# Basal Cognition Which minimal systems sense, remember, learn and regulate behavior, and how can those capacities be tested? Covers simple neural and non-neural organisms, and controls that distinguish learning from adaptation, fatigue or selection. ## Capacities and behavioral organization - **Plant cognition criteria** - Adams requires cognitive representations beyond information processing; Segundo-Ortin and Calvo defend flexible, anticipatory plant behavior as cognitive. The dispute concerns both mechanisms and what counts as cognition. [Adams 2018]( "Cognition wars; Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci."), [Segundo-Ortin and Calvo 2019]( "Are plants cognitive? A reply to Adams; Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci."). - **Stentor avoidance hierarchy** - Repeated stimulation elicits an ordered repertoire of bending, ciliary changes, contraction and detachment in Stentor roeseli, despite individual variation. Replicates Jennings with the correct species; the hierarchy differs from habituation. [Dexter et al. 2019]( "A Complex Hierarchy of Avoidance Behaviors in a Single-Cell Eukaryote; Curr. Biol."). - **Basal cognitive capacities** - Organizes cognition around sensing, memory, learning and regulation across simple organisms with and without nervous systems. Proposes a research framework grounded in biological functions, rather than starting from human mental categories. [Lyon et al. 2021]( "Reframing cognition: getting down to biological basics; Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B"). - **Operational agency** - The Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere compares interventions for predicting and controlling systems, from rewiring to training. Its authors distinguish goal pursuit from consciousness and affirm compatibility with materialism. [Levin 2022]( "Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds; Front. Syst. Neurosci."), [Levin and Resnik 2026]( "Mind Everywhere: A Framework for Conceptualizing Goal-Directedness in Biology and Other Domains—Part Two; Biological Theory"). ## Learning and alternative explanations - **Physarum habituation** - Repeated exposure reduces avoidance of quinine or caffeine barriers. Response recovery after withdrawal and stimulus specificity support habituation in this slime-mould assay. [Boisseau et al. 2016]( "Habituation in non-neural organisms: evidence from slime moulds; Proc. R. Soc. B"). - **Evidence for single-cell learning** - Reassesses historical learning experiments and reasons for their dismissal. Argues that associative learning merits renewed investigation with stronger controls; a review of disputed evidence, not a new replication. [Gershman et al. 2021]( "Reconsidering the evidence for learning in single cells; eLife"). - **Cellular spacing effect** - Four spaced chemical pulses induce more persistent gene-reporter expression than a duration-matched pulse in two human cell lines. Inhibiting signaling and transcription pathways disrupts this molecular spacing effect. [Kukushkin et al. 2024]( "The massed-spaced learning effect in non-neural human cells; Nat. Commun."). ## Origins of capacities - **Capacities without direct selection** - E. coli selected in one environment gains traits useful elsewhere. Levin proposes that embodiments access pre-existing patterns and minds; latent capacities alone do not distinguish this ontology from evolutionary mechanisms. [Karve and Wagner 2022]( "Environmental complexity is more important than mutation in driving the evolution of latent novel traits in E. coli; Nat. Commun."), [Levin 2026]( "Ingressing Minds: Causal, Non-Physical Patterns In-Form Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments; Philosophies"). - **Pattern-guided exploration** - In simulated mazes, combining fractal and sensory inputs improves trained agents' coverage over sensory-only inputs. Replacing fractals with uniform noise yields no significant change, leaving a fractal-specific benefit unresolved. [Ertle et al. 2025]( "Free Lunch? Low-Cost Intelligence Through Pattern-Guided Exploration; ICDL"). ## Open questions - Does a changed population response reflect changes within tracked cells, differences in survival and reproduction, or both? - Which capacities transfer across tasks and preparations, and which depend on a particular assay? - Which predictions distinguish a proposed source of novel capacities from inherited components, physical dynamics and external training? ## Related topics - [Hyperorganism](https://hyperorganism.github.io/) - [Biological computation](https://hyperorganism.github.io/unconventional-computing/#physical-and-biological-computations) - Using an organism to compute and testing its learning capacity are different investigations. - [Environmental memory](https://hyperorganism.github.io/collective-life/#ecological-organization) - Bacteria can carry the effects of earlier growth in the medium, changing later competition without requiring memory inside individual cells. - [Neural interfaces](https://hyperorganism.github.io/biohybrid-systems/#living-actuators-and-neural-interfaces) - Closed-loop laboratory tasks expose both biological activity and apparatus contributions. - [Consciousness](https://hyperorganism.github.io/consciousness/) - Memory or learning does not by itself establish experience. - [Morphogenesis](https://hyperorganism.github.io/morphogenesis/#growth-and-repair) - Changing regenerative outcomes establishes physiological control; interpreting that control as a trainable goal requires additional tests. - [Engineered living constructs](https://hyperorganism.github.io/synthetic-life/#minimal-cells-and-engineered-living-constructs) - Xenobots and Anthrobots test capacities of cells assembled outside their usual anatomy.