Historically constrained by mechanistic and cerebrocentric paradigms, plant life is increasingly recognized as a complex expression of biological agency. Building upon this paradigm shift, this article presents a theoretical synthesis integrating Cellular Cognitive Biology, Biosemiotics, and Phenomenology. We explore how the transition from a reactive to an agentic view of plants is grounded in...
Cells represent the basic units of life, not only as structural building blocks, but also as cognitive agents endowed with subjective cellular feelings, sentience (consciousness), and cognitive infocomputatioal competence. Living cells act as 'Kantian Wholes': All of its parts exist for and by means of the whole system, allowing cells to use sentient agency for solving existential problems and...
The presumption that experiential consciousness requires a nervous system and brain has been central to the debate on the possibility of developing a conscious form of artificial intelligence (AI). The likelihood of future AI consciousness or devising tools to assess its presence has focused on how AI might mimic brain-centered activities. Currently, dual general assumptions prevail: AI...
Abstract This chapter presents an overview of the evidence to support the Cellular Basis of Consciousness theory. It reviews the large, indeed enormous, literature for sentience, awareness, subjectivity, cognitive functions, feelings, motivational states, learning, memory formation, decision-making, and communication in a large number of single-cell species. As noted in Chapter 1, these...
Abstract This chapter presents the biological foundations for the authors’ position that life and sentience are coterminous, that all (and only) living organisms have a palpable internal, felt, experiential life, that they have valenced sensory inputs, and make appropriate determinations about the impact of the events that occur around and within them—that they are conscious beings. This...
It is commonly assumed that plants do not possess consciousness. Since the criterion for this assumption is usually human consciousness this assumption represents a top down attitude. It is obvious that plants are not animals and using animal criteria of consciousness will lead to its rejection in plants. However using a bottom up evolutionary approach and a leading theory of consciousness,...
Cells emerged at the very beginning of life on Earth and, in fact, are coterminous with life. They are enclosed within an excitable plasma membrane, which defines the outside and inside domains via their specific biophysical properties. Unicellular organisms, such as diverse protists and algae, still live a cellular life. However, fungi, plants, and animals evolved a multicellular existence....
Although the origin of self-referential consciousness is unknown, it can be argued that the instantiation of self-reference was the commencement of the living state as phenomenal experientiality. As self-referential cognition is demonstrated by all living organisms, life can be equated with the sustenance of cellular homeostasis in the continuous defense of 'self'. It is proposed that the...
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould as an active living substrate, yet it is a self-consistent living creature which evolved over millions of years and occupied most parts of the world, but in any case,...
Different theories have been put forward during the last decade to explain the functional meaning of sleep and dreaming in humans. In the present paper, a new theory is presented which, while taking advantage of these earlier theories, introduces the following new and original aspects: • Circadian rhythms relevant to various organs of the body affect the reciprocal interactions which operate to...