The living organism: Strengthening the basis

摘要

In spite of the considerable amount of literature dedicated to the living organism, it retains its mysteries. One of the most discussed aspects nowadays is whether the term "cognition" can be attributed to all classes of organisms, or whether it only refers to a metaphoric use of one human reality. Our approach consists of retaining the term "cognition" and making it a technical term, in order to propose a generic model. In this way, cognition becomes what finally characterises an organism as an autonomous agent. This perspective eliminates some misplaced questions, and helps to reframe old ones. The cognitive dimension can be apprehended indirectly only through its appearances. These direct us towards a modular model of cognition and orientate research towards the clarification of specific modules for each class of organisms. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.