In this paper (available here), I argue that existing criticism about what is “morphological computation” due to Müller & Hoffmann is in fact a debate on what “computation” is and doesn’t provide much insight into the “morphological” part. I analyze their view to show that it is a semantic approach to computation, and then propose that alternative mechanistic view helps us understand better scientific practices in research fields adjacent to basal cognition, more precisely - research on morphogenesis.

This paper has a quiet, secondary goal, which is to show that basal cognitive processes could be understood in terms of computation. This is important beacuse in my view it streamlines the connection between basal cognition research and computational neuroscience. Furthermore, it substantiates what could be meant by “computational enactivism”, a view that I’m very sympathetic towards, and would love to explore in greater detail in the future.