Thoughtforms Life

This is a ~39 minute talk titled "New Bodies, Unconventional Minds: a perspective on a continuum of cognition (& consciousness)" for a consciousness conference about our laboratory model systems relevant to the study of minds, my Platonic Space model, and a few opinions on consciousness (at the end, since I don't have any strong claims about consciousness per se). CHAPTERS: (00:00) Continuum o...

This is a ~35 minute talk titled "Thoughts as Thinkers: the biology & computer science of inspiration" I gave at a recent conference. CHAPTERS: (00:00) The nature of inspiration (15:51) Xenobots and novel minds PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Podcast Website: https://thoughtforms-life.aipodcast.ing YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3pVafx6EZqXVI2V_Efu2uw Apple Podcast...

This #short is an excerpt from Michael Levin's talk "Biology, AI, and Diverse Intelligence" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or_3tlEOLj4 produced by https://x.com/DNAMediaEditing CHAPTERS: (00:00) Patterns and free lunches (01:01) Questioning biological uniqueness (01:48) Competencies beyond the code PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Podcast Website: https://thoughtforms-life.aipo...

This #short is an excerpt from Michael Levin's talk "Biology, AI, and Diverse Intelligence" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or_3tlEOLj4 produced by https://x.com/DNAMediaEditing CHAPTERS: (00:00) Defining life and machines (00:44) Reductionists versus organicists (01:35) Rethinking machine metaphors PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Podcast Website: https://thoughtforms-life.aipo...

This is a ~1 hour and 4 minutes talk + Q&A that my student and collaborator Karina Kofman ( https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karina-Kofman-2 ) and I gave to the Society for Mind-Matter Research as a keynote talk in acceptance of the best paper for 2025 award (the paper is: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/mm/2025/00000023/00000001/art00003 ). CHAPTERS: (00:00) Mind and body inter...

This is a ~1 hour talk given at a conference on the philosophy and future of neuroscience, so I oriented it around extending the concept of neuroscience: not the study of neural phenomena, but more broadly around how neuroscience of neural and non-neural cells shows a model system for understanding collective intelligence, and using morphogenesis as a stepping stone model system to show us how to...

This is a ~1 hour 3 minute conversation with Marsha Hewitt ( https://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/profiles/hewitt-marsha/ ), who wanted to clarify some issues around the Platonic Space and related ideas from the perspective of her teaching students in her philosophy and psychoanalytic psychology of religion class. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Intersecting philosophy and science (09:52) Ethics of artificial minds...

This is a ~21-minute talk titled "Life, Machines, and a Foundation for Synthbiosis" that I gave to the Santa Fe Institute ( https://santafe.edu/ ) conference on "Symbiogenesis in the Age of Machine intelligence" ( https://www.santafe.edu/events/symbiogenesis-in-the-age-of-machine-intelligence-2027 ", September 17 and 18, 2026) CHAPTERS: (00:00) Space of embodied minds (03:03) Rewriting bioelectric...

"Biology, AI, and Diverse Intelligence: what we know and don't know about embodied minds" - a 53-minute talk I gave on what the field of diverse intelligence has to say to AI research (to an audience of non-experts in AI, so it's not very technical on that end). I tried to go a little slower and explain more of the basics and logic. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Defining life and machines (04:16) Expanding th...

This is a ~1 hour conversation with Andrey Vyshedskiy ( https://www.bu.edu/prsocial/profile/andrey-vyshedskiy/ ) about the evolution of language, brain mechanisms, implications for autism and developmental disorders, and Andrey's work to develop therapeutic approaches. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Syntactic language network development (05:37) Three levels of comprehension (28:55) Neurobiology of sensitive p...

This is a ~59 minute working meeting where I introduce two very interesting neuroscientists to each other - Diego Bohórquez ( https://medicine.duke.edu/profile/diego-v-bohorquez ) and Mijail D. Serruya ( https://www.jefferson.edu/academics/colleges-schools-institutes/skmc/departments/neurology/faculty/serruya.html ) and we discuss ideas around how information moves from the molecular to the behavi...

This is a ~56 minute conversation with mathematician Steven Strogatz ( https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/ ) covering issues of explanation in mathematics, Platonism, and related questions. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Mathematical explanation and AI (07:28) Reductionism across scientific fields (11:04) Intuition and mathematical deduction (18:31) Geometry versus algebraic thinking (24:32) Euler and negative log...

This is a ~52 minute talk on inspiration across substrates and my model of "free lunches" and the Platonic space. CHAPTERS: (00:00) The concept of inspiration (03:47) Defining the free lunch (08:47) Surprising biological plasticity (14:33) Causal emergence in networks (17:05) Competencies of synthetic organisms (25:37) Computational free lunches (33:50) Navigating diverse problem spaces (38:53) Th...

This is a ~1 hour conversation on the future of mental health from the perspective of the diverse intelligence field, with Alexey Tolchinsky ( https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=tiBKmrsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate ), Anthony Weiss ( https://www.anthonypweiss.com/about-anthony-weiss ), and Chris Fields ( https://chrisfieldsresearch.com/ ). CHAPTERS: (00:00) Psych...

This is a ~1 hour working meeting with Thomas Pollak ( https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/thomas-pollak , https://drtompollak.substack.com/ ) and David King ( https://profiles.stanford.edu/361883 , https://breakingconvention.co.uk/performers/dave-king ) about the intersection of neuroscience, mental health, and diverse intelligence research. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Agency in psychiatry (05:14) Mental real est...

This is a ~54 minute talk titled "Diverse Intelligence: a new frontier for Origins, Possibilities, and Diseases of the Mind(s)" which I gave for an audience composed of mental health professionals and neuroscientists. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Roadmap and stakes (04:13) Minds as continuum (08:04) Diverse intelligence framework (11:12) Biological plasticity examples (18:18) Morphogenesis as intelligence (2...

This is a ~57 minute talk titled "Energy Constraints and Tradeoffs: the mitochondrial daily energy expenditure MDEE study" by Martin Picard ( https://www.neurology.columbia.edu/profile/martin-picard-phd ) and a brief set of ideas by me at the end, presaging a full discussion of this for our next meeting. I mentioned these 2 papers: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030326472200143...

This is ~23 minute talk overviewing our recent results and the way we think about aging and longevity. It was for a conference with quite short speaking slots so I had to talk fast... Longer talk coming with more data but this outlines some ideas and overviews our published recent work on aging. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Aging framework overview (01:16) Bodies as setpoints (03:08) Anatomical homeostasis e...

Discussion #2 (57 minutes on computationalism and consciousness) with Borjan Milinkovic ( https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AwaZbzsAAAAJ&hl=en ), Jaan Aru ( https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=FvFOzS8AAAAJ&hl=en%29 ), and Nicolas Rouleau ( https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=FyOpVTAAAAAJ&hl=en ). CHAPTERS: (00:00) AI consciousness middle ground (04:46) Substrate depen...

This is a talk I gave, ~49 minutes long, titled "Free Lunches: Model Systems for Studying the Agential Gifts from the Platonic Space", to a philosophy audience. It covers some more ways I think about the latent space of patterns that in-forms biology and cognitive science. CHAPTERS: (00:02) Research program overview (05:15) Dissolving old categories (10:54) Goal-directed morphogenesis basics (14:1...

This is a ~2 hour discussion among contributors to the Platonic Space Symposium ( CHAPTERS: (00:00) Strong perception framework (10:12) Perception model boundaries (17:41) Penrose and probabilities (30:57) Quantum interpretations debated (39:28) Probability dynamics and gravity (53:50) Relational observer problem (01:00:30) Dance synchronization physics (01:12:02) Rituals and group flow (01:23:43)...

This is a ~2 hours 4 minute discussion among contributors to the Platonic Space Symposium ( CHAPTERS: (00:00) Strong anticipation analogy (08:16) Relational Platonic patterns (25:06) Finite brains, infinite grammar (40:05) Beauty and compression (51:17) Searching for grammar (01:01:58) Patterns and selfhood (01:14:44) Patterns claiming territory (01:29:28) Markets shape selves (01:43:57) Scaling c...

This is a ~1 hour 5 minute discussion with Amahury Jafet Lopez Diaz ( Carlos Gershenson-Garcia ( and Richard Watson ( Stay tuned for part 2 where Amahury will present his ideas in more detail. Amahury's paper: CHAPTERS: (00:00) Common ground and stakes (06:10) Ontology of platonic space (14:50) Testing separate realms (25:52) Acid tests and metaphors (34:55) Interaction and narratives (44:20) Form...

This is a ~1.5 hour talk + discussion, titled "A Multiscale Logic of Collective Intelligence" by Donald Hoffman ( and Chetan Prakash ( with Robert Chis-Ciure ( and Chris Fields ( and me. CHAPTERS: (00:01) Beyond space-time physics (10:10) Minimal observer participants (18:49) Recursive trace logic (35:08) Actions and trace blankets (43:45) Physics and agency together (52:32) Causal emergence and j...

This is a ~1 hour discussion with Lisa Maroski ( and Richard Watson ( about the role of language in shaping our thinking in the field of diverse intelligence and beyond. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Language and systems thinking (04:25) Parts wholes and resonance (07:34) Who versus what (12:45) Recursion and new structures (17:47) Searching for a word (25:16) Holding multiple polarities (29:41) Nested biolog...