I recently read a book which attempted to map out the route from the beginnings of biological function to “consciousness”. While the book itself didn’t work out because it hand waved “consciousness” into existence, what it did do was provide a glimpse at how “decisions” can be generated via “basic” biological constructions. How sensitive to a specific chemical or what metabolic process should take priority over another are examples of “decisions” baked into the very “being” of all organisms.
This often gets lost because organisms are locked into the most top level computed/combined output they are capable of generating, however every single cell in every single organism constantly makes a huge number of “decisions” on a persistent basis. And within those cells, individual components make a huge number of “decisions” on a mostly persistent (stepped/waved) basis. How a mitochondrion reacts to a lipid, how a cell reacts to a fat, how an organism reacts to a food are all part of the same cumulative chain.
In order to facilitate those “decisions” organisms must perform two tasks, sampling the data itself and determining the difference between samples. Even in a single data source condition which is based on intensity, an organism must be able to commit metabolic resources when an input condition is encountered. This generates a required function for telling the difference between “on” or “off”.
Organisms gain more cells and establish more function through complexification of individual cellular (and sub cellular, and likely on down) difference calculations. At some point cells can be dedicated to functions which enhance the difference computation capability like “memory”, and at higher levels cells can be dedicated to even more complexifications like “perception”. Throughout all biological systems, this pattern seems consistent.
One of the really fascinating aspects for me of looking at the evolution of biological systems is the plant/animal kingdom split. Here, it looks like life took two very different paths toward how to handle different environmental conditions. In plants generally, the decision paths result in flexible external properties with very rigid internal properties to adapt to the environment. Shape, reproduction, etc of plant life (generally) are wildly variable and change to fit the local environment. Animal life (generally) follows the opposite path in that it attempts to alter the environment while keeping flexible internal properties. In this, we have our first big problem faced by biological systems at all levels, should a cell change to fit it’s environment, or should it change it’s environment to fit the cell?
When looking at any biological system regardless of complexity, it seems like focusing on how they differentiate determines the function.
More later I suppose.