Artificial life and natural intelligence

Abstract

This paper reviews the neuroscience literature to sculpt a view of intelligence from the artificial life (ALife) perspective. Three key themes are used to motivate a journey down the low road to cognition. First, the origins of brain structures and dynamics exhibit considerable emergence at phylogenic, epigenetic, and ontogenetic levels. Second, ALife complexity measures have interesting parallels in theoretical neuroscience. Finally, the cerebral internalization of sensory stimuli and motor control explain, respectively, a) semantics in terms of differential complexity, and b) how neural evolution has overcome the limitations of simple emergence. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.