Robustness as a non-localizable relational phenomenon

ABSTRACT A current challenge in neuroscience, systems and theoretical biology is to understand what properties allow organisms to exhibit and sustain behaviours despite perturbations (behavioural robustness). Indeed, there are still significant theoretical difficulties in this endeavour due to the context‐dependent nature of the problem. Contrary to the common view of biological robustness as a phenomenon that emerges internally, this article discusses the hypothesis that behavioural robustness is rooted in dynamical processes that distribute between internal controls, the organism body and the environment. This review highlights the varied perspectives and how they have led to the current focus on robustness as a relational phenomenon. A new perspective is proposed in which robustness is better understood in the context of agent‐environment dynamical couplings, in which such couplings are not always the full determinants of robustness. The challenges and limitations of the proposed approach are identified.