Of What Is "Minimal Cognition" the Half-Baked Version?

Introduction: What Does Thinking Look Like at Its Simplest?

Imagine a single-celled organism—a bacterium—swimming purposefully toward a food source. It detects chemical gradients in its environment, remembers past encounters, and makes decisions that enhance its survival. Is this cognition?

For decades, scientists would have dismissed this question as absurd. Cognition was reserved for creatures with brains—or at the very least, neurons. But a revolutionary field of science is challenging this deeply ingrained assumption, asking us to reconsider what it means to think, learn, and know.

But as we'll discover, this very concept might be what philosopher and cognitive scientist Pamela Lyon calls a "half-baked version" of something much more profound and fundamental to life itself ¹ . This article explores the cutting-edge research that is reshaping our understanding of where cognition begins and what truly constitutes the essence of thought.

What Is "Minimal Cognition" Anyway?

The Quest for Simplicity

Minimal cognition represents a scientific approach aimed at identifying the simplest possible systems that can exhibit cognitive-like properties. Researchers in this field ask: What are the bare essentials required for a system to display behaviors that resemble cognition? Traditionally, this search has focused on identifying the threshold where non-cognitive processes cross over into genuine cognitive ones ^{1 4} .

Neural networks have traditionally been considered essential for cognition, but new research challenges this assumption.

The field emerged prominently around the turn of the 21st century when cognitive researchers began looking directly to evolved behavior, ecology, and physiology for insights into cognitive processes. This biological turn represented a significant shift from more traditional computational approaches to understanding cognition ¹ .

Why the "Minimal" Approach Matters

The study of minimal cognition serves several important purposes in cognitive science:

The "Half-Baked" Metaphor: What's Missing From Our Understanding?

An Incomplete Conceptual Recipe

When Pamela Lyon asks "of what is 'minimal cognition' the half-baked version?" she proposes that the concept itself might be based on a flawed premise ^{1 5} . The metaphor suggests that our current understanding of minimal cognition is like a half-baked cake—removed from the oven prematurely and not yet fully developed.

In biological sciences, the use of "minimal" qualifiers is typically restricted to two scenarios: attenuated functioning (where a system is not operating at full capacity) or evolutionary transitions (where we see early forms of a function) ¹ . The application of "minimal" to cognition, however, implies that the cognitive processes observed in simpler organisms are somehow incomplete or not fully realized versions of what we see in more complex animals—especially humans.

The Paradigm Problem

This approach creates what might be called a paradigm problem in cognitive science. By framing bacterial, plant, or other non-neural cognition as "minimal," we implicitly establish human cognition as the gold standard—the "fully baked" version against which all other forms are measured ^{1 6} . This perspective may fundamentally misunderstand the nature of cognitive processes across the spectrum of life.

Lyon argues that cognition is better understood as a biological function akin to respiration—ubiquitously present from unicellular life to blue whales and every form of life in between ¹ . From this perspective, cognition isn't something that appears at a certain level of complexity but is rather a fundamental biological capacity that exists wherever life does.

Case Study: The Surprising Cognitive World of Bacteria

Beyond Simple Stimulus-Response

To understand the controversy around "minimal cognition," let's examine one of the most fascinating case studies: bacterial cognition. At first glance, bacteria seem too simple to possess cognitive capacities. Yet research over the past few decades has revealed that these single-celled organisms exhibit behaviors that strikingly resemble cognitive processes ^{1 6} .

Bacteria Can:

• Detect and respond to chemical gradients
• Remember past experiences
• Communicate through chemical signals
• Make decisions balancing current and future needs
• Learn from environmental cues

Experimental Evidence: The Bacterial Memory Experiment

One particularly illuminating experiment demonstrates the remarkable capabilities of bacterial cognition:

Results and Analysis

The experiment revealed that bacteria not only responded to chemical gradients but actually modified their responses based on prior exposure. When repeatedly presented with the same chemical signal pattern, the bacteria showed response patterns indicating a form of cellular memory ¹ .

This "memory" wasn't stored in neural circuits (which bacteria lack) but in biochemical networks within the cell. Specifically, the phosphorylation states of proteins in the chemotaxis signaling pathway appeared to serve as a form of molecular memory, allowing the cell to "remember" past chemical exposures and adjust current behavior accordingly.

The Scientist's Toolkit: Research Reagent Solutions

Research into minimal cognition requires innovative approaches and tools. Here are some key reagents and methods used in this fascinating field:

Beyond the Half-Baked: Toward a New Understanding of Cognition

The Paradigm Shift

The growing evidence of cognitive abilities in bacteria, plants, and other non-neural organisms suggests we need a fundamental paradigm shift in how we conceptualize cognition. Rather than viewing cognition as something that appears at a certain level of neural complexity, evidence increasingly supports the view that cognition is a fundamental biological capacity that exists across the spectrum of life ^{1 6} .

This perspective—often called the biogenic approach to cognition—argues that cognitive processes emerged alongside life itself as a solution to the fundamental problem of maintaining viability in changing and unpredictable environments ^{3 7} . From this viewpoint, human cognition isn't the "gold standard" but rather one particular manifestation of a biological capacity that takes diverse forms across different species and organizational levels.

Rethinking the "Mark of the Cognitive"

The challenge of defining what counts as genuine cognition has led to what some philosophers call the search for the "mark of the cognitive"—a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that distinguish cognitive processes from non-cognitive ones ⁴ . However, this search has proven remarkably difficult, with proposed criteria ranging from representational states and intentionality to sensorimotor coordination and future-oriented dynamics.

The difficulty in establishing such criteria has led some philosophers to argue that we might not currently be able to say precisely what cognition is, at least for the time being ⁴ . This isn't necessarily a failure of cognitive science but rather a reflection of the complexity and multifaceted nature of cognitive phenomena.

The Promise of Basal Cognition Research

The emerging field of basal cognition offers a promising alternative approach. Rather than seeking definitive criteria that demarcate cognitive from non-cognitive processes, basal cognition research takes an evolutionary perspective, asking how far back we can traverse the phylogenetic tree and still identify processes that are functionally analogous to those investigated in traditional cognitive science ⁶ .

Conclusion: From Half-Baked to Fully Nourishing Understanding

The question "of what is 'minimal cognition' the half-baked version?" challenges us to rethink our fundamental assumptions about the nature of thinking, learning, and knowing.

The evidence from bacteria, plants, and other non-neural organisms suggests that cognition isn't a special capacity that emerges only at certain levels of complexity but rather a fundamental biological function that appears throughout the living world.

Cognition appears across the spectrum of life, not just in organisms with complex nervous systems.

This perspective doesn't diminish human cognition but rather places it within a broader biological context. Human thinking, for all its remarkable capabilities, represents one manifestation of cognitive processes that exist in simpler forms throughout nature. Recognizing this continuity offers exciting possibilities for understanding both ourselves and other life forms.

As research in basal cognition continues to advance, we're likely to see even more startling revelations about the cognitive abilities of simple organisms. These discoveries won't just expand our understanding of where cognition exists—they'll fundamentally reshape our understanding of what cognition is and how it relates to the very nature of life itself.

As this understanding continues to bake in the oven of scientific inquiry, we're likely to discover that cognition is far more widespread, diverse, and fundamental to life than we ever imagined.