Episodes

  • Ethics and the New Biology

    Ethics and the New Biology
    Apr 26 2025

    This is a ~30 minute talk to an Ethics class (undergraduates) about aspects of our work that have implications for ethics.


    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Intelligence All The Way Down
    (06:30) Scaling Up Cognition
    (13:40) Communicating With Cellular Intelligence
    (20:00) Freedom of Embodiment
    (27:40) Ethics of Future Beings


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    33 mins
  • Life, Mind, and Computing: A Diverse Intelligence Perspective

    Life, Mind, and Computing: A Diverse Intelligence Perspective
    Mar 13 2025
    This is a very fast (~33min) flyover of some ideas relevant to the relationship between biology, computation, cognition, consciousness, and related subjects. This was given at the amazing Progress and Visions in Consciousness Science series (https://amcs-community.org/events/progress-visions-series/) as the prologue to a discussion.

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Talk Overview and Structure
    (01:30) Expanding Our View of Mind
    (04:30) Biology's Multi-Scale Architecture
    (09:00) Bioelectricity: Ancient Cognitive Glue
    (14:00) Biology Solves Novel Problems
    (22:00) Creative Interpretation, Intelligence Ratchet
    (29:30) Novel Goals, Platonic Space
    (36:00) Conclusion and Future Research

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    33 mins
  • Bioelectric Networks: An Interface to Engineering with the Agential Material of Life

    Bioelectric Networks: An Interface to Engineering with the Agential Material of Life
    Mar 1 2025
    This is a ~1 hour talk (given at the Departmental Seminar series at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences) on the use of a cognitive approach to bioengineering and regenerative medicine, in which morphogenesis is the behavior (in anatomical space) of a collective intelligence of cellular swarms. I describe our work that takes advantage of the bioelectric interface to re-specify the targets of morphogenesis.

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Agential Material for Bioengineering
    (02:00) The Anatomical Compiler Goal
    (04:00) Biology as Agential Material
    (06:00) Intelligence Below Cell Level
    (09:00) Anatomy Not Just DNA
    (12:00) Hardware vs Software Biology
    (14:00) Cellular Collective Intelligence Examples
    (18:00) Creative Problem-Solving in Cells
    (22:00) Cognitive Glue and Goal-Seeking
    (25:00) Bioelectricity: Ancient Communication
    (28:00) Reading and Writing Patterns
    (30:00) Rewriting Collective Cell Memory
    (33:00) Regenerating Limbs in Frogs
    (35:00) Planaria Pattern Memory
    (39:00) Plasticity Beyond Species
    (41:00) Novel Shapes and Galls
    (44:00) Computational Models for Repair
    (49:00) Cancer as Goal Failure
    (50:00) Bioelectric Cancer Suppression
    (53:00) Novel Anatomical Goals: Xenobots
    (01:00:00) Human Anthrobots from Cells
    (01:02:00) Autonomous Personalized Therapeutics
    (01:04:00) Top-Down Biomedical Approaches
    (01:06:00) Biorobotics and Bioprompting
    (01:07:00) Ethics of Diverse Beings

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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Unconventional Biology, Minimal Models of Intelligence, and Bio-Inspired Computing

    Unconventional Biology, Minimal Models of Intelligence, and Bio-Inspired Computing
    Jan 30 2025
    This is a 1 hour 10 minute presentation of ideas around the architecture of biology (and how it differs from today's computational systems). Focusing on morphogenesis as a model of collective intelligence, I talk about the intelligence ratchet that results from life's need to creatively interpret information on the cognitive, developmental, and evolutionary scale. I end with some speculative ideas about Platonic space and cognitive patterns therein, which radically enlarge the set of beings. Th...

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Introduction: Body, Mind Symmetry
    (05:00) Diverse Biological Intelligence Examples
    (12:50) Multi-Scale Competency Architecture
    (19:00) Collective Morphospace Intelligence
    (24:00) Bioelectric Communication Interface
    (29:30) Rewriting Anatomical Memories
    (38:00) Selfhood and Collective Goals
    (46:00) Unreliable Substrate, Creative Problem-Solving
    (55:30) Exploring Novel Forms, Patterns
    (01:06:30) Summary and Future Research

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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Novel Bodies, Unconventional Minds: Diverse Intelligence and the Study of Consciousness

    Novel Bodies, Unconventional Minds: Diverse Intelligence and the Study of Consciousness
    Dec 19 2024
    This is a ~55 minute talk titled "Novel Bodies, Unconventional Minds: a diverse intelligence perspective on a continuum of cognition (and consciousness)" by Michael Levin given at the CIFAR (https://cifar.ca/next-generation/cifar-neuroscience-of-consciousness-winter-school/) Neuroscience of Consciousness Winter School, + about 20 min of Q&A. My lab doesn't normally work on consciousness per se, but we do a lot of things that are relevant to questions in the philosophy of mind so in this talk I ...

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Introduction and Talk Outline
    (03:00) Challenging Conventional Categories
    (06:00) Unusual Biology and Cell Journey
    (12:00) Collective Intelligence and Problem Spaces
    (19:00) Morphogenesis Collective Intelligence
    (24:00) Bioelectrical Networks and Control
    (30:00) Planaria Memory and Regeneration
    (34:00) Scale of Self, Cancer
    (38:00) Patterns from Platonic Space
    (41:00) Novel Life Forms: Xenobots
    (48:00) Anthrobots and Beyond

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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Self-Constructing Bodies, Collective Minds: The Intersection of CS, Cognitive Bio, and Philosophy

    Self-Constructing Bodies, Collective Minds: The Intersection of CS, Cognitive Bio, and Philosophy
    Nov 28 2024
    This is a 1 hour 12 minute talk presented at the 2nd Symposium on the Philosophy of Computing at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. It covers the ways in which biological computation is different from most of today's computer architectures, and concludes with a different way to think about emergence of cognition (not just complexity or unpredictability) in a way that informs how we think about biological and artificial intelligences.

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Biology, Computation, Philosophy
    (05:50) Unconventional Biological Problem Solving
    (13:50) Anatomical Morphospace Navigation
    (21:50) Reading Bioelectric Patterns
    (31:00) Biology vs. Computing
    (36:50) Multi-Scale Competency Architecture
    (45:00) Creative Interpretation, Unreliable Hardware
    (53:00) Patterns, Machines, Agents
    (01:00:00) Latent Space of Patterns
    (01:08:00) Exploring Latent Space
    (01:15:00) Future of Diverse Intelligence

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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Embodied Minds: Discovering Diverse Intelligence through the Lens of Biomedicine

    Embodied Minds: Discovering Diverse Intelligence through the Lens of Biomedicine
    Oct 14 2024
    This is a ~45 minute talk given at the Imagining Summit (https://www.artificiality.world/the-imagining-summit/) on Diverse Intelligence and synthbiosis, approaching those topics via communication with cellular collectives in the context of regenerative medicine. The newer material is at the end.

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Diverse Intelligence and Goals
    (02:30) Beyond Discrete Natural Kinds
    (06:00) Framework for Diverse Intelligences
    (11:00) Scaling Minds, Collective Intelligence
    (15:30) Self-Creation of Bodies, Minds
    (18:30) Anatomical Order, Compiler Vision
    (21:30) Agential Material, Problem Solving
    (26:30) Bioelectricity as Cognitive Glue
    (31:00) Communicating with Collective Intelligence
    (34:30) Regenerating Limbs, Healing Wounds
    (37:30) Synthetic Life: Xenobots, Anthropods
    (42:30) Interoperability, Novel Agents
    (45:30) Humility, Patterns in Media
    (49:30) Conclusion: Expanding Sentience Idea
    (52:30) Acknowledgements and Funders

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    47 mins
  • Unconventional Cognition Through the Lens of Cellular Collective Intelligence in Morphogenesis

    Unconventional Cognition Through the Lens of Cellular Collective Intelligence in Morphogenesis
    Sep 19 2024
    This is a 1 hour 8 minute talk covering topics of collective intelligence in morphogenesis as a model system for thinking about the origin and scaling of cognition in diverse embodiments.

    CHAPTERS:

    (00:00) Diverse Intelligence Framework
    (12:00) Morphogenesis Problem Solving
    (22:00) Bioelectric Pattern Memory
    (34:30) Exploring Latent Space

    CONNECT WITH ME:

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    • Blog
    • The Levin Lab
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    1 hr and 8 mins
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