What is the function of cognition? On one influential account, cognition evolved to co-ordinate behaviour with environmental change or complexity (Godfrey-Smith in Complexity and the function of mind in nature, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996). Liberal interpretations of this view ascribe cognition to an extraordinarily broad set of biological systems—even bacteria, which modulate their activity in response to salient external cues, would seem to qualify as cognitive agents. However, equating cognition with adaptive flexibility per se glosses over important distinctions in the way biological organisms deal with environmental complexity. Drawing on contemporary advances in theoretical biology and computational neuroscience, we cash these distinctions out in terms of different kinds of generative models, and the representational and uncertainty-resolving capacities they afford. This analysis leads us to propose a formal criterion for delineating cognition from other, more pervasive forms of adaptive plasticity. On this view, biological cognition is rooted in a particular kind of functional organisation; namely, that which enables the agent to detach from the present and engage in counterfactual (active) inference.

中文翻译：

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从平衡剂到反事实认知者：主动推理、生物调节和认知的起源

认知的功能是什么？在一个有影响力的说法中，认知进化为协调行为与环境变化或复杂性（Godfrey-Smith in Complexity and the function of mind in nature, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996）。对这一观点的自由解释将认知归因于一组极其广泛的生物系统——即使是细菌，根据显着的外部线索来调节其活动，似乎也有资格作为认知代理。然而，将认知等同于适应性灵活性本身掩盖了生物有机体处理环境复杂性方式的重要区别。借鉴理论生物学和计算神经科学的当代进展，我们根据不同类型的生成模型以及它们提供的代表性和解决不确定性的能力来兑现这些区别。这种分析使我们提出了一个正式的标准，用于从其他更普遍的适应性可塑性形式中描述认知。根据这种观点，生物认知植根于一种特殊的功能组织；即，使代理能够脱离当前并进行反事实（主动）推理。