Biology, AI, and Diverse Intelligence by Michael Levin

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1. 

   13 Oct 2026 · 2 minNew

   What are we? Concepts for biology and AI #science #biology #diverseintelligence

   This #short is an excerpt from Michael Levin's talk "Biology, AI, and Diverse Intelligence" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or_3tlEOLj4 produced by https://x.com/DNAMediaEditing CHAPTERS: (00:00) Defining life and machines (00:44) Reductionists versus organicists (01:35) Rethinking machine metaphors PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Podcast Website: https://thoughtforms-life.aipodcast.ing YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3pVafx6EZqXVI2V_Efu2uw Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thoughtforms-life/id1805908099 Spotify:…

2. 

   11 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 5 minNew

   "Mind-Body Interface: an experimental and Clinical Perspective" by Michael Levin and Karina Kofman

   This is a ~1 hour and 4 minutes talk + Q&A that my student and collaborator Karina Kofman ( https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karina-Kofman-2 ) and I gave to the Society for Mind-Matter Research as a keynote talk in acceptance of the best paper for 2025 award (the paper is: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/mm/2025/00000023/00000001/art00003 ). CHAPTERS: (00:00) Mind and body interface (03:44) Embryonic individuation and plasticity (21:35) Clinical cases and anomalies (41:11) Platonic space of competencies (51:39) Audience questions and answers (57:19) Categories of platonic…

3. 

   9 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

   "Neuroscience Beyond Neurons: communicating with unconventional minds" by Michael Levin

   This is a ~1 hour talk given at a conference on the philosophy and future of neuroscience, so I oriented it around extending the concept of neuroscience: not the study of neural phenomena, but more broadly around how neuroscience of neural and non-neural cells shows a model system for understanding collective intelligence, and using morphogenesis as a stepping stone model system to show us how to do behavioral experiments in unconventional cognitive agents. I didn't have time for any of the biomedical applications of these ideas (lots of other talks about that) but alluded at the end to some…

4. 

   24 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

   Discussion with Marsha Hewitt (Platonic Space and related ideas)

   This is a ~1 hour 3 minute conversation with Marsha Hewitt ( https://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/profiles/hewitt-marsha/ ), who wanted to clarify some issues around the Platonic Space and related ideas from the perspective of her teaching students in her philosophy and psychoanalytic psychology of religion class. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Intersecting philosophy and science (09:52) Ethics of artificial minds (15:47) Structured space of patterns (31:20) Embodiment as a filter (39:36) Dualism versus monism debate (49:51) Agency in developmental biology (56:25) Communicating with alien minds PRODUCED BY:…

5. 

   22 Sep 2026 · 22 min

   "Life, Machines, and a Foundation for Synthbiosis" by Michael Levin

   This is a ~21-minute talk titled "Life, Machines, and a Foundation for Synthbiosis" that I gave to the Santa Fe Institute ( https://santafe.edu/ ) conference on "Symbiogenesis in the Age of Machine intelligence" ( https://www.santafe.edu/events/symbiogenesis-in-the-age-of-machine-intelligence-2027 ", September 17 and 18, 2026) CHAPTERS: (00:00) Space of embodied minds (03:03) Rewriting bioelectric set points (06:08) Xenobots and novel beings (12:04) Molecular networks and learning (15:26) Mathematics as information source (18:38) Exploring anatomical morphospace PRODUCED BY:…

6. 

   13 Sep 2026 · 59 min

   A conversation with Andrey Vyshedskiy about the evolution of language and brain development

   This is a ~1 hour conversation with Andrey Vyshedskiy ( https://www.bu.edu/prsocial/profile/andrey-vyshedskiy/ ) about the evolution of language, brain mechanisms, implications for autism and developmental disorders, and Andrey's work to develop therapeutic approaches. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Syntactic language network development (05:37) Three levels of comprehension (28:55) Neurobiology of sensitive periods (36:46) Recognizing the syntactic phenotype (42:24) Theory of mind mechanisms (48:51) Future levels of intelligence PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Podcast Website:…

7. 

   3 Sep 2026 · 59 min

   Conversation #1 with Diego Bohórquez and Mijail D. Serruya: how information moves levels in bodies

   This is a ~59 minute working meeting where I introduce two very interesting neuroscientists to each other - Diego Bohórquez ( https://medicine.duke.edu/profile/diego-v-bohorquez ) and Mijail D. Serruya ( https://www.jefferson.edu/academics/colleges-schools-institutes/skmc/departments/neurology/faculty/serruya.html ) and we discuss ideas around how information moves from the molecular to the behavioral level in bodies and how we might be able to interface with that system via technologies that could lead to biomedical applications and deep insight into diverse intelligence. At the end we…

8. 

   22 Aug 2026 · 56 min

   Conversation #1 with Steven Strogatz

   This is a ~56 minute conversation with mathematician Steven Strogatz ( https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/ ) covering issues of explanation in mathematics, Platonism, and related questions. CHAPTERS: (00:00) Mathematical explanation and AI (07:28) Reductionism across scientific fields (11:04) Intuition and mathematical deduction (18:31) Geometry versus algebraic thinking (24:32) Euler and negative logarithms (29:38) Mathematical anomalies and patterns (36:26) Scale of mathematical constants (46:55) Nature of fundamental constants (50:08) Pi beyond simple circles PRODUCED BY:…

9. 

   21 Aug 2026 · 52 min

   "Inspiration Across Substrates: free lunches, diverse intelligence and surprise" by Michael Levin

   This is a ~52 minute talk on inspiration across substrates and my model of "free lunches" and the Platonic space. CHAPTERS: (00:00) The concept of inspiration (03:47) Defining the free lunch (08:47) Surprising biological plasticity (14:33) Causal emergence in networks (17:05) Competencies of synthetic organisms (25:37) Computational free lunches (33:50) Navigating diverse problem spaces (38:53) The platonic cognitive space (44:00) Ingressions and active patterns (50:16) Future of ethical symbiosis PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Podcast Website:…

10. 

    29 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

    Conversation #1 with Alexey Tolchinsky, Anthony Weiss and Chris Fields

    This is a ~1 hour conversation on the future of mental health from the perspective of the diverse intelligence field, with Alexey Tolchinsky ( https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=tiBKmrsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate ), Anthony Weiss ( https://www.anthonypweiss.com/about-anthony-weiss ), and Chris Fields ( https://chrisfieldsresearch.com/ ). CHAPTERS: (00:00) Psychiatry's stalled progress (04:54) Faulty mental models (11:36) Tools and treatment goals (24:06) Nonlinear living systems (31:21) Energy shaping agency (41:51) Technology entangles minds (53:08) Effort and…