Cellular sentience as the primary source of biological order and evolution

Abstract

All life is cellular, starting some 4 billion years ago with the emergence of the first cells. In order to survive their early evolution in the face of an extremely challenging environment, the very first cells invented cellular sentience and cognition, allowing them to make relevant decisions to survive through creative adaptations in a continuously running evolutionary narrative. We propose that the success of cellular life has crucially depended on a biological version of Maxwell's demons which permits the extraction of relevant sensory information and energy from the cellular environment, allowing cells to sustain anti-entropic actions. These sensor-effector actions allowed for the creative construction of biological order in the form of diverse organic macromolecules, including crucial polymers such as DNA, RNA, and cytoskeleton. Ordered biopolymers store analogue (structures as templates) and digital (nucleotide sequences of DNA and RNA) information that functioned as a form memory to support the development of organisms and their evolution. Crucially, all cells are formed by the division of previous cells, and their plasma membranes are physically and informationally continuous across evolution since the beginning of cellular life. It is argued that life is supported through life-specific principles which support cellular sentience, distinguishing life from non-life. Biological order, together with cellular cognition and sentience, allow the creative evolution of all living organisms as the authentic authors of evolutionary novelty.