Michael Levin PHD - BIOELECTRICITY AND THE BLUEPRINTS OF LIFE
Nov 1, 2023
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Exploring the role of bioelectricity in the formation of new organisms. Discussing the relationship between DNA and electrical fields. Exploring the distribution of quantum mechanics and prime numbers. Exploring the significance of cellular plasticity and bioelectricity for regenerative medicine. The concept of collective intelligence in organisms and its relevance in understanding complex systems.
Bioelectricity plays a role in guiding morphogenesis and carries information for building different anatomical features.
Understanding where patterns are encoded is essential for uncovering the mechanisms behind shape formation and function.
Harnessing the capabilities of bioelectricity can revolutionize regenerative medicine.
Deep dives
Understanding the Instructive Nature of Bioelectrical Patterns
Bioelectrical patterns are not just random but instructive, carrying information for specific changes in organisms. By inducing targeted coherent changes in electric patterns, researchers have shown that cells can be guided to develop specific structures, such as eyes. This demonstrates that bioelectricity plays a role in guiding morphogenesis and carries information for building different anatomical features.
Redefining Where Memory and Information is Encoded
The location of memory and information encoding within proteins and cells remains a complex and unresolved question. Research has shown that stable bioelectric patterns across tissues store information necessary for shaping certain anatomical configurations. These patterns, which are not dictated by the DNA alone, may be influenced by higher-level cognitive factors. Understanding where patterns are encoded is essential for uncovering the mechanisms behind shape formation and function.
Applying Bioelectricity in Regenerative Medicine
Harnessing the capabilities of bioelectricity can revolutionize regenerative medicine. By understanding the collective intelligence and plasticity of cells, researchers can guide and train them to regenerate specific structures. Examples like xenobots, which repurpose cells without genetic engineering or nanomaterials, showcase the potential of using biological materials with high agency in regenerative and biotechnological applications.
Exploring the Remarkable Regenerative Abilities of Planarians
Planarians, flatworms known for their regenerative abilities, provide valuable insights into regenerative medicine and aging research. These organisms are highly regenerative, cancer-resistant, and seem to be immortal. This immortality is due to their asexual reproductive method, which amplifies mutations throughout regeneration. Understanding the biological mechanisms behind planarians' regenerative and anti-aging capabilities can inform future strategies for enhancing tissue regeneration and extending healthy lifespan.
Collective Intelligence of Cells and the Importance of Gap Junctions
The podcast episode explores the concept of collective intelligence in cellular organisms and emphasizes the role of gap junctions in facilitating communication between cells. Through experiments and observations, it is suggested that cells can form networks and share electrical signals, allowing them to function as a collective organism with higher-level goals and agency. Gap junctions enable the exchange of small signaling molecules, which can lead to the emergence of memory storage, goal pursuit, and collective behavior. The ability for cells to meld memories and information creates a larger, coherent being where individual cells's goals become shared objectives, leading to a new level of cognitive self.
Empirical Investigation of Collective Intelligence and Selfhood
The podcast episode highlights the importance of empirical experimentation to determine the reality and extent of collective intelligence and selfhood. The discussion challenges the notion of binary categorization and emphasizes the need for perturbative experiments to understand the problem space, cognitive light cone, and competencies of different systems. The idea of a collective self, whether at the level of ants, ecosystems, or even the entire universe, is proposed as an empirical question that requires systematic investigation. By testing hypotheses about goal pursuit and problem-solving capacities, researchers can gain insights into the existence and nature of collective intelligence in various systems.
What role does bioelectricity play in the formation of new organisms? How do cells connect to form a hierarchy of ever more advanced cognnition, preferences and goals? What are the implications for regenerative medicine, sense of self and consciousness?
In this episode we have the extraordinary role of bio-electricity in the orchestration and elaboration of organisms to look at. I became interested in this topic in the nineties when I read a book that was controversial at the time: ‘The Body Electric’, by Dr. Robert Becker who had been studying the bioelectric fields around salamanders as they regenerated limbs. I’ve been hoping to hear about it again ever since, but I thought the research had died out. That was until my guest Zhen Xu at the university of Michigan, spoke about the work of my guest today, in our episode #37 on her work “Histotripsy: Ultrasound for destroying cancer cells”.
He is the award winning Biology professor at TUFTS Michael Levin, in the department of regenerative and developmental Biology, although he started out as a computer engineer. His specialisations are in how cells form bioleletrical networks, used for storing and recalling the pattern memories that guide morphogenesis. He then applies that to next generation Ai to help understand a top down control of pattern regulation in the new field of the bioinformatics of shape. He is also a visionary in how all this can be applied to regenerative medicine and bioengineering and his work obliges us to re-examine our approach to morphogenesis.
I have been longing to find someone to talk to about the implications of this work for the biolelectric nature of collective intelligence, and how that builds up ever higher levels and layers of collective cellular agency, cognition and sense of self, culminating perhaps in collective intelligences greater than single organisms. For that answer you’ll have to listen to what Michael says in the episode.
What we discuss:
00:00 Intro.
06:10 Bioelectrical fields are responsible for which cells become which body parts.
07:30 The cognitive ‘glue’ that binds collectives of cells to goals, agency and preferences.
09:30 Morphogenesis explained.
11:00 Self-organising cellular adaptability.
12:30 Cells also communicate using electric signals, not only neurones.
16:00 How are cognitive memories encoded in the electrical field? We don’t know yet.
16:45 “Electric face” present in the field: copy it, apply it elsewhere and it grows there!
18:30 The bioelectrical pattern is instructive.
20:15 It’s a simple information encoding.
20:30 Competent active cellular material.
24:30 DNA vs Bioelectricty: Analogy of Hardware vs Software with reprogrammability
28:00 Where is the location of the forms stored, memorised and encoded in the bioelectric field?
30:30 “We really have to redefine what me mean by “Where”“
32:21 We don’t know where the truths of mathematics reside.
38:10 Bioengineering: Training competent materials VS building passive materials.
40:30 Agential’ material: Cells have agency and preferences.
44:30 Zenobots: cells re-program themselves in days, with no training only influenced by their environment.
50:40 Highly regenerative, cancer resistant, immortal: Plenaria asexual worms.
55:40 Gap Junctions: bioelectric gates for cells to network memories and agency
01:01:50 Cognitive hierarchy of selves within selves, with increasing levels of advanced complexity and agency, each with subjective experience.
01:08:00 Collaborative collective intelligence between organisms VS ever larger selves as one unified intelligence.
01:09:00 Testing agency at any level: Perturbative experiment over only observation.
References:
https://drmichaellevin.org/
