In APS, cognition does not refer to thought, consciousness, or representation. It refers to a mode of biological organisation.
Cognition is the structured, temporally extended organisation of evaluative activity through which living systems regulate viability-relevant differences beyond the immediate present.
Living systems do not passively receive or encode information. Their organisation determines what counts as a relevant difference and how that difference is acted upon. Cognition is the way this selective differentiation is structured and coordinated within systems whose activity is oriented toward their own persistence.
All living systems exhibit biological agency and evaluative responsiveness, but cognition arises only where this activity becomes sufficiently structured, integrated, and temporally extended. Cognition develops where evaluative semiosis becomes coordinated across time in ways that regulate activity beyond immediate conditions.
In more elaborated systems, cognition may involve:
- integration across multiple viability-relevant conditions
- context-sensitive modulation of activity
- temporal extension (counterfactual depth), where present activity reflects past or possible conditions
- cross-scale coordination linking local processes with system-wide organisation
These are not defining requirements, but ways in which the organisation of cognition can become more complex.
Cognition, in this sense, is not a separate layer added to life. It is a developed mode of evaluative biological organisation emerging from viability-oriented activity when that activity becomes sufficiently structured, integrated, and temporally extended. It does not require subjective awareness or reflective thought.