The philosopher of science Pamela Lyon writes that “taking seriously modern evolutionary and cell biology arguably now requires recognition that the information-processing dynamics of ‘simpler’ forms of life are part of a continuum with human cognition.”
Cognition as a property of all matter is the simplest premise for any materialist theory of the mind.
Any and all theories that divide matter into cognitive and non-cognitive types are logically equivalent to Cartesian dualism. Socially of course, scientific-dualism is often more palatable to contemporary intellects.
It needn't be dualism if there is some threshold that makes things conscious, but then people can ask what that threshold is and why, without a good answer people will think you're leaning on dualism again.
I doubt there is such a threshold, I think the issue people have with the idea that rocks might have cognition is it too difficult to perceive the difference in scale of complexity of a brain compared to a rock. People have trouble comprehending the idea of a millionth, going further than that there is the intrinsic difficulty of accepting something existing at a scale you cannot perceive or even conceive of what that might be.
Just to be clear, "the information-processing dynamics of ‘simpler’ forms of life" being "part of a continuum with human cognition" does not strictly imply "Cognition as a property of all matter". Also, I fail to see how the latter is the "simplest premise for any materialist theory of the mind". How is it simpler to say that "all matter has cognition as a basic property" than to assume "certain arranges of matter exhibit cognition"?
"certain arranges of matter exhibit cognition"
This is the threshold I talk about in my sibling comment. It is very difficult to come up with a materialist argument for what about that 'certain arrangement' makes cognition. I am unsure if it is possible to prove that there is no such argument, but I don't think we have made any progress in finding one either.
Is life not necessary for cognition, then? I would say almost certainly that some forms of matter are not alive. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine some forms of matter having a cognition level that isn’t zero, even if it is a continuum.
well...
Which parts of the (skin) cell are alive?
Here are the options: 1: All of it is irreducibly together alive. 2: Some of it is alive, some of it is not.
If 1: then life is made of non living material. If 2: repeat the above options with this new smallest piece of life. If there are no parts left to examine without reaching 1: then it is all alive.
Then we are left with two options. A: Life is made of non-living material in specific arrangements. B: life is a property of all material.
More than likely we are dealing with the first option. Life from non-living material. Which implies life could be created from other arrangements of materials that function analogously to a cell (at a different scale, maybe).
This question may be settled soon... well, as soon as someone builds a x-sized replica of a cell and proves it 'works' (given proper input/output/environment).
My gut also tells me this is true: with the following reasoning. A chair isn't actually any particular chair, but a template: a pattern, which can be expressed in other materials besides any one particular example. A pattern can be expressed in different mediums, and life looks like such a template... to me at least.
That's my two cents: add some salt.
Brain brain what is brain!