Curt Jaimungal
Michael Levin is an American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. Levin is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms with Josh Bongard.
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Links Mentioned:
Michael’s paper on cognition – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7935032/pdf/rstb.2019.0750.pdf
Gabriele Carcassi Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VNW7NHwnuM
Michael Levin’s blog post on advice – https://thoughtforms.life/what-advice-do-i-give-to-my-students/
TOE ep with Levin, Tung and Gumuskaya – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG6GIzNM0aM
TOE ep with Levin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0TNfysTazc
TOE ep with Bach and Levin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgMFnfB5E_A
TOE ep with Lang, Friston and Levin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6eJ44Jq_pw
TOE ep with Iain McGilchrist – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-SgOwc6Pe4
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:30 – Biggest Myths of Biology
07:18 – Tying Michael’s Work Together
35:25 – What Are Humans?
56:05 – Basal Cognition
01:14:10 – Conscious Agents
01:33:25 – Bioelectricity and Cancer
02:16:15 – Support TOE
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#science #biology
Source
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e
Join TOEmail at https://www.curtjaimungal.org
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:30 – Biggest Myths of Biology
07:18 – Tying Michael's Work Together
35:25 – Who Are We (Humans)?
56:10 – Cognition
01:14:10 – Conscious Agents
01:33:25 – Bioelectricity and Cancer
02:16:15 – Support TOE
Can we award him his Nobel Prize already, thanks
Is it because the planaria doesn't have to worry about finding a partner to reproduce that it could concentrate on its bioelectrical competency? #michaellevin #curtjaimungal
How do you know if it remembers to make two heads or it ohhhh the regular water means it's not no because the gap junction can still present instructions. So why I'm confused do you think it remembers can't it be a representation of bioelectrical instructions in the gap junction of two heads? #curtjaimungal #michaellevin
Where does the bioelectrical face live B4 there is any substances to hold it?
I've read it lives in action potential exchanged by cells. I'm not understanding with any true depth can someone help me out? #curtjaimungal #michaellevin
He almost needs to humble himself a bit #michaellevin was humble enough to say he used bad vocabulary yet Curt was while quite correct to ask his question could have been gentler in his wording…imo
It wasn't as evident as it has become in say the past 6 months that #curtjaimungal is extremely intelligent….. I mean to keep up with #michaellevin and continuously ask really in depth and clarifying questions is just amazing as most 99% of interviewers just basically uh huh yes yes and why "repeat what the guest just said" as their entire bag of tricks really speaks volumes as to what their able to comprehend. Which everyone has their value, but this is just a joy because he asks questions that actually help me to comprehend better. I mean I've watched #michaellevin for about 1 year and he's difficult as hell for me to actually understand, it tooks months to even begin to follow him at all.
It makes me sad that I couldn't be a scientist. Everything that Curt covers is way more interesting than anything else I do.
Michael levin is a pedophile
Curt, you are a genius at getting the most relevant information from your … genial guests 🎉
I wonder how a mental health expert would implement this to help non offending pedophiles heal in their treatment process regarding their mental illness.
Dr Levine is here to bridge and explain our biological interfaces to consciousness and intelligence. He believes in the existence of the Platonic Sphere(s)(PS)- and tries to find out how bio forms and life interface with it. Most great minds also believed or knew that PS are subtle but fundamental reality, dictating and giving rise to our material reality. Much needed research for humanity, worth incalculable potentials. (It’s the explanation and unification of dimensions of existence.)
Humility, open mindedness, willingness to accept an alternative… I like this guy. Not common in chemistry, surely. He will progress well.
It's like the double slit experiment .Time dilation could allow the cell to see (as a ghost) what will happen and respond.
I am very interested in the scientific experiments that demonstrate ESP as a thing. Curt, could you produce a TOE episode using the science based lab results? The implications are fascinating.
This the best that You Tube hosts. I love the in-depth approach, a leisurely and unhurried exploration. I have been following Michael Levin for some years now. Very intellectually challenging. Exciting! The biology alone is astounding and the wider implications in metaphysics and medical science is thrilling. Well done, Curt!!! Awesome production and interviewing. 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
Consciousness and Neuronal Microtubules: The Penrose-Hameroff Quantum Model
AI will never be this curious
How on earth they managed to concentrate and stay on point with that camera moving around and going so close to them was impressive, beyond what was discussed. Very distracting for the viewer, however, particularly when the camera came into frame. With zooming technology nowadays, I don't understand why they had to get so close.
I really like the way Michael thinks. He is definitely right brain dominant indicated by his strong intuition, gut feelings or instincts. He is also strong left brained indicated by his abilities. A good balance.
I like Levin's focus on strict empiricism combined with wildly daring ideas.
There is no "intelligence" if you mean things that only exist because of a predetermined set of reactions. To me intelligence might as well just be the speed at which someone can integrate information from an environment and transform it into something that is beneficial for itself or to produce a desirable outcome. Intelligence is power whereas wisdom is collected experience which can also be accessed and built upon using intelligence. Some people 'learn' faster than others, but collected works over a lifetime still gives someone more experienced the edge over a more powerful newcomer.
I figured it out, by intelligence he means goal-directed behavior. I don't define intelligence as goal-directed behavior though. If we could have intelligence with a single cell, we wouldn't need a brain.
11:40 When the check for producing a growth factor fails to signal that it should stop producing it, that results in malignant growth. Where is the intelligence in this?
10:07 They stop because the conditions they 'check' for are satisfied. The entire process can be broken down into a series of checks, is there a cell next to me? Yes / no? Does this relate to the plan I have? Yes, then do some other thing. It performs this in a sequence until satisfied that all checks are performed.
Why is this word cognitive thrown around so much? There are no goals, what a cell does is 100% context dependent and deterministic.
Evolution is not cognitive. It's probabilistic. The "goals" of an evolved organism come from it being the form that managed to roll down the right path on a hill. The path that the synthetic organisms have is defined by you. You designed it to behave in that way. Synthetic organism's entire purpose is whatever the creator had in mind at the time, whether or not they fulfill the purpose or manage to do something unexpected is besides the point.
5:37 Just because I can skip some steps it doesn't mean there is no value to be had along the way. For example, you can't even have a chessboard without physics, so it helps me a lot actually.
The fundamental building blocks of the universe are necessary to make a castle, obviously? 4:18
You can't derive more states than in possible from a small thing. For example if you only have 1 and 0 the amount of possible states is 4, you can only add more specific states with more options. Biology works as an analog system so it has plenty of possible configurations, can a hydrogen atom be a brain? No!
Yes this makes sense it's true remember there's a publication that cells retains memory so that's the sign that Dr . Levin is right.
This vid broadened my perspective.
In mechanical systems, there is the idea of breaking in, where repeated usage will wear the parts in such a way that it will run more easily than when brand new. It will eventually break as it wears out completely. You have to somehow distinguish that kind of training from real cognition.
He's absolutely amazing so grateful for these interviews
The engram idea about
The study of platypus could be very interesting according expression of such a diverse genom.
https://youtu.be/1ABN5dLK3L4?is=Ra4BI6bONSBeYTip
This brother is circling the very boundary conditions of life and the universe and has no idea. Hes seeing the experiments and yhe observations but comply missing the ontology of exactly why his cell realigned to the "herd cells or the amputated limb regained growth.
1:20:30 "… at the time it was just me and a tech named Adam." -Genesis 2:7 FATHER is fathering
1:38:12 chickens with funky TOEs
🐤🐤🕺
Viewing cellular survival mechanics through the lens of cognitive behavior offers a profound shift in perspective. While an individual cell lacks a nervous system, it possesses a sophisticated form of biochemical cognition—a decentralized network of information processing, decision-making, and memory [1].
When a cell's lifelong ecosystem abruptly collapses, its behavioral response is not a passive fading away. It is an active, logical, and highly organized crisis management strategy driven by cellular intelligence.
——————————
## 1. The Shock: Interrupted Expectations
A cell's "worldview" is maintained through a constant loop of inputs and outputs. Its environment is expected to provide a steady stream of oxygen, glucose, and chemical signals (hormones, growth factors) that whisper, "Stay alive, you are needed."
* The Cognitive Crisis: The moment the heart stops, the influx of these vital signals vanishes.
* The Behavioral Shift: The cell registers this as a catastrophic environmental anomaly. Lacking the usual external regulatory commands, the cell's internal network takes complete autonomous control, transitioning from a "team player" in an organ system to a hyper-individualistic survival unit.
## 2. The Logic Matrix: The "Fight-or-Flight" Decision
Faced with starvation and suffocating acidity, a cell must make a rapid, calculated choice. In the realm of cellular cognition, this choice is governed by an intricate logical algorithm:
Is there any ATP left?
/
(Yes) (No)
/
Attempt Gene Repair Can it self-destruct cleanly?
& Anaerobic Survival /
(Yes) (No)
/
[Apoptosis: Suicide] [Oncosis: Explosion]
* The Frugal Path (Apoptosis): If the cell still has a modest reserve of energy (ATP), it may choose a highly coordinated "clean suicide." It systematically packs its organelles into neat, membrane-bound "suitcases" so it doesn't harm its neighbors. It chooses order over chaos.
* The Desperate Path (Oncosis): If the energy drain is too fast and brutal, the cell loses the ability to execute a clean exit. Its logical pathways fail, and it switches to a chaotic, brute-force survival mode that ultimately leads to swelling and explosion.
## 3. The Frantic Search for a Solution
The postmortem burst of gene transcription (the "twilight of death") is perhaps the most striking evidence of cellular cognition.
* The Search Algorithm: When the cell detects that its internal environment is failing, its nucleus behaves like a supercomputer searching an ancient archive for a patch to a fatal software bug.
* The Retrograde Response: It bypasses normal operational instructions and unlocks primitive, deeply buried survival genes—including embryonic development genes and cancer-like pathways.
* The Strategy: The cell is effectively trying to revert to a stem-cell state, attempting to "reboot" itself into an adaptable organism that can survive in a hostile, oxygen-deprived primordial swamp. It does not "know" the whole body is dead; it only knows its immediate world is broken, and it is aggressively trying to evolve a way out.
## 4. Memory and the Final Paradox
A cell's structural memory is held in its cytoskeleton and its tightly wound DNA. During the final phases of autolysis, the cognitive apparatus itself begins to unravel.
* The Collapse of Sensing: As the cell's internal acidic enzymes dissolve its own receptor proteins, the cell loses its ability to sense its environment. It becomes deaf and blind to the outside world.
* The End of Information: When the lysosomal nucleases begin cutting the DNA strand, the cell’s fundamental blueprint and memory banks are shredded.
At this point, the individual cellular entity ceases to process information. Its lifelong boundaries dissolve, and its atoms are reabsorbed into the simpler, entropic chemistry of the natural world.
——————————
If you are exploring this concept further, let me know if you would like to examine:
* How cellular memory behaves during deep-freezing (cryopreservation) and thawing.
* The specific chemical signals cells emit to "warn" neighboring cells during an environmental collapse.
* The concept of xenobots—where dead organ cells are harvested and repurposed to exhibit entirely new, collective behaviors.
From Gemini
Nice to see Michael j fox getting a job as a camera man
Wow! This is beyond exciting. Brilliant. Scientific inquiry is absolute beauty.
Somehow biologists are even worse than physicists, although probably not as bad as philosophers. My liver is conscious, sure.
"it's not so much of a discovery, it's more of a new way of thinking about it." He's 500 years ahead of his time.