The Evolutionary Rarity of Reflective Thought: The Moment the Mind Looked at Itself
Figshare September 12, 2026 Daniel de Kooter
Cognition across biological organisms operates in two layers. The first layer—operational cognition—encompasses all processes by which an organism perceives, evaluates, and responds to its environment. It is universal among autonomous biological agents and does not require consciousness. The second layer—reflective cognition—is the capacity to observe, abstract from, and reason about one’s own...