The Biological Information Cycle

Abstract Biology is driven by self-referential cognition, by which cells become aware of the uncertainties of environmental cues. Cells evaluate ambiguous information through a cellular information cycle as a crucial tool of cellular problem-solving. Since all information is imprecise, cells must measure it. A senomic cellular information architecture supports that intricate process as an integral component of its information management system. Cells have learned that the validity (measuring value) of their available information can be improved through shared assessment. This basal impulse is the stimulating factor that leads to multicellularity. Consequently, informational ambiguity constitutes the actual driver of biological and evolutionary development through its reverberations among sentient cells. There is a growing recognition that biomolecular processes represent information flow and that information flow equates with energy mobilization through useful predictions. However, any productive flow of biological information requires channelling. The epicentre of that information management is cellular consciousness. Accordingly, cells are informational interactomes. As all cells are conscious, and all macro-organisms are cellular architectures, any theory of consciousness or mind should be based on cell theory.