{"id":213810,"date":"2025-05-12T09:08:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/dr-michael-levin-on-embodied-minds-and-cognitive-agents"},"modified":"2025-05-12T09:08:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:08:34","slug":"dr-michael-levin-on-embodied-minds-and-cognitive-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/dr-michael-levin-on-embodied-minds-and-cognitive-agents","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Michael Levin on Embodied Minds and Cognitive Agents"},"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\/LYyGG9xXpPA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In this episode, Dr. Michael Levin, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University, joins Nathan to discuss embodied minds, his research into limb regeneration and collective intelligence, cognitive light cones, and much more. Dr. Levin and the Levin Lab work at the intersection of biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science.<\/p>\n<p>LINKS:<br \/> The Levin Lab and Dr. Michael Levin\u2019s research: <a href=\"https:\/\/drmichaellevin.org\/resources\/\">https:\/\/drmichaellevin.org\/resources\/<\/a><br \/> Dr Michael Levin\u2019s blog: <a href=\"https:\/\/thoughtforms.life\/about\/\">https:\/\/thoughtforms.life\/about\/<\/a><br \/> Tufts University Faculty Profile: <a href=\"https:\/\/as.tufts.edu\/biology\/people\/f\">https:\/\/as.tufts.edu\/biology\/people\/f<\/a>\u2026 Levin @ Wyss Institute: <a href=\"https:\/\/wyss.harvard.edu\/team\/associa\">https:\/\/wyss.harvard.edu\/team\/associa<\/a>\u2026 Dr. Levin\u2019s Research on Limb Regeneration: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.uchicago.edu\/how-bioelec\">https:\/\/news.uchicago.edu\/how-bioelec<\/a>\u2026 SPONSORS: The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at <a href=\"https:\/\/brave.com\/api\">https:\/\/brave.com\/api<\/a> Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention \u201cCog Rev\u201d for 10% off <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omneky.com\">www.omneky.com<\/a> NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you\u2019re looking for an ERP platform \u2705 head to NetSuite: <a href=\"http:\/\/netsuite.com\/cognitive\">http:\/\/netsuite.com\/cognitive<\/a> and download your own customized KPI checklist. X\/SOCIAL <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/labenz\">@labenz<\/a> (Nathan)@drmichaellevin (Michael) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CogRev_Podcast\">@CogRev_Podcast<\/a> TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Preview (01:07) Intro and brief summary (05:40) Xenobots, anthrobots and the other creatures created by Mike Levin (09:39) Bioelectric memory rewriting (15:01) Sponsor | BraveSearch API (16:09) The difficulty of conducting simulations, which involve running forward passes to predict and alter electrical patterns (20:30) The concept of backpropagation and mode switching in AI models (23:06) Why humans do not regenerate their limbs (37:10) Sponsor | Netsuite (39:40) Learning from small and biological systems onto the concept of possible emergence (45:16) The criticality of multiple scale questions and would a single scale? (55:49) The concept of the cognitive light cone (59:43) Advice on habits of mind and suggestions for inspiration on the AI side (1:13:36) Mike\u2019s suggested directions for the AI developers (1:24:49) Wrap &amp; Sponsor | Omneky The Cognitive Revolution is produced by Turpentine: a media network covering technology, business, and culture. Producer: Vivian Meng Editor: Graham Bessellieu For sponsor or guest inquiries, email: <a href=\"mailto:vivian@turpentine.co\">vivian@turpentine.co<\/a> Music licenses: ABZUSWHJII08TSRH 376I29BQPJASOLX2<br \/> Michael Levin @ Wyss Institute: <a href=\"https:\/\/wyss.harvard.edu\/team\/associa\">https:\/\/wyss.harvard.edu\/team\/associa<\/a>\u2026<br \/> Dr. Levin\u2019s Research on Limb Regeneration: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.uchicago.edu\/how-bioelec\">https:\/\/news.uchicago.edu\/how-bioelec<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n<p>SPONSORS:<br \/> The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at <a href=\"https:\/\/brave.com\/api\">https:\/\/brave.com\/api<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention \\.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode, Dr. Michael Levin, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University, joins Nathan to discuss embodied minds, his research into limb regeneration and collective intelligence, cognitive light cones, and much more. Dr. Levin and the Levin Lab work at the intersection of biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science. LINKS: 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":[1902,11,45,42,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-finance","category-media-arts","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213810","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=213810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}