An introduction to the ontology of anticipation

The paper introduces the idea of anticipatory systems, i.e. of systems that take their decisions in the present according to forecasts about something that may eventually happen. The best-known definition of anticipation is still Rosen's: “An anticipatory system is a system containing a predictive model of itself and/or its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model's predictions pertaining to a later instant.”The most obvious mistake committed by almost everyone when first confronted with the idea of anticipation is to think that anticipation is a feature that we possess because we are such highly complex and wonderfully sophisticated cognitive agents. This is not what the theory of anticipation claims. Indeed, the major surprise embedded in the theory of anticipation is that anticipation is a widespread phenomenon present in and characterizing all types of realities.The paper presents some of Rosen's early works on anticipation and spells out in some details a few of its subtleties.