Information, Computation, Cognition. Agency-Based Hierarchies of Levels

Abstract. Nature can be seen as informational structure with computational dy-namics, where an (info-computational) agent is needed for the potential infor-mation of the world to actualize. Starting from the definition of information as the difference in one physical system that makes a difference in another physi-cal system – which combines Bateson and Hewitt’s definitions, the argument is advanced for natural computation as a computational model of the dynamics of the physical world, where information processing is constantly going on, on a variety of levels of organization. This setting helps elucidating the relationships between computation, information, agency and cognition, within the common conceptual framework, with special relevance for biology and robotics