A lazy brain? Embodied embedded cognition and cognitive neuroscience

The E. coli shines in its simplicity. This single-cell organism can locate food in its environment without having any plan on how to look for it, nor does it have any beliefs about the world it finds itself in. Instead it finds food, and avoids toxics, by moving its flagella in one of two ways: either it tumbles about randomly or it swims straight ahead. Without specific stimulation it changes between these two modes every few seconds, thereby engaging in a random exploration of its environment. Once a chemical gradient in its environment is ..