Thoughtforms Life

This is a ~25 minute talk and another ~25 minutes of discussion between Benjamin Lyons (https://benjaminflyons.com/) and myself, about his work to understand the commonalities between economics and collective intelligence in biology. Some links mentioned in the discussion: https://interestingessays.substack.com/p/prices-as-memories https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4878765 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02688/abstract https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~1 hour-long discussion meeting with Stuart Kauffman and Katherine Peil Kauffman, covering evolution, machines, metaphors in science, etc. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~45 minute discussion with Ricard Sole (http://complex.upf.edu/ricard-sol%C3%A9), a synthetic biologist whose work spans evolution, language, and many other fascinating areas. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is a ~45 min discussion with Benjamin Lyons (https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-lyons-ab46717a) and David Bloomin (https://daveey.github.io/) on topics at the intersection of economics, basal cognition, and deep learning. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

This is the second of our series of discussions with key figures in the field of Bioelectricity. Ken Robinson has a long list of accomplishments in this field, covering the role of electric fields in guiding cell migration and more generally the function of electrogenic epithelia in embryogenesis. This is about a ~1 hour conversation in which he talks about his background, the history of the field, and his time in Lionel Jaffe's lab. The papers we talked about: http://dev.biologists.org/cgi/rep... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

Joscha Bach, a cognitive scientist and AI researcher, joins Chris Fields, a researcher blending physics with cognition, for a fascinating discussion. They explore how error-correcting codes underpin cognition and life. The dialogue spans consciousness as a coherence maximizer and the role of memory in sense-making. They dive into the intersection of quantum theory and free energy principles, probing how organisms interpret and utilize past experiences. Their insights challenge traditional views on intelligence and propose innovative frameworks for understanding minds and perception.

Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist known for his groundbreaking work on consciousness, and Richard Watson, a futurist exploring theoretical views on reality, dive into the complexities of perception and time. They discuss the distinction between living and nonliving as a construct of perception, challenge the idea of scientific theories leading to ultimate truth, and examine how concepts of time may be illusory. Their thought-provoking conversation touches on how projections shape our understanding of causation and the potential for theories beyond space-time.

In this engaging discussion, Alexander Ororbia, a computational neuroscientist, teams up with theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston and researcher Chris Fields to explore the groundbreaking concept of Mortal Computations. They tackle how morphology influences computation and the challenges of programmability in biological systems. With fascinating examples like two-headed planaria, they delve into the uniqueness of biological systems versus machine replicability. The trio also addresses the intricacies of memory storage, inferential dynamics, and the implications of design within Markov blankets.

This is a meeting discussion, ~40 minutes, between Tom Froese (Cognitive Scientist at OIST, https://groups.oist.jp/ecsu/tom-froese) and Michael Levin, going over Tom's recent paper on Irruption theory and discussing embodied minds, agency, and models of mind-body interaction. The paper is here: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/4/288 CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

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.