My first conversation with Michael Levin, a developmental biologist revolutionizing how we think about cellular collective, agency, and life in general. One of those conversations where I feel we dive deep and only scratch the surface, at the same time: nested agents, birth, aging, and death, third person and first person science.

Related episodes:

Embodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpM

Alexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BI

Baudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84

Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBk

Anna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsg

Anna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8

Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i8

00:00 Intro.

04:11 Agency. Cellular cognition. How to prompt cells?

18:45 Nested agency. Interpenetrating ecosystems, vertical and horizontal. The life of persistent patterns.

23:46 Nested cognitive light cones: how do goals grow in collective agents?

31:34 What do the parts think about the whole? How does higher level meaning manifests itself at lower levels? The shamanistic method of first-person "science".

38:33 Why do we die? Layered ontology and Bard's process and event: the dynamics of nested agents. Birth, death, self-transformation. Psychological theory of aging. Vervaeke's reciprocal narrowing.

I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/balazskegl

Artwork: DALL-E

Music: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw

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