Inspired by Q. Meillassoux's philosophy, Ikegami (2021) claims that a living system perceives external reality without ‘contracting' the overwhelming flow of information it contains. This idea implies that cognition is not merely the formation of representations inside a living system. Based on this idea, we can reconsider the relationship between the inside and outside of a living system: I claim that this relationship contains both disconnection and connection at the same time. Ikegami assumes that the contracting movements that occur in living systems are continuously disrupted by encounters with external reality. Furthermore, he claims that living systems ‘vividly experience' this disruption involving an overwhelming flow of information. This idea does not seem to be present in Meillassoux's philosophy.