{"id":162193,"date":"2023-04-14T20:23:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T01:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/what-are-cognitive-light-cones-michael-levin-interview"},"modified":"2023-04-14T20:23:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T01:23:57","slug":"what-are-cognitive-light-cones-michael-levin-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/what-are-cognitive-light-cones-michael-levin-interview","title":{"rendered":"What are Cognitive Light Cones? (Michael Levin Interview)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YnObwxJZpZc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Michael Levin\u2019s 2019 paper \u201cThe Computational Boundary of a Self\u201d is discussed. The main topics of conversation include Scale-Free Cognition, Surprise &amp; Stress, and the Morphogenetic Field. Michael Levin is a scientist at Tufts University; his lab studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making at multiple scales of biological, artificial, and hybrid systems. He works at the intersection of developmental biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udea9The Computational Boundary of a Self: Developmental Bioelectricity Drives Multicellularity and Scale-Free Cognition (can read in browser or download as pdf)<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2019.02688\/full\">https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2019.02688\/full<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2776 Scale-Free Cognition.<br \/> 3:05 Ultimate question of the embodied mind.<br \/> 5:50 The most difficult interview to prepare for.<br \/> 6:55 One of my favorite papers of all time (screenshare)<br \/> 7:40 The Computational Boundary of a Self.<br \/> 9:25 Defining intelligence (cybernetics)<br \/> 10:30 Cognitive light cones.<br \/> 16:50 All intelligence is collective intelligence.<br \/> 17:35 Nested selves vs. one integrated self (Not Integrated Information Theory)<br \/> 21:10 The same dynamics in the brain occur in every tissue of the body.<br \/> 22:50 Why scale \u201cfree\u201d cognition?<\/p>\n<p>\u2777 Stress &amp; Surprise.<br \/> 27:22 Stress = Surprise?<br \/> 30:30 Intelligence within a salamander example (homeostatic capability of collective intelligence)<br \/> 33:35 The scale-free importance of stress.<br \/> 37:30 Stress is an exported error signal.<br \/> 40:45 Stress means your problem becomes everyone\u2019s problem (cooperation without altruism)<br \/> 42:25 Stress has no ownership metadata (gap junctions permit mind meld) <\/p>\n<p>\u2778 The Morphogenetic Field.<br \/> 49:00 About 99% of the Shannon information in a cell is in the membrane and transmembrane gradient (Bob Gatenby)<br \/> 52:25 Shannon information doesn\u2019t distinguish meaning\u2026 55:53 Cancer cells have the wrong scope of \u201cself\u201d 1:01:17 Manipulating cells via retraining vs micromanaging 1:04:45 \u201cDrugs and words have the same mechanisms of action\u201d-Fabrizio Benedetti 1:07:10 Morphogenetic field of signals coordinating cell behavior, bioelectricity special layer (screenshare) 1:11:13 Harold Saxton Burr predicted this 100 years ago! 1:14:50 Connections to Zen Buddhism 1:18:18 Find more of Levin\u2019s work \ud83d\udea9Links to Levin \ud83d\udea9 <a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=YnObwxJZpZc&feature=share\">https:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=YnObwxJZpZc&amp;feature=share<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/drmichaellevin\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/drmichaellevin<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drmichaellevin.org\/\">https:\/\/www.drmichaellevin.org\/<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/as.tufts.edu\/biology\/levin-lab\">https:\/\/as.tufts.edu\/biology\/levin-lab<\/a> Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds (2022) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/.\">https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/.<\/a>\u2026 Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence (2022) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/24\/5\/710\">https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/24\/5\/710<\/a> Emergence of informative higher scales in biological systems: a computational toolkit for optimal prediction and control (2020) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/.\">https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/.<\/a>\u2026 \ud83d\udebe Works Cited Jeremy Quay (visual artist) at <a href=\"https:\/\/peregrinecr.com\/\">https:\/\/peregrinecr.com\/<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William<\/a>\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harold_\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harold_<\/a>\u2026 There\u2019s Plenty of Room Right Here: Biological Systems as Evolved, Overloaded, Multi-Scale Machines (Bongard &amp; Levin 2023) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2313-7673\/8\/1\/110\">https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2313-7673\/8\/1\/110<\/a> Bob Gatenby talk on \u201cInformation Dynamics in Living Systems\u201d <img alt=\"\" class=\"\"> \u2022 Bob Gatenby talk\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udea8 Note.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/what-are-cognitive-light-cones-michael-levin-interview\">Continue reading \u201cWhat are Cognitive Light Cones? (Michael Levin Interview)\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Levin\u2019s 2019 paper \u201cThe Computational Boundary of a Self\u201d is discussed. The main topics of conversation include Scale-Free Cognition, Surprise &amp; Stress, and the Morphogenetic Field. Michael Levin is a scientist at Tufts University; his lab studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making at multiple scales of biological, artificial, and hybrid systems. He works at the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,412,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}