos sostenibles y políticas públicas para una economía social del conocimiento común y abierto en Ecuador (pp. 181-268). IAEN-CIESPAL. http://book.floksociety.org/ec/1/1-2-ciencia-investigacion-colaborativa-participativa-y-abierta/
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el desarrollo de políticas públicas sobre la investigación científica es clave hoy día para el desarrollo social y económico. Los modelos del capitalismo cognitivo han cercado los comunes de la ciencia (incluidos sus resultados, las infraestructuras de desarrollo y gran parte de su organización), dentro de una serie de estrictas barreras legales y tecnológicas. Esto ralentiza el desarrollo científico generando beneficios extraordinarios a un pequeño número de corporaciones e instituciones privadas. Sin embargo, modelos alternativos de publicación científica, de participación ciudadana, así como de infraestructuras de colaboración y organización de la investigación comienzan a abrirse camino a escala global, desafiando los presupuestos capitalistas de la producción y gestión del conocimiento. Bajo las etiquetas de Open Science (Ciencia Abierta), Science 2.0 (Ciencia 2.0), e-Science (e-Ciencia) o Science Commons (Procomún Científico), está teniendo lugar una masiva transformación de los procesos científicos, incluyendo el acceso abierto a las publicaciones y datos científicos (donde la disposición, reutilización y distribución queda garantizada, sin barreras técnicas, legales o económicas), junto al desarrollo de infraestructuras abiertas para la producción científica colaborativa intradiscipliar e interdisciplinar. Además, un nuevo movimiento de ciencia pública y ciudadana está abriendo el camino para que la ciencia aborde problemas sociales, más allá de la aun dominante mercantilización e instrumentalización capitalista del conocimiento científico orientado al mercado y rentabilizado por este. Desarrollamos, a lo largo de este documento, principios para el desarrollo de políticas públicas que estimulen una economía social del conocimiento común y abierto en relación al acceso a los resultados científicos, sus infraestructuras y su organización.
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The FLOK doctrine
Barandiaran, X. E., & Vila-Viñas, D. (2015). The FLOK doctrine. Journal of Peer Production, 7. http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-7-policies-for-the-commons/the-flok-doctrine/
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Intermittent Animal Behavior: The Adjustment-Deployment Dilemma
Aguilera, M., Bedia, M. G., Seron, F., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2014). Intermittent Animal Behavior: The Adjustment-Deployment Dilemma. Artificial Life, 20, 319-337. https://doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00133
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Intermittency is ubiquitous in animal behavior. We depict a coordination problem that is part of the more general structure of intermittent adaptation: the adjustment-deployment dilemma. It captures the intricate compromise between the time spent in adjusting a response and the time used to deploy it: The adjustment process improves fitness with time, but during deployment fitness of the solution decays as environmental conditions change. We provide a formal characterization of the dilemma, and solve it using computational methods. We find that the optimal solution always results in a high intermittency between adjustment and deployment around a non-maximal fitness value. Furthermore we show that this non-maximal fitness value is directly determined by the ratio between the exponential coefficient of the fitness increase during adjustment and that of its decay coefficient during deployment. We compare the model results with experimental data obtained from observation and measurement of intermittent behavior in animals. Among other phenomena, the model is able to predict the uneven distribution of average duration of search and motion phases found among various species such as fishes, birds, and lizards. Despite the complexity of the problem, it can be shown to be solved by relatively simple mechanisms. We find that a model of a single continuous-time recurrent neuron, with the same parametric configuration, is capable of solving the dilemma for a wide set of conditions. We finally hypothesize that many of the different patterns of intermittent behavior found in nature might respond to optimal solutions of complexified versions of the adjustment-deployment dilemma under different constraints.
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Enactivism without Autonomy? What went wrong at the roots of enactivism and how we should recover the autonomous foundations of sensorimotor agency
Barandiaran, X. E. (2014). Enactivism without Autonomy? What went wrong at the roots of enactivism and how we should recover the autonomous foundations of sensorimotor agency. In AISB2014 (pp. 640-642). Curran Associates, Inc. http://doc.gold.ac.uk/aisb50/AISB50-S25/AISB50-S25-Barandiaran-extabs.pdf
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Different varieties of enactivism struggle to fill the empty throne after the long reign of representational cognitivism. And the notion of autonomy is one of the central claims under dispute within the different enactivist research programmes, despite the central role that it played on the early enactivist foundations. It is the very autonomy of enactivism itself what is at stake here, if it doesn't want to be integrated back into a reformed version of representational cognitivism or subsumed under new forms of behaviourism. In this work I will show why autonomy is a necessary component of the enactive programme, I shall clarify some foundational misunderstandings or conceptual obstacles that have made autonomy a difficult notion to assume for some sensorimotor enactive approaches and, finally, I will propose to introduce autonomy back at the roots of enactivism through the notion of habit and sensorimotor agency.
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A genealogical map of the concept of habit
Barandiaran, X. E., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2014). A genealogical map of the concept of habit. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 522. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00522
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The notion of information processing has dominated the study of the mind for over six decades. However, before the advent of cognitivism, one of the most prominent theoretical ideas was that of Habit. This is a concept with a rich and complex history, which is again starting to awaken interest, following recent embodied, enactive critiques of computationalist frameworks. We offer here a very brief history of the concept of habit in the form of a genealogical network-map. This serves to provide an overview of the richness of this notion and as a guide for further re-appraisal. We identify 77 thinkers and their influences, and group them into seven schools of thought. Two major trends can be distinguished. One is the associationist trend, starting with the work of Locke and Hume, developed by Hartley, Bain, and Mill to be later absorbed into behaviorism through pioneering animal psychologists (Morgan and Thorndike). This tradition conceived of habits atomistically and as automatisms (a conception later debunked by cognitivism). Another historical trend we have called organicism inherits the legacy of Aristotle and develops along German idealism, French spiritualism, pragmatism, and phenomenology. It feeds into the work of continental psychologists in the early 20th century, influencing important figures such as Merleau-Ponty, Piaget, and Gibson. But it has not yet been taken up by mainstream cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Habits, in this tradition, are seen as ecological, self-organizing structures that relate to a web of predispositions and plastic dependencies both in the agent and in the environment. In addition, they are not conceptualized in opposition to rational, volitional processes, but as transversing a continuum from reflective to embodied intentionality. These are properties that make habit a particularly attractive idea for embodied, enactive perspectives, which can now re-evaluate it in light of dynamical systems theory and complexity research.
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Learning to perceive in the sensorimotor approach: Piaget’s theory of equilibration interpreted dynamically
Di Paolo, E. A., Barandiaran, X. E., Beaton, M., & Buhrmann, T. (2014). Learning to perceive in the sensorimotor approach: Piaget’s theory of equilibration interpreted dynamically. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 551. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00551
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Learning to perceive is faced with a classical paradox: if understanding is required for perception, how can we learn to perceive something new, something we do not yet understand? According to the sensorimotor approach, perception involves mastery of regular sensorimotor co-variations that depend on the agent and the environment, also known as the “laws” of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs). In this sense, perception involves enacting relevant sensorimotor skills in each situation. It is important for this proposal that such skills can be learned and refined with experience and yet up to this date, the sensorimotor approach has had no explicit theory of perceptual learning. The situation is made more complex if we acknowledge the open-ended nature of human learning. In this paper we propose Piaget’s theory of equilibration as a potential candidate to fulfill this role. This theory highlights the importance of intrinsic sensorimotor norms, in terms of the closure of sensorimotor schemes. It also explains how the equilibration of a sensorimotor organization faced with novelty or breakdowns proceeds by re-shaping pre-existing structures in coupling with dynamical regularities of the world. This way learning to perceive is guided by the equilibration of emerging forms of skillful coping with the world. We demonstrate the compatibility between Piaget’s theory and the sensorimotor approach by providing a dynamical formalization of equilibration to give an explicit micro-genetic account of sensorimotor learning and, by extension, of how we learn to perceive. This allows us to draw important lessons in the form of general principles for open-ended sensorimotor learning, including the need for an intrinsic normative evaluation by the agent itself. We also explore implications of our micro-genetic account at the personal level.
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Modeling habits as self-sustaining patterns of sensorimotor behavior
Egbert, M. D., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2014). Modeling habits as self-sustaining patterns of sensorimotor behavior. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 590. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00590
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In the recent history of psychology and cognitive neuroscience, the notion of habit has been reduced to a stimulus-triggered response probability correlation. In this paper we use a computational model to present an alternative theoretical view (with some philosophical implications), where habits are seen as self-maintaining patterns of behavior that share properties in common with self-maintaining biological processes, and that inhabit a complex ecological context, including the presence and influence of other habits. Far from mechanical automatisms, this organismic and self-organizing concept of habit can overcome the dominating atomistic and statistical conceptions, and the high temporal resolution effects of situatedness, embodiment and sensorimotor loops emerge as playing a more central, subtle and complex role in the organization of behavior. The model is based on a novel “iterant deformable sensorimotor medium (IDSM),” designed such that trajectories taken through sensorimotor-space increase the likelihood that in the future, similar trajectories will be taken. We couple the IDSM to sensors and motors of a simulated robot, and show that under certain conditions, the IDSM conditions, the IDSM forms self-maintaining patterns of activity that operate across the IDSM, the robot's body, and the environment. We present various environments and the resulting habits that form in them. The model acts as an abstraction of habits at a much needed sensorimotor “meso-scale” between microscopic neuron-based models and macroscopic descriptions of behavior. Finally, we discuss how this model and extensions of it can help us understand aspects of behavioral self-organization, historicity and autonomy that remain out of the scope of contemporary representationalist frameworks.
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Norm-establishing and norm-following in autonomous agency
Barandiaran, X. E., & Egbert, M. D. (2014). Norm-establishing and norm-following in autonomous agency. Artificial Life, 20(1), 5-28. https://doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00094
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Quantifying Political Self-Organization in Social Media. Fractal patterns in the Spanish 15M movement on Twitter
Aguilera, M., Morer, I., Barandiaran, X. E., & Bedia, M. (2013). Quantifying Political Self-Organization in Social Media. Fractal patterns in the Spanish 15M movement on Twitter. In P. Lio, O. Miglino, G. Nicosia, S. Nolfi & M. Pavone (Eds.), Advances in Artificial Life: ECAL 2013 (pp. 395-402). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/978-0-262-31709-2-ch057
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Sumak Yachay - Devenir Sociedad del Conocimiento Común y Abierto -Designing the FLOK Society (v.1.5.2)
Barandiaran, X. E., & Vázquez, D. (2013). Sumak Yachay - Devenir Sociedad del Conocimiento Común y Abierto -Designing the FLOK Society (v.1.5.2). IAEN (Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales).
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Este es el documento madre (ampliable y revisable) para el diseño de un proceso de colaboración y participación social (popular e institucional) y de expertos que culmine en una cumbre productiva (no meramente expositiva). El objetivo es desencadenar y coordinar un proceso participativo a escala global y de inmediata aplicación nacional para el cambio de matriz productiva hacia una sociedad del conocimiento común y abierto en el Ecuador, que resulte en 10 documentos base para el desarrollo legislativo y de políticas de Estado (orientadas al código orgánico para la economía social del conocimiento) así como de utilidad para las redes productivas de conocimiento que ya existen en Ecuador. Se detalla el marco conceptual, económico y filosófico del proceso y del contexto histórico y económico-cognitivo, los principios organizativos que regirán el proceso, las herramientas digitales colaborativas y comunicativas y una propuesta de planificación de todo el proceso-cumbre.
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eSMCs and Embodied Cognition
Barandiaran, X. E., Beaton, M. J., Buhrmann, T., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2013). eSMCs and Embodied Cognition (Deliverable for EU project "Extending Sensorimotor Contingencies to Cognition" FP7-ICT-2009-6 Grant Agreement No. 270212). UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.698.3252&rep=rep1&type=pdf
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A dynamical systems account of sensorimotor contingencies
Buhrmann, T., Di Paolo, E. A., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2013). A dynamical systems account of sensorimotor contingencies. Frontiers in Cognition, 4, 285. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00285
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According to the sensorimotor approach, perception is a form of embodied know-how, constituted by lawful regularities in the sensorimotor flow or in sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs) in an active and situated agent. Despite the attention that this approach has attracted, there have been few attempts to define its core concepts formally. In this paper, we examine the idea of SMCs and argue that its use involves notions that need to be distinguished. We introduce four distinct kinds of SMCs, which we define operationally. These are the notions of sensorimotor environment (open-loop motor-induced sensory variations), sensorimotor habitat (closed-loop sensorimotor trajectories), sensorimotor coordination (reliable sensorimotor patterns playing a functional role), and sensorimotor strategy (normative organization of sensorimotor coordinations). We make use of a minimal dynamical model of visually guided categorization to test the explanatory value of the different kinds of SMCs. Finally, we discuss the impact of our definitions on the conceptual development and empirical as well as model-based testing of the claims of the sensorimotor approach.
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Informe para el diseño de políticas e infra- estructura para publicaciones académicas y colaboración científica
Barandiaran, X. E. (2013). Informe para el diseño de políticas e infra- estructura para publicaciones académicas y colaboración científica. IAEN (Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales). http://xabierbarandiaran.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/barandiaran_-_2013_-_informe_politicas_e_infraestructura_ciencia_abierta_y_colaborativa_-_iaen-flok.pdf
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The situated HKB model: how sensorimotor spatial coupling can alter oscillatory brain dynamics
Aguilera, M., Bedia, M. G., Santos, B. A., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2013). The situated HKB model: how sensorimotor spatial coupling can alter oscillatory brain dynamics. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2013.00117
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Despite the increase of both dynamic and embodied/situated approaches in cognitive science, there is still little research on how coordination dynamics under a closed sensorimotor loop might induce qualitatively different patterns of neural oscillations compared to those found in isolated systems. We take as a departure point the Haken-Kelso-Bunz (HKB) model, a generic model for dynamic coordination between two oscillatory components, which has proven useful for a vast range of applications in cognitive science and whose dynamical properties are well understood. In order to explore the properties of this model under closed sensorimotor conditions we present what we call the situated HKB model: a robotic model that performs a gradient climbing task and whose “brain” is modeled by the HKB equation. We solve the differential equations that define the agent-environment coupling for increasing values of the agent’s sensitivity (sensor gain), finding different behavioral strategies. These results are compared with two different models: a decoupled HKB with no sensory input and a passively-coupled HKB that is also decoupled but receives a structured input generated by a situated agent. We can precisely quantify and qualitatively describe how the properties of the system, when studied in coupled conditions, radically change in a manner that cannot be deduced from the decoupled HKB models alone. We also present the notion of neurodynamic signature as the dynamic pattern that correlates with a specific behavior and we show how only a situated agent can display this signature compared to an agent that simply receives the exact same sensory input. To our knowledge, this is the first analytical solution of the HKB equation in a sensorimotor loop and qualitative and quantitative analytic comparison of spatially coupled vs. decoupled oscillatory controllers. Finally, we discuss the limitations and possible generalization of our model to contemporary neuroscience and philosophy of mind.
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Behavioral Metabolution: The Adaptive and Evolutionary Potential of Metabolism-Based Chemotaxis
Egbert, M. D., Barandiaran, X. E., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2012). Behavioral Metabolution: The Adaptive and Evolutionary Potential of Metabolism-Based Chemotaxis. Artificial Life, 18(1), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1162/artl_a_00047
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We use a minimal model of metabolism-based chemotaxis to show how a coupling between metabolism and behavior can affect evolutionary dynamics in a process we refer to as behavioral metabolution. This mutual influence can function as an in-the-moment, intrinsic evaluation of the adaptive value of a novel situation, such as an encounter with a compound that activates new metabolic pathways. Our model demonstrates how changes to metabolic pathways can lead to improvement of behavioral strategies, and conversely, how behavior can contribute to the exploration and fixation of new metabolic pathways. These examples indicate the potentially important role that the interplay between behavior and metabolism could have played in shaping adaptive evolution in early life and protolife. We argue that the processes illustrated by these models can be interpreted as an unorthodox instantiation of the principles of evolution by random variation and selective retention. We then discuss how the interaction between metabolism and behavior can facilitate evolution through (i) increasing exposure to environmental variation, (ii) making more likely the fixation of some beneficial metabolic pathways, (iii) providing a mechanism for in-the-moment adaptation to changes in the environment and to changes in the organization of the organism itself, and (iv) generating conditions that are conducive to speciation.
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Synchrony and phase relation dynamics underlying sensorimotor coordination
Santos, B. A., Barandiaran, X. E., & Husbands, P. (2012). Synchrony and phase relation dynamics underlying sensorimotor coordination. Adaptive Behavior, 321-336. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712312451859
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Synchronous oscillations have become a widespread hypothetical “mechanism” to explain how brain dynamics give rise to neural functions. By focusing on synchrony one leaves the phase relations during moments of desynchronous oscillations either without a clear functional role or with a secondary role such as a transition between functionally “relevant” synchronized states. In this work, rather than studying synchrony we focus on desynchronous oscillations and investigate their functional roles in the context of a sensorimotor coordination task. In particular, we address the questions: a) how does the informational content of the sensorimotor activity present in a complete dynamical description of phase relations change as such a description is reduced to the dynamics of synchronous oscillations? and b) to what extent are desynchronous oscillations as causally relevant as synchronous ones to the generation of functional sensorimotor coordination? These questions are addressed with a model of a simulated agent performing a functional sensorimotor coordination task controlled by an oscillatory network. The results suggest that: i) desynchronized phase relations carry as much information about sensorimotor activity as synchronized phase relations; and ii) phase relations between oscillators with near-zero frequency difference carry a relatively higher causal relevance than the rest of the phase relations to the sensorimotor coordination; however, overall a privileged functional causal contribution can not be attributed to either synchronous or desynchronous oscillations.
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Sensorimotor coordination and metastability in a situated HKB model
Santos, B., Barandiaran, X. E., Husbands, P., Aguilera, M., & Bedia, M. (2012). Sensorimotor coordination and metastability in a situated HKB model. Connection Science, 24(4), 143-161. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540091.2013.770821
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Oscillatory phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and have become particularly relevant for the study of brain and behaviour. One of the simplest, yet explanatorily powerful, models of oscillatory Coordination Dynamics is the Haken–Kelso–Bunz (HKB) model. The metastable regime described by the HKB equation has been hypothesised to be the signature of brain oscillatory dynamics underlying sensorimotor coordination. Despite evidence supporting such a hypothesis, to our knowledge, there are still very few models (if any) where the HKB equation generates spatially situated behaviour and, at the same time, has its dynamics modulated by the behaviour it generates (by means of the sensory feedback resulting from body movement). This work presents a computational model where the HKB equation controls an agent performing a simple gradient climbing task and shows (i) how different metastable dynamical patterns in the HKB equation are generated and sustained by the continuous interaction between the agent and its environment; and (ii) how the emergence of functional metastable patterns in the HKB equation – i.e. patterns that generate gradient climbing behaviour – depends not only on the structure of the agent's sensory input but also on the coordinated coupling of the agent's motor–sensory dynamics. This work contributes to Kelso's theoretical framework and also to the understanding of neural oscillations and sensorimotor coordination.
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The impact of the paradigm of complexity on the foundational frameworks of biology and cognitive science
Moreno, A., Ruiz-Mirazo, K., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2011). The impact of the paradigm of complexity on the foundational frameworks of biology and cognitive science. In C. A. Hooker, D. V. Gabbay, P. Thagard, & J. Woods (Eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science (pp. 311-333). Elsevier.
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The domain of nonlinear dynamical systems and its mathematical underpinnings has been developing exponentially for a century, the last 35 years seeing an outpouring of new ideas and applications and a concomitant confluence with ideas of complex systems and their applications from irreversible thermodynamics. A few examples are in meteorology, ecological dynamics, andásocial and economic dynamics. These new ideas have profound implications for our understanding and practice in domains involving complexity, predictability and determinism, equilibrium, control, planning, individuality, responsibility and so on. Our intention is to draw together in this volume, we believe for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the manifold philosophically interesting impacts of recent developments in understanding nonlinear systems and the unique aspects of their complexity. The book will focus specifically on the philosophical concepts, principles, judgments and problems distinctly raised by work in the domain of complex nonlinear dynamical systems, especially in recent years. -Comprehensive coverage of all main theories in the philosophy of Complex Systems -Clearly written expositions of fundamental ideas and concepts -Definitive discussions by leading researchers in the field -Summaries of leading-edge research in related fields are also included
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Metastable dynamical regimes in an oscillatory network modulated by an agent's sensorimotor loop
Santos, B. A., Barandiaran, X. E., & Husbands, P. (2011). Metastable dynamical regimes in an oscillatory network modulated by an agent's sensorimotor loop. In 2011 IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life (ALIFE) (pp. 124-131). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ALIFE.2011.5954659
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The last two decades have witnessed an increasing focus on oscillatory brain dynamics as a means of understanding a variety of cognitive phenomena. Most theoretical and mathematical approaches in this area have mainly worked under two assumptions: a) that the most significant aspect of oscillatory brain dynamics is synchronization; and, b) that most part of functional brain dynamics can be understood without incorporating the sensorimotor loop into the picture. Although significant progress has been achieved with these assumptions, we believe they might limit future development of dynamical approaches to brain functioning and cognitive behaviour. Looking at the whole picture of brain dynamics, rather than only moments of synchronization, and analysing it inside the sensorimotor loop can provide new insights on how the brain operates. In this paper we present a robotic agent capable of performing phototaxis controlled by a Kuramoto-model based oscillatory neural network. The network parameters were optimized using a genetic algorithm. The resulting brain and behavioural dynamics are analysed within Kelso's Coordination dynamic framework. We found that: a) during a whole behavioural episode of phototaxis the robot's brain undergoes different metastable dynamical regimes of phase-lock and phase-scattering, represented by the relative phase and phase coherence among oscillators; b) even for a simple task, metastable coordination patterns and functional behaviour emerges without the need for a specific synchronization signature; and, c) sensorimotor loop dynamics plays a critical role generating and sustaining functional metastable regimes of brain activity by modulating the network's control parameter.
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Neurodynamic regimes of phase relation and behavior in robotic models
Santos, B., Barandiaran, X. E., & Husbands, P. (2011). Neurodynamic regimes of phase relation and behavior in robotic models. BMC Neuroscience, 12(Suppl 1), P155. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/12/S1/P155
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Quantifying Normative Behaviour and Precariousness in Adaptive Agency
Egbert, M. D., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2011). Quantifying Normative Behaviour and Precariousness in Adaptive Agency. In ECAL (pp. 210-218). MIT Press.
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An essential feature of autonomous adaptive agency is that a system behaves according to an intrinsic norm. In this paper, we illustrate and clarify this notion of “behavior according to an intrinsic norm” with a minimalistic model of agency. We present a minimal metabolic system whose auto-catalytic dynamics define a viability region for different concentrations of available resource or ‘food’ molecules. We initially consider the availability of food as a control parameter for metabolic dynamics. A bifurcation diagram shows that for fixed values of available food, there exists a viability region. This region has an non-zero stable equilibrium and a lower boundary that takes the form of an unstable equilibrium—below which, the tendency of the system is towards “death”, a stable equilibrium with a zero concentration of metabolites. We define the viability region as that in which the system tends toward the “living” stable-equilibrium. Outside of this region, in the precarious region, the system may live for some time but will eventually die if the food concentration does not change. With a precise definition of system-determined death, living, precarious and viable regions we move on to reconsider the available concentration of resources ([F]), not as a free parameter of the system but as modulated by organismic behaviour. By coupling the metabolism to a behavioural mechanism, we simulate a stochastic, up-resource gradient climbing behaviour. As a result, the effect of behaviour on the viability space can be mapped and quantified. This lets us move closer to defining adaptive action more precisely as that course of behaviour whose effect is in accordance with an intrinsic normative field.
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A Minimal Model of Metabolism-Based Chemotaxis
Egbert, M. D., Barandiaran, X. E., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2010). A Minimal Model of Metabolism-Based Chemotaxis. PLoS Comput Biol, 6(12), e1001004. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001004
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Traditionally, bacterial chemotaxis has been treated as metabolism-independent. Under this assumption, dedicated chemotaxis signalling pathways operate independently of metabolic processes. There is however, in various strains of bacteria, growing evidence of metabolism-dependent chemotaxis where metabolism modulates behavior. In this vein, we present the first model of metabolism-based chemotaxis that accomplishes chemotaxis without transmembrane receptors or signal transduction proteins, through the direct modulation of flagellar rotation by metabolite concentrations. The minimal model recreates chemotactic patterns found in bacteria, including: 1) chemotaxis towards metabolic resources and 2) away from metabolic inhibitors, 3) inhibition of chemotaxis in the presence of abundant resources, 4) cessation of chemotaxis to a resource due to inhibition of the metabolism of that resource, 5) sensitivity to metabolic and behavioral history and 6) integration of simultaneous complex environmental “stimuli”. The model demonstrates the substantial adaptability provided by the simple metabolism-based mechanism in the form of an ongoing, contextualized and integrative evaluation of the environment. Fumarate is identified as possibly playing a role in metabolism-based chemotaxis in bacteria, and some consequences of relaxing the metabolism-independent assumption are considered, causing us to reconsider the categorization of environmental compounds into “attractants” or “repellents” based solely on their binding properties.
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Homeostatic Plasticity in Robots: from development to operant conditioning to habit formation
Barandiaran, X. E., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2010). Homeostatic Plasticity in Robots: from development to operant conditioning to habit formation. In CogSys2010. http://cogsys2010.ethz.ch/proceedings.html
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Behavioral Metabolution: Metabolism based behavior enables new forms of adaptation and evolution
Egbert, M. D., Barandiaran, X. E., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2010). Behavioral Metabolution: Metabolism based behavior enables new forms of adaptation and evolution. In Artificial Life XII: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems.
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Both metabolism and behavior play a key role in biological theory and artificial life modelling. Yet, despite their centrality there has been very little exploration of the relationship between these concepts and almost no exploration of how the interaction between the two could impact on evolution or instantiate alternative mechanisms for evolutionary processes. We present a simulation model of bacteria capable of metabolism-based chemotaxis: a minimal metabolic system capable of modulating behavior by influencing the probability of flagellar rotation (like in E. coli chemotaxis). We perform two illustrative experiments. In the first, the incorporation of a chemical compound into metabolism qualitatively improves the chemotactic strategy. In the second, an encounter with a specific chemical compound leads to a reaction that opens up a new metabolic pathway while automatically regu- lating chemotaxis towards that same compound. Both exper- iments illustrate the adaptive potential of metabolism-based behavior and can be used to explore the idea of “Behavioral Metabolution,” a co-evolutionary synergy between behavior and metabolism. We abstract some principles of behavioral metabolution and discuss its application to early prebiotic evolution.
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Defining Agency: Individuality, Normativity, Asymmetry, and Spatio-temporality in Action
Barandiaran, X. E., Di Paolo, E., & Rohde, M. (2009). Defining Agency: Individuality, Normativity, Asymmetry, and Spatio-temporality in Action. Adaptive Behavior, 17(5), 367-386. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712309343819
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The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavily weighted terms such as intentionality , rationality, or mind. However, most of the available definitions of agency are too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific research program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: (a) a system must define its own individuality, (b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactional asymmetry), and (c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-cellular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable of meeting the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook for the road that lies ahead in the pursuit of understanding, modeling, and synthesizing agents.
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Animats in the Modeling Ecosystem
Barandiaran, X. E., & Chemero, A. (2009). Animats in the Modeling Ecosystem. Adaptive Behavior, 17(4), 287-292. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712309340847
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Chemo-ethology of an adaptive protocell: Sensor-less sensitivity to implicit viability conditions
Egbert, M. D., Di Paolo, E. A., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2009). Chemo-ethology of an adaptive protocell: Sensor-less sensitivity to implicit viability conditions. In ECAL09 (pp. 242-249). Springer Verlag.
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The viability of a living system is a non-trivial concept, yet it is often highly simplified in models of adaptive behavior. What is lost in this abstraction? How do viability conditions appear in the first place? In order to address these questions we present a new model of an au- topoietic or protocellular system simulated at the molecular level. We propose a measurement for the viability of the system and analyze the ‘viability condition’ that becomes evident when using this measurement. We observe how the system behaves in relation to this condition, generating instances of chemotaxis, behavioural preferences and simple (yet not trivial) examples of action selection. The model permits the formulation of a number of conclusions regarding the nature of viability conditions and adaptive behaviour modulated by metabolic processes.
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Adaptivity: From Metabolism to Behavior
Barandiaran, X. E., & Moreno, A. (2008). Adaptivity: From Metabolism to Behavior. Adaptive Behavior, 16(5), 325-344. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712308093868
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In this article, we propose some fundamental requirements for the appearance of adaptivity. We argue that a basic metabolic organization, taken in its minimal sense, may provide the conceptual framework for naturalizing the origin of teleology and normative functionality as it appears in living systems. However, adaptivity also requires the emergence of a regulatory subsystem, which implies a certain form of dynamic decoupling within a globally integrated, autonomous system. Thus, we analyze several forms of minimal adaptivity, including the special case of motility. We go on to explain how an open-ended complexity growth of motility-based adaptive agency, namely, behavior, requires the appearance of the nervous system. Finally, we discuss some implications of these ideas for embodied robotics.
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Modelling autonomy: Simulating the essence of life and cognition
Barandiaran, X. E., & Ruiz-Mirazo, K. (2008). Modelling autonomy: Simulating the essence of life and cognition. Biosystems, 91(2), 295-304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2007.07.001
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Artificial Mental Life
Barandiaran, X. E., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2008). Artificial Mental Life. In Artificial Life XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (pp. 747). MIT Press.
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On the nature of neural information: A critique of the received view 50 years later
Barandiaran, X. E., & Moreno, A. (2008). On the nature of neural information: A critique of the received view 50 years later. Neurocomputing, 71(4-6), 681-692. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2007.09.014
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We offer a critical review of the concept of neural information, as received within mainstream neuroscience from Artificial Intelligence. This conception of information is constructed as a conditional probability of a stimulus given a certain neural activation, a correlation that cannot be accessed by the organism and fails to explain its causal organization. We reconstruct an alternative conception of neural information: a pattern of signals that is selected by the organism (as an autonomous system) to contribute to its self-maintenance in virtue of its correlation with external conditions, a correlation that might further be evaluated by the very system.
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Report on Open Access and FLOK for a New Journal in Cognitive Science
Barandiaran, X. E. (2008). Report on Open Access and FLOK for a New Journal in Cognitive Science. ASLab (Autonomous Systems Lab), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. https://xabierbarandiaran.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/barandiaran_-_2008_-_oa_and_flok_for_journal_in_cogsci_-_aslab_report.pdf
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This report deals with the principles, context, opportunities and tools to create an Open Access and Free/Libre Open Knowledge Journal in Cognitive Science. It review different definitions of Open Access, institutions and declarations supporting it, it overviews the landscape of potentially competing Open Access journals in the field of cognitive science and it finally provides a short summary of possible resources for launching and financing a new Open Access journal.
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Mental Life: a naturalized approach to the autonomy of cognitive agents.
Barandiaran, X. E. (2008). Mental Life: a naturalized approach to the autonomy of cognitive agents [PhD Thesis, University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU)]. https://xabier.barandiaran.net/phdthesis/
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Mental Life: conceptual models and synthetic methodologies for a post-cognitivist psychology
Barandiaran, X. E. (2007). Mental Life: conceptual models and synthetic methodologies for a post-cognitivist psychology. In B. Wallace, A. Ross, J. Davies, & T. Anderson (Eds.), The World, the Mind and the Body: Psychology after cognitivism (pp. 49-90). Imprint Academic.
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On What Makes Certain Dynamical Systems Cognitive: A Minimally Cognitive Organization Program
Barandiaran, X. E., & Moreno, A. (2006). On What Makes Certain Dynamical Systems Cognitive: A Minimally Cognitive Organization Program. Adaptive Behavior, 14(2), 171-185. https://doi.org/10.1177/105971230601400208
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Dynamicism has provided cognitive science with important tools to understand some aspects of "how cognitive agents work" but the issue of "what makes something cognitive" has not been sufficiently addressed yet and, we argue, the former will never be complete without the latter. Behavioristic characterizations of cognitive properties are criticized in favor of an organizational approach focused on the internal dynamic relationships that constitute cognitive systems. A definition of cognition as adaptive-autonomy in the embodied and situated neurodynamic domain is provided: the compensatory regulation of a web of stability dependencies between sensorimotor structures is created and pre served during a historical/developmental process. We highlight the functional role of emotional embodiment: internal bioregulatory processes coupled to the formation and adaptive regulation of neurodynamic autonomy. Finally, we discuss a "minimally cognitive behavior program" in evolutionary simulation modeling suggesting that much is to be learned from a complementary "minimally cognitive organization program"
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Autonomía, Comunicación y Evolución en redes bacterianas y tecnológicas
Barandiaran, X. E., & Guiu, L. (2006). Autonomía, Comunicación y Evolución en redes bacterianas y tecnológicas. biTARTE, 35-60.
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ALife Models as Epistemic Artefacts
Barandiaran, X. E., & Moreno, A. (2006). ALife Models as Epistemic Artefacts. In Artificial Life X : Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (pp. 513-519). The MIT Press (Bradford Books).
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Both the irreducible complexity of biological phenomena and the aim of a universalized biology (life-as-it-could-be) have lead to a deep methodological shift in the study of life; represented by the appearance of ALife, with its claim that computational modelling is the main tool for studying the general principles of biological phenomenology. However this methodological shift implies important questions concerning the aesthetic, engineering and specially the epistemological status of computational models in scientific research: halfway between the well established categories of theory and experiment. ALife models become powerful epistemic artefacts allowing the simulation of emergent phenomena, the interaction between different levels of organization and the integration of different causal factors in the very same manipulable object. The use of computational models in ALife can be classified in four main categories depending on their position between theoretical and empirical practices: generic, conceptual, functional and mechanistic. For each of these categories we analyse their epistemic value and select paradigmatic examples that illustrate how ALife models can be fruitfully inserted in the study of life.
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Behavioral Adaptive Autonomy. A milestone on the Alife route to AI?
Barandiaran, X. E. (2004). Behavioral Adaptive Autonomy. A milestone on the Alife route to AI?. In Artificial life IX: proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Artificial Life (pp. 514-521). MIT Press.
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While central to robotics, biology and cognitive science, the concept of autonomy remains still difficult to make operative in the realm of Alife simulation models of cognitive agents. Its deep significance as a transition concept between life and cognition (a milestone on the Alife route to AI) remains obscured in the intricate relation between metabolic/constructive processes and behavioral adaptive processes in living systems. Within a naturalized and biologically inspired dynamical approach to cognition a definition of behavioral adaptive autonomy is provided: homeostatic maintenance of essential variables under viability constraints through self-modulating behavioral coupling with the environment, hierarchically decoupled from metabolic (constructive) processes. This definition allows for a naturalized notion of behavioral adaptive functionality (that defines a proper level of modelling within Alife), structurally and interactively emergent: the mapping of the agent-environment system’s state space trajectories into the viability subspace of the essential variables of the organism.
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A naturalized account of the inside-outside dichotomy
Moreno, A., & Barandiaran, X. E. (2004). A naturalized account of the inside-outside dichotomy. PHILOSOPHICA, 73, 11-26. https://www.philosophica.ugent.be/wp-content/uploads/fulltexts/73-2.pdf
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The first form of the inside-outside dichotomy appears as a self-encapsulated system with an active border. These systems are based on two complementary but asymmetric processes: constructive and interactive. The former physically constitute the system as a recursive network of component production, defining an inside. The maintenance of the constructive processes implies that the internal organization also constrains certain flows of matter and energy across the border of the system, generating interactive processes. These interactive processes ensure the maintenance of the constructive processes thus specifying a meaningful outside. Upon this basic form of identity formation, the evolutionary and historical domain is open for the emergence of a whole hierarchy and ecology of insides and outsides. These which mutually subsume and collaborate in the maintenance of the essential inside-outside dichotomy that defines the conditions of possibility of the subjects and the worlds they generate.
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Activismo digital y telemático. Poder y contrapoder en el ciberespacio
Barandiaran, X. E. (2003). Activismo digital y telemático. Poder y contrapoder en el ciberespacio. In . http://201.147.150.252:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/1837
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Hacklabs. Ensamblaje colectivo de la tecnopolítica como realidad social
Barandiaran, X. (2003). Hacklabs. Ensamblaje colectivo de la tecnopolítica como realidad social. .
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Adaptive Behaviour, Autonomy and Value systems. Normative function in dynamical adaptive systems
Barandiaran, X. E. (2002). Adaptive Behaviour, Autonomy and Value systems. Normative function in dynamical adaptive systems [MSc Thesis, University of Sussex]. https://xabierbarandiaran.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/barandiaran_-_2002_adaptive_behavior_autonomy_and_value_systems_-_msc_thesis.pdf
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Computational functionalism [5] fails to understand the embodied and situated nature of behaviour by taking steady state functions as theoretical primitives, and by interpreting cognitive behaviour from a language-like, observer dependant framework without a naturalized normativity. Evolutionary functionalism [28, 27], on the other hand, by grounding functional normativity on historical processes fails to give an account of normative functionality based on the present causal mechanism producing behaviour. We propose an alternative autonomous dynamical framework where functionality is defined as contribution to self-maintenance [15, 10, 35] and normativity as satisfaction of closure criteria. We develop this framework by a set of formal definitions in the framework of dynamical system theory and propose the hypothesis of an homeostatic-plasticity [31, 40] based general purpose value system as an internalized normative mechanism that selects between internal state trajectories to produce adaptive functionality under different environmental conditions. To test the hypothesis we develop a simulation model where lower level specifications of a control arquitecture (an homeostatic plastic DRNN) give rise (through a simulated evolutionary process) to adaptive behaviour in a foraging task where food sources can be poisonous or profitable. Analysis of the evolved agent show that plastic changes occur when the agent produces salient adaptive interactions, those plastic changes determining the adaptive strategy. The embodied and interactive adaptive functionality is dynamically analysed, illustrating the autonomous dynamical framework.
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