Thoughtforms Life Discussion with Michael Pollan of New Ideas on Memories and Selves
May 9, 2024
In this engaging discussion, Michael Pollan—an acclaimed author and journalist known for his work on food and consciousness—joins Michael Levin to delve into captivating ideas about memory and self. They explore the nature of engrams and the storage of information, questioning what defines the self through metamorphosis. The duo discusses how social context and psychedelics can reshape our self-models and target deeper therapeutic change. Pollan and Levin also ponder the implications of synthetic minds and the ethical considerations of creating artificial selves.
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Biology As A Hacker Of Information
- Biology treats signals as hackable messages where each component interprets them for its own use.
- Michael Levin calls this polycomputing: substrates compute multiple functions depending on the observer.
Memories Preserve Meaning Not Details
- Memories often store compressed, salient inferences rather than literal details across major transforms like metamorphosis.
- Levin terms physical memory carriers 'engrams' which are interpreted by future observers, not preserved verbatim.
Target Interpretation To Guide Regeneration
- To influence regeneration, design interventions that change how cells interpret persistent engrams rather than only altering raw data.
- Communicate with tissues by targeting the memory-interpretation processes to rewrite developmental outcomes.