Wallace Rodrick
New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Dr., Box 47, New York, NY, 10032, USA,
Cogn Process. 2014 Feb;15(1):1-12. doi: 10.1007/s10339-013-0573-1. Epub 2013 Jun 19.
The intimate relation between biology and cognition can be formally examined through statistical models constrained by the asymptotic limit theorems of communication theory, augmented by methods from statistical mechanics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Cognition, often involving submodules that act as information sources, is ubiquitous across the living state. Less metabolic free energy is consumed by permitting crosstalk between biological information sources than by isolating them, leading to evolutionary exaptations that assemble shifting, tunable cognitive arrays at multiple scales, and levels of organization to meet dynamic patterns of threat and opportunity. Cognition is thus necessary for life, but it is not sufficient: An organism represents a highly patterned outcome of path-dependent, blind, variation, selection, interaction, and chance extinction in the context of an adequate flow of free energy and an environment fit for development. Complex, interacting cognitive processes within an organism both record and instantiate those evolutionary and developmental trajectories.
生物学与认知之间的紧密关系可以通过受通信理论渐近极限定理约束的统计模型进行正式检验，并辅以统计力学和非平衡热力学方法。认知通常涉及充当信息源的子模块，在生命状态中无处不在。与将生物信息源隔离相比，允许它们之间进行串扰所消耗的代谢自由能更少，从而导致进化适应，在多个尺度和组织层次上组装不断变化、可调节的认知阵列，以应对威胁和机遇的动态模式。因此，认知对于生命是必要的，但并不充分：生物体代表了在自由能充分流动和适合发育的环境背景下，路径依赖、盲目、变异、选择、相互作用和偶然灭绝的高度模式化结果。生物体内复杂的、相互作用的认知过程既记录又实例化了那些进化和发育轨迹。
