What is Cognitive Immunology?

Cognitive immunology is an emerging field of research and engaged practice that extends the traditional purview of biological immunology to the entirety of the human person. It's not just our physical selves that have immune systems to protect us from infections; our cognitive selves do as well.

A crucial element of this new (yet also ancient, in some ways) field is the recognition that "cognition" is not simply mental or psychological activity, but the energetic dynamics of our entire being as a unified living system. We are vastly more complex than the simplistic duality of "mental mind" v. "physical body." The traditional paradigm of psychology and medicine that splits our existence into these two separate realms is rapidly fading away; the best available scientific evidence on this question reveals that there is no such mind-body, mental-physical duality. Instead, everything in our being is an interconnected element of a multidimensional cognitive system defined by its functions of organizing and unifying the countless energetic processes that constitute a living system.

Cognitive immunology, therefore, is the study and practice of protecting ourselves from threats to the integrity of our cognitive functioning. Just as physical, protein-based viruses can harmfully disrupt the natural functioning of a cell by manipulating its genetic material and other cellular components and processes, so can "mind viruses" harmfully disrupt the natural functioning of our cognitive systems on multiple levels. These threats come in a variety of forms, such as viral ideas, infectious ideologies, mind parasites, and the mental-emotional manipulation characteristic of much media these days.

Viral Infections of Cognition are Literally Real, not "Merely Metaphorical"

One of the greatest impediments to taking seriously this idea of cognitive immunology and "mind-viruses" is the assumption that these terms are being used only metaphorically, not literally. I'm sure many people reading this will be thinking, "Oh really? A "mind-virus"? Yeah, that's some good sci-fi, New Age woo-woo stuff right there. Forget this." But while this assumption and knee-jerk reaction are understandable, they're no serious critique of these ideas. Here's why.

First, while virtually everyone can readily agree that immunology is a legitimate field of scientific research with a clinical counterpart in medical practice, applying the very concept of "immunology" to biology and medicine was originally a metaphorical move. Prior to the adoption of this term by the medical sciences, "immunity" had nothing to do with biology, virology, or pathology: it was a political-legal term. Science is full of metaphors that we actually take seriously and literally. As the evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin reminds us,

It is not possible to do the work of science without using a language that is filled with metaphors. [Useful scientific] explanations...must necessarily involve the use of metaphorical language. ...Indeed, the entire body of modern science rests on Descartes's metaphor of the world as a machine." (from The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism and Environment)

Note the metaphorical nature of this very statement by Lewontin: "language that is filled with...the body of modern science rests on..." Science will always be discussed through metaphor because language itself is fundamentally metaphorical. If you pay close attention (another metaphor), you'll notice how your daily communication is full of metaphorical ideas. It is impossible to communicate without metaphor. So, if you want to dismiss the idea of mind viruses and cognitive immunity simply because the terms don't sound "scientific" or legitimate enough, you are relying on mere feeling and not robust, critical engagement with the concepts (and the science of these phenomena).

Second, there is a solid scientific basis for the field of cognitive immunology. To properly understand the groundbreaking research emerging in this realm, we must first appreciate the wholesale paradigm shift that has been occurring in the life-mind sciences over the past few decades. I couldn't possibly provide a comprehensive overview of this shift here, as it is far too complex and extensive, but I approximated such an overview in my doctoral dissertation which you can download and read for free here, if you are so inclined.

At the core of the paradigm shift is a rejection of the ontological duality that undergirds the vast majority of modern science; namely, the mind-body, mental-physical, subjective-objective duality (it goes by various formulations; these are some of the key ideas at play). For over 100 years now, a diverse range of scientific research has produced high-quality, reliable evidence revealing that there is no such mental-physical/mind-body separation. Instead, what we call "cognition" involves quite literally everything in our existence as humans, and even processes and phenomena pervading the more-than-human worlds surrounding us.

In short, life and mind are one thing: where there is life, there is mind, and vice versa. Just because we have two different words doesn't mean that those words correspond in a neat, 1:1 relationship with levels, or realms, or dimensions of reality external to and separate from those words. We don't have to require reality to fit neatly into mutually exclusive, delimited, conceptual categories and abstract schemas. In fact, it is silly to force such a linear, neatly divided, literal interpretive framework onto the living world, which the sciences have emphatically demonstrated to be vastly, vastly more complex and dynamic than what we have ever previously imagined.

Enter: Cognition as Metabolism

In the newly emerging (yet also ancient, which I'll write about at some point) paradigm, "cognition" is redefined beyond the now obsolete and irrationally limited mind-body duality. Cognition is not just mental activity, or even just neurological/brain activity. Cognition encompasses quite literally everything humans do, think, and feel; it refers to the total energetic dynamics of an organism as an autopoietic unity. In short, cognition is metabolism.

If you look up a textbook or dictionary definition of "metabolism," it will say something about the chemical reactions and/or processes that occur within a cell or an organism. This is true, but it is incomplete. Metabolism is not just what happens inside the physical boundaries of an organism; it includes the extended environment of any living system. Nothing that happens inside a cell, an organism, or a social organization can be properly or accurately understood without taking into account the essential interactions of that system with the environmental conditions that make possible that form of life.

So, the concept of metabolism must be expanded to include the total set of energy dynamics and energy flow of a structurally-coupled organism-environment ecosystem. Said more simply, living=metabolism=cognition. As the cognitive scientists Michel Bitbol and Pier Luigi Luisi remark:

a full-blown metabolism is tantamount to cognition." ("Autopoiesis With or Without Cognition: Defining Life at Its Edge," Journal of the Royal Society Interface 1, no. 1 (2004), 102.

Likewise, the pioneering biologists and neurophysiologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela put it this way:

Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms, with and without a nervous system." (from Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, p. 13)

To summarize, cognition must now be understood as the total set of energetic operations of a living system on any scale, from cell to organism to society to planet. Cognition is not merely a mental, neurological, or psychological phenomenon, it is an ecological and relational phenomenon. So, just as microscopic, protein-based viruses can infect cells and cause disease, so can immaterial "mind-viruses" infect the cognitive functioning of organisms and cause diseases of all sorts -- both "physical" and "mental". Crucially, we must remember that there is no primary or ultimate separation between so-called "physical" and "mental" orders of reality. This means that "cognitive disease" affects an organism or social system on multiple levels simultaneously. Below, I explain a little bit more about what this looks like practically.  

Infections of Cognition: Viral Ideas, Cancerous Ideologies, Parasitic Perspectives

*coming soon; website in redevelopment