Michael Levin: Cognition and diverse intelligence in non-neural cellular collectives

TSC2023 - Taormina
TSC2023 - Taormina
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Published 2023-07-31
Consciousness is usually ascribed to a specific set of mechanisms and functional capabilities of the complex brain. Importantly, those mechanisms (ion channels, electrical networks, neurotransmitter machinery) long pre-date the evolutionary innovation of nervous systems. Moreover, the algorithms and competencies such as memory, decision-making, and information integration likewise have an ancient evolutionary origin: before they controlled moving the body through 3D space, electrical networks moved body configurations through anatomical morphospace. In this talk, I will describe how we view the morphogenesis during embryonic development and regeneration as the behavior of a collective intelligence, which has many problem-solving capacities. I will describe the tools we have developed, paralleling neuroscientists' attempts to read and write mental content by control of electrophysiology, to decode and re-write the pattern memories of the body. This has significant implications not only for biomedicine and evolutionary biology, but also for questions about consciousness and the scaling of coherent Selves from agential materials. I will conclude with some conjectures about what this new field offers the science of consciousness, in the form of new embodied living creatures that are outside the natural evolutionary stream of Earth, and the quest for theories of consciousness.-www.drmichaellevin.org/ Participate in our online research survey-Survey on Diverse intelligence-tufts.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eE51vKE34q3hexo (takes 9 minutes). Thank you.

Edited by Emilio Manzotti
github.com/emilim/
All Comments (20)
  • @bkinstler
    An honor to just follow along with this — this is a paradigm shift on a Copernican scale.
  • @user-sl6gn1ss8p
    "Yes you do; that's what it feels like" is some of the poetry I've ever read. Not even trying to be hyperbolic here, I literally teared up a little
  • @developsome209
    Everytime i follow Levin into concrete and abstract space and what there is to discover there,the vibe settles in, which in a word is: groundbreaking. Although, as sympathetic to Rupert Sheldrake and " his" morphic fields, which might be considered as the Ideas of Greek Philosophers, these findings shouldn't be soo surprising.
  • @judekessey7913
    Somehow the fluid prow of your digress makes me reminisce of my shaman grandma's story - how the Borneo god Kinorohingan fiddled wi fire, wood then clay, finally creating the humankind...Dr MLevin, man you sure as working in some realmic lab - TQ for sharing these profound datum ! Cheers & Rgds 👣🌿🌏🌀
  • @thomassoliton1482
    Before you go too far on your “ephaptic EM field panpsychic consciousness” paradigm try the following. Take an EM field meter into any subway. Monitor the strength and frequency of the EM fields. They will be off-the-charts compared to biological fields. Also make a note: did you notice any unusual thoughts? I doubt it. EM fields from NY subway can be measured several blocks away that are the magnitude of fields recorded during magneto-electroencephalographic recording, requiring VERY heavy shieldiing. So I can’t possibly see how EM fields, whether from people, powerlines, or trains can be important in brain function, much less form the basis of consciousness.
  • @elizabethwinsor5140
    There are also more levels of time than one linear one ...I propose infinite time lines ...
  • @Oentience
    I feel bad for lacrymia, they have no idea how much social status they have now in our academic community! 🤠👻:face-blue-smiling::eyes-purple-crying::planet-orange-purple-ring::face-red-heart-shape:
  • @merryprankstermatt
    Interestingly, a good number of ancient spiritual texts essentially reduce everything to God being everything, everywhere. If you replace the word God with conciousness, we're getting fairly close to proving that. I imagine if we could study the universe in a microscope, speed up time and experiment with it, we'd see something we'd probably call conciousness at that level too.
  • @Jediluvs2kill
    7:47 omg so you can create twins , triplets by just putting scarches omg this is damnnn scary
  • @kamranrowshandel6395
    (EDITED: a Trump supporter replied to this comment, expressing the views of every Trump supporter. I have kept it for observatory purposes, and it must be studied as soon as possible.) Do you even know that you're suggesting for us to bring accountability and other court/legal concepts into the realm of cellular biology (and make a mechanism for them to be managed on such a small level)? Are you really doing anything "deeper" than what a clockmaker does? In other words...HA so I'm guessing America has "made a deterrent" to punish scientists for positing suggestions which could pave the way for military families to be as Enlightened By Science as normal people are?