Cognition is often modeled in terms of abstract reasoning and neural computation, yet a growing body of theoretical and experimental work suggests that the roots of cognition lie in fundamental embodied regulatory processes. This article presents a theory of cognition grounded in sensing, feeling, and affect—capacities that precede neural systems and are observable in even the simplest living organisms. Based on the info-computational framework, this entry outlines how cognition and proto-subjectivity co-emerge in biological systems. Embodied appraisal—the system’s ability to evaluate internal and external conditions in terms of valence (positive/negative; good/bad)—and the capacity to regulate accordingly are described as mutually constitutive processes observable at the cellular level. This concept reframes cognition not as abstract symbolic reasoning but as value-sensitive, embodied information dynamics resulting from self-regulating engagement with the environment that spans scales from unicellular organisms to complex animals. In this context, information is physically instantiated, and computation is the dynamic, self-modifying process by which organisms regulate and organize themselves. Cognition thus emerges from the dynamic coupling of sensing, internal evaluation, and adaptive morphological (material shape-based) activity. Grounded in findings from developmental biology, bioelectric signaling, morphological computation, and basal cognition, this account situates intelligence as an affect-driven regulatory capacity intrinsic to biological life. While focused on biological systems, this framework also offers conceptual insights for developing more adaptive and embodied forms of artificial intelligence. Future experiments with minimal living systems or synthetic agents may help operationalize and test the proposed mechanisms of proto-subjectivity and affect regulation.
To start with, we define the terms sensing, feeling, affect, and emotion, which are often conflated or inconsistently used across disciplines. These phenomena represent a functional succession in biological systems, from initial environmental detection to increasingly complex forms of evaluation and regulation.
Sensing refers to a system’s basic capacity to detect stimuli from the external environment or its internal bodily milieu. It provides raw data for subsequent cognitive processes such as appraisal and regulation. Example: A bacterium detects a glucose gradient via membrane receptors.
Feeling is defined as the system’s ability to register internal or external conditions as more or less favorable—a basic form of value appraisal. This internal signal serves to guide physiological regulation or adaptive behavior.
Feeling is the biological encoding of value—an evaluative signal that supports adaptive behavior. It triggers phenomena such as chemotaxis, homeostatic feedback, and cellular stress responses. Example: In nutrient-deprived conditions, bacterial cells exhibit simple preference-based behavior grounded in internal viability. They initiate gene expression changes indicating metabolic “frustration”—a primitive form of feeling.
Affect is the ongoing, dynamic modulation of internal states based on valence appraisals. It encompasses metabolic, electrical, and structural regulation aimed at maintaining or restoring system viability. Affect is processual—it describes the flow and transformation of value-based information over time within the system. Example: Homeostatic adaptation in response to heat or osmotic stress.
Emotion is a more complex, structured pattern of affective responses typically seen in organisms with nervous systems. It often involves coordination of physiology, behavior, and subjective experience. It often involves coordination of physiology, behavior, and subjective experience. Emotion is dependent on, but not reducible to, feeling and affect. It arises from integrated processing across neural, endocrine, and behavioral systems.
Example: A rodent freezing in fear involves coordinated neural, hormonal, and muscular responses.
In biological and info-computational context, feeling and affect are foundational components of cognition. They precede symbolic reasoning and neural representation and are embodied in the physical and informational dynamics of life from its simplest forms onward.
This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/encyclopedia5040160
