Thoughtforms Life

By Michael Levin

A podcast by Professor Michael Levin exploring the frontiers of biology, cognition, and emergence. Engage in conversations about morphogenesis, bioelectricity, and synthetic life — and uncover how int... more

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FAQs about Thoughtforms Life:

How many episodes does Thoughtforms Life have?

The podcast currently has 197 episodes available.

Thoughtforms Life episodes:

February 07, 2025Discussion with Alexey Tolchinsky and Thomas Pollak
This is a ~1 hour conversation between Alexey Tolchinsky (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/alexey-tolchinsky-psyd ), a clinical psychologist and Adjunct Professor at The George Washington University, Center for Professional Psychology, and Thomas Pollak (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6171-0810), a neuropsychiatrist and researcher working at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, about issues of collective minds, psychiatry, and cognition. ...
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56min
February 06, 2025Discussion with Robert Prentner and Timothy Jackson
This is a ~1 hour 10 minute discussion with Robert Prentner (https://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=ZYcFVxoAAAAJ&hl=en) and Timothy Jackson (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vOnot8oAAAAJ&hl=en) about Platonism and related concepts. The paper of mine that they reference at some point is: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5g2xj_v3; also an interesting email exchange between them on this topic is here: https://thoughtforms.life/platonism-process-philosophy-and-more-tim-jackson-and-rober...
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1h 10min
February 05, 2025Conversation with Buck Trible on His Work on Static Allometry of Ant Castes and Emergent Cognition
This is a ~1 hour conversation with Buck Trible (https://triblelab.fas.harvard.edu/people/waring-buck-trible, https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JLN0AT0AAAAJ&hl=en) about his fascinating work on the genetics, morphology, behavior, and sociality in ants.
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1h 3min
January 30, 2025Unconventional Biology, Minimal Models of Intelligence, and Bio-Inspired Computing
This is a 1 hour 10 minute presentation of ideas around the architecture of biology (and how it differs from today's computational systems). Focusing on morphogenesis as a model of collective intelligence, I talk about the intelligence ratchet that results from life's need to creatively interpret information on the cognitive, developmental, and evolutionary scale. I end with some speculative ideas about Platonic space and cognitive patterns therein, which radically enlarge the set of beings.
Th...
CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Introduction: Body, Mind Symmetry
(05:00) Diverse Biological Intelligence Examples
(12:50) Multi-Scale Competency Architecture
(19:00) Collective Morphospace Intelligence
(24:00) Bioelectric Communication Interface
(29:30) Rewriting Anatomical Memories
(38:00) Selfhood and Collective Goals
(46:00) Unreliable Substrate, Creative Problem-Solving
(55:30) Exploring Novel Forms, Patterns
(01:06:30) Summary and Future Research
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1h 11min
January 18, 2025Neuroscience Beyond Neurons: How Somatic Bioelectricity Implements an Unconventional Intelligence
This is a ~1 hr10min talk I gave at a conference on modeling aspects of neuroscience. The talk is about the inverse idea - how tools and concepts from neuroscience apply far beyond neurons and brains, and can help understand a lot of biology across development, evolution, and diverse intelligence. I talked about what the symmetry between cognitive science and the study of morphogenesis means for biomedicine and for some questions in behavioral/cognitive science.
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1h 9min
December 20, 2024Conversation 1 Between Gunnar Babcock, Daniel McShea, Mark Solms, and Michael Levin
This is a ~1 hour conversation on topics of consciousness, AI, causation, affect, evolution, and philosophy between Gunnar Babcock (https://cals.cornell.edu/gunnar-babcock), Daniel McShea (https://scholars.duke.edu/person/dmcshea), Mark Solms (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vD4p8rQAAAAJ&hl=en), and I.
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1h 2min
December 20, 2024Conversation Between Aaron Sloman, Anthony Leggett, Chris Fields, and Michael Levin
This is a ~1 hour talk with Aaron Sloman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sloman), Anthony Leggett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_James_Leggett), and Chris Fields (https://chrisfieldsresearch.com/). The links to which Aaron refers are:
https://cogaffarchive.org/misc/whatlife.html
https://cogaffarchive.org/evol-devol.html
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1h 5min
December 19, 2024Novel Bodies, Unconventional Minds: Diverse Intelligence and the Study of Consciousness
This is a ~55 minute talk titled "Novel Bodies, Unconventional Minds: a diverse intelligence perspective on a continuum of cognition (and consciousness)" by Michael Levin given at the CIFAR (https://cifar.ca/next-generation/cifar-neuroscience-of-consciousness-winter-school/) Neuroscience of Consciousness Winter School, + about 20 min of Q&A. My lab doesn't normally work on consciousness per se, but we do a lot of things that are relevant to questions in the philosophy of mind so in this talk I ...
CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Introduction and Talk Outline
(03:00) Challenging Conventional Categories
(06:00) Unusual Biology and Cell Journey
(12:00) Collective Intelligence and Problem Spaces
(19:00) Morphogenesis Collective Intelligence
(24:00) Bioelectrical Networks and Control
(30:00) Planaria Memory and Regeneration
(34:00) Scale of Self, Cancer
(38:00) Patterns from Platonic Space
(41:00) Novel Life Forms: Xenobots
(48:00) Anthrobots and Beyond
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1h 21min
December 15, 2024Bernardo Kastrup, Richard Watson, and Mike Levin - Conversation
This is a ~1 hour 20 minutes conversation between Bernardo Kastrup (https://www.bernardokastrup.com/), Richatrd Watson (https://www.richardawatson.com/), and me on topics at the intersection of physics, cognition, consciousness, etc.
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1h 22min
December 14, 2024Collective Intelligence of the Body: The Multiscale Architecture of Selves
This is a ~55 minute talk on the topic of the "Multiscale Human" (https://humanatlas.io/events/2024-24h/). I cover the topics of "what are we", "implications for biomedicine", and "future beyond human repair" from the perspectives of diverse intelligence at different scales of our bodies and at scales of evolution, development, and cognition.
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54min

FAQs about Thoughtforms Life:

How many episodes does Thoughtforms Life have?

The podcast currently has 197 episodes available.

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