The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing
devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing
device. These devices treated the slime mould as an active living substrate, yet it
is a self-consistent living creature which evolved over millions of years and occupied
most parts of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition,
just automated biochemical mechanisms. To "rehabilitate" slime mould from the rank
of a purely living electronics element to a "creature of thoughts" we are analyzing
the cognitive potential of P. polycephalum. We base our theory of minimal cognition
of the slime mould on a bottom-up approach, from the biological and biophysical nature
of the slime mould and its regulatory systems using frameworks such as Lyon's biogenic
cognition, Muller, di Primio-Lengelerś modifiable pathways, Bateson's "patterns that
connect" framework, Maturana's autopoietic network, or proto-consciousness and Morgan's
Canon.