Consciousness & Reality Colloquium (Bioelectricity: The Body's Cognitive Glue) - Livestream

Many theories of consciousness postulate specific features of the nervous system that enable it to support minds. These features also exist in other types of biological cells, which are a kind of agential material, that harness bioelectricity: a biophysical modality that evolution was using as cognitive glue from the time of bacterial biofilms. Leveraging molecular tools, to read and write the bioelectric prepattern information in non-neural tissues, we have understood how cells merge into networks, resulting in a kind of intelligence to solve novel problems, form memories, and make decisions. These tools also enabled us to synthesize a novel life form: biobot. The lecture will conclude with implications for consciousness and a hope for ethical synthbiosis with highly diverse beings of novel composition and provenance.

Speaker: Michael Levin, Tufts University