Michael Levin

Yes, and I should also say, I don't think the distinction is sharp.

In other words, I think it's a continuum, but I think it's a meaningful distinction where you can make...

changes to a particular protein and now the enzymatic function is different and it metabolizes differently and whatever, and that will have implications for fitness.

Or you can change the huge amount of information in the genome that isn't structural at all.

It's signaling.

It's when and how do cells say certain things to each other, and that can have massive changes as far as how it's going to solve problems.

No, it's really key.

And the other nice thing about competency is that, so my central belief in all of this is that engineering is the right perspective on all of this stuff because it gets you away from subjective terms.

You know, people talk about sentience and this and that.

Those things are very hard to define.

People argue about them philosophically.

I think that engineering terms like competency, like, you know, pursuit of goals, right, work

All of these things are empirically incredibly useful because you know it when you see it.

And if it helps you build, right, if I can pick the right level, I say this thing has – I believe this is X level of competency.

I think it's like a thermostat or I think it's like a better thermostat or I think it's a –

various other kinds of many, many different kinds of complex systems.

If that helps me to control and predict and build such systems, then that's all there is to say.

There's no more philosophy to argue about.

So I like competency in that way because you can quantify.

In fact, you have to.