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From Shadow to Substance: The Sentient Principle as a Unified Framework for Sentience Across All Life
2026-03-28
Current debates surrounding concepts such as “basal cognition,” “minimal cognition,” “plant intelligence,” and “consciousness” are deeply mired in terminological demarcation and phenomenological description, with each side entrenched in its own position and consensus elusive. This paper proposes a meta-theoretical framework based on the “Sentient Principle,” shifting the focus of cognitive research from the “shadow” (definitions, phenomena, analogies) back to the “substance” itself—the living, feeling life itself. We advocate using the “sensation-behavior loop” as the foundational unit for understanding sentience across all life, providing a coherent explanatory framework ranging from the most primitive unicellular organisms to the most complex human mind. By distinguishing between “value-based selection” and “value-dependent selection,” we elucidate the essential differences between “flux” and “consolidation,” introduce “iterative depth” and “memory depth” as core parameters of learning, and employ the concept of “perimpletion” to explain the transgenerational leap in human cognition. This paper emphasizes that all empirical research—whether employing extreme experimental conditions or not—should be openly embraced as long as it can illuminate the biological significance of life (i.e., the first-person subject’s value system sensation). Ultimately, we call for a shift in research from terminological disputes to a profound understanding of the sentient nature of existence.
Ссылка для цитирования:
Wu J. 2026. From Shadow to Substance: The Sentient Principle as a Unified Framework for Sentience Across All Life. PREPRINTS.RU. https://doi.org/10.24108/preprints-3114703
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