Wed 24th Sept: Michael Levin on the intelligence pervading life and the Platonic Realm

Rupert Sheldrake has said that Michael Levin is "one of the most creative biologists working today" and Bernardo Kastrup that he is “perhaps the most important person alive.”

So I'm beyond excited to have him returning for a dialogue with Bernardo, where they question and inspire each other's ideas on how intelligence and consciousness may pervade reality.

Michael Levin's pioneering research has already challenged mainstream assumptions about life. His work at Harvard and Tufts University shows how even a single cell can display memory and problem-solving abilities once thought exclusive to brains.

He contends that intelligence is a fundamental property of living systems, and that your body is a hierarchy of intelligent entities nested within each other, from your organs down to your cells, molecules and maybe even subatomic particles.

Michael aims to empirically demonstrate how these systems cooperate and combine, and his experiments with flatworms and tadpoles indicate that bioelectric fields may play a role. These could explain how a planaria can regenerate its dissected brain and the memories of what it had learnt. Or how the cells on the back of a tadpole can be directed to spontaneously form a working eye.

What's new?

This last year, Michael Levin has become increasingly open about core philosophical ideas that drive his team's research. This includes a platonic realm that contains not just mathematical truths (like triangles and prime numbers), but types of minds; dynamic patterns which ingress into physical form and can be explored through evolution, bioengineering and maybe even AI.

He has also initiated some fascinating explorations into the elusive definition of life, identifying conceptual archetypes that span a range of cross-disciplinary experts.

Michael and Bernardo will update each other on their respective work, share their most recent ideas, and no doubt continue their debate as to where the boundaries of conscious entities might be.

(Spoiler alert - Michael does not think there are any "boundaries" at all.)

We will be pressing Michael for his thoughts on:

• The definition of life
• How to demonstrate intelligence in systems
• How the platonic realm can be harnessed and explored

You can see previous dialogues we have hosted here, and the zoom link for this year's dialogue, Wednesday 24th Sept down below.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Amir

Zoom room

Wednesday 24th September 2025
6-8pm UK time / 7-9pm CET / 1-3pm EST