Expression as memory
What if the creature's memory is made of what it did, not what it saw?
A direction, not a build. The creature’s lasting memory would not be its inputs or its cell states. It would be the record of its own acts. Every expression becomes a point in a space. Points that recur become nodes, transitions become weighted edges, unused paths decay. Identity is the shape of that graph: which regions it inhabits, which paths it repeats, where it holds still.
Two creatures with the same hardware and code would grow different graphs if they lived different lives.
The decision that decides everything: does the graph feed back, or only record? If it only logs, it is a diary. It becomes memory the moment past expressions bias future ones. The past is not retrieved. It is re-enacted.