James Shapiro — All Living Cells are Cognitive (2021)
Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 2021.
Shapiro argues that cognition — defined as the ability to sense environmental conditions, process that information, and respond purposively — is a universal feature of living cells, not a specialized property of neural systems. Every cell, from the simplest bacterium, engages in sophisticated information processing: it monitors internal and external conditions, integrates signals across multiple pathways, makes “decisions” about gene expression and behavior, and adjusts to novel situations through natural genetic engineering.
This is not metaphor but mechanism: Shapiro documents the molecular machinery through which cells process information, store memory (epigenetically), and communicate. The argument extends Levin’s framework: if single cells are cognitive, then the question is not whether cognition exists in non-neural systems but how different cognitive architectures differ in scale, speed, and problem domain.
For OM: Shapiro’s work provides biological grounding for the claim that collective organisms — including protocol undergrounds — can exhibit sophisticated cognition without central neural coordination. Stigmergic, decentralized intelligence is not a second-rate substitute for centralized control but an alternative cognitive architecture with its own capacities.