Michael Levin | Understanding Intelligence

"We don't know anything for certain." The longer I live the more I am able to accept that statement.

Definition of consciousness: The perception of a self, similar to our own. This is why animals that behave more like us seem more conscious to us, and organisms that do not seem less-so. Our perceptions of consciousness are fundamentally rooted in our human-centric definitions based on our own experiences, so the definition needs to relate back to us. Using this definition we can mathematically define the consciousness of another entity using our own collective averaged sense-of-self as the measuring stick.

Thank you for your time Michael.

I think the questions are so subjective and philosophical, as I listen to Michael’s responses are kind but directly implying he doesn’t study these topics and has so much knowledge and not getting to share it… ask questions about his research please

Great changes in civilization are not possibly be created by a single individual, Great things are done by great systems of individuals.

Brilliant!!! Reminds me a lot of what I have read about Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead.

A few possible salient points: — "The opposite of war is not peace. It is creativity." — Dunbar's number as a possible limit to empathy-driven behavior, and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (all language and logic serving as provisional problem solving tools ... but with an emphasis on 'provisional'. Logic and language also serve as proxies for empathy-driven behavior, but as in the abstract (Wittgenstein's Ladder, Godel's Theorems, the improbability of a ToE diminishing scales below the planck unit or 'before' the big-bang, etc.) ... there are limits to rule-dirven behavior. — The alignment problem with A.I. applies to both the emergent 'hallucinations' of LLMs, and the alignment between typical human nature and those (described below) who will more likely be among the first to use A.I. — A vicious cycle of the pareto principle, driven by a relatively small but persistent percentage of any population which are genetically pre-dispositioned for 'dark-triad' behavior traits ... the pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths among us. Unfortunately, these people being born without the neuro-typical pathways for empathy tend to be both more intelligent (in the narrow sense of the word) and predatory on others. I tend to agree with evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr ... human intelligence may prove to be little more than the lethal mutation of a social primate. The late physicist Stephen Hawking put it another way ... "Greed and stupidity will mark the end of the human race." ... the plandemic, SDGs, CCDCs, the agenda of WHO, the WEF. the Davos crowd, etc. being a case in point. But a quote attributed to Mark Twain is a bit funnier ... "The more I learn about people, the better I like my dog." Some of the questions could have been a bit more precise, I enjoyed Levin's style of response. JMHO, but a more balanced all-round thinker than the likes of Jordon Peterson. Cheers from Japan

The interview hit a wall at min. 45 lol. The interviewee ‘s let’s all just get along theory of human condition and do away with greed brought poor Levin to a full stop and rude awareness that he was in the wrong place! Lol

Having world peace just among humans might help us focus on other goals like overcoming disease and death. Intelligence getting better and better, it seems like the next logical step that we learn to transcend our metabolism.

Hey, philospher and neuroscientist here and I just came across this and wanted to send you my gratitude. Watched your intro video and wondering if you might like to talk with me about your podcast and your trajectory, your form of what I call way-making?

I agree with the other commentors that a lot of the questions could have been better. I get the "trying to get a high level overview" point, but still. For example, asking "why study biology" and then subsequently follow up with "why study something at all" is mundane. I think the answer to "why study biology or something at all" is something that anyone has the capacity to answer quite easily, it's fairly obvious. There were also other questions that were rooted in flawed logic or weren't properly thought out. I appreciate the effort to do the interview and share it though. There's always insight to be gleaned from Michael. Your segment on world peace and freedom to explore your own intellectual curiosities is an example of flawed logic by the way. What if my intellectual curiosity is religion, and yours is materialist science? Conflicting perceptions of reality and the freedom to explore them is what leads to division to begin with. So you can't have your cake and eat it too. You either have world peace where everything is stagnant and everyone does the same things and thinks the same ways, or you have exploration and division. That was Michael's point when he was bringing up the reference to the bronze ages or hunter gatherer societies. And on that note, even in that climate, any entity that isn't able to explore its own curiosities would not be at "peace", so the prerequisite here is that every entity WANTS to think the same and feel the same and have no differences among them. Essentially social agreement that behaving as a collective borg mind is good, peaceful and enjoyable. Whether that's even possible is a question, but I don't see the benefit to it. It's also a question that didn't need to be in this interview, he's a biology expert not a philosophy expert. Overall, in the future, I would suggest sticking to questions relevant to the expertise of the professional you're having on, out of respect for them and your audience. Research the individuals work and formulate your questions around that. I would also suggest pondering the answers to the questions yourself ahead of time, or researching the answers to them, so as to avoid bringing up logical fallacies.

You won't eliminate conflict by removing divisions/boundaries. Only a change in the perception of the differences and the meaning placed on them will reduce conflict. And, as Michael said conflict between differences is what spurs evolution. Even during the generalized peacetime in Constantinople's heyday the conflicts of intellectual discourse and artistic/engineering prowess were the catalyst for civilizational evolution.

@2:30 The quintessential lens would be epistemological and phenomenological. The fact that thinking is the generator of the notion of mind or the belief that biology is essential to understanding the mind presupposes thinking. Michael confuses perception and the thinking about what we perceive. Thinking is not reducible to relative position. Interpretation is. They are not the same thing. The use of the term mind is what Bonnie Roy might call a categorical abstraction if she were consistent in relation to what she refers to as pure abstraction. She is not consistent because of a built in dualism that naturalism tends toward in its linear complexity directionality.

Form = Consciousness | Change of Form = Intelligence

You can't say that other organisms stop becoming more intelligent. This is also for us taking the time to experiment and take time. Because we reflect and speak the same language it is easier. This doesn't mean it doesn't exist for anything else. I"'m not a biologist. But maybe this is about group intelligence. There might be different ways to solve a problem. Not necessarily only in one individual at one level. It is a stretchy subject. If I think of something, I always ask about situations that are not that clear. What can we say about intelligence if the individual is destructive, in coma state , raised by dogs/apes or whatever. So intelligence can't be tied to wants perse. You do not need that in a human way. Does it want food? Yes. But it can wait half a year, ten years. You said it. Good use of intelligence. Intelligence is neutral. Peace is relatively or comes in gradations. Inner stress can be seen as an inner war due to societal hostilities. You can export war to others. We learn from adversity. Thus we have a paradox. Maybe it becomes easier if we aren't so attached to material things. War is only dreadful if you can't escape it and you are the victim. If it is on Mars. It is totally irrelevant. Nobody cares about ants going to war. Only if they do so in your backyard.

Yes we created the computer but thought inspired the actions to do so. Now what is thought? We cant just say we created the computer and leave it at that and disregard the mystery of mind.

I greatly appreciate Michael’s work but at the very beginning of this interview he asserts that biology demonstrates that mind emerges from matter. However, I’m surprised he makes this assumption because the process is analogous to developing a photograph. A photograph “emerges” from the interaction of the film negative (proto-image, analogous to mind) with chemicals and a substrate (photographic paper, analogous to matter). However, no-one assumes/believes/asserts that the photograph simply emerges from the interaction of the material components of the process I.e., chemicals and substrate. Rather the proto-image was already present and the development process merely transformed it into the photographic image. Further, the mind from matter hypothesis is like saying that the images on a TV emerge from the interaction of it’s internal parts and mechanisms. Whereas, in reality the TV only receives and transforms pre-existing electromagnetic or radio waves into visual images. Therefore, I suggest it is more accurate to say that proto-mind already exists and that matter merely transforms it into different forms which humans recognise as minds.

Very disappointed with the questions in the beginning. Asking him vague nonsense like “should we cooperate with each other?” Is a pure waste of time. What do you expect him to say? I almost closed the window. But after the first 15 minutes the discussion got much better!

Why should I trust you?

Best way to look intelligent— have a shit load of books behind your interview