concept

Basal cognition

The view - associated with biologist Michael Levin - that cognition, memory, and goal-directed behaviour are not the exclusive domain of neural tissue, but that all living cells form bioelectric networks to process information and cooperatively solve problems of shape and form. A single cell has a tiny "scope" of goals; when many cells connect, their individual goals merge into a collective one. A human brain is simply that same bioelectric cooperation scaled up enormously - but behaving *as if* you have a goal is still not the same as subjectively *experiencing* it.