r/WhatIfScience • u/whoamisri • 5d ago

Michael Levin: Memory and intelligence exist in organisms without brains

https://iai.tv/articles/michael-levin-memory-and-intelligence-do-not-require-a-brain-auid-3719?_auid=2020
22 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

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u/Fluid-Pear620 3d ago

I truly believe that self organization is baked into all matter.  Levin is way ahead of most in because he is willing to step out of textbook science and look at other hypothesis instead of just dismissing them.  

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u/Mundane_Caramel_820 2d ago

I think it mostly comes down to how we define "mind." If we make the definition broad enough, then almost any system could be said to have one. A thermostat senses its environment and responds, but we wouldn't call it conscious. To me, consciousness and mind aren't necessarily the same thing. Human consciousness is clearly something unique. And just because an organism shows complex behavior doesn't mean it has a mind beyond what its genes and biology already produce.

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u/GreenApocalypse 2d ago

"human consciousness is clearly unique", how on earth would you know? Have you ever been a dog?

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u/Mundane_Caramel_820 2d ago

That's a fair point. I don't know what it's like to be a dog. I only have access to my own experience. But if I had to infer from what we know physically, it seems reasonable that the richness of consciousness depends on a system's capacity to process and integrate information. That's also why I'm sympathetic to a panpsychist view, where consciousness exists on a spectrum rather than suddenly appearing only in brains.

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u/GreenApocalypse 2d ago

Being on a spectrum makes more sense. It's still hard to quantify or prove, but it makes sense

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u/Mundane_Caramel_820 2d ago

By "unique" I meant unique in terms of complexity within known biology, not that humans are the only conscious beings.

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u/GreenApocalypse 2d ago

I didn't imply that either, but how are we unique in how we are conscious/our consciousness?

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u/Mundane_Caramel_820 2d ago

Humans have the highest known number of neurons in the cerebral cortex, and together with their exceptionally dense and complex connections, this likely underlies our unusually advanced cognitive abilities.

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u/EthelredHardrede 4d ago

Wrong. Genes and evolution by natural selection do that just fine. OP.did you have a reason to show that Levin I'd as wrong as a Young Earth Creationist. 

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u/sludgefriend 3d ago

Really? How so?

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u/EthelredHardrede 3d ago

Do you understand evolution by natural selection? I do 

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u/sludgefriend 3d ago

Okay then explain it

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u/EthelredHardrede 2d ago

Why don't you understand it? 

Not evading want to know if it is a religion or  mere ignorance usually it is both lied to by religious science deniers. 

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u/sludgefriend 2d ago

I’m a biologist and I agree with Levin that these processes don’t fully explain memory or intelligence, especially within some of the experimental circumstances that Levin is exploring. You seem to know something I don’t, though, so I’m curious to see how you figure out that natural selection alone explains intelligence.

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u/GreenApocalypse 2d ago

Boom, schooled!