Representation — When and Whether It Arises in Biological Systems

Where this article fits: This article develops the APS account of representation as a possible later organisational development within certain forms of temporally organised cognition rather than as the foundation of biological meaning or agency. APS treats evaluation, semiosis, meaning, and information as more fundamental than representation because living systems regulate activity relative to viability before symbolic modelling or explicit representational structures arise.

Representation is one of the central concepts of contemporary cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind.

Living systems are often described as:

• constructing internal models;
• encoding information;
• representing environments;
• storing symbolic content;
• predicting external states;
• or generating internal simulations of the world.

From this perspective, cognition appears fundamentally representational.

APS challenges this assumption.

Within the APS framework, biological systems do not require internal representations in order to regulate activity relative to viability.

Evaluation and semiosis arise earlier and more fundamentally from viability-oriented organisation itself.

Meaning and informational significance likewise emerge before explicit representation.

Representation, where it arises, emerges within already existing systems capable of sustaining temporally organised continuity-sensitive cognition relative to viability.

APS therefore situates representation downstream from:

• viability;
• evaluation;
• semiosis;
• meaning;
• and organised persistence.

Why Representation Became Central

Representational theories became influential because organisms often behave as though they possess internal knowledge about the world.

Animals:

• navigate environments;
• anticipate future conditions;
• coordinate action flexibly;
• remember absent conditions;
• and respond adaptively to delayed consequences.

These capacities appear difficult to explain through immediate stimulus-response relations alone.

Representation therefore seemed to provide a solution.

Internal states could stand in for external conditions, allowing systems to:

• predict;
• plan;
• remember;
• simulate;
• model hypothetical states;
• and coordinate behaviour beyond the present moment.

This framework became especially influential within:

• cognitive science;
• neuroscience;
• artificial intelligence;
• predictive processing;
• computational psychology;
• and Active-Inference approaches.

APS accepts that some biological systems may indeed develop representational capacities.

But it rejects the assumption that representation is foundational to biological organisation itself.

Evaluation Comes Before Representation

APS begins from viability-oriented organisation rather than representation.

Living systems continuously regulate activity relative to conditions affecting persistence.

Some conditions support viability.

Others undermine it.

This differential modulation of activity constitutes evaluation.

Evaluation does not require:

• symbols;
• internal maps;
• semantic encoding;
• representational modelling;
• or explicit world simulation.

A bacterium moving toward nutrients need not internally represent nutrients symbolically.

A plant reorganising growth under drought conditions need not construct internal world models.

An immune system distinguishing tolerated from damaging conditions need not encode symbolic representations of pathogens.

These systems already exhibit:

• biological agency;
• normativity;
• evaluation;
• semiosis;
• continuity-sensitive regulation;
• and persistence-preserving organisation

without requiring explicit representation.

Evaluation therefore precedes representation organisationally.

Semiosis Without Representation

APS also distinguishes semiosis from representation.

Semiosis concerns the organisation of differences as biologically meaningful within viability-oriented activity.

A chemical gradient, thermal change, mechanical relation, or signalling molecule

becomes meaningful because it participates in evaluative biological organisation.

This does not necessarily require:

• symbolic encoding;
• internal models;
• semantic representation;
• or explicit informational mapping.

Differences matter biologically because they affect viability-oriented persistence.

Meaning therefore emerges through:

• evaluation;
• semiosis;
• continuity-sensitive organisation;
• and persistence-preserving activity

rather than through representation alone.

Representation may emerge later within some forms of cognition, but semiosis does not depend upon it fundamentally.

Meaning and Information Before Representation

APS therefore reverses the explanatory order commonly assumed in representational theories.

Representation does not generate meaning.

Meaning does not emerge from representation.

Instead APS proposes the following organisational sequence:

viability
↓
evaluation
↓
semiosis
↓
meaning
↓
information
↓
representation
↓
cognition

Within this sequence:

• evaluation modulates activity relative to viability;
• semiosis organises differences as biologically meaningful;
• meaning stabilises evaluative significance;
• information emerges where meaningful differences participate in organised coordination;
• representation may then emerge within sufficiently integrated forms of cognition.

Representation is therefore organisationally downstream from already meaningful evaluative activity.

This distinction is one of the central APS clarifications regarding cognition and biological organisation.

Cognition Without Representation

APS therefore rejects the assumption that cognition necessarily depends upon representation.

Cognition, in APS, is the temporally extended integration of evaluative activity relative to viability.

A system may:

• coordinate behaviour contextually;
• integrate multiple viability conditions;
• regulate activity across time;
• adapt flexibly to changing environments;
• and sustain continuity-sensitive organisation

without constructing explicit representational models.

This is especially important in:

• plant cognition;
• microbial cognition;
• immune cognition;
• embodied cognition research;
• and distributed biological systems.

Many biological systems exhibit sophisticated forms of cognition while remaining:

• non-symbolic;
• distributed;
• processual;
• dynamically coupled to environments;
• and organised through ongoing activity itself.

APS therefore treats representation as one possible organisational development within cognition rather than cognition’s universal foundation.

Cognition consequently concerns:

temporally organised continuity integration rather than representation alone.

When Representation May Arise

APS does not deny representation altogether.

Instead APS asks:

Under what organisational conditions might representation emerge?

Representation becomes increasingly plausible where cognition exhibits:

• counterfactual depth;
• temporal projection;
• behavioural simulation;
• symbolic manipulation;
• explicit memory integration;
• hypothetical modelling;
• detached coordination relative to absent conditions;
• and anticipatory organisation across extended temporal horizons.

Under such conditions, systems may develop organisational structures functioning representationally.

Importantly, APS treats such capacities as:

• emergent;
• biologically grounded;
• organisationally derivative;
• and continuity-dependent.

Representation therefore emerges only within already existing systems capable of:

• evaluation;
• semiosis;
• meaning;
• cognition;
• continuity-sensitive regulation;
• and viability-oriented persistence.

Representation and Predictive Processing

Contemporary predictive-processing and Active-Inference theories frequently describe cognition in representational terms.

Organisms are modelled as:

• predicting sensory inputs;
• minimising prediction error;
• updating internal models;
• and inferring hidden environmental causes.

APS accepts that such frameworks may successfully describe aspects of advanced cognition.

However, APS rejects the stronger claim that all biological organisation is fundamentally representational.

Prediction itself presupposes:

• temporally organised persistence;
• continuity-sensitive regulation;
• viability-oriented evaluation;
• semiosis;
• and biological agency.

Representation therefore cannot explain biological organisation from the outset.

It already presupposes organised living systems.

This is why APS treats representation as derivative rather than foundational.

Representation Is Not Biological Meaning

One of the most important APS clarifications concerns meaning.

Representational frameworks often assume:

• meaning depends upon reference;
• symbols derive significance through correspondence;
• or cognition depends upon internal content-bearing states.

APS reverses this explanatory direction.

Biological meaning emerges because differences matter to viability-oriented organisation.

Representation may later stabilise, formalise, or extend such meaning.

But meaning itself originates earlier within:

• evaluation;
• semiosis;
• continuity-sensitive organisation;
• and biological normativity.

Representations matter biologically only insofar as they contribute to viability-oriented activity.

Meaning therefore precedes representation organisationally.

Representation and Artificial Intelligence

Representation is especially important in artificial intelligence because many AI systems operate through:

• symbolic structures;
• statistical modelling;
• predictive optimisation;
• internal modelling;
• and representational architectures.

APS fully recognises the sophistication of such systems.

However, representation alone does not generate biological organisation.

Artificial systems may:

• represent environments;
• simulate cognition;
• optimise predictions;
• and coordinate behaviour

while remaining externally maintained systems lacking endogenous viability-oriented persistence.

Representation therefore cannot by itself explain:

• biological agency;
• normativity;
• semiosis;
• meaning;
• continuity;
• or organised persistence.

These arise from viability-oriented organisation rather than representational processing alone.

Representation Across Scale and Time

Representational organisation, where it exists, unfolds across interacting scales and temporal horizons.

Representational capacities may involve:

• neural integration;
• memory systems;
• symbolic coordination;
• anticipatory regulation;
• behavioural simulation;
• linguistic systems;
• and socially distributed cognition.

These capacities remain embedded within:

• continuity-preserving organisation;
• temporally extended viability regulation;
• organism–environment coupling;
• and multiscale biological activity.

APS therefore rejects treating representation as detached symbolic processing independent of life itself.

Representation remains biologically grounded within organised persistence.

Representation Within the APS Explanatory Grammar

APS situates representation within the broader explanatory grammar organised through:

• agency;
• process;
• scale;
• temporality;
• viability;
• evaluation;
• semiosis;
• meaning;
• information;
• cognition;
• and organised persistence.

Representation therefore cannot be understood adequately as:

• symbolic modelling alone;
• information processing alone;
• predictive inference alone;
• or detached semantic computation.

Instead representation emerges only within already meaningful systems organised around:

• continuity-sensitive regulation;
• viability-oriented evaluation;
• semiosis;
• adaptive organisation;
• temporally extended persistence;
• and biological agency.

Why Representation Matters

Clarifying representation organisationally helps resolve several persistent conceptual problems in biology and cognitive science.

It:

• distinguishes representation from semiosis and meaning;
• grounds representation within living organisation itself;
• clarifies why cognition need not always be representational;
• explains how symbolic modelling emerges from more basic biological organisation;
• and situates predictive processing within a broader continuity-oriented framework.

APS therefore naturalises representation through viability-oriented organised persistence rather than treating representation as explanatorily primary.

Conclusion

Representation is not the foundation of life, meaning, or cognition.

Living systems first exist as viability-oriented organised continuities.

Evaluation modulates activity relative to persistence.

Semiosis structures differences as biologically meaningful.

Meaning stabilises evaluative significance.

Information participates in organised coordination.

Only then, under some organisational conditions, may representation emerge.

Representation is therefore a specialised organisational development emerging within temporally organised viability-oriented continuity rather than the explanatory foundation of biological organisation itself.

Key Point

Representation emerges only within already meaningful systems organised through viability-oriented evaluative semiosis sustaining continuity-preserving persistence.