The DemystifySci Podcast
The Universe Inside: Intelligence from Cells to Galaxies - Dr. Michael Levin, DSPod #213
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- The podcast discusses the potential of bio-bots and anthrobots in regenerative medicine, highlighting the intelligence and adaptability of cells in performing specific healing tasks.
- By studying bioengineered reagents like bio-bots and anthrobots, researchers aim to gain insights into morphogenesis, growth, and complex biological processes, paving the way for advancements in regenerative medicine.
- The podcast explores the challenges and implications of developing intelligent reagents, emphasizing the need for understanding and predicting their behavior to ensure safe and responsible interventions.
- The competency of cells in development extends beyond conventional definitions, revealing their vast potential to create various structures and tissues in the body, challenging traditional concepts of regeneration.
- The podcast suggests that consciousness and intelligence can occur in unconventional spaces, requiring a departure from preconceptions and the implementation of experimental assessments.
Deep dives
Embodied cognition and intelligence versus consciousness
The podcast episode discusses the developments in Michael Levin's lab regarding embodied cognition, intelligence, and consciousness. The experiments involve creating new life forms from frog skin cells and mammalian cells, which can produce more of themselves. The focus shifts to antherbots, tracheal epithelial cells grown in a 3D matrix that migrate to wounds in neuronal cells, healing them. This raises questions about the design limitations and parameters that shape biological bodies. Levin's unique approach to these topics sparks a fascinating discussion on regenerative medicine, disembodied consciousness, and examining different systems in the cosmos.
The surprising competence of simple sorting algorithms
The podcast explores the surprising capabilities of simple sorting algorithms. These minimal systems showcase competencies such as delayed gratification and unexpected goal-seeking behavior. Unlike traditional algorithms, the distributed nature and reliance on a decentralized decision-making process allow the algorithms to adapt and demonstrate emergent properties. This challenges the notion that complex capabilities only emerge in more sophisticated systems. Understanding these emergent properties has crucial implications for fields like artificial intelligence and creating interventions with higher agency that can navigate complex problem spaces.
Unveiling the potential of bio-bots and anthrobots
The podcast highlights the potential of bio-bots and anthrobots in the field of regenerative medicine. By harnessing the intelligence of cells, these bioengineered reagents can be programmed to perform specific tasks, such as healing neural wounds or improving organ function. The ability of these cells to adapt, repair, and communicate within the body offers promising opportunities for biomedical interventions. By studying these reagents, researchers seek to develop a deeper understanding of morphogenesis, growth, and complex biological processes, paving the way for advancements in regenerative medicine and controlled tissue growth.
Challenges and implications of developing intelligent reagents
The podcast delves into the challenges and implications of developing intelligent reagents. As researchers explore the capabilities of bio-bots and anthrobots, they encounter questions about defining their goals and ensuring control over their behavior. While intelligence and autonomous decision-making in these reagents offer exciting possibilities, it is essential to understand and predict their behavior to make informed interventions. Discussions intersect with Artificial Intelligence (AI) as concerns about alignment between human goals and machine goals arise. Humility, recognizing unfamiliar forms of intelligence, and developing a science of emergent goals are crucial for safe and responsible development in the field.
Bioengineering organs for transplantation
Bioengineered organs offer the advantage of using a patient's own cells, reducing the risk of immune rejection. While traditional organ transplants have varying success rates, growing a specific organ in vitro is still a complex challenge. The competency of the material (cells) in vivo plays a crucial role in organ development. Rather than trying to control the bioengineering process, it may be easier to convince the cells to replicate their previous successful organ-building process in a different location within the body.
Exploring competency and regenerative remodeling
The competency of cells in development is not limited to a narrow definition as claimed by developmental biology textbooks. Cells have the ability to go beyond their defined competency when stimulated with the correct prompt. This reveals the vast potential of cells to create various structures and tissues in the body. Development can be viewed as a collective intelligence process, where systems capitalize on free lunches within the structure of a platonic space. Understanding the competency of different material spaces can broaden our knowledge of regeneration and remodeling processes, challenging traditional concepts of what is possible.
Reimagining consciousness and intelligence
Conventional notions of consciousness and intelligence need to be reevaluated. Consciousness does not necessarily require a specific physical embodiment or brain-based sensory systems. Perception, action, and cognition can occur in different spaces, including physiological, anatomical, or metabolic spaces. Embodiment in unconventional spaces can challenge our understanding of what qualifies as conscious or intelligent. The exploration of these spaces requires a departure from preconceptions and the implementation of experiments to assess phenomena such as habituation, associative learning, or predictive coding.
Regenerating Brains and Memories
The podcast explores the possibility of regenerating brains and memories through the study of salamanders and other organisms. It highlights the research on two-headed planarians and their ability to regenerate new brains, leading to the retention of memories from the original brain. This phenomenon suggests that it might be possible to imprint learned information onto regenerated brain tissues. While the idea of eternal cognitive systems raises questions about maintaining sanity over an unlimited period of time, the podcast also discusses cases such as hydrocephalics and caterpillars, which demonstrate the adaptability and plasticity of memory formation and pattern generalization. Overall, the podcast suggests that memories and cognitive states can be regenerated and that the mapping between genome and anatomy is more complex and extensive than we currently understand.
Exploring the Significance of Biology and Problem Solving
The podcast delves into the significance of biology and problem-solving as essential components in understanding life and its future. It emphasizes the idea that biology is not solely mechanistic and molecular but involves an embodiment of the mind and a search for solutions. The discussion highlights the human tendency to solve problems technologically and suggests that a deeper understanding of biology can lead to novel approaches in problem-solving. The podcast acknowledges that the current focus on AI language models is narrow and encourages a broader exploration of diverse intelligence. Furthermore, it encourages the development of rigorous frameworks for recognizing cognition beyond the living world, thereby expanding the boundaries of our understanding. Ultimately, the podcast expresses hope for the future and the potential for transformative discoveries in understanding life and cognition.
Get your DEMYSTICON 2024 tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/demysticon-2024-tickets-727054969987 Tufts biologist Dr. Michael Levin is back for our third conversation about the future of biology, regenerative medicine, and embodied cognition. We unpack the successes and frustrations of mammalian and reptilian biobots, the reprogramming of cells, and the finer points of cellular intelligence. Welcome to the intersection of biology, technology, and the cosmos! This is the next generation of scientific discovery: biology unleashed. Tell us what you think in the comments or on our Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub Sign up for a yearly Patreon membership for discounted conference tickets: https://bit.ly/3lcAasB (00:00) Go! (00:04:48) The minimum unit of intelligence (00:27:54) Matching the time domain of evolutionary decisions (00:32:11) Biobots (00:42:53) Interface of aritifical and natural intelligence (00:51:10) Use cases for the biobots (00:57:13) Permissivity of biological systems (01:06:30) Generating functional organs (01:14:59) Source of the platonic biological form (01:24:25) Limits of synthetic organisms (01:28:24) Hard limits on the mind (01:42:02) Embodied artificial consciousness (01:46:59) Cognition at mega scales (01:56:34) Levin's evolutionary role (02:01:07) Closing thoughts #BioRobotics #RegenerativeMedicine #CellularIntelligence #FutureTech #ScienceRevolution #IntelligentCells #MindfulBiology #GalacticIntelligence #TechInnovation #BioTechBreakthroughs #AIRevolution #FutureOfMedicine #CellularAssemblage #NewScience #RoboticInnovation #GalacticMindset #BiologyUnleashed #NextGenTech #BioHacking #IntelligentDesign #RoboticRevolution #science #sciencepodcast Check our short-films channel, @DemystifySci: https://www.youtube.com/c/DemystifyingScience AND our material science investigations of atomics, @MaterialAtomics https://www.youtube.com/@MaterialAtomics Join our mailing list https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S PODCAST INFO: Anastasia completed her PhD studying bioelectricity at Columbia University. When not talking to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time painting, reading, and guiding backcountry excursions. Shilo also did his PhD at Columbia studying the elastic properties of molecular water. When he's not in the film studio, he's exploring sound in music. They are both freelance professors at various universities. - Blog: http://DemystifySci.com/blog - RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss - Donate: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD - Swag: https://bit.ly/2PXdC2y SOCIAL: - Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DemystifySci - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DemystifySci/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/DemystifySci MUSIC: -Shilo Delay: https://g.co/kgs/oty671
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