Analog Computation

A recent preprint (Friedrich, 2026) describes the notion of analog computing, and proposes that it be taken seriously as a form of computation that might show up in cognition (alongside, not necessarily replacing, digital computation). He lays out the basic idea, connects it to some empirical literature, and makes the case for it being one of the options in the toolkit. 

I read it after a good discussion on Bluesky, in which I asked how this is different from dynamical systems approaches. 

Real question: what’s the difference between analog computation and dynamical systems theory (eg the watts governor)?

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— Andrew D Wilson (@adw.bsky.social) November 7, 2026 at 1:20 PM

The answers were informative! There is a key difference, and one with implications for whether this approach is useful to the ecological approach. The short answer is no, it's not especially useful, because it's representational. The slightly longer answer seemed worth blogging though. 

Not Every Behaviour Entails an Affordance

There are two approaches to formalising Gibson's notion of affordances. The first is to treat them as dispositional properties of the environment; properties the environment offers the organism to support possible actions. The second is as relations in the organism-environment system; not localised to the environment but formed when the organism-environment system is formed as a perception-action loop. I am firmly Team Dispositional Properties, because I think this best aligns with Gibson's goals, it allows actual science on the coordination and control of action (Wilson, 2026) and because there is currently no working account of how you might perceive a relational affordance. 

Despite all this, the relational account remains alive, well, and probably the main way people think about affordances. One reason is the drive to make ecological psychology align with the commitments of radical enactivism, a drive I have no interest in (I think enactivism is ok but nothing we owe our allegiance). I think the other big reason is that only the relational account really allows you to talk about affordances for things other than the coordination and control of actions, and as the ecological approach expands the things it is trying to explain people want to apply the ecological tools we have, and that means affordances. 

Except actually, it doesn't.