Alex Djedovic

The way organismic agents come to know the world, and the way algorithms solve problems, are fundamentally different. The most sensible course of action for an organism does not simply follow from logical rules of inference. Before it can even use such rules, the organism must tackle the problem of relevance. It must turn ill-defined problems into well-defined ones, turn semantics into syntax. This ability to realize relevance is present in all organisms, from bacteria to humans. It lies at the root of organismic agency, cognition, and consciousness, arising from the particular autopoietic, anticipatory, and adaptive organization of living beings. In this paper, we show that the process of relevance realization is beyond formalization. It cannot be captured completely by algorithmic approaches. This implies that organismic agency (and hence cognition as well as consciousness) are at heart not computational in nature. Instead, we show how the process of relevance is realized by an adaptive and emergent evolutionary dialectic, which manifests as a metabolic and ecological co-constructive dynamic. This results in a meliorative process that enables an agent to keep a grip on its arena, its reality. To be alive means to make sense of one's world. This kind of embodied ecological rationality is a fundamental aspect of life, and a key characteristic that sets it apart from non-living matter.

This dissertation argues that cognition is a kind of natural agency. Natural agency is the capacity that certain systems have to act in accordance with their own norms. Natural agents are systems that bias their repertoires in response to affordances in the pursuit of their goals. Cognition is a special mode of this general phenomenon. Cognitive systems are agents that have the additional capacity to actively take their worlds to be certain ways, regardless of whether the world is really that way. In this way, cognitive systems are desituated. Desituatedness is the root of specifically cognitive capacities for representation and abstraction. There are two main reasons why this view needs defending. First, natural agency is typically viewed as incompatible with natural science because it is committed to a teleological mode of explanation. Second, cognition is typically held to be categorically distinct from natural agency. This dissertation argues against both of these views. It argues against the incompatibility of agency and natural science by demonstrating that systems biology, general systems theory, and sciences that deal with complex systems have typically underappreciated conceptual and theoretical resources for grounding agency in the causal structure of the world. These conceptual resources do not, however, reduce agency to systems theory because the normativity inherent in agency demands descriptive resources beyond those of even the most sophisticated systems theory. It argues against the categorical difference between natural agency and cognition by pointing out that separating cognition from a richer web of situated, ecologically embedded relations between the agent and the world generates the frame problem, which is an insuperable obstacle to making cognition that is sufficiently responsive to the complexity of the world. Rooting cognition in natural agency is a more robust empirical bet for theorizing cognition and artificial intelligence.

The eliminative materialist position holds that the ontology of folk psychology, i.e. all talk of propositional attitudes, will not be vindicated in the ontology of a mature neuroscience, and so should be eliminated. This is motivated by two claims regarding folk psychology: (1) folk psychology is a theory, and (2) folk psychology is radically wrong. This paper examines the weight of evidence for and against (1) and (2), drawing upon both philosophical considerations and cognitive science. Ultimately, (1) and (2) are defensible, with appropriate modifications, but these positions need not entail a position as radical as eliminative materialism. It is suggested that eliminativism may be an appropriate ontology for dealing with the microstructural features of cognitive systems.

A very experimental talk exploring the ways in which enactive cognitive science and theories of sex and gender can be made more mutually illuminating. I argue that enactivism is a suitable theoretical framework for more sophisticated theorization of the difference between biological sex and social gender, as well as a biologically-grounded way to think about the open-endedness of gender.

There has been considerable interest at the boundary of philosophy, cognitive science and biology in developing an account of minimal agency, which is roughly the kind of agency that is common to living systems as such. The minimal agency project aims to clarify thinking about the continuity and embeddedness of cognitive processes in the more general class of biological processes (Di Paolo 2005, Thompson 2007, Barandiaran et al 2009, Skewes & Hooker 2009, Christensen 2012). The central claim of this project is that the defining features of minimal agents—individuality, interactional asymmetry and (minimal) normativity—are grounded in specific features of complex autonomous systems, namely their (i) organizational closure, (ii) thermodynamic openness and (iii) precariousness (Barandiaran et al 2009).

The approach of locating agency in the causal architecture of complex autonomous systems is insufficient to ground minimal agency. I claim that minimal agency is not a systemic phenomenon; rather, it is an ecological phenomenon. The minimal agency project fails because it places too much emphasis on the organizational closure of complex autonomous systems, and too little emphasis on the crucial fact that agents are needfully free. For any agent, need (dependence) and freedom (organizational closure) are caught up in an ineliminable “dialectical” interplay (Jonas 1966). For instance, maintaining organizational closure relies on complex forms of openness to and dependence on the agent’s environment. This constitutes the essential predicament of all agents. An ecological account of minimal agency is better able to accommodate the conceptual nuances inherent this predicament. It also provides an account of the source of natural normativity in agency. I contend that an ecological account of minimal agency can naturalistically accommodate what is right in the minimal agency project while clarifying the difficult conceptual issues it raises.

As an analysis of cognitive agents, behaviourism is standardly taken to be a philosophically bankrupt project. In this talk I will argue that in the current terrain of embodied, embedded, extended, enacted (E4) cognitive science, it is far less clear that a neo-behaviourist analysis of cognition is philosophically disreputable. In particular, I suggest that a neo-behaviourist analysis of cognition and intentionality offers better methodological pointers for explaining the wide class of “quasi-cognitive” processes such as intuition, framing, perceptual filtering, and skillful coping. My point of departure will be Haugeland’s influential discussion of neo-behaviourism and the development of the position in more radical strains of embodied cognitive science. Although neo-behaviourism is riddled with insufficiencies, I contend that the neo-behaviourist analysis is not particularly incoherent, and as such it may be time to dust off some old deflationary arguments concerning intentionality.

I offer an assessment of the theoretical ambitions of niche construction theory. My claim is that if niche construction theory wants to make a significant theoretical impact in evolutionary biology, it needs to be understood as an ontological thesis about the relation between organisms and their environments. This implies either that niche constructivism is fancifully non-empirical, or that we need to do some philosophical housekeeping on the relation between organism and environment. I favour the second option.

It is commonly thought that in physics and chemistry laws of nature are relatively unproblematic means of explanation, but that this model does not apply in biology (Rosenberg 2001, Press 2009). Prima facie, the reason seems to be that evolutionary lineages depend on historical accident rather than law-like generalizations. This is popularly referred to as the “evolutionary contingency thesis” (ECT). ECT raises the question of how one can explain anything in biology. If this line of thinking is right, biology is, as Rosenberg puts it, a “nomological vacuum”.

Here I will challenge the plausibility of characterizing biology as a nomological vacuum on these grounds. I do not deny the importance of history, or the nuances of context, in biology. Nor do I deny that this dimension is neglected. However, to foreclose on laws in biology entirely is to turn the field into natural history. The scientific practice of biology ought to involve more than this. I see this move as attempting to do justice to the scientific character of biology, where scientific explanation involves adverting to laws in a way roughly analogous to what happens in physics and chemistry.

In this talk, I attempt to sketch the shape of "explanatory ecumenism", a stance that I take to be more restrictive than simple pluralism, and yet more capacious than the metaphysical attempts to account for what explanation is. I take as my critical target one variety of a causal-mechanical approach to explanation, and argue that there is no robust sense of "causation" employed in the account. This opens a path towards an ecumenical approach to causation and explanation.

In philosophy of science, there is arguably something of a standard narrative when it comes to emergentism and reductionism. Usually, it seems, a hard-nosed scientist (or reductively inclined philosopher) deflates the poetic fancifulness of the emergentist. This talk is inspired by an inversion of that narrative.

My target will be a very specific quote from Richard Dawkins, who is one of the most effective communicators of evolutionary biology to the general public. He is also something of a reductionist, since he is rather fond of defending two reductive theses. First, he has consistently pushed a gene’s-eye-view of evolution, and second, he has consistently viewed biological phenomena as ultimately matters of the information carried by those genes, to the ultimate exclusion of the organisms that carry them. In this talk, I aim to resist both these points.

To resist the first point, I will examine the a cornerstone of molecular biology: the Central Dogma. I will argue that attention to the actual details of what goes on within living organisms places genes roughly on par, as far as causation is concerned, with any other aspect of a cell’s organization. I will also argue that a simple, well-entrenched, distinction within our concept of information deflates the putative importance of the concept. These considerations point towards an emergentist view in biology, but only an explanatory kind of emergentism, which I will articulate using the concept of operational closure within metabolism.

I want to suggest that Dawkins’ view, though inaccurate, is helpful. As a popularizer he is required to offer a relatively simple narrative of the story of evolution, which is in perpetual danger of getting bogged down in detail. I suggest that, pace Dawkins, we take the gene’s-eye-view and information story as a matter of poetic licence.

Course Description: An overview of the encounter between Buddhism and psychology over the last century, with cross-disciplinary study of topics such as self, embodiment, impermanence, suffering, liberation, and insight. We explore how (and why) scientists, psychologists, and Buddhist reformers have reinterpreted Buddhism as "science" and how Buddhist contemplative practices such as mindfulness or compassion training have been transformed and promoted by modern psychology.

Course Description: Advanced treatment of cognitive science topics such as neuroscientific theories of consciousness, rationality, and modelling of cognitive processes. This course will offer in-depth exploration of the predictive processing framework in cognitive science. This topic has many connections to current work in computer science, psychology, and biology. We will focus on predictive processing and related theories as a unified explanation for perception, action, and cognition, as well as controversies around their explanatory potential. We will cover the following topics: the mathematics of the free energy principle, controversies about the mark of cognition, analyses of conscious experience, analyses of affect and embodiment and their relation to consciousness. We will also undertake a short course of basic mindfulness training to potentiate somewhat more focused phenomenological analysis and discussion of conscious experience.

Course Description: Taking our cue from the entanglements that historically have pervaded the relation between biology and information technology since the early 20th century, this course interrogates the sociocultural and technological conjuncture that has brought computer science, biology, and engineering together into peculiar, ingenious, and often controversial alliances. What do AI, synthetic biology, and biotechnology have in common? How have they come to be associated? What are the debates and ethics emerging from such associations? Our main topics will be: biotechnology and the CRISPR revolution, the use of AI systems and machine learning to optimize synthetic biology, and the ethical conundrums surrounding optimization of human minds and bodies.

Course Description:Taking our cue from the entanglements that historically have pervaded the relation between biology and information technology since the early 20th century, this course interrogates the sociocultural and technological conjuncture that has brought computer science, biology, and engineering together into peculiar, ingenious, and often controversial alliances. What do AI, synthetic biology, and biotechnology have in common? How have they come to be associated? What are the debates and ethics emerging from such associations? The main topics we will cover include: biotechnology and the CRISPR revolution; the use of AI systems and machine learning to optimize synthetic biology; and the ethical conundrums surrounding optimization of human minds and bodies.

The syllabus for my course on perception, attention, and consciousness in the cognitive science program at the University of Toronto.

Course Description: An examination of core topics in cognitive science building on introductions in COG250Y1. Typical topics include: perception and attention; concepts; imagery; consciousness.

A course I taught about the epistemic and social implications of current developments in AI technology from a philosophical perspective.

Course Description: The effects of automation, computing, and information technology have had a great impact on our society. The rise of automation and computing and the almost cult-like trust in mechanization have transformed our society both at the material and the epistemological level. This course will examine the epistemological and ethical debates that AI and automation have produced in all sectors of society. It will consider a variety of media and instruments from data visualization and mapping, to the use of AI and robotics, contextualizing them within popular and hotly contested examples in the military field and in cybersecurity, in medical diagnostics and epidemiology, in the automotive industry, and in the personal realm.

A seminar in the cognitive science department focusing on the theoretical potential for the predictive processing framework to offer a comprehensive account of perception, cognition, and consciousness.

Course Description: Advanced treatment of cognitive science topics such as neuroscientific theories of consciousness, rationality and modelling of cognitive processes. This course will offer in-depth exploration of the predictive processing framework in cognitive science. This topic has many connections to current work in computer science, psychology, and biology. We will focus on predictive processing and related theories as a unified explanation for perception, action, and cognition, as well as controversies around their explanatory potential. We will cover the following topics: the mathematics of the free energy principle, controversies about the mark of cognition, analyses of conscious experience, analyses of affect and embodiment and their relation to consciousness. We will also undertake a short course of basic mindfulness training to potentiate somewhat more focused phenomenological analysis and discussion of conscious experience.

Winter 2022 Syllabus - Course Description: Advanced treatment of cognitive science topics, including the application of core ideas from probability theory, information theory, statistics, and machine learning to modelling human cognition and artificial intelligence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant changes in our daily lives. This course will examine the pandemic and the public response through a philosophy of science lens. In particular, students will explore philosophical issues about how the healthcare community generates knowledge and how that knowledge is used to inform responses to a major public health crisis. The course will also provide a brief history of pandemics and examine COVID-19 in a historical context. Epistemological issues regarding pandemic modelling and epidemiology, clinical research and generalizability of findings, diagnostic testing, public health response (e.g. border closures, protective masks, social distancing, isolation, testing and tracking), and economic and social impact will be covered. Portrayals of the pandemic by media, government, and scientists will also be examined. Readings will be drawn from a variety of academic disciplines and popular sources. Assignments will consist of three written reflections on course material, a midterm test, and two papers.

This course will explore core ethical, social, and political topics raised by cognitive science building on material touched on in COG250Y1. After quick overview of fundamental ethical and political ideas, we will look at: (1) the cognitive science of bias and rationality, (2) neuroscience and neuroreductionism, (3) the ethics of AI, (4) cognitive science, colonialism, neoliberalism, (6) the cognitive science of social media. We will examine these topics both as they relate to the practice of cognitive science and as they relate to the current and future applications of cognitive science research programs in broader society.

The basic goal of this course is to give an overview of the multiple ethical and social issues that interweave with the practice of cognitive science, and to develop your critical thinking skills for navigating these and related issues. You should leave this course with a deeper appreciation of how the science we do is embedded within a broader social, political, and ethical context, and with some theoretical and practical tools with which to navigate the fascinating and often frightfully complex problems raised by this interface of science and society.

Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) suggests that the combination of evolution by natural selection and naturalism is self-undermining, and it is irrational to hold the two together. In this paper, I focus mainly on the first premise of EAAN. I suggest that if pushed far enough, EAAN becomes a thesis about the plausibility of naturalized mental content. Instead of a hard rebuttal, I take this paper to be a re-framing of the issue in a way that is (somewhat) more amenable to naturalism.