Cognizing Subjects: Our Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts

Please note: This seminar is online only and registration is necessary. Register here.

Among the practices driving the planet toward ecological collapse is anthropocentrism, the belief that Homo sapiens is the species superior to all others.  Such ideas find support in the notion that humans are cognitively the most advanced.  Crucial to bringing sanity, sustainability and ecological balance back, then, is a reassessment of cognition. The Integrated Cognitive Framework (ICF) proposes a relational definition of cognition as a process that interprets information in contexts that connect it to meaning.  This definition opens cognitive practices as well as meaning-making to nonhuman lifeforms and to AIs such as Large Language Models . In developed societies, most of the work is performed by cognitive assemblages, collectivities of humans, nonhumans and computational media through which information, interpretations, and decisions flow.

The broader context within which ICF operates is ecological relationality. Its implications are explored through case studies, including the cognitive capacities of microorganisms.  The cognitive capabilities of computational media are explored through analyses of the architectures and textual productions of Large Language Models, specifically OpenAI’s Transformer models. Replacing liberal political philosophy with ecological relationality enables us to take responsibility without at the same time reinscribing human dominance, and for embracing  choices that will lead to flourishing futures for humans and nonhumans.