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

Thoughtforms Life

#Science #Podcasting Education #Professor Michael Levin #Michael Levin #Biology #Consciousness #Morphogenesis #Bioelectricity #Regenerative Medicine #And Synthetic Biology #Cognitive #Agency

26:28

Squid Game is back—and this time, the knives are out. In the thrilling Season 3 premiere, Player 456 is spiraling and a brutal round of hide-and-seek forces players to kill or be killed. Hosts Phil Yu and Kiera Please break down Gi-hun’s descent into vengeance, Guard 011’s daring betrayal of the Game, and the shocking moment players are forced to choose between murdering their friends… or dying. Then, Carlos Juico and Gavin Ruta from the Jumpers Jump podcast join us to unpack their wild theories for the season. Plus, Phil and Kiera face off in a high-stakes round of “Hot Sweet Potato.” SPOILER ALERT! Make sure you watch Squid Game Season 3 Episode 1 before listening on. Play one last time. IG - @SquidGameNetflix X (f.k.a. Twitter) - @SquidGame Check out more from Phil Yu @angryasianman , Kiera Please @kieraplease and the Jumpers Jump podcast Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts . Squid Game: The Official Podcast is produced by Netflix and The Mash-Up Americans.…

about a year ago 1:02:32

MP3•Episode home

(00:00) Agential Material for Bioengineering
(02:00) The Anatomical Compiler Goal
(04:00) Biology as Agential Material
(06:00) Intelligence Below Cell Level
(09:00) Anatomy Not Just DNA
(12:00) Hardware vs Software Biology
(14:00) Cellular Collective Intelligence Examples
(18:00) Creative Problem-Solving in Cells
(22:00) Cognitive Glue and Goal-Seeking
(25:00) Bioelectricity: Ancient Communication
(28:00) Reading and Writing Patterns
(30:00) Rewriting Collective Cell Memory
(33:00) Regenerating Limbs in Frogs
(35:00) Planaria Pattern Memory
(39:00) Plasticity Beyond Species
(41:00) Novel Shapes and Galls
(44:00) Computational Models for Repair
(49:00) Cancer as Goal Failure
(50:00) Bioelectric Cancer Suppression
(53:00) Novel Anatomical Goals: Xenobots
(01:00:00) Human Anthrobots from Cells
(01:02:00) Autonomous Personalized Therapeutics
(01:04:00) Top-Down Biomedical Approaches
(01:06:00) Biorobotics and Bioprompting
(01:07:00) Ethics of Diverse Beings

CONNECT WITH ME:

132 episodes

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

Thoughtforms Life

published about a year ago

MP3•Episode home

CHAPTERS:

CONNECT WITH ME:

132 episodes

#Science #Podcasting Education #Professor Michael Levin #Michael Levin #Biology #Consciousness #Morphogenesis #Bioelectricity #Regenerative Medicine #And Synthetic Biology #Cognitive #Agency

All episodes

1
Engineering Agential Materials 27:20

5 days ago27:20

27:20

This is a ~18 min talk plus ~10 min Q&A on a top-down approach to bioengineering and robotics that I gave at the Biohybrid Robotics Symposium in Switzerland in July 2025 (https://biohybrid-robotics.com/). CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

1
Discussion with Michael Johnson 55:20

7 days ago55:20

55:20

This is a ~55 minute conversation with Michael Johnson (https://t.co/YxAOZif0V2) covering topics of spectrum of consciousness down to the cell (and below) level, implicit memory and cellular pixels of experience, Platonic space, symmetry breaking, and intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation in systems. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Unconventional Selves - a Diverse Intelligence Perspective on Consciousness by Michael Levin 1:11:51

9 days ago1:11:51

1:11:51

"Unconventional selves in novel spaces, scales, and embodiments - a diverse intelligence perspective on a continuum of cognition and consciousness" is a ~1 hour 12 min talk I gave at a conference on consciousness (https://www.hardproblem.it/), as it relates to our work on diverse intelligence and unconventional cognition. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Nothing in Biology Makes Sense without Teleology 1:18:54

11 days ago1:18:54

1:18:54

This is a deliberately provocative talk (~1 hour 20 minutes) I gave on teleology (a pretty taboo subject in a lot of the life sciences) delivered at Caltech. I try to go step by step and show the philosophical background of how I think about goal-directedness in physically embodied agents (cells and tissues etc.) and then the data - classic examples and new discoveries that this framework allowed us to make. Editing by https://x.com/DNAMediaEditing CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Discussion with Murray Shanahan 25:24

18 days ago25:24

25:24

This is a ~25 minute discussion with Murray Shanahan (https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/) on topics following up on his talk in our Center (https://youtu.be/ZlKc3ebLgEI?si=Tmq5gOwVDi4t-pip). CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

1
Discussion between Adam Safron, Max Shen, and Michael Levin 59:14

20 days ago59:14

59:14

This is a ~1 hour discussion with Adam Safron (https://www.adamsafron.com/) and Max Shen (https://www.maxkshen.com/home), and Michael Levinabout diverse intelligence and its relevance for pain. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

1
Discussion with David Spivak 57:14

21 days ago57:14

57:14

This is a ~1 hour discussion with mathematician David Spivak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Spivak) about issues related to goal-directedness and some puzzles around mathematical vs. physical constants (see https://thoughtforms.life/why-the-tight-clustering-of-mathematical-constants/ for more details on that question). CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Endogenous Bioelectrical Networks: An Interface to Somatic Intelligence 51:00

21 days ago51:00

51:00

This is a ~55 min talk by Michael Levin "Endogenous Bioelectrical Networks: an interface to somatic intelligence for regenerative medicine", going over the state of the art in developmental bioelectricity in the context of collaborating with the cellular collective intelligence for applications in birth defects, regeneration, and cancer. It has some new material beyond what my recent talks on this topic have covered. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Against Mind-Blindness 56:35

29 days ago56:35

56:35

This is a new ~1 hour talk by me on the concept of diverse intelligence, and morphogenesis as a model system with which to practice identifying and communicating with unconventional minds. This is a bit different than previous ones because I explicitly go over examples of how some of our various data on bioelectrics addresses each of several key properties of cellular collectives as *cognitive agents* navigating anatomical morphospace. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Chemical AI: An Unconventional Strategy for Mimicking Biological Intelligence - Pier Luigi Gentili 58:25

5 weeks ago58:25

58:25

This is a ~1 hour total presentation by Pier Luigi Gentili (https://www.pierluigigentili.com/) and brainstorming session about chemical intelligence and its relationship to the broader field of diverse intelligence. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Bioelectric Networks as the Interface to Somatic Intelligence: Toward a New Regenerative Medicine 50:53

6 weeks ago50:53

50:53

This is a ~50 minute talk by me (given at IIT Mandi yesterday) on bioelectricity from the perspective of both, a path to regenerative medicine of birth defects, injury repair, and cancer, and a model system for learning to communicate with unconventional collective intelligences. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Conversation with Benjamin Lyons, Mark Blumberg, and Karen Adolph: Motor Development and Cognition 36:00

6 weeks ago36:00

36:00

This is a ~30 minute conversation with Benjamin Lyons (https://benjaminflyons.com/), Mark Blumberg (https://blumberg.lab.uiowa.edu), and Karen Adolph (https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/karen-adolph.html) on the field of motor development and behavior in humans and other animals, and the ties between that field and the morphogenetic intelligence of embryogenesis and regeneration. Suggested reading: Adolph, K. E. (2020). Oh, behave! Presidential address. Infancy, 25, 347-392. Adolph, K. E., Hoch, J. ... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Against Mind-Blindness: Recognizing and Communicating With Diverse Intelligences 35:49

9 weeks ago35:49

35:49

This is a ~35 minute talk about diverse intelligence and our efforts to establish formalisms and methods for communicating with unconventional biological intelligences. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Expanding Mind Blindness (02:50) Recognizing Diverse Minds (05:00) Embodied Agent Origins (08:40) Anatomical Intelligence Spaces (12:40) Bioelectricity: Body's Glue (15:50) Communicating Cell Intelligence (22:30) Patterns Beyond Physics (25:00) Anthrobots: Novel Life Forms (27:30) Future Beings, Pattern Space (32:30) Conclusion and Thanks CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Scaling Intelligence in Biology, Artificial Life, and Beyond 24:04

9 weeks ago24:04

24:04

This is a ~20 minute very rapid talk reviewing ideas around the scaling of intelligence in unconventional substrates. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Intro & Unconventional Concepts (00:40) Challenging Traditional Worldviews (01:40) Life as Continua (03:00) Electromagnetic Spectrum Analogy (04:30) Spectrum of Mind Applications (05:50) Single Cell to Mind (07:10) Agential Material: Cell Competency (08:00) Intelligence Below Cells (09:00) Multiscale Competency Architecture (10:00) Anatomical Alignment Problem (12:30) Bioelectricity: Cognitive Glue (13:30) Scaling Goals: Light Cone (14:30) Salamander Regeneration Example (15:30) Tadpole Eye on Tail (17:00) Bioelectrical Interface Methods (18:00) Rewriting Body Memory (19:00) Frog Limb Regeneration (20:30) Plasticity: Novel Organisms (21:30) Anthrobots from Human Cells (23:00) Future of Viable Agents (24:00) Synthbiosis: Recognizing Minds (25:00) Credits and Thanks CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

1
Culture as an Additional Scale of Biological Organisation with Ivan Kroupin and Tian Chen Zeng 56:54

10 weeks ago56:54

56:54

This is a short summary talk by Ivan Kroupin (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XjxueRYAAAAJ&hl=en) and Tian Chen Zeng (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tian-Chen-Zeng) and then a discussion of issues around biological and cultural multi-scale intelligence. Their longer talk is here: https://youtu.be/dYuNJSilRMo?si=gVvMV_N4pjloe0iX CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Ethics and the New Biology 32:33

12 weeks ago32:33

32:33

This is a ~30 minute talk to an Ethics class (undergraduates) about aspects of our work that have implications for ethics. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Intelligence All The Way Down (06:30) Scaling Up Cognition (13:40) Communicating With Cellular Intelligence (20:00) Freedom of Embodiment (27:40) Ethics of Future Beings CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Conversation with Frank Putnam and Alexey Tolchinsky 56:30

13 weeks ago56:30

56:30

This is a ~1 hour conversation with Frank Putnam (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KLGgJg4AAAAJ&hl=en) and Alexey Tolchinsky (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tiBKmrsAAAAJ&hl=en) about dissociative disorders, clinical psychology, and their applications to the cell biology of regenerative medicine and cancer. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Discussion with Michael Johnson 50:34

13 weeks ago50:34

50:34

This is a ~50 minute conversation with Michael Johnson (https://t.co/YxAOZif0V2) on vasocomputation, stress as cognitive glue, and more generally computation and cognition in unconventional substrates. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

Thoughtforms Life

1
How Does It Know? Bioelectricity as Memory Medium, Cognitive Glue, & Path to Regenerative Medicine 1:00:28

14 weeks ago1:00:28

1:00:28

This is a ~1 hour talk on the field of developmental bioelectricity from a perspective of cognitive science and the homology between mechanisms of self-assembly of somatic and brain-based intelligence. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

Thoughtforms Life

1
Uncovering Electrodynamic Design Principles of Living Cells 55:56

14 weeks ago55:56

55:56

This is a ~1 hour talk by Jack Tuszynski (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Tuszy%C5%84ski, https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/jackt) on electrical and electromagnetic properties of microtubules. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab

Thoughtforms Life

1
Discussion with Alexey Tolchinsky and Thomas Pollak 57:15

17 weeks ago57:15

57:15

This is a ~1 hour conversation with Alexey Tolchinsky (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexey-Tolchinsky), a clinical psychologist and Adjunct Professor at The George Washington University, Center for Professional Psychology, and Thomas Pollak (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6171-0810), a neuropsychiatrist and researcher working at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, on the topic of extending concepts from neuroscience to understand cellular behav... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Conversation with Lauren Ross 57:52

17 weeks ago57:52

57:52

This is a ~1 hour discussion with philosopher of science Lauren Ross (https://sites.socsci.uci.edu/~rossl/), on the topic of explanation and causation - what does it mean to look for explanations in science, what counts as a good explanation, and how do you know you've got one. Lauren's book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/explanation-in-biology/743A8C5A6E709B1E348FCD4D005C67B3 CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Interview with Azra Raza on a New Theory and Practice of Cancer 59:12

18 weeks ago59:12

59:12

This is a ~1 hour conversation of Aastha Jain Simes (https://www.livelongerworld.com/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/aasthajs) and Azra Raza on her unique and passionate journey in oncology and her ideas for cancer therapy. Azra is an amazing person, clinician, and scientist; see more of her work at: Columbia web page: https://www.cancer.columbia.edu/profile/azra-raza-md Personal site with poetry and much more: https://azraraza.com/video-category/poetry-and-ghalib/ Her youtube channel: https://... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Life, Mind, and Computing: A Diverse Intelligence Perspective 33:08

18 weeks ago33:08

33:08

This is a very fast (~33min) flyover of some ideas relevant to the relationship between biology, computation, cognition, consciousness, and related subjects. This was given at the amazing Progress and Visions in Consciousness Science series (https://amcs-community.org/events/progress-visions-series/) as the prologue to a discussion. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Talk Overview and Structure (01:30) Expanding Our View of Mind (04:30) Biology's Multi-Scale Architecture (09:00) Bioelectricity: Ancient Cognitive Glue (14:00) Biology Solves Novel Problems (22:00) Creative Interpretation, Intelligence Ratchet (29:30) Novel Goals, Platonic Space (36:00) Conclusion and Future Research CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Cellular Automata and Models of Health and Disease 35:40

18 weeks ago35:40

35:40

This is a ~35 minute discussion with Willem Nielsen (https://community.wolfram.com/web/wrn2001, https://medium.com/@wnielsen) from the Wolfram Institute about their cellular automata models of disease and our approach to this problem. Papers to which I referred: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00018-023-04790-z https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/25/1/131 https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/7/532 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264722001435 https://journals.sagepub.... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Conversation of Michael Levin with Iain McGilchrist 1:11:57

19 weeks ago1:11:57

1:11:57

This is an ~1 hour 10 minute conversation with Iain McGilchrist (https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/), on the topic of my recent paper on the Platonic Space (https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5g2xj_v3) - forms ingressing into the physical world in biology, causation, evolution, and mind. CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Bioelectric Networks: An Interface to Engineering with the Agential Material of Life 1:02:32

20 weeks ago1:02:32

1:02:32

This is a ~1 hour talk (given at the Departmental Seminar series at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences) on the use of a cognitive approach to bioengineering and regenerative medicine, in which morphogenesis is the behavior (in anatomical space) of a collective intelligence of cellular swarms. I describe our work that takes advantage of the bioelectric interface to re-specify the targets of morphogenesis. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Agential Material for Bioengineering (02:00) The Anatomical Compiler Goal (04:00) Biology as Agential Material (06:00) Intelligence Below Cell Level (09:00) Anatomy Not Just DNA (12:00) Hardware vs Software Biology (14:00) Cellular Collective Intelligence Examples (18:00) Creative Problem-Solving in Cells (22:00) Cognitive Glue and Goal-Seeking (25:00) Bioelectricity: Ancient Communication (28:00) Reading and Writing Patterns (30:00) Rewriting Collective Cell Memory (33:00) Regenerating Limbs in Frogs (35:00) Planaria Pattern Memory (39:00) Plasticity Beyond Species (41:00) Novel Shapes and Galls (44:00) Computational Models for Repair (49:00) Cancer as Goal Failure (50:00) Bioelectric Cancer Suppression (53:00) Novel Anatomical Goals: Xenobots (01:00:00) Human Anthrobots from Cells (01:02:00) Autonomous Personalized Therapeutics (01:04:00) Top-Down Biomedical Approaches (01:06:00) Biorobotics and Bioprompting (01:07:00) Ethics of Diverse Beings CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Aastha Jain Simes and I Interview Pamela Lyon 1:19:45

20 weeks ago1:19:45

1:19:45

This a ~1 hour 20 minute conversation between Aastha Jain Simes (https://www.livelongerworld.com/), Pamela Lyon (https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=1oY1J5kAAAAJ&hl=en), and I. Pamela is a key figure in the development of a biogenic approach to mind, and we talked about her journey to understanding cognition. A few of her papers: https://aeon.co/essays/the-study-of-the-mind-needs-a-copernican-shift-in-perspective https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1059712319871360 https://... CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Discussion with Mayli Mertens on Molecular Placebos and Bioelectricity 29:54

20 weeks ago29:54

29:54

This is a ~30 minute conversation with Mayli Mertens (Marie Curie Postdoctoral fellow at University of Antwerp, https://philpeople.org/profiles/mayli-mertens) and I on the topic of molecular placebos, bioelectricity, and self-fulfilling prophecies in medicine (the latter being the title of her recent paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11017-024-09677-z ) CONNECT WITH ME: Podcast Website YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Twitter Blog The Levin Lab…

Thoughtforms Life

1
Biological and Technological Information Processing: Commonalities, Differences and Implications 1:00:54

21 weeks ago1:00:54