Informational Resilience in the Human Cognitive Ecology.

Resilience, a fundamental property of cognitive systems, is tied to their autopoietic (self-maintaining) organization and helps preserve their identity against disturbances. The autopoietic theory of Maturana and Varela rejects traditional Shannon information as irrelevant to cognition. This paper proposes an alternative: an affordance-based view of information from radical cognitive science that avoids that critique. It argues that social influence on how affordances are used is key to understanding resilience in the informational relations within the human cognitive ecology.

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Abstract

Resilience is a basic trait of cognitive systems and fundamentally connected to their autopoietic organization. It plays a vital role in maintaining the identity of cognitive systems in the face of external threats and perturbances. However, when examining resilience in the context of autopoiesis, an overlooked issue arises: the autopoietic theory formulated by Maturana and Varela (1980) renders traditional Shannon information obsolete, highlighting that information should not be ascribed a role in cognitive systems in a general sense. This paper examines the current situation and suggests a possible way forward by exploring an affordance-based view on information, derived from radical cognitive science, which is exempted from Maturana and Varela's critique. Specifically, it argues that the impact of social influence on affordance use is crucial when considering how resilience can manifest in informational relations pertaining to the human cognitive ecology.