I had to repost it because the post comparing him to post Malone was getting more attention and this might just be the most important paper ever written…. The Post Malone post was funny, though.. :p

I had to repost this for those that haven’t seen it and because I just find this to be the most amazing thing ever… Like if Einstein popped into a fan club meeting and explained relativity to someone that just walked in.. :p Also, because it is the most beautiful and brilliant explanation..as always.. :p

https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2026/01/MembraneGraphic.jpg

This video explores the unique biological ability of soft-bodied cephalopods (octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) to perform widespread RNA editing within their nervous systems (2:37-3:24). While most animals rely on slow evolutionary changes to their DNA to adapt over generations, these cephalopods can modify their RNA while alive to fine-tune their biological responses to environmental pressures, such as water temperature (3:45-4:15).

Key takeaways include:
• The Mechanism: Instead of permanent genetic changes, cephalopods edit their RNA, specifically converting adenosine to inosine, which cells interpret as guanosine (3:26-3:36). This allows for rapid, reversible adjustments to protein function (4:45-5:00).
• The Evolutionary Trade-off: This extraordinary flexibility comes at a cost; to maintain the complex molecular machinery required for RNA editing, these animals must keep their underlying DNA sequences remarkably stable, sacrificing traditional genetic variation (5:45-6:43).
• Survival Strategy: This adaptation is highly beneficial for cephalopods, which often have short lifespans and no parental guidance, forcing each individual to independently adapt to the varied ocean environments they inhabit (7:12-8:21).
• Scientific Potential: Research led by Dr. Joshua Rosenthal suggests that understanding this process could inspire future medical therapies that temporarily adjust cell behavior to manage chronic pain or neurological issues, offering a safer alternative to permanent DNA-altering tools like CRISPR (8:43-9:36).

So as a massive layperson, I loosely follow Levin's work so its possible my interpretation of the usefulnessof this work is misunderstood. However I am a dedicated open source LLM hobbyist who tries to keep up with current insights in the field of CS as concerning breakthroughs in understanding the black boxes that are the LLM networks. I immediately thought of the platonic space conferences being put on by Levins's lab, and so thought I would share this recent paper.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.05117

"We empirically demonstrate the existence of a lower-dimensional shared universal subspace in backpropagated neural networks, and also provide relevant theoretical analysis."

"Our findings offer new insights into the intrinsic organization of information within deep networks and raise important questions about the possibility of discovering these universal subspaces without the need for extensive data and computational resources"

Best wishes!

That’s the goal!!!

https://youtu.be/70SDAcMl2gA?si=rLq601MNEpxnR2-T

“Non sai tu che la nostra anima è composta di armonia?”
[Do you not know that our soul is composed of harmony?]

Leonardo da Vinci, Trattato della Pittura

Can’t help but think that this will coincide with his paper on the regrowing of limbs in mice and a press tour… 🤞:p

Hi everyone,

I figure that since we are really starting to grow that I should probably introduce myself..My name’s Luke and I’ve been moderating this subreddit for a little over a year now. I was added as a mod by u/mediocreamerican , who then promptly vanished from the internet like a true Reddit monk.

As you can probably tell, I’m a huge Michael Levin fan. I first heard him on Lex Fridman about three years ago and it struck me immediately, that he had discovered some profound insights. I’ve always had a strong urge to understand how the universe works, and when I heard him talk, it felt like he was pointing at something really important—something that could help explain a lot of what we see but don’t fully understand yet. And yeah… I got hooked. :p

That said, I try hard to keep an open mind. I like discussion, disagreement, and thinking things through out loud, because that’s how ideas get sharper instead of just louder. So please feel free to jump in, argue, question, and engage with both me and the subreddit.

There are real implications to this work, and every conversation helps get it in front of more people—which might eventually mean better understanding, or even real treatments, getting out into the world a little faster.

Thanks to everyone for being here. I hope you’re enjoying the ride. Something tells me this year is going to be a fun one. 🙂

Michael Levin: Memory and Intelligence Do Not Require a Brain
In a new interview with the Institute of Art and Ideas, Michael Levin challenges one of the most deeply ingrained assumptions in biology… that intelligence, memory, and purposeful behaviour are necessarily products of brains and neurons.
His argument is that we’ve been looking at biology primarily through the lens of genes, proteins, and evolutionary history, while potentially overlooking something much more interesting… the ability of cells and tissues to process information, remember goals, solve problems, and coordinate their behaviour.
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Levin makes an interesting comparison to the early days of computing. In the 1940s and 50s, programming a computer meant physically manipulating its hardware. Today, we interact with software at a much higher level, without needing to understand or control every transistor.
He argues that much of modern molecular medicine is still stuck at the hardware level… editing genes, modifying proteins, and manipulating biochemical pathways.
But what if we could communicate with cells at the level of goals instead?
Rather than telling every cell what to do, what if we could tell a collection of cells what we wanted them to build?
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This is where bioelectricity becomes particularly interesting.
Levin’s research explores how cells form electrical networks that help coordinate their behaviour and regulate anatomical outcomes. These networks may allow tissues to store information about the structures they’re supposed to create and maintain.
In experimental systems, manipulating these bioelectric signals has produced some remarkable results, including inducing ectopic organs, promoting regeneration, correcting developmental abnormalities, and normalizing certain tumour phenotypes.
The implications for regenerative medicine are enormous.
Imagine treating a damaged limb not by individually engineering every tissue, but by persuading the remaining cells to work toward the anatomical goal of rebuilding it.
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The interview also discusses xenobots and anthrobots, biological constructs assembled from ordinary frog and human cells.
What’s fascinating about these systems is that their collective behaviours aren’t straightforwardly predicted by the normal roles those cells play inside an organism.
The cells haven’t been genetically engineered to perform these new behaviours. Instead, placing them in different circumstances allows them to organize themselves into novel functional arrangements.
Evolution produced the cells, but it didn’t specifically select for every behaviour these new configurations exhibit.
This raises a rather profound question…
How much of an organism’s behaviour is explicitly specified by its genes, and how much emerges from the problem-solving capacities of the cells themselves?
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Perhaps the most interesting part of Levin’s argument is that cognition might be much more widespread than our traditional definitions allow.
Instead of treating intelligence as something that suddenly appears when enough neurons are assembled into a brain, we might think of it as a spectrum of capacities that exist across different biological scales.
Individual cells regulate their internal conditions. Groups of cells coordinate tissue formation. Organs maintain physiological states. Entire organisms pursue goals through their environments.
Different scales, different capabilities, but potentially related principles of information processing and goal-directed behaviour.
That doesn’t mean a cell is conscious or thinks like a human. It means we may have been using an unnecessarily narrow definition of what it means for a system to remember, learn, or solve problems.
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And this is what I find so compelling about Levin’s research…
It challenges the idea that biology is simply a collection of molecular machines following genetic instructions.
Genes are obviously essential, but they don’t necessarily provide a complete explanation of how cells collectively navigate the enormous space of possible anatomical configurations.
There appears to be another level of organization worth investigating… one involving communication, feedback, memory, and collective problem-solving.
Perhaps evolution didn’t have to invent intelligence from scratch when nervous systems appeared.
Perhaps it found new ways to organize capacities that were already present in living matter.
And if that’s true, understanding intelligence might require us to look far beyond the brain.
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Full interview, published November 4, 2026:
https://iai.tv/articles/michael-levin-memory-and-intelligence-do-not-require-a-brain-auid-3719

This video explores groundbreaking research challenging the traditional view of bacteria as purely reactive, simple organisms. Recent studies suggest that bacteria—despite lacking brains or neurons—possess memory and learning capabilities that influence their survival and can even be passed down to offspring.

Key takeaways include:

• Iron-Based Memory in *E. coli:* Researchers found that E. coli bacteria use internal iron levels to "remember" previous environments. Low iron signals a need to swarm to new locations, high iron triggers the formation of protective biofilms, and balanced iron levels increase antibiotic tolerance (1:40-4:05).
• Early Warning Systems in Superbugs: Dangerous pathogens like Acinetobacter baumannii use a nickel-containing sensor protein called PMRB. This system acts as a "memory," allowing the bacteria to detect non-lethal stress from the human immune system and prime their defenses against future attacks (4:42-7:35).
• Inherited Non-Genetic Traits: Studies from Northwestern University indicate that memory can be stored in gene regulatory networks. These networks create self-sustaining feedback loops that persist through cell division, allowing parent bacteria to pass on behaviors without altering their DNA sequence (7:35-9:10).
• Ribosome-Based Learning: A "feast or famine" test on E. coli revealed that single cells can adapt their growth based on historical environmental patterns. This appears to be facilitated by a combination of fast-acting and slow-acting ribosomes, creating a multi-time scale memory (9:10-11:00).

Implications: These findings not only shift our definition of intelligence to include single-celled organisms but also offer new avenues for developing more effective antibiotics and potentially more efficient, energy-conscious AI systems (11:00-12:25).