#158 - Meet The Evolutionary Theorist Redefining Intelligence With Michael Levin

🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinRichard Watson is a professor of artificial intelligence and theoretical evolutionary biology at the University of Southampton and the author of Compositional Evolution. He argues that adaptation does not require natural selection at all, and that biology has spent a century mistaking one for the other. With Michael Levin he published Natural Induction, which shows that any network whose connections give way under stress will begin to learn on its own. Ecosystems. Gene networks. Possibly the chemistry of the early Earth, long before anything was alive to be selected.Expect to learn:- Cognition before selection: why learning came first and natural selection came second- The spring mechanism: how falling masses solve hard puzzles with no brain, no genes and no designer- Ecosystems that compute: the model where an ecosystem solves a Sudoku without reproducing or inheriting- The limits of the genome: why no amount of sequencing will explain what a cell is actually doing- Medicine as persuasion: treating tissues as cognitive systems to negotiate with, not machines to fixSPONSORSDownload the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiantsGS EPISODES MENTIONEDMichael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyMGUEST LINKSUniversity of Southampton Profile: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5x27lw/professor-richard-watsonPersonal Website: https://www.richardawatson.comNatural Induction (Entropy, 2024, with Michael Levin): https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/9/765Publications: https://www.richardawatson.com/publications-1ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard-Watson-10LISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/wAGFE2S6qXgApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:43 The Assumptions Every Biologist Knows Are Wrong0:03:53 "All of Life Is Cognitive"0:06:58 Survival Is a Consequence, Not the Driver0:09:32 How Cognition Could Come Before Natural Selection0:14:03 Adaptation Isn't What Natural Selection Does0:17:57 What a Sudoku Puzzle Teaches About Life0:20:41 Masses, Springs and the Physics of Learning0:23:45 When Springs Start to Remember0:26:18 Learning as "Second-Order Falling"0:28:56 No Selection, No Neural Nets, No Design0:31:03 What "Memory" Actually Means0:35:59 Gene Networks That Learn0:38:13 An Ecosystem Solving Sudoku0:43:22 Natural Selection "Isn't Doing Anything Clever"0:52:08 No Amount of Sequencing Will Answer This0:57:23 Will We Ever Model a Cell? "Bottom Up, Never"1:01:23 Rethinking Medicine: Persuadable Systems1:08:01 Agency, or Just Complex Biochemistry?1:20:47 "I Don't Do Consciousness"1:23:30 Three Things That Changed His Mind1:25:39 Analytic Idealism and the Dream Argument1:33:31 Why Doesn't Your Consciousness Blur Into the Chair?1:35:47 McGilchrist and Why We're Blind to It1:38:47 It Was Never About Survival.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com