Thoughtforms Life

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) Framewor...

This is a ~1 hour interview with the great Denis Noble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble), who made seminal contributions to understanding the heartbeat and went on to contribute exciting and counter-paradigm ideas in physiology, evolutionary theory, causation, and other aspects of biology. Some of classic Denis Noble writing: https://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/book/the-music-of-life-biology-beyon...

This is ~1 hour conversation with Daniel McShea (https://scholars.duke.edu/person/dmcshea) and Gunnar Babcock (https://gunnarbabcock.com/) on topics of biology, evolution, information, causation, and ethics in the philosophy of mind. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

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: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spo...

This is a ~40 minute talk on the future of medicine from my perspective given remotely to students at the University of Bologna, Italy. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~45 minute keynote talk at the Bioelectricity and Cancer conference (https://cam.cancer.gov/research/bioelectricity_and_cancer_conference.htm) held at NIH in September 2024. CHAPTERS: (00:00) What is Cancer? (13:00) Cognitive Light Cone & Cancer (18:00) Bioelectric Layer: Cognitive Glue (23:00) Bioelectricity in Cancer (28:00) Tools: Imaging & Control (32:00) Bioelectric Diagnost...

This is a ~1 hour talk on morphogenesis as a collective intelligence and some specifics about cognitive glue. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Intro: Diverse Intelligence Overview (01:40) Discrete Kinds vs Continuum (03:50) Intelligence in Novel Spaces (06:00) Cells as Collective Intelligence (09:30) Morphogenesis and Agential Material (12:30) Defining Intelligence: Perturbations (17:00) Tadpole Metamorphosis In...

This is a ~1 hour discussion with Kevin Mitchell (https://www.kjmitchell.com/), Nick Cheney (https://www.uvm.edu/cems/cs/profiles/nick-cheney), and Ben Hartl (https://allencenter.tufts.edu/benedikt-hartl-ph-d/) on the application of connectionist generative models in understanding the role of the genome in evolution and the control of form and function. Links to relevant materials mentioned in the...

This is another episode in our series on the great figures in developmental bioelectricity. We interview (~1 hour) Mustafa Djamgoz, who has made pivotal discoveries about the role of bioelectricity in the problem of cancer and its eventual solution. Mustafa's book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17612801-beat-cancer Mustafa's papers: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/m.djamgoz/publications Must...

This is a ~1 hour discussion with Dr. Alex Schmidt (www.schmidtpsychologicalservices.com) and Alexey Tolchinsky, Psy. D. (https://montgomerycountypsychologist.com/). We touch on issues of trauma, somatic memory, dissociation, and protective mechanisms at the interface of the psychiatry and developmental biology. In private practice, Dr. Schmidt works with children and adults who exhibit severe and...

This is a ~1 hour discussion with Richard Watson (https://www.richardawatson.com/) and Josh Bongard (https://www.uvm.edu/cems/cs/profiles/josh_bongard) touching on topics of agency, polycomputing, oscillations, and evolution. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~1 hour conversation between Josh Bongard (https://www.uvm.edu/cems/cs/profiles/josh_bongard), Tom Froese (https://www.oist.jp/research/tom-froese), and I on Irruption theory, polycomputing, and the mind-body relationship. Some relevant links from the discussion: Tom's paper on irruption theory: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/4/288 Josh and I on polycomputaton: https://www.mdpi.com/23...

This is a ~50 minute conversation between Josh Bongard (https://www.uvm.edu/cems/cs/profiles/josh_bongard), Atoosa Parsa (https://www.atoosaparsa.com/), Richard Watson (https://www.richardawatson.com/), and I on topics of agency, computation, polycomputing, oscillations, selfhood, and similar subjects. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~1 hour conversation between Tim Jackson (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Timothy-Jackson-4), Karl Friston (https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/), Chris Fields (https://chrisfieldsresearch.com/) and I around the free energy principle, philosophy, evolution, and novelty. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~30 minute talk by Rafael Kaufmann, Pranav Gupta, and Jacob Taylor. There is a 30 minute Q&A here: https://thoughtforms.life/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/QA-from-Gupta-Kaufman-Taylor.mp3 ; the paper referred to is: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/7/830 Some more relevant links: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bX5GK3rZX8RdgmcvXyfpOGEVYbIePMq8/view?usp=sharing https://www.brookings.ed...

"Metaphysics and the Matter with Things: Thinking with Iain McGilchrist was a collaborative conference put on by the Center for Process Studies (CPS) and the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in March of 2024. This three-day conference brought leading process thinkers across various disciplines, including physics, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and theology into critical dialo...

This is ~1 hour conversation with Daniel McShea (https://scholars.duke.edu/person/dmcshea) and Gunnar Babcock (https://gunnarbabcock.com/) on topics of biology, evolution, causation, explanation, and the machine metaphor. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~25 minute talk and another ~25 minutes of discussion between Benjamin Lyons (https://benjaminflyons.com/) and myself, about his work to understand the commonalities between economics and collective intelligence in biology. Some links mentioned in the discussion: https://interestingessays.substack.com/p/prices-as-memories https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4878765 https:...

This is a ~1 hour-long discussion meeting with Stuart Kauffman and Katherine Peil Kauffman, covering evolution, machines, metaphors in science, etc. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~45 minute discussion with Ricard Sole (http://complex.upf.edu/ricard-sol%C3%A9), a synthetic biologist whose work spans evolution, language, and many other fascinating areas. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~45 min discussion with Benjamin Lyons (https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-lyons-ab46717a) and David Bloomin (https://daveey.github.io/) on topics at the intersection of economics, basal cognition, and deep learning. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is the second of our series of discussions with key figures in the field of Bioelectricity. Ken Robinson has a long list of accomplishments in this field, covering the role of electric fields in guiding cell migration and more generally the function of electrogenic epithelia in embryogenesis. This is about a ~1 hour conversation in which he talks about his background, the history of the field...

This is an ~1 hour conversation with Joscha Bach (http://bach.ai/) and Chris Fields (https://chrisfieldsresearch.com/), touching on computation, cognition, error correcting codes, physics, AI, consciousness, etc. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

Don Hoffman, Richard Watson, and I discuss the nature of scientific theories, time, and the physics of cognition. ~1 hour CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a 1-hour working meeting discussing Alexander Ororbia's and Karl Friston's paper on Mortal Computations and their relevance to our work in reprogramming biology and cognition more generally. A few papers: Alexander and Karl's paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09589 Michael Levin's paper to which they referred a couple of times: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/4b2wj CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast We...