Biological cognition

Human Brain – Epitome of a Cognitive Object

Tesla MRI of the ex vivo human brain at 100 micron resolution (100 micron MRI acquired FA25 sagittal) (downsized, original speed).gif

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons – Accessed 20 September 2021

A recent 2021 Theme Issue of the Royal Society Philosophical Transactions (‘Basal cognition: conceptual tools and the view from the single cell’) addressed the need for a broader understanding of what we currently understand by ‘cognition’. Specifically, ‘How organisms on the lower branches of the phylogenetic tree … can aid our understanding of . . . organisms that evolved later (including Homo sapiens)’ and to recognize the ‘deep evolutionary inheritance of cognitive behavior’. A research methodology was proposed starting with the smallest and simplest organisms that display the phenomenon of interest, their principles of interaction, and the scaling up of the findings across the community of life in a comparative way. This more biologically generalized approach to cognition was designated ‘basal cognition’.

This website regards basal cognition as one element of the more general phenomenon of biological agency. It can be more usefully scientifically integrated with this concept by using the expression ‘biological cognition’.

Introduction

Biological cognition is the functional integration of a range of pre-cognitive agential traits that are present in all living organisms (supplemented in humans with cognitive traits) and therefore expressed across the community of life in degrees of organic complexity. Pre-cognitive traits were the likely evolutionary antecedents or precursors to human cognition which is a highly specialized evolutionary development.

The belief that cognition requires a nervous system remains the default view embedded in our language, so it will not do to say, without qualification, that, ‘all creatures express cognition’, ‘plants are intelligent’, ‘bacteria can learn’, or  ‘mosses have memories’ . That is because this kind of language is almost exclusively applied in circumstances that relate to human cognition which opens such language, with good reason, to the charge of being cognitive metaphor (not related to real factors in the world).

This website claims that human cognition is one aspect of universal, ultimate, and objective biological agency as the propensity (behavioral orientation) of all organisms to survive, reproduce, and flourish. Human cognition is an agential trait that evolved out of non-cognitive agential biological antecedent conditions. However, there are real traits in non-human organisms that, due to common ancestry, closely resemble these human cognitive traits. So, for example, cognitive concepts such as ‘sensing’, ‘memory’, ‘learning’, ‘communication’, and ‘decision making’ can be applied non-metaphorically to the behaviour of bacteria.

This leads to a potentially confusing taxonomy that, once mastered, becomes straightforward:

All organisms share the universal traits of biological agency. Human cognitive agency is a highly evolved and limited case (subset) of biological agency. We therefore need a term to conveniently and succinctly distinguish between those biological agents that have cognitive faculties and those that do not. Since human cognition evolved out of these pre-cognitive agential traits, the word chosen to represent them is pre-cognition.

It is also claimed that there are some agential expressions, like ‘biological agency’, that represent real and universal biological conditions: they are not metaphors or heuristics. However, their acceptance is contrary to semantic convention. Biology cannot change the common usage of words but it can provide empirical support for technical redefinition.

In short, there are empirically-based connections between human cognitive expressions (like agency, intelligence, learning, and memory) and real pre-cognitive states that do not occur in the inanimate world. Having no accepted technical terminology for these pre-cognitive states, we refer to them using the cognitive metaphor of human cognition.

So, what is biological cognition and how is it related to human cognition and other biological pre-cognitive traits?

Evolution of cognition

This website explores the possibility that there are cognitive concepts that have, by tradition, been applied strictly within the human domain but which make more scientific sense when employed more generally in biology.

We have, as a historical tradition, tended to explain the world in strictly human terms using anthropomorphism, personification, and cognitive metaphor. This is a top-down mode of explanation in which the biological world is explained/created/derived from human ideas. Since we now have a theory of evolution we would do better to explain our mental world in terms of its biological origins rather than vice-versa.

More specifically, we have failed to acknowledge that our uniquely defining human cognitive properties also share some characteristics with the rest of the living world. These are concepts that can express both similarity and difference – the uniquely defining characteristics of difference and the shared characteristics that indicate common ancestry.

There are several critical consequences of this claim.

1. 1. The shared characteristics are grounded in evolution and are therefore evolutionary precursors to later developments.
   2. They are real – they are not figurative, metaphorical, or of merely heuristic value.
   3. Some of these shared characteristics are non-cognitive agential characteristics that distinguish the animate from the inanimate.
   4. Real and shared characteristics as precursors to cognitive characteristics can be described scientifically as pre-cognitive traits (so biological cognition includes both cognitive and pre-cognitive traits) – though, in the absence of technical terms, these are currently described using the language of human intentional psychology.
   5. Though there is a strong case for much greater scientific emphasis on pre-cognitive traits this will initially be resisted with the persistence of cognitive metaphor.
   6. Science cannot change the meaning of words in common usage, but it can adjust the meaning of technical terms to better reflect the world

The suggestion of an evolutionary connection between human cognitive traits and pre-cognitive general biological traits might seem both tenuous and contentious.  The task remains to assemble and extend the current body of empirical evidence.

Theoretical evidence for the biological generalization of cognitive concepts is strong (see articles on this website on biological agency, biological purpose, and biological value).

Human cognition includes the capacity to perceive, feel, or experience subjective sensations and emotions; to know, think, and respond to conditions of existence based on sensory input and internal processing; the use of sensory perception, learning, memory, problem-solving and decision-making (as ways of assessing impediments to goals and determining courses of action).

While subjectivity, as some form of conscious awareness, is crucial to our understanding of sentience, there are paramount, there are sentience-like properties shared by non-cognitive and non-neural organisms. These properties, we must assume, reflect generalized (ancestral) evolutionary precursor conditions to animal sentience. These properties, referred to here as biological cognition, include the capacity to respond to their environments in a way that reflects an internal awareness, reality, or umwelt. While organisms do not ‘experience’ the world in a subjective human-like way they can access and interpret environmental cues in ways that encompass a diverse array of information processing and ‘decision-making’ that facilitates their survival, reproduction, and adaptation. This is a real, not metaphorical, element of every organism’s existence and science needs a simple way of referring to it. It involves It also encompasses a broad spectrum of behaviors, from simple reflexes and instinctual responses to complex learning, memory, and problem-solving abilities, all of which contribute to the organism’s ability to interact with and adapt to its surroundings.

Cognition & agency

Biological cognition is a critical component of biological agency since it shares with human cognitive agency the capacity to draw together the activities of organisms into functionally integrated and meaningful ‘experiences’. It combines information processing as the capacity of organisms, especially animals, to perceive, process, store, and use information as part of their process of adaptation to their conditions of existence. This involves cognitive capacities that include sensory perception, learning, memory, decision-making, problem-solving, and social behavior, all of which are influenced by biological mechanisms with varying degrees of physical complexity (e.g. neural and hormonal systems).

While there are many non-cognitive agential biological processes active in animals, biological cognition often involves the study of how the brain and nervous system process sensory information, encode memories, and generates behavioral responses. Researchers investigate the underlying neural circuits, neurotransmitter systems, signalling networks, and genetic factors that contribute to cognitive functions as represented in different biological systems.

Interdisciplinary investigation along these lines helps researchers gain insights into fundamental questions about the nature of cognition and its evolutionary origins.

Matter, Energy, & Information

It is conventional for science to understand and explain biology in terms of its material constituents and structures. The organization of life into ‘hierarchical levels of organization’, each loosely corresponding to a biological sub-discipline, is our historical legacy from this mode of thinking.

But biological knowledge has accumulated at both the micro- and macro-scales and research is exploring new ideas. Our traditional taxonomy of living matter (metaphysics of biological objects) was based on three key categories: material scale, degree of complexity, and inclusivity. All three of these categories are evident in the academic metaphor of life existing in ‘hierarchical levels of organization’. But there are other ways of categorizing biological objects that also correspond loosely to the way biological subdisciplines are organized. So, for example, another classification of biological objects might consist of structures (including organisms), processes, and behaviors. Such a move has probably been resisted because, apart from other reasons, it moves away from the secure world of solid ‘things’ into a biological world of increasing abstraction.

This biological world of increasing abstraction is now attracting more research as investigation focuses more on biological purpose, agency, and process. In trying to come to terms with life and evolution the gene is no longer regarded as ‘pulling the strings’ in the way it was 50 years ago. We are coming to terms with life as more a ‘process’ than a ‘thing’. These are just a few aspects of a gathering paradigm shift in biological thinking that has become loosely designated as the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.

Regardless of our personal opinions on biological metaphysics, research is moving strongly in this direction. Biological research has, in a general sense, moved from a 19th-century evolutionary study of the biological diversity found in the vast tree of life as portrayed in zoos and botanical gardens (descriptive and taxonomic inventory), to 20th-century genomics, DNA and the genetic code, and its spinoffs in biotechnology (microbiology). In the 21st century research is focused on the human brain and consciousness as a last biological frontier, but microbiology is taking on a different face as broader, more encompassing general concepts take center stage as the study of life is redefined in 21st-century terms.

Life, as a process, is a flow of matter, energy, and information.

Life, as agency, is a process of adaptation that entails information processing, a behavioral orientation, and a compromise between the behavioral propensities of the organism and the constraints of its conditions of existence.

Human cognition involves the functional integration of human cognitive faculties. Biological cognition involves the functional integration of all of an organism’s agential faculties.

Biosemiotics

The notion that cognition can be understood as dispersed through the living world has a history that is generally subsumed under the title cognitive biology.

Biosemiotics is an, at present, esoteric interdisciplinary subject that studies the production, interpretation, and communication of signs and meanings in living systems. This takes on a practical role as a framework for understanding the fundamental role of communication, information, and meaning in the organization and behavior of living systems. Perhaps unexpectedly this is a form of study that bridges the gap between the natural sciences and humanities.

It is from biosemiotics that we see an acknowledgement of the evolutionary familial resemblance of mind-like properties across the living world. This is a recognition that: ‘ . . . there is a continuum of semiotic agents across biology, extending from the first individually competent cells to their colonial aggregations and then further becoming functioning tissue ecologies, multicellular eukaryotic organisms, and holobionic species. This same agency propels collective human thought and our organizations, including nations or political movements’, and that, ‘life and sentience are coterminous. All living organisms, all biological entities, feel, learn, remember, choose, react, and communicate’.

Sentience

This website explores the possibility that there are cognitive concepts that have, by tradition, been applied strictly within the human domain but which make more scientific sense when applied more generally in biology. That is, historically we have tended to explain the world in strictly human terms using anthropomorphism, personification, and cognitive metaphor. This is a top-down mode of explanation in which the biological world is explained/created/derived from human ideas. Following the theory of evolution we would do better to explain our mental world in terms of its biological origins. More specifically, we have failed to acknowledge that our uniquely defining human cognitive properties also share some characteristics with the rest of the living world. These are concepts that can express both similarity and difference – the uniquely defining characteristics of difference and the shared characteristics that indicate common ancestry.

There are several critical consequences of this claim.

The suggestion of an evolutionary connection between human cognitive traits and pre-cognitive general biological traits might seem both tenuous and contentious.  It certainly needs a body of empirical confirmation. However, the theoretical evidence for generalizing cognitive concepts is strong (see articles on this website on biological purpose, biological agency, and biological value).

Sentience is typically associated with the capacity for subjective experiences like sensations, feelings, and consciousness as they occur in cognitive organisms with complex nervous systems, such as mammals and birds. However, there are pre-cognitive traits of sentience not found in either cognitive organisms or inanimate matter. This suggests that the notion of sentience is grounded in organisms such that it can be extended to non-cognitive organisms, albeit in rudimentary form. These pre-cognitive traits of sentience include: basic sensory perception all organisms, even those without complex nervous systems possess rudimentary forms of sensory perception; response to stimuli, non-cognitive organisms exhibit behaviors that suggest ‘awareness’ of their surroundings; affective states, even non-cognitive organisms respond to situations that help or hinder their goals; integrated systems, allowing them to maintain homeostasis, respond to stimuli, and engage in activities necessary for survival and reproduction as a form of dynamic interaction with the environment; evolutionary continuity, the evolution of nervous systems and cognitive abilities can be seen as building on pre-existing mechanisms for sensing and responding to the environment.

While it’s clear that the subjective experiences of non-cognitive organisms differ significantly from those of cognitive beings like the sharing of some traits of basic sentience enrich our understanding of life, our human consciousness, and our ethical treatment of all living organisms.

All organisms, having evolved from common ancestors, share several traits. These include cellular structure, DNA as genetic material, use of ATP as energy currency, protein synthesis, and physical processes like metabolism, and homeostasis. Included in this list of biologically universal processes are some that, though traditionally treated as uniquely human, it is now realized (due to the presence of these characteristics in humans but not in the inanimate world) are traits that are present as a consequence of shared evolutionary ancestry.

This website has emphasized universal biological agency, biological purpose, biological intentionality, and biological value, but it is becoming evident that the full range of features that uniquely identify human cognition also share grounding traits with all other organisms.

An investigation of these traits must begin with cognition itself, since we regard cognition as the processing property of our minds that structures and integrates our mental activity into meaningful experience.

So, what is biological cognition and how is it related to human cognition and other biological pre-cognitive traits?

The unified functional integration of information that occurs in all living organisms is a manifestation of biological agency and a process that distinguishes the living from the inanimate and dead.

As a universal feature of living systems, it is manifested in humans in many ways, most notably in the cognitive information processing that occurs in human brains.

Biological cognition

Insights into the way information is managed in biological systems can be gained by investigating the operation of its best-known human manifestation – cognition.

A distinction is drawn on this website between two forms of biological cognition: the highly evolved and limited form of biological cognition we associate primarily with humans, nervous systems, and brains, and the pre-cognitive form of cognition we associate with non-cognitive organisms.

Since all life is physically connected through evolution, it may be presumed that human cognition, though having uniquely human characteristics, shares ancestral, or grounding characteristics with biology’s universal information processing systems. These universal non-cognitive traits are easy to find.

Cognition comprises the sensory and other information-processing mechanisms an organism has for becoming familiar with, valuing, and interacting productively with features of its environment [exploring, exploiting, evading] in order to meet existential needs, the most basic of which are survival/persistence, growth/thriving, and reproduction”.(Lyon, 2020, p. 416). Lyon et al. (2021) also offered a companion definition of information: “A state ofaffairs is information for an organism if it triggers a change in physiology or behavior relative to thatstate of affairs. Whatever state of affairs induces a change in physiology or interactive potential in anorganism is information for that organism.

Biological cognition

Biological agency – as a biological agent pursuing goals by specific means – has been summarized on this website in practical biological terms as the capacity of an organism to survive and reproduce by a process of adaptation.

While adaptation is a useful general term it has many meanings in biology. The general process of functional integration used by all  biological agents to pursue their goals is more precisely referred to here as biological cognition which has three key characteristics.

• • • information processing (acquisition, storage, retrieval, and communication)
    • a behavioral orientation (the goal-directedness of behavior that gives life a direction, perspective, or point of view)
    • internal problem-solving (the reconciliation that must occur between the natural propensities of the organism and the constraints of its conditions of existence as a prelude to agential activity).

These three pillars of biological cognition can be recognized in the human cognitive domains of knowledge, values, and reason.

Information processing

The critical elements of information processing include storage, processing, communication, and retrieval.

Biological cognition – as the means whereby organisms adapt – involves the sensory and other information-processing mechanisms required to meet the requirements of all organisms as biological agents to survive and reproduce. As an informational process of functional integration (communication), it establishes the necessary internal ‘compromise’ between the natural propensities of the organism and the constraints of its conditions of existence that must occur as a prelude to activity (agential behavior).

Communication

For each organism to survive and reproduce as an autonomous biological agent, all its parts must unite in a system of communication which, if it is to be meaningful, must share a common language. That is, the instructions that are necessary to attain goals must make collective sense – such that the organism as a whole can adapt to diverse extraneous challenges while maintaining health and homeostasis.

It is assumed that the common language of communication used by organisms to direct all parts towards common goals is biochemical signaling which involves the transmission of chemical signals, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signaling molecules, within and between cells. This signaling coordinates physiological processes and responses to environmental stimuli. So, for instance, hormones released by endocrine glands can travel through the bloodstream to target cells located throughout the body eliciting responses by binding to receptors on cell surfaces or within cells.

This universal language of communication enables organisms to regulate processes such as growth, development, metabolism, reproduction, and responses to stress or injury. It allows for the integration of diverse cellular activities and ensures that the organism functions as a coordinated whole, even though it may consist of many different cell types with specialized functions.

Humans
Since humans are the organizational scale that we understand best, perhaps we can gain insights into more general biological cognition by starting here.

In humans, numerous signaling systems achieve this marvel of regulation and integration by working together to sustain homeostasis while supporting the entire organism in its goals of survival and reproduction. This coordinated network of signaling pathways ensures the efficient regulation and integration of the physiological processes that enable the body to function as a unified and autonomous agential unit.

Nervous System: The nervous system coordinates rapid responses to environmental stimuli and internal changes. It consists of neurons that transmit electrical impulses and release neurotransmitters to communicate with other neurons, muscles, and glands. Through sensory input, processing, and motor output, the nervous system regulates various physiological processes such as movement, sensation, cognition, and behavior.

Endocrine System: The endocrine system produces hormones that act as chemical messengers to regulate metabolism, growth and development, reproduction, and responses to stress. Hormones are released into the bloodstream by endocrine glands such as the pituitary, thyroid, adrenal glands, pancreas, and gonads. They exert their effects on target cells or tissues throughout the body, coordinating long-term physiological processes and maintaining homeostasis.

Autocrine Signaling: Autocrine signaling involves cells releasing signaling molecules that act on receptors located on the same cell or nearby cells of the same type. This self-regulatory mechanism allows cells to modulate their own activities and coordinate responses within local tissue microenvironments.

Paracrine Signaling: Paracrine signaling involves cells releasing signaling molecules that act on nearby target cells, influencing their behavior and functions. Paracrine signaling allows for local communication and coordination of cellular activities within specific tissues or organ systems.
Neuroendocrine Signaling: Neuroendocrine signaling refers to the interaction between the nervous and endocrine systems, where neurons release neurotransmitters that act as hormones upon reaching target cells or tissues. This integration allows for the rapid transmission of signals across long distances and the coordination of complex physiological responses.

Cell-Cell Communication: Various cell-cell communication mechanisms, such as gap junctions, tight junctions, and extracellular signaling molecules (e.g., growth factors, cytokines, and chemokines), facilitate direct or indirect interactions between neighboring cells. These interactions enable cells to synchronize their activities, coordinate responses to external stimuli, and maintain tissue integrity and function.

Feedback Mechanisms: Feedback mechanisms, including negative feedback loops, feedforward regulation, and homeostatic control systems, play essential roles in maintaining physiological balance and regulating cellular activities. These mechanisms allow the body to sense and respond to changes in internal and external environments, adjusting its functions to maintain stability and optimize performance.

Storage

Ideally, stored Information can be accessed for both short- and long-term reasons. The mode of storage will depend on the biological systems available so, for example, humans store cognitive information within their nervous systems as knowledge, although there is a vast grounding foundation of biological configuration that is a consequence of evolutionary history – which is also a form of information storage.

Systems of information storage include:

Neural Networks: where animals with complex nervous systems, such as mammals and humans store information in the form of neural connections within the brain. Neurons communicate with each other through synaptic connections, and patterns of neural activity are assumed to encode information, forming memories.

Synaptic Plasticity: is the ability of synaptic connections between neurons to strengthen or weaken over time in response to activity. Long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) are mechanisms through which synaptic strength is modified, allowing for the encoding and storage of information.

Gene Expression: information can also be stored through changes in gene expression. This is relevant to long-term memory storage in simple organisms like invertebrates, where alterations in gene expression patterns play a role in memory formation and retention.

Epigenetic Changes: Epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, can influence gene expression and contribute to long-term changes in neural circuitry. These changes can affect learning and memory processes, providing another mechanism for information storage.

Behavioral Adaptations: information can also be stored in the form of learned behaviors. Through trial and error, observation, and reinforcement, animals acquire knowledge about their environment and modify their behavior accordingly. This learned information can be retained and used to guide future actions.

How is information stored in organisms unlike ourselves?

Plants lack nervous systems but still store and respond to information. They do this by:

Epigenetic Regulation: storing information through epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications. These modifications can influence gene expression patterns, allowing plants to remember past environmental conditions and adjust their responses accordingly.

Chemical Signaling: chemical signals, such as hormones and secondary metabolites, transmit information within and between cells. For example, the plant hormone auxin plays a crucial role in various developmental processes and responses to environmental stimuli, including growth, tropisms, and organogenesis.

Electrophysiological Signals: though plants lack neurons, they generate electrical signals in response to various stimuli. These signals (action potentials) propagate through plant tissues and coordinate responses to environmental cues, such as touch or injury.

Memory and Adaptation: forms of memory and adaptation to environmental stimuli result from past exposure to stressors, such as drought or herbivory, and initiate defense mechanisms for future encounters. This memory is often associated with changes in gene expression patterns and epigenetic modifications.

Intercellular Communication: plant cells communicate using various mechanisms such as plasmodesmata (channels connecting adjacent cells) and extracellular signaling molecules. Thus plants to integrate information from different parts of the organism and coordinate responses to environmental changes.

While plants lack a centralized nervous system like animals, they possess sophisticated mechanisms for sensing and adapting to their environment in ways that optimize their growth and survival.

Overall, information storage in organisms is a complex process involving interactions between neural, genetic, and behavioral mechanisms, allowing for adaptation to changing environments and experiences.

Processing

Organisms process information primarily through the mechanisms of sensory perception, neural processing, and ‘decision-making’ which are more elaborate and complex in animals.

Sensory Input: information about the environment is obtained through sensory organs such as eyes, ears, nose, skin, and taste buds which detect various stimuli, including light, sound, chemicals, temperature, and touch.

Sensory Processing: sensory information is transmitted to the nervous system where it is processed by specialized neural circuits. Different regions of the brain are responsible for processing specific types of sensory information.

Integration and Perception: processed sensory information is integrated and interpreted by the brain, leading to perception. Perception involves the brain’s ability to organize and make sense of sensory input, allowing organisms to recognize objects, events, and patterns in their environment.

Memory Formation: information that is perceived and processed can be stored in memory. Memory formation involves changes in neural circuits and synaptic connections, leading to the encoding, consolidation, and retrieval of information. Memory enables organisms to learn from past experiences and adapt their behavior accordingly.

Decision-Making: based on processed information and stored memories, organisms make ‘decisions’ and generate appropriate behavior. Decision-making involves complex cognitive processes, including weighing options, assessing risks and rewards, and selecting the most favorable course of action.

Feedback and Adaptation: there is continuous feedback from the circumstances of existence leading to adjustments in behavior. This feedback loop allows organisms to adapt to changing circumstances, optimize their responses, and enhance their chances of survival and reproduction.

It is helpful to consider how organisms without brains can process information.

Plants process information by sensing environmental cues, integrating signals, and modulating their growth and development accordingly. While plants lack nervous systems they possess sophisticated signaling networks and mechanisms to perceive and respond to their surroundings.

Sensory Perception: detecting environmental stimuli through specialized sensory structures and receptors. Stimuli include light, gravity, temperature, water availability, touch, and various chemicals (such as nutrients, toxins, and signaling molecules from other organisms).

Signal Transduction: signal transduction pathways transmit information from the site of perception to other parts of the plant which involves biochemical reactions that may result in changes in gene expression, ion fluxes, and the production of signaling molecules.

Hormonal Regulation: hormones, such as auxins, cytokinins, gibberellins, abscisic acid, and ethylene regulate growth, development, and responses to environmental stimuli, they act as chemical messengers, coordinating various processes such as seed germination, root and shoot growth, flowering, fruit ripening, and stress responses.

Calcium Signaling: calcium ions (Ca2+) play a crucial role as secondary messengers in plant signaling. Changes in intracellular calcium levels are triggered by various stimuli and regulate cellular processes such as gene expression, ion transport, and enzyme activity.

Epigenetic Regulation: information is stored and transmitted through epigenetic mechanism like DNA methylation and histone modifications. These epigenetic changes can influence gene expression patterns and modulate responses to environmental cues across generations.

Integration and Response: information from multiple environmental cues and hormonal signals may be integrated to adjust their growth, development, and physiological responses. This optimizes resource allocation, maximizes reproductive success, and enhances their resilience to changing environmental conditions.

Though plants lack nervous systems, they possess intricate signaling networks and mechanisms that enable them to perceive and respond to their environment in ways that promote survival, growth, and reproduction.

Human cognition

While human cognition is related to perception, learning, memory, and decision-making, this is readily generalized to the acquisition, processing, storage, and action generated by the processing of information gleaned from the organism’s conditions of existence.

Level of operation

As with biological agency, biological purpose, biological intentionality, and evolutionary selection, the question arises as to whether there is a privileged ‘level of organization’ at which information processing is focused.
So, for example, some researchers treat the cell as the foundational unit of biological cognition governs the flow of biological information so the new dogma ‘must be a cell theory, not a genetic one’.^[102] that must yield ‘must yield to a modern narrative of the reciprocal flow of information across all biological levels and the absence of privileged levels of causation’ and ‘Accordingly, this renewed Central Dogma focuses on the specifics of the intracellular reception of information, its internal self-referential measured assessment, multilevel reciprocal communication, and patterns of coordinated multicellular deployment to effect collaborative solutions to cellular problems.’ ‘When placed in this framework, biology must be recast in terms of the cognitive assessment of environmental cues as information, and all that follows is the productive processing and management of that information to sustain the instantiated cognitive faculties that define the living system.[1]

Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC). In CBC, all aspects of the cell coordinate to support sentience, and all of its internal architecture, including genes, are its tools. CBC asserts that all living creatures are conscious, including plants.[1]

This website recognizes that, due to common ancestry, humans share many physical traits with other organisms. just as there are shared physical characteristics the primacy of the organism in biological systems.

Glossary of bio-cognitive terms

The following glossary draws attention to the grounding of human cognitive agency in the universal (shared) characteristics of biological agency. These shared traits are a consequence of common evolutionary ancestry and they do not (meaningfully) occur in inanimate objects.

These mind-like traits have been widely interpreted as cognitive metaphors. Rather than being creations of the human mind, they are the real non-cognitive evolutionary antecedents to human cognitive traits.

Each entry below begins with our anthropocentric cognitive understanding of the concept and is followed, in italics, by its grounding or ancestral properties as they exist in biological agency.

Adaptation – for some reason we accept that plants can ‘adapt’ both short-term by responding to their conditions of existence, and long-term by genetic alteration. For example, in the short-term, they respond to light direction and intensity in a way that maximizes sunlight absorption. This is driven by a genetic program and not conscious understanding. These strategies could be thought of as a type of accumulated knowledge that has been encoded in their genetic makeup.
The adjustment of organisms to their conditions of existence by using information processing, a behavioral orientation, and functional integration

Agency – The human capacity to act autonomously by, for example, making independent moral judgments.
The exercise of autonomous goal-directed behavior.

Biological agency – The capacity to act on, and respond to the conditions of existence in an autonomous and flexible goal-directed way that expresses the universal, objective, and ultimate propensity to survive, reproduce, and flourish

Cognition – The human mental processes and activities related to acquiring, processing, storing, and using of knowledge.
The processes and activities related to acquiring, processing, storing, and using of information by a biological agent.

Consciousness – The human awareness of immediate experiences. Also, the entire range of mental processes, including cognitive functions such as self-awareness, introspection, reasoning, memory, imagination, and the capacity for abstract thought. The totality of an individual’s subjective experiences and mental life.
The capacity of a biological agent to orientate itself in relation to space, time, & its conditions of existence

Communication – The exchange of knowledge between humans by both verbal and non-verbal means.
The exchange of information. Many species communicate with conspecifics using intricate vocalizations, body language, or chemical signals. Some animals, like dolphins and certain bird species, are capable of complex vocalizations with distinct meanings, while others, like ants and bees, use pheromones to convey information about food sources, danger, or mating opportunities.

Social learning – Human cultural evolution is a non-genetic consequence of the cultural accumulation and transmission of information. It has resulted in humans creating their own environments of evolutionary adaptation.
Social animals often learn by observing and imitating the behaviors of others within their social group. This can include acquiring new foraging techniques, communication signals, or even cultural traditions. Chimpanzees, for instance, have been observed to learn tool-use techniques from one another.

Experience – event(s) that a human goes through or encounters, often characterized by being special in some way – by, say, uniqueness or personal involvement; sometimes the totality of life events, knowledge, emotions, and perceptions and overall comprehension and awareness of the world.
The event(s) that influence the umwelt of a biological agent and the way these are processed as information.

Human agency – A specialized form of biological agency that uses language and cognition.

Intelligence – The ability to acquire, understand and apply knowledge and reason to solve problems and adapt to new situations.
The capacity to acquire and process information that facilitates adaptation to the circumstances of existence and the attainment of goals.

Intention – A conscious attitude towards the end or purpose of actions or conduct
A goal-directed behavioral orientation

Intentionality – The ‘aboutness’ or directedness of our thoughts, beliefs, desires, and perceptions towards something external to them.
Behavior that is goal-directed i.e. directed towards objects, properties, or states of affairs

Knowledge – All forms of human awareness and comprehension of the world, including both subjective and objective aspects of our understanding.
Information accumulated by an agent about its conditions of existence

Learning – The ability for personal growth and development through the processes of acquiring knowledge and skills. The capacity to process and accumulate information that may facilitate adaptation to the circumstances of existence and the attainment of goals. Many organisms exhibit the ability to learn from past experiences and modify their behavior accordingly. For instance, classical conditioning, where an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a significant event, has been observed in various species, including invertebrates like fruit flies, molluscs, and even plants.

Memory – The ability of the mind to store and recall information, experiences, and knowledge.
The capacity for information storage and retrieval.

Perception – the human processing of sensory stimuli through the sensory system that includes the five traditional senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, but sometimes including cognitive factors like mental processes, beliefs, desires, reason and their role in experience.
The processing of the full range of experiential information (the umwelt) of a biological agent.

Purpose – the reason (end, aim, or goal) why something exists or is done, made, used etc.; (human) the object of conscious intention.
The goal of a biological agent, paradigmatically a living organism, but also the natural end-state, limit, or reason for a structure, process, or behavior (often referred to in this sense as a function).

Reason (problem-solving) – the mental faculty that enables individuals to think, analyze, and draw conclusions logically and rationally – to make sound judgments based on evidence and a structured thought process.
The capacity to process information in a way that facilitates the attainment of goals. Some animals demonstrate problem-solving skills when faced with novel challenges in their environment. For example, certain bird species, such as crows and parrots, are known for their ability to use tools creatively to obtain food or solve complex tasks.

Value – The word ‘value’ can be used as both a verb or a noun. When used in a human context it refers to the importance or significance attached to something based on emotional, objective or other factors. Values can include moral, ethical, cultural, and personal principles that guide behavior and decision-making.
A behavioral propensity or disposition (towards).