Info-computational constructivism in modelling of life as cognition
  This paper addresses the open question formulated as: Which levels of
abstraction are appropriate in the synthetic modelling of life and cognition?
within the framework of info-computational constructivism, treating natural
phenomena as computational processes on informational structures. At present we
lack the common understanding of the processes of life and cognition in living
organisms with the details of co-construction of informational structures and
computational processes in embodied, embedded cognizing agents, both living and
artifactual ones. Starting with the definition of an agent as an entity capable
of acting on its own behalf, as an actor in Hewitt Actor model of computation,
even so simple systems as molecules can be modelled as actors exchanging
messages (information). We adopt Kauffmans view of a living agent as something
that can reproduce and undergoes at least one thermodynamic work cycle. This
definition of living agents leads to the Maturana and Varelas identification of
life with cognition. Within the info-computational constructive approach to
living beings as cognizing agents, from the simplest to the most complex living
systems, mechanisms of cognition can be studied in order to construct synthetic
model classes of artifactual cognizing agents on different levels of
organization.
