What Is the Meaning of Life?

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When I say science and nothing else, I certainly don't mean the science of today because I think overall, I think we are, we know very little. Most of the things that we're sure of now are going to look hilarious down the line. When I do an experiment, I'm still me. There's the experiment, whatever I've done. I've learned something. But ultimately, I include all of that in science with a capital S in terms of like a rational investigation of both first and third person aspects of our world. In order to really study consciousness, you will, you are part of the experiment. You will be altered by that experiment, right? Whatever is that

Michael Levin is a biologist at Tufts University working on novel ways to understand and control complex pattern formation in biological systems. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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Michael’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/drmichaellevin
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Michael’s Papers:
Biological Robots: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.00880
Synthetic Organisms: https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420889.2021.2005863
Limb Regeneration: https://science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2164

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(06:40) – Embryogenesis
(14:08) – Xenobots: biological robots
(27:55) – Sense of self
(37:27) – Multi-scale competency architecture
(48:58) – Free will
(58:27) – Bioelectricity
(1:11:44) – Planaria
(1:23:33) – Building xenobots
(1:47:08) – Unconventional cognition
(2:11:39) – Origin of evolution
(2:18:42) – Synthetic organisms
(2:25:27) – Regenerative medicine
(2:29:14) – Cancer suppression
(2:33:15) – Viruses
(2:38:28) – Cognitive light cones
(2:43:03) – Advice for young people
(2:47:47) – Death
(2:57:17) – Meaning of life