Michael Levin

And so I emphasize other things.

I don't think it gets too much credit.

I think other things don't get enough credit.

I think the brain is, the human brain is incredible and special and all that.

I think other things need more credit.

And I also think that

And I'm sort of this way about everything.

I don't like binary categories about almost anything.

I like a continuum.

And the thing about the human brain is that by accepting that as some kind of an important category or essential thing, we end up with all kinds of weird pseudo problems and conundrums.

Uh, when we talk about it, you know, if you do want to talk about, um, uh, ethics and other, other things like that, uh, and, and what, you know, this, this idea that surely if we look out into the universe, surely we don't believe that this human brain is the only way to be sentient, right?

Surely we don't, you know, and to have high level cognition, I just, I can't even wrap my mind around this, this idea that that is the only way to do it.

No doubt.

There are other architectures made bond made of completely different principles that achieve the same thing.

And once we believe that, then that tells us something important.

It tells us that things that are not quite human brains or chimeras of human brains and other tissue or human brains or other kinds of brains and novel configurations or things that are sort of brains but not really or plants or embryos or whatever...

might also have important cognitive status.

So that's the only thing.

I think we have to be really careful about treating the human brain as if it was some kind of like sharp binary category, you know, you are or you aren't.

I don't believe that exists.