For living systems, the world is never neutral.
Because viability can succeed or fail, some conditions matter more than others. Nutrients differ from toxins. Opportunities differ from threats. Supportive environments differ from hostile ones.
As a consequence, organisms do not encounter merely physical differences.
They encounter differences that possess biological significance.
The world becomes structured according to what contributes to continuity and what threatens it.
This transformation provides the foundation of cognition.
Before there can be meaning, information, representation, intelligence, or consciousness, there must first be a distinction between conditions that matter and conditions that do not.
Living systems therefore inhabit worlds organised by significance rather than merely physical variation.