Contributions of Minimal Cognition to Flexibility

Deficits in automation technology comprise problems in interfaces, programming, sensory abilities, and flexibility. Organisms apply cognitive capacities and use a rich control, actuator and sensor armament in situations envisioned for automated technical applications. We discuss solutions for flexibility derived from cell biology. In [5] and [8] we showed that prokaryotes have minimal cognitive abilities. Here, we show how they implement flexibility using these abilities. Our results comprise: 1. Stimulus-response paths in prokaryotes are modifiable. A technical system not allowing that is not flexible. 2. Prokaryotes have a memory, exploiting differences in the velocity of related processes (e.g., fast processes followed by slow inverse processes). This could be reconstructed technically. 3. Prokaryotes show two forms of reconfigurability: As an individual, they are able to synthesize sensors and effectors when required and eliminate them when no longer needed. In a population, they aggregate and cooperate realizing functionalities unknown to the single organism. The set of possible sensors and effectors is encoded in the genome as a potential; only a subset of it is expressed at a given time. Flexible technical systems able to reconfigure could be organized similarly. “Scaffolding”, the use of retractable support structures in organisms, seems to be related to reconfigurability.