Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere | Michael Levin

Extract from "Evolution, Basal Cognition and Regenerative Medicine", kindly contributed by Michael Levin in SEMF's 2023 Interdisciplinary Summer School (semf.org.es/school2023/).
Full talk: • Michael Levin | Evolut...
TALK ABSTRACT
Each of us has made the remarkable journey from a single cell (a quiescent oocyte) to a complex embodied mind. How do cells, which were once independent organisms, work together to pursue the anatomical and physiological goals that enable form and function to reliably self-assemble? In this talk, I will tell the story of the collective intelligence of cellular swarms that embodies William James' definition of intelligence: same ends by different means. I will describe the amazing competencies of the morphogenetic process that builds bodies and minds, and our discoveries on bioelectricity - the cognitive glue that implements embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer suppression. I will end with a perspective on how biophysical, informational, and behavioral sciences are coming together to redefine the boundaries of the possible in biomedicine and beyond.
MICHAEL LEVIN
Department of Biology, Tufts University: as.tufts.edu/biology
Tufts University profile: ase.tufts.edu/biology/labs/le...
Wyss Institute profile: wyss.harvard.edu/team/associa...
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...)
Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?...
Twitter: / drmichaellevin
LinkedIn: / michael-levin-b0983a6
SEMF NETWORKS
Website: semf.org.es
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[@ConnoisseurOfExistence]

Absolutely love this guy's and his teams research!

[@SEMF]

Michael Levin's work is really fascinating! We are glad you enjoyed our content.

[@growlocal-healthysustainab7169]

Open the Circuit. Purify the Body. Nothing exists outside the body.

[@SEMF]

Can you clarify what you mean by "circuit"?

[@slomnim]

@@SEMF I think he means, rather than stay disconnected (like say a cancer cell), we gain mental/biological/psionic flexibility if we "open the closed circuit" to accept and learn from reality/creation/etc by living with it "Purify the body" might mean "remove impedances to evolution, increase efficiency" And the last "Nothing exists outside the body" could be the resultant philosophy of the opened-circuit, purified-life-form, where one is interconnected as opposed to defensively disconnected. Kind of like how a fungus or mycelial network adapts and utilizes it's environment to learn/self-modify to fit it's environment

[@SEMF]

@@slomnim That's a good interpretation indeed! Thanks for the clarification.

[@masonleesummerhill]

I like the idea of cognitive lightcones because it gives us a way to assign responsibility and/or intention to a certain predefined organism over spatial and temporal scales, but it does seem a bit arbitrary. The definition of what constitutes a goal can vary widely. For instance, does a plant's growth towards light count as pursuing a goal in the same way a human planning their career does? Quantifying the spatial and temporal scope of an organism's goals involves interpretation and might not capture the full range of its capacities or intentions. For example, we might underestimate the cognitive abilities of animals due to a lack of understanding of their communication methods. Also, cognitive light cones can grow or shrink depending on the state of development of the organism in question. Also, the concept doesn't fully account for the interdependent nature of ecosystems, where the actions of one organism impact the goals and survival of another. A concept which is less dependent on the idea of a "here and now" would be more effective at capturing these shortcomings. perhaps something like "liquid lightcones" where the dynamic and adaptive nature of cognitive processes in biological organisms and their interactions within ecosystems are taken into account? and maybe the principle of superposition and entanglement could be useful? A Liquid Lightcone that exists in multiple states simultaneously. I like Michael levin's research, but his rate of speech and confidence level have always been a bit suspicious to me.

[@SEMF]

Cognitive ligthcones are such a nice contribution from this work indeed! Thanks for your detailed comment. Perhaps you'd like to share your thoughts within our online community? You can join here: semf.org.es/participate/join.html

[@edwardpotereiko]

The influence that organisms would have on each other’s cognitive light cone could be encompassed by the light cone of the collective intelligence made up of those individuals and their interconnectedness.

[@SEMF]

@@edwardpotereiko That seems right. What do you imagine are the causal connections there?

[@guillermobrand8458]

The ability to pursue goals that could be called “expectations” experienced a considerable “evolutionary leap” when the brain emerged, about 550 million years ago. However, such an evolutionary leap was insignificant if we compare it with the one that took place some two hundred thousand years ago, when our ancestors accessed Reason. We owe it to the action of the Being, that entity whose action we usually call “conscious action.” Evolution took billions of years to generate “social entities”, then multicellular organisms emerged. In turn, evolution tends to replicate its “successful models”, the grouping of individuals being one of them. It is important to consider that just as multicellular organisms are “social entities”, so is a corporation, a city or a country. Just as a cell in our body is at the service of the body, and “does not hesitate” to give his life for the body of which he is a part, a “normal citizen” is willing to give his life for his country.

[@SEMF]

That was a very well thought out comment! We would love to hear your thought in our community. You can join here: semf.org.es/participate/join.html

[@tejaK]

💗🙏💗

[@andrewmorris5947]

5 koshas… Managing charge

[@brooksdubois4721]

is he not mischaracterizing the concept of a "latent" space by applying this specific terminology at scale? isn't it more than a latent space in terms of the nearly infinitely multi-variant systems he's describing?

[@brooksdubois4721]

I sincerely agree with the notion of ethics being a priority. The type of work this man is doing demands ethical oversight. Still, it's kind of like... unreasonable to define bounds on what is inherently defined as effectively a "space" when it's so complex IRL it's effectively boundless in the context of -actually being applicable to people-. He's contradicting himself at the end there IMHO unless I'm genuinely missing something.

[@SEMF]

@@brooksdubois4721 In what way would you describe the contradiction at the end?

[@brooksdubois4721]

​@@SEMF Rewatched the portion at the end but it seems to me the concept of trying to define ethics on top of what is to become a "higher" order intelligence is pretty a obvious contradiction. In loose terms, it's like humans trying to tell God what religion is. Let's say an Ai can 3d print itself in biological tissue, and we as humans decide ethics for these entities? Once there is a higher authority, again, where do trust it to define how it's ethics work and when to appeal our biases? It's like a dog barking at you to give it more food, do we go by the dog's wishes and give it more to eat? Is it unethical to let it bark it out or unethical not feed it, from the dog's perspective? I see ethics becoming the crux of a huge amount of issues spawning up, but I may be not understanding here how this is possible to define a working system. Edit: Thanks for reading and responding too.

[@SEMF]

@@brooksdubois4721 Doesn't the knowledge of higher-order intelligence makes defining ethics more plausible?

[@agnidas5816]

the future and the past are also here now. That's the hitch that is messing up his whole understanding. time is an illusion. it is not an outside force. 7:28 but it's not the same genetics - the parasite re-writes or changes the code. This guy is all over the place and inconsistent. Unfortunate. I was hoping for some one out there to be somewhat competent .. 7:48 okay but not every organism is "hacking" ... or even interacting on that level. And did he forget that organisms get half of their genetic code from horizontal gene transfer and not evolution ? Did he ever know ? Why isn't THAT the big exciting thing here ? He is over excited that DNA is code without seeing the biggest code sharing base actively reproducing in nature. And it's not what the collective wants to do - in the case of the parasites it is selfishness of the organism. His collective is completely fractured or he is mixing words or leaving words out. In the context of the oak tree he just talked about. The oak parasite is not part of collective. ALso scientists are not part of a collective. Some are loosely related but there isn't even a single scientific community anywhere in the world - in the idealist sense of community. There are a few pockets most of which hide or only exist for a few years that students or some faculty spend together at one lab. he says THE collective instead of "my colleagues and I". 8:45 "I don't like binary categories" is a binary statement and so was everything else following that. The irony. 9:24 another missed chance to mention horizontal gene transfer. Pretty sure he never heard of it. hacking precludes an intention to hack. The parasites didn't study genetics and design new code to get into the tree leaf like how you do science. It's an interaction within the WHOLE. You're not seeing entirety of life moving together despite the repeated use of collective. Likely because he doesn't understand here and now was a baseless fabrication by Ram Das after too much acid. It goes against yoga and it goes against modern physics.

[@SEMF]

Thanks for the very detailed comment. If you would like to share your thoughts directly with our community you can join here: semf.org.es/participate/join.html

[@rogerjohnson2562]

SLOW DOWN... don't let your mouth get so far ahead of your brain... Love your content, but presentation is tiresome.

[@SEMF]

Tiresome in what way? We love to hear feedback.