Easy Alliances: The Methodology of Minimally Cognitive Behavior (MMCB) and Basal Cognition

Although the cognitive sciences produce abundant data, progress in understanding the fundamental aspects of cognition has been hindered by a proliferation of interpretive frameworks. Getting a better grasp of cognition requires that we have ways of concretizing claims and comparing and testing theories. The methodology of minimally cognitive behavior (Beer 1996, 2019, 2020a; Beer and Williams 2009) offers a strategy for evaluating specific cognitive behaviors that can accommodate the variety of explanatory strategies on offer (dynamical systems theory, information theory, autopoietic theory, adaptation, and so on) through the use of toy models. While the methodology itself does not specify a means of picking out which behaviors are cognitive, the nascent program of basal cognition (Lyon 2019, Lyon et al. 2021) offers a principled way to understand cognitive behaviors through its integration with biological functions. Using basal cognition and the MMCB in tandem thus provides both a principled way to carve out a domain of cognitive behaviors and a methodology for evaluation and comparison of the explanatory frameworks which cover that domain