Paper 1: Bioelectric Networks & Cognitive Glue

• Cognitive Glue: A mechanism that binds individual cells with their own agendas into a unified “self” with distinct goals, especially important in transitioning from a mere collection of cells to an organism. This isn’t a “religious” miracle, but a profound scientific question.
• Neuroscience analogy: Electrochemical signaling in the brain is the known “cognitive glue” for behavior. Levin proposes bioelectricity plays a similar role *before* brain development.
• Morphogenetic agent: During embryonic development, cells cooperate towards a specific “target morphology” in anatomical space. Bioelectricity serves as the cognitive glue facilitating this cooperation.
• Anesthesia example: General anesthesia inhibits gap junctions, temporarily dissolving the “cognitive glue” and causing loss of self, while individual cells remain functional. This highlights the need for *informational* proximity, not just physical proximity.
• Problem spaces: Evolution navigates different problem spaces: metabolic, physiological, transcriptional (gene expression), anatomical (body shape), behavioral (3D movement), and potentially linguistic.
• Evolutionary pivots: Once an organism is good at navigating one space, evolution can relatively easily “switch” it to another by altering sensors and effectors, leveraging existing competencies (e.g., tadpole eyes on tails, sensory augmentation).
• Brain vs. Body: Brains have evolved for speed (faster bioelectricity) and direct long-distance connections (axons). While sharing components like ion channels and neurotransmitters, brains uniquely (as far as we know) enable syntactic language.
• Collective Intelligence: The talk touches on importance that when people are exposed to their research that all biological organization contains collective intelligence is to understand not the self as being an “illusion” but that it expands the sense that the self can become very big.
• “Play the Hand You’re Dealt” (PHD): Organisms, particularly in development, have robust algorithms that build towards the target morphology *despite* variations in starting conditions (chromosome number, cell size, mutations). Planaria are a prime example, accumulating mutations but maintaining perfect regeneration. This means there exists an ability to cope with suprising novel situations with problem solving behaviors that it itself didn’t not learn over an evolution timeline (rather, something like the collective intelligence found that soltuon)
• Quantum Biology: Levin doesn’t specialize in it, but suggests any quantum effects, if significant, would likely be fundamental and pervasive, not just special adaptations. He refers to work by Chris Fields on observer reference frames in quantum mechanics.
• Trophic Memory (Deer Antlers): Deer antlers re-grow with ectopic branch points at the location of previous year’s damage. This implies a long-term, large-scale spatial memory mechanism *not* explainable by current molecular pathways. Similar to the persistent two-headedness in planaria.

Paper 2: Darwin’s Agential Materials

• Spectrum of Agency/Persuadability: All systems, from Legos to humans, exist on a spectrum of autonomy and problem-solving capacity. Engineers must choose appropriate tools based on this.
• Engineering with Agency:
  • Legos (low agency): Require complete, direct control; every action must be specified.
  • Thermostats (simple agency): Have a set point and self-regulate; require cybernetic understanding.
  • Animals (higher agency): Require training/persuasion, but offer resilience and emergent behavior.
  • Evolutionary Applications: This material can be used and has properties such as memory and learning so we could design with them to, say, have materials and organizations in novel situations adapt their physiology accordingly in novel ways (such as morphologically).
• Regenerative Medicine: The key to regenerative medicine lies in recognizing the *appropriate* level of agency of cells and tissues, not treating them as mere passive components. It requires tools from cybernetics and behavioral science, not just molecular biology.
• Evolution as an Engineer: Evolution itself acts as an engineer. The paper explores the implications of evolution working not with passive “Legos” (dumb materials), but with *agential* materials (cells with inherent competencies). This massively impacts evolutionary processes.
• Evolution’s “Search Space”: Because cells *already* possess problem-solving abilities, evolution searches a smaller, easier space of *behavior-shaping signals*, not the vast space of all possible molecular configurations.
• First-order and Second Order Intelligence: second-order intelligence that goes way beyond what first-order systems can ever produce, to produce highly-reliable and efficient navigation of the “play-the-hand-you’re-dealt” property (first-order systems can be a little bit robust in terms of how hardwired they are. So a hard-wired automaton might, under very narrow circumstance, solve certain challenges in the way that we talk about robustness), while evolution with agential materials means, you can actually solve novel problems: you can do well where, before your ancestors could not, this isn’t just, oh it sort of solves a simple homeostatic issue, this is now able to face situations.
• Evolutionary Algorithm of substrate (Collective Intelligence of the Agents in that organism/orgnaizaton): the intelligence of cells (agential materials), their pre-existing goals/competencies are cruical, often negelcted components. This view on “intelligence of the substrates” suggests a broader intelligence landscape, hinting at a non-zero agency for evolution itself, not as a conscious designer, but as a process capable of hypothesis generation and refinement.
• Evolution as an Agent (Proposed Future Paper): Levin suggests viewing an evolutionary lineage (e.g., 50 million years of alligators) as a long-lived, spatially large “agent” continuously generating and testing hypotheses (offspring variations). This is not about a human-level “purpose,” but a non-zero level of agency in the evolutionary process itself.

Paper 3: Biology, Buddhism, and AI (Care as a Driver of Intelligence)

• Care/compassion: How the care concept is approached by biology (Levin Lab) vs Buddhism: Biological study of how single cells transitioned into collectives, how this effects/changes “what does it care about,” Buddhist view about the philosophy and care/compassion.
• Care: Agents as an embodied and situated: The authors examine different agent frameworks, such as reinforcement learning agents, generative adversarial networks (GANs), free energy principle, the theory of the origin of life in a care perspective, in that we propose “caring,” more precisely, the “self-organization” of life begins with chemical interactions, driven by autocatalysis (chemical reactions that form compounds).
• Memory, care and robotics: Where should care arise/where will it be emmited when discussing how it has emmitted in collective biological organizations. Paramecium do or do not “care”? If they do, then, it begs the questions “do the constituent componenets that make it do,” if paramecium don’t, what state during the transition to a large intelligence makes care (a new concept not there) appear? How to put that capability to have more broader compassionate cognitive capability to AI/Robots?
• Construction of Self: The self is not a fixed entity, but a continuously self-constructed process, rebuilt at every moment from memories and past experiences. This aligns with aspects of Buddhist thought on the impermanence of self (though Levin is not a Buddhist scholar). This addresses and combats that nihilistic point.
• “False” Memories: The planarian brain, regrown after decapitation, has memories “imprinted” on it that it did not experience. Levin argues this is analogous to our *own* continuous self-reconstruction from memory, challenging anxieties about “false” or downloaded memories.
• Bodhisattva Vow: The commitment to expand one’s cognitive apparatus and “light cone of compassion,” to enable larger goals. This reflects an upward trajectory once a system has the capacity for this commitment. and ability to improve this capacity/commitment through conscious dedication/actions (consistent practice).
• Expanding Sense of Self: The discussion touches on (but does not deeply explore due to Levin’s admitted lack of expertise) how meditative practices might alter the *perception* of self and interconnectedness. The example being The bodhisattva takes the vow to delay their “Enlightenment” (in Buddhism).

Additional Points, from the end of the Interview

• Art (surreal, ai generative (mid-journey): To illustrate the paper topics/conecpts Levin is thinking about and explore, and express ideas in unique, memorable visual form, often referencing biological concepts like cognition, growth, and and regeneration.
• How paper/findings are recieved: Doesn’t have good measures other than anecdotal feedbacks he had heard from conversations.
• drmike11: his academic website drmike11. org and at Dr Mike 11, in the next couple months, there will be a WordPress site: non-journal publications and discussions to express new papers that won’t get published at normal channels.

论文一：生物电网络与认知胶水

• 认知胶水：一种将具有各自议程的单个细胞结合成一个具有明确目标的统一“自我”的机制，这在从单纯的细胞集合过渡到生物体的过程中尤其重要。这不是一个“宗教”奇迹，而是一个深刻的科学问题。
• 神经科学类比：大脑中的电化学信号是已知的行为“认知胶水”。莱文提出，生物电在*大脑发育之前*起着类似的作用。
• 形态发生剂：在胚胎发育过程中，细胞在解剖空间中朝着特定的“目标形态”合作。生物电充当促进这种合作的认知胶水。
• 麻醉示例：全身麻醉抑制间隙连接，暂时溶解“认知胶水”并导致自我丧失，而单个细胞仍然具有功能。这强调了*信息*接近的必要性，而不仅仅是物理接近。
• 问题空间：进化在不同的问题空间中导航：代谢、生理、转录（基因表达）、解剖（身体形状）、行为（三维运动）以及潜在的语言。
• 进化枢纽：一旦生物体擅长在一个空间中导航，进化就可以通过改变传感器和效应器，利用现有的能力（例如，蝌蚪的眼睛在尾巴上，感官增强），相对容易地将其“切换”到另一个空间。
• 大脑与身体：大脑已经进化出速度（更快的生物电）和直接的长距离连接（轴突）。虽然共享离子通道和神经递质等组件，但大脑独特地（据我们所知）实现了句法语言。
• 集体智慧：该演讲涉及到，当人们接触到他们的研究时，所有生物组织都包含集体智慧，其重要性在于，理解自我不是一种“幻觉”，而是扩展了自我可以变得非常大的感觉。
• “打好你手中的牌”（PHD）：生物体，特别是在发育过程中，具有强大的算法，可以*尽管*起始条件（染色体数目、细胞大小、突变）的变化而构建目标形态。涡虫是一个典型的例子，它们积累突变，但保持完美的再生。这意味着存在一种能力，能够以解决问题的行为来应对令人惊讶的新情况，而这些行为本身并不是在进化时间线上学习的（相反，类似于集体智慧的东西找到了解决方案）。
• 量子生物学：莱文并不专门研究它，但他认为，如果任何量子效应是显著的，那么它们可能是基本的和普遍的，而不仅仅是特殊的适应。他提到了克里斯·菲尔兹在量子力学中关于观察者参考系的工作。
• 营养记忆（鹿角）：鹿角在上一年的损伤位置重新生长出异位分支点。这意味着一种长期的、大规模的空间记忆机制，*无法*用当前的分子途径来解释。类似于涡虫中持续存在的双头性。

论文二：达尔文的自主材料

• 自主性/可说服性谱：所有系统，从乐高积木到人类，都存在于自主性和解决问题能力的谱系上。工程师必须根据这一点选择合适的工具。
• 自主性工程：
  • 乐高积木（低自主性）：需要完全、直接的控制；必须指定每个动作。
  • 恒温器（简单自主性）：具有设定点并进行自我调节；需要控制论的理解。
  • 动物（较高自主性）：需要训练/说服，但提供弹性和涌现行为。
  • 进化应用：这种材料可以被使用，并具有记忆和学习等特性，因此我们可以利用它们进行设计，例如，让材料和组织在新情况下相应地以新的方式适应它们的生理机能（例如形态上）。
• 再生医学：再生医学的关键在于认识到细胞和组织的*适当*自主性水平，而不是将它们视为单纯的被动成分。它需要控制论和行为科学的工具，而不仅仅是分子生物学。
• 作为工程师的进化：进化本身充当工程师。这篇论文探讨了进化不是使用被动的“乐高积木”（无智能材料），而是使用*自主*材料（具有固有能力的细胞）的影响。这极大地影响了进化过程。
• 进化的“搜索空间”：因为细胞*已经*具有解决问题的能力，所以进化搜索的是一个更小、更容易的行为塑造信号空间，而不是所有可能的分子构型的巨大空间。
• 一阶和二阶智能：二阶智能远远超出一阶系统所能产生的任何东西，能够以高度可靠和高效的方式导航“打好你手中的牌”属性（一阶系统在硬连线方面可能有点鲁棒。因此，一个硬连线的自动机，在非常狭窄的情况下，可能会以我们谈论的鲁棒性的方式解决某些挑战），而具有自主材料的进化意味着，你实际上可以解决新的问题：你可以在以前你的祖先无法做到的地方做得很好，这不仅仅是，哦，它解决了一个简单的稳态问题，现在能够面对各种情况。
• 基质的进化算法（该生物体/组织中自主体的集体智慧）：细胞（自主材料）的智能，它们预先存在的目标/能力是至关重要的，经常被忽略的组成部分。这种关于“基质智能”的观点表明了一个更广泛的智能景观，暗示进化本身具有非零的自主性，不是作为有意识的设计者，而是作为一种能够产生和完善假设的过程。
• 进化作为自主体（拟议的未来论文）：莱文建议将一个进化谱系（例如，5000万年的短吻鳄）视为一个长期存在的、空间上巨大的“自主体”，不断产生和测试假设（后代变异）。这与人类层面的“目的”无关，而是进化过程本身中非零水平的自主性。

论文三：生物学、佛教和人工智能（关怀作为智能的驱动力）

• 关怀/同情心：生物学（莱文实验室）与佛教如何看待关怀概念：生物学研究单细胞如何转变为集体，这如何影响/改变“它关心什么”，佛教关于哲学和关怀/同情的观点。
• 关怀：自主体作为具身和情境化的：作者研究了不同的自主体框架，如强化学习自主体、生成对抗网络（GAN）、自由能原理、从关怀角度出发的生命起源理论，即我们提出的“关怀”，更准确地说，生命的“自组织”始于化学相互作用，由自催化（形成化合物的化学反应）驱动。
• 记忆、关怀和机器人：在讨论如何在集体生物组织中发出关怀时，关怀应该在哪里产生/将在哪里发出。草履虫“关心”与否？如果它们关心，那么，这就引出了一个问题：“构成它的组成部分是否关心？”，如果草履虫不关心，那么在向大型智能过渡的过程中，什么状态使得关怀（一个不存在的新概念）出现？如何将这种拥有更广泛的同情认知能力的能力赋予人工智能/机器人？
• 自我的构建：自我不是一个固定的实体，而是一个持续的自我构建过程，在每一刻都从记忆和过去的经验中重建。这与佛教关于自我无常的思想的某些方面相一致（尽管莱文不是佛教专家）。这解决了并对抗了那种虚无主义的观点。
• “虚假”记忆：被斩首后重新生长的涡虫大脑，上面“印”有它没有经历过的记忆。莱文认为，这类似于我们*自己*从记忆中进行的持续自我重建，挑战了对“虚假”或下载记忆的焦虑。
• 菩萨誓言：扩大自己的认知设备和“同情光锥”的承诺，以实现更大的目标。这反映了系统一旦具有这种承诺能力时的上升轨迹。并通过有意识的奉献/行动（持续的实践）来提高这种能力/承诺。
• 扩大自我意识：讨论涉及（但由于莱文承认缺乏专业知识，没有深入探讨）冥想练习如何改变对自我和相互联系的*感知*。例如，菩萨发誓推迟他们的“开悟”（在佛教中）。

采访结束时的补充要点

• 艺术（超现实主义、人工智能生成（Midjourney）：为了说明莱文正在思考和探索的论文主题/概念，并以独特、令人难忘的视觉形式表达思想，通常参考生物学概念，如认知、生长和再生。
• 论文/发现是如何被接受的：除了他从谈话中听到的轶事反馈外，没有很好的衡量标准。
• drmike11：他的学术网站 drmike11.org 和 Dr Mike 11，在接下来的几个月里，将会有一个 WordPress 网站：非期刊出版物和讨论，以表达不会在正常渠道发表的新论文。