what it is to be a representation in terms of fundamental concepts from biology, particularly the concept of a biological function (or teleofunction). By contrast, representational content is best understood as a structured relation involving two parts, and the explanation of how states of biological systems have content involves the preservation of internal structural relations and causal history.I review recent literature on the neurophysiologic mechanisms underlying a sensory discrimination task, in which neurons use a variety of mechanisms for encoding, storing, and comparing information about vibrotactile stimuli. These mechanisms include a one-to-one burst code, a temporal code in which periodicity is the operative mechanism, and a variety of rate codes, some with opposite slopes, and some reflecting neither the base nor comparison stimuli, but rather their quantitative difference. In motor cortex, a binary behavioral outcome is reflected in a sigmoidal shape of firing patterns. A theory of biological representation, if it is to be empirically useful, ought to be able to unify these various encoding mechanisms under an overarching conceptual framework that explains what biological representation is and how representational content is determined, from a general standpoint, and I suggest that the theory on offer takes significant steps toward this aim." /> Representation in biological systems - Nair-Collins Michael | sdvig press