Thoughtforms Life

By Michael LevinScience Education

Thoughtforms Life episodes

June 28, 2025Discussion with Murray Shanahan
This is a ~25 minute discussion with Murray Shanahan (https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/) on topics following up on his talk in our Center (https://youtu.be/ZlKc3ebLgEI?si=Tmq5gOwVDi4t-pip).
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26 min
June 26, 2025Discussion between Adam Safron, Max Shen, and Michael Levin
This is a ~1 hour discussion with Adam Safron (https://www.adamsafron.com/) and Max Shen (https://www.maxkshen.com/home), and Michael Levinabout diverse intelligence and its relevance for pain.
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1 hr
June 25, 2025Discussion with David Spivak
This is a ~1 hour discussion with mathematician David Spivak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Spivak) about issues related to goal-directedness and some puzzles around mathematical vs. physical constants (see https://thoughtforms.life/why-the-tight-clustering-of-mathematical-constants/ for more details on that question).
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58 min
June 24, 2025Endogenous Bioelectrical Networks: An Interface to Somatic Intelligence
This is a ~55 min talk by Michael Levin "Endogenous Bioelectrical Networks: an interface to somatic intelligence for regenerative medicine", going over the state of the art in developmental bioelectricity in the context of collaborating with the cellular collective intelligence for applications in birth defects, regeneration, and cancer. It has some new material beyond what my recent talks on this topic have covered.

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51 min
June 16, 2025Against Mind-Blindness
This is a new ~1 hour talk by me on the concept of diverse intelligence, and morphogenesis as a model system with which to practice identifying and communicating with unconventional minds. This is a bit different than previous ones because I explicitly go over examples of how some of our various data on bioelectrics addresses each of several key properties of cellular collectives as *cognitive agents* navigating anatomical morphospace.
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57 min
June 10, 2025Chemical AI: An Unconventional Strategy for Mimicking Biological Intelligence - Pier Luigi Gentili
This is a ~1 hour total presentation by Pier Luigi Gentili (https://www.pierluigigentili.com/) and brainstorming session about chemical intelligence and its relationship to the broader field of diverse intelligence.
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59 min
June 06, 2025Bioelectric Networks as the Interface to Somatic Intelligence: Toward a New Regenerative Medicine
This is a ~50 minute talk by me (given at IIT Mandi yesterday) on bioelectricity from the perspective of both, a path to regenerative medicine of birth defects, injury repair, and cancer, and a model system for learning to communicate with unconventional collective intelligences.

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51 min
June 03, 2025Conversation with Benjamin Lyons, Mark Blumberg, and Karen Adolph: Motor Development and Cognition
This is a ~30 minute conversation with Benjamin Lyons (https://benjaminflyons.com/), Mark Blumberg (https://blumberg.lab.uiowa.edu), and Karen Adolph (https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/karen-adolph.html) on the field of motor development and behavior in humans and other animals, and the ties between that field and the morphogenetic intelligence of embryogenesis and regeneration.
Suggested reading:
Adolph, K. E. (2020). Oh, behave! Presidential address. Infancy, 25, 347-392.
Adolph, K. E., Hoch, J. ...
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36 min
May 15, 2025Against Mind-Blindness: Recognizing and Communicating With Diverse Intelligences
This is a ~35 minute talk about diverse intelligence and our efforts to establish formalisms and methods for communicating with unconventional biological intelligences.
CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Expanding Mind Blindness
(02:50) Recognizing Diverse Minds
(05:00) Embodied Agent Origins
(08:40) Anatomical Intelligence Spaces
(12:40) Bioelectricity: Body's Glue
(15:50) Communicating Cell Intelligence
(22:30) Patterns Beyond Physics
(25:00) Anthrobots: Novel Life Forms
(27:30) Future Beings, Pattern Space
(32:30) Conclusion and Thanks

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36 min
May 11, 2025Scaling Intelligence in Biology, Artificial Life, and Beyond
This is a ~20 minute very rapid talk reviewing ideas around the scaling of intelligence in unconventional substrates.
CHAPTERS:

(00:00) Intro & Unconventional Concepts
(00:40) Challenging Traditional Worldviews
(01:40) Life as Continua
(03:00) Electromagnetic Spectrum Analogy
(04:30) Spectrum of Mind Applications
(05:50) Single Cell to Mind
(07:10) Agential Material: Cell Competency
(08:00) Intelligence Below Cells
(09:00) Multiscale Competency Architecture
(10:00) Anatomical Alignment Problem
(12:30) Bioelectricity: Cognitive Glue
(13:30) Scaling Goals: Light Cone
(14:30) Salamander Regeneration Example
(15:30) Tadpole Eye on Tail
(17:00) Bioelectrical Interface Methods
(18:00) Rewriting Body Memory
(19:00) Frog Limb Regeneration
(20:30) Plasticity: Novel Organisms
(21:30) Anthrobots from Human Cells
(23:00) Future of Viable Agents
(24:00) Synthbiosis: Recognizing Minds
(25:00) Credits and Thanks

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25 min

About Thoughtforms Life

From the publisher's feed

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…