Learning is commonplace in organisms such as ourselves and even in organisms as far distant as the bee and the octopus. Such learning is implemented by brains, or neuronal networks, and has been extensively studied within ethology, psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Whether learning also takes place in nonneuronal settings has remained a matter of sustained controversy, too often dominated by ideological views. In this survey, I will explain how learning can be rigorously interpreted as a form of information processing and then explore the evidence for whether learning also takes place in organismal contexts outside the brain, such as physiology, development, and individual cells. I will try to explain why it is important to build bridges in this way between cognitive science and systems biology, why concepts and methods from various branches of engineering may be helpful in this task, and what the eventual impact may be on how we think about the organism.

中文翻译：

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脑外学习：整合认知科学和系统生物学

学习在像我们这样的生物体中是司空见惯的，甚至在远至蜜蜂和章鱼的生物体中也是如此。这种学习是由大脑或神经元网络实现的，并且在行为学、心理学、认知科学和神经科学中得到了广泛的研究。学习是否也发生在非神经元环境中仍然是一个持续存在争议的问题，通常由意识形态观点主导。在本次调查中，我将解释如何将学习严格解释为一种信息处理形式，然后探讨学习是否也发生在大脑以外的有机体环境中的证据，例如生理学、发育和单个细胞。我将尝试解释为什么以这种方式在认知科学和系统生物学之间建立桥梁很重要，