A Boundary Perspective on Life: Conceptual Implications for Biological Organization and Conscious Experience
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) June 17, 2026 Giuliano Buceti
The decisive discontinuity in nature was not the separate emergence of life and then consciousness, but the invention of the boundary—a membrane separating interior from exterior. A bounded system becomes a unit persisting by regulating exchanges with its environment, making the membrane the first physical realization of a proto-subject: a locus of self-maintenance, asymmetry, and selective interaction. Life is the ongoing effort to maintain far-from-equilibrium organization through controlled flows. Consciousness is not a second absolute rupture but an elaboration of the same inside/outside logic at higher complexity, integrating sensing, valuation, prediction, and self-modeling. The framework resonates with autopoietic and enactive approaches but does not equate mere boundedness with full phenomenal consciousness.