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This work aims to redefine the understanding of the relationship between biological systems and consciousness, advocating for a gradual continuum rather than an abrupt emergence.

June 9, 2026Open Access

Beyond Binary Consciousness: Organizational Continuity Between Life and Mind

Key Points

This work aims to redefine the understanding of the relationship between biological systems and consciousness, advocating for a gradual continuum rather than an abrupt emergence.
Proposes a five-level continuum from physical order to reflective self-consciousness.
Incorporates insights from evolutionary biology, comparative neuroscience, and synthetic biology.
Discusses implications for artificial intelligence and non-neural biological systems.
Identifies an explanatory gap in the understanding of consciousness, emphasizing organizational continuity.
Suggests that consciousness should not be traced solely to neurons but also to earlier organizational systems.
Highlights that understanding evolution and biological systems may uncover insights about consciousness.

Abstract

This discussion paper argues that the transition from matter to mind is better understood as gradual rather than abrupt — grounded in increasingly sophisticated forms of biological self-organization, directedness, and environmental integration. Rather than treating phenomenal consciousness as an emergent discontinuity appearing suddenly in nervous systems, we propose a graded organizational continuum spanning five levels: passive physical order, adaptive biological organization, selectional and behavioral agency, phenomenal consciousness, and reflective self-consciousness. Drawing on evolutionary biology, recent work in bioelectricity and synthetic biology (Levin), and comparative neuroscience, we argue that nervous systems are best understood not as the origin of selection and coordination but as their acceleration, centralization, and integration. The hard problem of consciousness is not dissolved but located more precisely: the relevant explanatory gap lies not between matter in general and experience, but at the threshold where bounded, resource-constrained, selection-performing systems cross into phenomenal presence. Implications are drawn for the study of non-neural biological systems, artificial intelligence, and the substrate-dependence debate. If selection, coordination, and organization emerged before nervous systems, we may not need to begin the story of consciousness with neurons — and beginning it earlier may be precisely what allows us to understand what neurons eventually made possible. Main Papers: - Saka, H. (2026a). Toward a Reframing of the Hard Problem of Consciousness: Subjective Reality, Feeling, andthe Origins of the Conceptual World. Version 7.19. PhilPapers. https://philpapers.org/rec/SAKTAR - Saka, H. (2026b). Organizational Phenomenology: Artificial F1 and the Geometry of Coherent Agency. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20555024 Keywords: organizational continuity, phenomenal consciousness, hard problem of consciousness, neurocentrism, graded continuum, selection before neurons, bioelectricity, basal cognition, philosophy of mind, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, substrate independence

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