---
title: "SIRAL"
description: "Hayles's five behavioral criteria for cognition — Sensing, Interpreting (selection among options, hence possible error), Responding flexibly, Anticipating, Learning — sharpening her Unthought definition (\"a process that interprets information within contexts that connect it with meaning\")."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/siral"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/siral"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# SIRAL

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/siral), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

Hayles's five behavioral criteria for cognition — **S**ensing, **I**nterpreting (selection among options, hence possible error), **R**esponding flexibly, **A**nticipating, **L**earning — sharpening her *Unthought* definition ("a process that interprets information within contexts that connect it with meaning"). Built to be low-threshold but discriminating: it admits plants, bacteria and slime molds while excluding inflexible adaptations and homeostatic loops (the pithed frog senses, interprets and responds but neither flexes, anticipates nor learns). A "model" of the world is what all five produce together. LLMs pass a *modified* SIRAL in which S is satisfied by a conceptual rather than physical environment. Unstated whether all five are jointly necessary.

## Appears in

- [Planetary Sapience Symposium](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/planetarysapience) (2025-11-21)
- [Modes of Cognition](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/modesofcognition) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._