Sensing, feeling and sentience in unicellular organisms and living cells.
František Baluška, William B. Miller, Predrag Slijepcevic, Arthur S. Reber
Bio Systems 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2024.105374 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Agency Cells Consciousness Feelings Kantian wholes Senome Sentience Subjectivity |
| Citations | 10 |
| Key points | Proposes that living cells are cognitive agents with sentience, based on their excitable plasma membrane and sensory architecture termed the senome. |
Abstract
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 evolve as living self-organizing units. Cell sentience is based on its excitable plasma membrane generating bioelectromagnetic fields that link to a whole-cell sensory architecture. This cellular sensory apparatus, termed its senome, represents the totality of cellular self-referential information obtained by cells via their sensory systems, including the subjective cellular inside and the cell's self-referential appraisal of its external environment. The plasma membrane was 'invented' by the very first cells and has been uninterruptedly inherited by cells for billions of years through successive cell divisions.