Neuroscience Beyond Neurons in the Diverse Intelligence Era | Michael Levin & Robert Chis-Ciure
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Why do the hosts argue that cognition can exist without neurons?
Mike, Robert, thank you both so much for joining me. This is exciting. I I've been waiting a long time for this conversation. Welcome back. Well, Mike. Welcome back. Good to see you. Uh, Mike, you've been on this channel so many times. I think you've actually been on this channel more than anyone. So I think it would be a great way to start this by asking Robert, uh Robert, your work, for those who are not familiar, perhaps could you expand what your work covers and how your work has brought you to Mike, and then we'll go into this wonderful paper you guys wrote together.
Right, sure. So I'm a consciousness researcher primarily. Even though I was trained as a philosopher, I mostly act as a neuroscientist now. So I'm sort of a neurophilosopher if you want uh a label. And My work is at Sussex University in Anniel Sutzlab where we focus mostly on consciousness, which is one might say the the big absentee of this paper. But that was deliberate. And we will get into that towards uh towards the end of our discussion. Um My usual work involves trying to think in conceptual but also mathematical and empirical terms about various structures of experience or uh features of experience. Let's call them phenomenological invariants, and this is my my primary line of investigation. However,
In the past year and in the past two years actually Upon reading Mike's work and especially uh the multi-competency architecture that we explore in this paper, I started thinking more and more about the connection between consciousness and intelligence. And we will probably get to that in more detail later. But the main problem with consciousness is the fact that it is less operationalizable than intelligence. And intelligence, Not only is it more operationalizable in the sense that you can create an easily measurable or somewhat easily measurable protocol for determining it as an observer, because that's the big catch. We are always in the position of being observers. And most of the intelligence we detect is also a reflection of our intelligence as well.
So in a sense, detecting intelligence is an acute test for the detector, as Mike likes to say in his papers. And As I got deeper into Mike's work, it happened that Mike got in touch proactively to discuss some consciousness-related things. And we started this collaboration. And the seed of this idea came from primarily this line of thinking. How can we leverage intelligence as a more scientifically tracked? tractable concept to gain an insight into consciousness which is perhaps less tractable at least with our current investigation. And everything ballooned and we we got to this to this paper.
And Mike, uh your thoughts on Robert's journey, his work, what's fascinated you most about it and how and why was it the perfect fit to bring you guys together?
Yeah, uh well, actually uh Luke uh Roloff's uh gave me Robert's name and he said that he sh showed me some stuff and he said that you might want to talk to this guy and I I was like, Yeah, I absolutely want to talk to this guy. And so uh uh yeah, and so and so I reached out and I you know I sent you some stuff because I thought Yeah, I mean, uh I thought uh this is exactly kind of the sweet spot for what we want to be working on. You know, intelligence obviously in our lab is is something that we try to address experimentally, but in the end, you I I don't think you can complete this this journey without really taking on consciousness and uh and the and yet, as you said, it's it's it's it it has all kinds of difficulties.
And so uh the connection between those us two seems like is something that eventually we're gonna have to tackle. So yeah, here we are.
Well, for those who who are watching this or listening to this, the the entire focus is going to be your paper, Cognition All the Way Down two point oh Neuroscience Beyond Neurons in the Diverse Intelligence Era. What a wonderful paper, firstly, guys. Um what and this question is for both of you, what motivated you to move beyond conceptual debates in the cognition wars?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do the hosts argue that cognition can exist without neurons?
0:08–12:11
2
How do bio‑electric networks act as a control layer for morphogenesis?
12:11–23:17
3
What evidence shows memory and learning can occur without synapses?
23:17–35:02
4
In what way is morphogenesis described as collective cellular intelligence?
35:02–46:57
5
How does redefining intelligence as efficient search reshape AI research?
46:57–57:10
6
What is the relationship between consciousness and intelligence in the paper?
57:10–1:08:48
7
Why do the speakers caution against anthropocentric ethics in a broader intelligence era?
1:08:48–1:19:02
8
What future tools and experiments are proposed to extend neuroscience beyond neurons?
1:19:02–1:27:48
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Mind-Body Solution with Dr Tevin Naidu
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Is The Brain an Analog Computer? Consciousness as Dynamic Brainwave Organization | Earl Miller
Is Your Whole Body Conscious? Biological Idealism: From Cells to Selves | Anna Ciaunica
Does Consciousness Require a Subject? The Self, Agency & AI Limitations | Kevin Mitchell
What is Ultimately Real? Consciousness, Free Energy & Spacetime | Donald Hoffman & Karl Friston
What is Consciousness? Nested Observer Windows, Meta-Awareness & Mind Wandering | Jonathan Schooler