Considering the embodiment process of an organism, in which the autopoiesis plays its role across all the body cells, for Varela ad Maturana, "a cognitive system is a system whose organization defines a domain of interactions in which it can act with relevance to the maintenance of itself." (This domain of interactions seems to be the sufficient condition for a system, to be considered a cognitive system, so the "neurality" seems not to be necessary...)
According to Watts, the neural systems are the generators of cognitive systems
http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/research/representations.fromneuraltocognitive.pdf
In my opinion, If you link the constructs with ` autopoiesis` you should reffer to dynamic system theory (see Thelen), rather than embodied cognition theory.
This question refers to a very specific mechanism, that have little to do to real cognition. A lot is known about real cognition.
Thank you Leonid for the answer. My question pointed to the research of some philosophic/biologic evidences about that part of the overall cognitive process, that is depending on cellular processes, that are not exclusive of neurons. The question could be better reformulated in this way: What part of cell metabolism, present in all kind of cells of an organism, could take part to a cognitive process, in the context of the embodiment?
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