Cognitive control and consciousness in open biological systems.
Bio Systems May 1, 2025 Andres Kriete 5 citations
Cognition and conscious thought are integral to how biological systems control themselves to find and use meaningful information for survival. The development of key cognitive abilities in centralized nervous systems—decision-making with partial sensory information, learning and memory, and symbolic communication—can be categorized as distinct decision processes. Conscious thought arises from a control mechanism for speech production, known as the phonological loop, which provides feedback from motor to sensory cortex. This continuous loop updates working memory and gives humans an advanced layer of control through a sense of self, agency, and perception of time flow, defining distinct degrees of information fitness in evolution.