Researcher Michael Levin: “We would call this intelligence.”
Tag: Michael Levin
Tufts biologist asks, where is anatomy coded in living systems?
Michael Levin: The idea is that there is supposed to be emergence (of anatomy), and that kind of emergent complexity, but this idea that things are working towards a goal, as any navigational system fundamentally does, is not something that is very comfortable, certainly for molecular biology.
How exactly do one-celled life forms learn?
Where do they store memories? New thinking is, changes in the state of the life form, resulting in changed behavior — which amounts to learning — need not “be someplace” or weigh something, for the same reasons as a full USB stick doesn’t weigh any more than an empty one.
At Nautilus: A bioelectric theory of consciousness
The hypothesis that consciousness is a function of bioelectric fields includes the notion that our individual cells are conscious. Levin and Dennett are willing to think of parts of the body as agents too. But from what we can tell, whole persons are not agents in Dennett’s view.
The philosopher and the biologist offer a “fantasy” of how Darwinism can create minds
The problem isn’t with their believing that cells feature lots of intelligence but with their effort to equate human and cellular intelligence. Human intelligence is something quite different.