Peliteoria

Peliteoria is a fictional framework in cognitive science and philosophy of mind that posits cognition emerges from the real-time, reciprocal coupling of perception, action, and environment. The term was coined in speculative writings as a thought experiment to examine how agents adapt to changing contexts without relying on static internal representations. In Peliteoria, knowledge is distributed across sensorimotor loops and environmental structures, and stable behavior arises from continuous interaction rather than fixed symbols.

Key principles include embodiment, dynamic coupling, context-sensitivity, emergence, and nonlinearity. The theory draws on ideas from embodied cognition, ecological psychology, and dynamical systems theory, while resisting orthodox representational accounts.

Methods under Peliteoria are hypothetical and rely on simulation-based studies in richly interactive environments, where agents learn by adapting to affordances rather than optimizing fixed goals. Proponents present agent-environment systems that demonstrate robust performance across changing tasks without explicit reprogramming.

Reception has been mainly within fictional world-building communities and philosophical thought experiments. Critics note that, as a fictional construct, Peliteoria lacks empirical falsifiability and practical methodology, though it is valued for illustrating the potential limits of traditional AI and for exploring embodied approaches to mind.

See also: embodied cognition, enactivism, ecological psychology, dynamical systems theory, predictive processing.