Cell Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach to the Symbol-Matter Problem

Abstract

I describe the simplest living organism, the cell, as a symbol-matter system―an observable case of how a natural representation using a word processing format constrains the real-time behavior of a material organism. My purpose is not to model cognition or language at the brain level, which cells have achieved only after some three billion years of evolution. Rather, I use this primeval embodiment of a symbol-matter system as an exercise in mental hygiene for cognitive scientists to test, and hopefully improve, the clarity of their fundamental explanatory concepts. I focus on the assumptions of information processing and direct perception approaches as specific examples of inadequate theories for understanding even simple symbol-matter systems. Based on the genetic organization of cells, I propose a semantic closure principle that requires both the physical constraints of direct perception and the syntactic constraints of information processing for explanation of symbol-matter systems. This exercise is motivated by the belief that if we expect to get anywhere with the mind-body problem at the brain level, then our concepts must at least be adequate in scope and precision to explain the symbol-matter relation in single cells where it all started.

Reprinted from Cognition and Brain Theory, 5(4), 325–341, 1982.