Michael Levin: Creating Life in the Lab, Alien Intelligence & Computation | Lex Fridman Podcast #486

This podcast recap is from a conversation with biologist Michael Levin regarding his work on mind, intelligence, and life, asserting that these concepts exist on a spectrum rather than being defined by a sharp, Cartesian cut. Levin explains his core theory that a system's capacity for agency can be measured by its cognitive light cone, which represents the spatiotemporal scale of the goals it can actively pursue. Controverting traditional physical reductionism, he proposes that the material world acts as an interface for patterns originating in a Platonic space, which explains how systems, from human brains to simple sorting algorithms, exhibit unexpected competencies. This perspective is empirically grounded through his creation of novel synthetic life forms, such as Xenobots and Anthrobots, which display complex collective problem-solving capabilities. Levin advocates for a technological approach to mind everywhere (TAME) to help researchers recognize pervasive, unconventional terrestrial intelligences (SUTI) within biological organisms and machines, noting that focusing only on physical mechanisms is insufficient to grasp these phenomena. Ultimately, his work encourages scientists to expand their tools and vocabulary to better map the latent space of cognitive possibilities.