Cognition

Perhaps the greatest contribution Maturana and Varela gave is their expanded theory of cognition as a feature of all living systems. According to their theory of living systems, mind is not an It but a process. The organizing activity of living systems at all levels of life is a continuous mental, or learning activity, so that life and cognition are inseparable.

The two neuroscientists concluded that the brain is not necessary for mind to exist. It is learning that defines the existence of the mind; learning occurs in each system capable of forming feedback loops, and feedback loops are found in the simplest organisms capable of perception and thus of cognition.

The new concept of mind and cognition is broader than that of abstract, body-free thinking. In General Semantics thinking involves feeling as well, and in the Santiago theory, it involves also perception, emotions, and action (16).

In the computer metaphor of the mind, mental processes occur in linear time sequences. Unalike, the connectionist model of networks gains more sense as a paradigmatic mind model: densely interconnected elements simultaneously carry out millions of activities, and form together different levels of organization and complexity that generate authentic emergent properties. What happens in a connectionist model is a function of what all the components are doing as a network, and this network of organizational patterns spontaneously gains complexity in order and internal coherence in intricate patterning.

(16) In Gregory Bateson’s view, mental processes occur inevitably at a certain level of complexity and are independent of the formation of the brain. He discerned mind in social systems and ecosystems. Bateson perceived that human beings think in terms of relationships and not of parts. He tried to describe nature in “nature’s language,” and that for him is the language of relationships, which are the essence of the living world.

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