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Beyond Complexity & Emergence: Taming Multiscale Competency in Agential Materials

54 min • 19 juli 2025

This is a ~54 minute talk given at a workshop on complexity. Many of the examples are the same ones I often talk about but this talk is focused on explaining how biology deals with complexity, and ways to think about complex patterns of form and behavior beyond the conventional approach of emergence.

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Senaste avsnitt

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Diverse Intelligence

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Discussion: Chris Fields, Mark Solms, Michael Levin

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Conversation between Douglas Brash, Chris Fields, and Michael Levin

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Conversation of Michael Levin with Iain McGilchrist

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Developmental Bioelectricity as a Precursor to Neurobiology

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Tame

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Beyond Complexity & Emergence: Taming Multiscale Competency in Agential Materials

Senaste avsnitt

Against Mind-blindness: Recognizing and Communicating with Agential Materials and Beyond - Michael Levin

Beyond Complexity & Emergence: Taming Multiscale Competency in Agential Materials

Engineering Agential Materials

Discussion with Michael Johnson

Unconventional Selves - a Diverse Intelligence Perspective on Consciousness by Michael Levin

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense without Teleology

Discussion with Murray Shanahan

Discussion between Adam Safron, Max Shen, and Michael Levin

Discussion with David Spivak

Endogenous Bioelectrical Networks: An Interface to Somatic Intelligence

Against Mind-Blindness

Chemical AI: An Unconventional Strategy for Mimicking Biological Intelligence - Pier Luigi Gentili

Bioelectric Networks as the Interface to Somatic Intelligence: Toward a New Regenerative Medicine

Conversation with Benjamin Lyons, Mark Blumberg, and Karen Adolph: Motor Development and Cognition

Against Mind-Blindness: Recognizing and Communicating With Diverse Intelligences

Scaling Intelligence in Biology, Artificial Life, and Beyond

Culture as an Additional Scale of Biological Organisation with Ivan Kroupin and Tian Chen Zeng

Ethics and the New Biology

Conversation with Frank Putnam and Alexey Tolchinsky

Discussion with Michael Johnson

How Does It Know? Bioelectricity as Memory Medium, Cognitive Glue, & Path to Regenerative Medicine

Uncovering Electrodynamic Design Principles of Living Cells

Discussion with Alexey Tolchinsky and Thomas Pollak

Conversation with Lauren Ross

Interview with Azra Raza on a New Theory and Practice of Cancer

Life, Mind, and Computing: A Diverse Intelligence Perspective

Cellular Automata and Models of Health and Disease

Conversation of Michael Levin with Iain McGilchrist

Bioelectric Networks: An Interface to Engineering with the Agential Material of Life

Aastha Jain Simes and I Interview Pamela Lyon

Discussion with Mayli Mertens on Molecular Placebos and Bioelectricity

Biological and Technological Information Processing: Commonalities, Differences and Implications

Conversation 2 Between Gunnar Babcock, Daniel McShea, Mark Solms, and Michael Levin

Conversation with Richard Watson and Leo Caves

A Conversation with Mark Solms on Life and Mind

Discussion with Alexey Tolchinsky and Thomas Pollak

Discussion with Robert Prentner and Timothy Jackson

Conversation with Buck Trible on His Work on Static Allometry of Ant Castes and Emergent Cognition

Unconventional Biology, Minimal Models of Intelligence, and Bio-Inspired Computing

Neuroscience Beyond Neurons: How Somatic Bioelectricity Implements an Unconventional Intelligence

Conversation 1 Between Gunnar Babcock, Daniel McShea, Mark Solms, and Michael Levin

Conversation Between Aaron Sloman, Anthony Leggett, Chris Fields, and Michael Levin

Novel Bodies, Unconventional Minds: Diverse Intelligence and the Study of Consciousness

Bernardo Kastrup, Richard Watson, and Mike Levin - Conversation

Collective Intelligence of the Body: The Multiscale Architecture of Selves

Self-Constructing Bodies, Collective Minds: The Intersection of CS, Cognitive Bio, and Philosophy

Discussion with Martin Hanczyc: Minimal Models of Cognition and Active Matter Research

Embodied Minds: Discovering Diverse Intelligence through the Lens of Biomedicine

Aastha Jain Simes & I Interview Denis Noble

Discussion with Daniel McShea and Gunnar Babcock

Unconventional Cognition Through the Lens of Cellular Collective Intelligence in Morphogenesis

The Bioelectric Interface to the Intelligence of the Body: The Future of Biomedicine

The Bioelectric Basis of Morphogenetic Intelligence: A Roadmap for Cancer Medicine

The Collective Intelligence of Morphogenesis: A Model System for Basal Cognition

Discussion with Kevin Mitchell, Nick Cheney, and Ben Hartl on Evolution, Development, Generative Models

Aastha Jain Simes & I Interview Mustafa Djamgoz, Foundational Contributor to Cancer Bioelectricity

Conversation 1 with Alex Schmidt and Alexey Tolchinsky

Discussion with Richard Watson and Josh Bongard

Conversation between Josh Bongard, Tom Froese, and I on Irruption Theory, Polycomputing, and Minds

Conversation Between Josh Bongard, Atoosa Parsa, Richard Watson, and I

Discussion With Tim Jackson, Karl Friston, and Chris Fields

An Active Inference Model of Collective Intelligence by R. Kaufman, P. Gupta, and J. Taylor

The Mind of the Body: A Window into Embodiment and Our Future

Discussion with Daniel McShea and Gunnar Babcock

Prices as Cognitive Glue by Benjamin Lyons

Discussion with Stuart Kauffman and Katherine Peil Kauffman

Discussion with Ricard Sole

Economics, Deep Learning, and Basal Cognition

Aastha Jain Simes & I Interview Ken Robinson, a Great Figure in Developmental Bioelectricity

Conversation between Donald Hoffman and Richard Watson

Conversation between Joscha Bach, Chris Fields, and Michael Levin

Discussion on Mortal Computations with Alexander Ororbia, Karl Friston, and Chris Fields

Tom Froese and Michael Levin Discuss Tom's Irruption Theory

Discussion with Michael Pollan of New Ideas on Memories and Selves

Biorobotics: Engineering with Agential Materials

Where Minds Come From: The Scaling of Collective Intelligence, and What It Means for AI and You

Aastha Jain Simes & I Interview Min Zhao, a Leader in the Role of Bioelectricity in Wound Healing

A Conversation with Alison Hanson on Cognitive Science and Her Trajectory in Neurobiology