The Psychosphere

Together with world-renowned philosopher, Daniel Dennett, and biologist, Michael Levin, Melanie discusses the idea that the intelligence and agency of a living being may be better understood as distributed or present throughout the body of an organism. You can find out more about their work at Tufts University, and read about their ideas on Cognition All the Way Down here.

This week, Melanie is joined by plant scientist Paco Calvo to discuss the intelligence of the greenery that surrounds us. Are plants intelligent and how can we understand or study this? Paco is the head of the MINT (Minimal Intelligence) lab and a leading figure in the philosophy of plant behavior and signalling (plant neurobiology). He is also a philosopher concerned with issues at the intersection of plant biology and cognitive science. He is the author of the book Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence (2022).

Join Melanie in conversation with neurobiologist, Kevin Mitchell, as they discuss how animals came to behave in intelligent, purposeful ways, and why this matters. Kevin is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He blogs at Wiring the Brain and Tweets at: @WiringtheBrain.
Books include INNATE – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are (2018) and Free Agents: How Evolution Gave us Free Will (2023).