My aim in this commentary article is to observe and comment on some of the main conceptual and methodological continuities and discontinuities between recent biosemiotics-informed learning theory and the model of Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL) that Jablonka and Ginsburg ( 2022 ) present in this Target Article. UAL as a model, presents important synthesis and clarity around the ecological context and evolutionary dynamics underlying learning, with a wide range of implications. Still, there are conceptual “grey areas” that the authors themselves (...) note and that biosemiotics in particular has problematized in various ways. I highlight the general challenge of defining minimal consciousness in relation to a concept of minimal Umwelt, as well as the issue of animal cultures, and the transition from UAL to symbolic-cognition and human language, making connections to the evolution of hominin musicking capacities. (shrink)