The Info-computational Nature of Morphological Computing

Abstract

Morphological computing emerged recently as an approach in robotics aimed at saving robots computational and other resources by utilizing physical properties of the robotic body to automatically produce and control behavior. The idea is that the morphology of an agent (a living organism or a machine) constrains its possible interactions with the environment as well as its development, including its growth and reconfiguration. The nature of morphological computing becomes especially apparent in the info-computational framework, which combines informational structural realism (the idea that the world for an agent is an informational structure) with natural computationalism (the view that all of nature forms a network of computational processes). Info-computationalism describes morphological computation as a process of continuous self-structuring of information and shaping of both interactions and informational structures. This article argues that natural computation/morphological computation is a computational model of physical reality, and not just a metaphor or analogy, as it provides a basis for computational framing, parameter studies, optimizations and simulations – all of which go far beyond metaphor or analogy.