Frontiers in Psychology
December 13, 2019
Michael Levin
287 citations
Organisms are made of smaller parts—cells, organs, molecular networks—that are themselves competent agents. How do these parts cohere into a single, integrated individual? This paper synthesizes ideas from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental physiology to propose "Scale-Free Cognition": a definition of an individual based on its ability to pursue goals at its own level of organization. Any self is demarcated by a computational surface—the spatiotemporal boundary of events it can measure, model, and affect. Higher-level agency evolves from the primal homeostatic drive to reduce stress, with developmental bioelectricity (electrical networks formed by all cells) providing a plausible gradual path from single-cell homeostasis to memory, prediction, and complex cognition. This hypothesis offers testable predictions for evolutionary biology, biomedicine, AI, and exobiology.
Entropy
May 31, 2024
Michael Levin
31 citations
Memory is often studied for its ability to store and retrieve information faithfully, but this work argues that a more fundamental function is dynamically reinterpreting and modifying memories to fit an agent's changing self and environment. Drawing on examples from developmental biology, evolution, synthetic bioengineering, and neuroscience, the author proposes that memory preserves salience—what is relevant—rather than fidelity. This perspective applies across scales from cells to societies. The author suggests that continuous creative confabulation, from molecular to behavioral levels, resolves the persistence paradox for individuals and lineages. A processual view of life and mind implies that memories, as patterns in cognitive systems, can act as active agents in sense-making, supporting a view of life as nested perspectives engaged in polycomputation.
December 28, 2021
Michael Levin
8 citations
preprint
A framework called TAME (Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere) is introduced for understanding cognition in unconventional substrates, including synthetic chimeric systems combining evolved and designed components. TAME formalizes a continuous, empirically-based approach to embodied agency, viewing morphogenesis as a form of basal cognition. It proposes that problem-solving in anatomical, physiological, transcriptional, and behavioral spaces shares deep symmetries, allowing cognitive capacities to scale during evolution. Developmental bioelectricity—using ion channels and gap junctions before neurons evolve—is highlighted as a key medium for linking cell-level feedback into anatomical homeostasis, enabling multi-scale competency and evolvability. This perspective has implications for cognitive science, evolutionary biology, regenerative medicine, and artificial intelligence.
arXiv Preprint Archive
December 24, 2021
Michael Levin
Synthetic biology and bioengineering can create novel embodied cognitive systems—minds—in chimeric architectures that combine evolved and designed material and software, disrupting familiar concepts in the philosophy of mind. The TAME (Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere) framework offers a non-binary, empirically-based approach to understanding cognition in unconventional substrates. It views morphogenesis as an example of basal cognition and suggests that problem-solving in anatomical, physiological, transcriptional, and behavioral spaces scales cognitive capacities during evolution. Developmental bioelectricity, using pre-neural ion channels and gap junctions, scales cell-level feedback into anatomical homeostasis, enabling multi-scale competency that potentiates evolvability and has implications for cognitive science, evolutionary biology, regenerative medicine, and AI.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
May 1, 2021
C. Fields, J. Glazebrook, Michael Levin
A scale-free theory of consciousness and cognition is proposed that applies to any physical system, from bacteria to synthetic constructs, without requiring a neural substrate. The approach, grounded only in quantum information theory, shows that concepts like integrated information, small-world networks, and Bayesian inference emerge naturally from thermodynamic constraints of classical computation. Phenomena such as stigmergic memory, perceptual coarse-graining, and attention switching follow directly from these constraints. The self-representation underlying human autonoetic awareness is traced back to the stress response in bacteria, suggesting a common functional basis across all scales of organization.