Integration occurs throughout the living world.
Cells integrate metabolism, signalling, membrane regulation, repair, and environmental responsiveness into coherent physiological activity.
Organisms integrate physiology, development, behaviour, perception, and environmental interaction into continuing patterns of biological organisation.
Cognitive systems integrate memory, evaluation, anticipation, and response into adaptive regulation across time.
Social systems integrate communication, norms, institutions, and shared practices into coordinated forms of collective activity.
Ecological systems integrate networks of dependency, exchange, competition, cooperation, and coevolution across communities of organisms.
Although these forms of integration differ greatly, they share a common principle: significant relations become organised into coherent functional wholes capable of coordinated activity.
In APS, integration is therefore understood as a scale-spanning feature of living organisation rather than a specialised property of minds, brains, or human beings.