#158 - Meet The Scientist Redefining Intelligence With Michael Levin

<p>🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY</p><p>Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join</p><p><br /></p><p>Richard 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>Expect to learn:</p><p>- Cognition before selection: why learning came first and natural selection came second</p><p>- The spring mechanism: how falling masses solve hard puzzles with no brain, no genes and no designer</p><p>- Ecosystems that compute: the model where an ecosystem solves a Sudoku without reproducing or inheriting</p><p>- The limits of the genome: why no amount of sequencing will explain what a cell is actually doing</p><p>- Medicine as persuasion: treating tissues as cognitive systems to negotiate with, not machines to fix</p><p><br /></p><p>SPONSORS</p><p>Download the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiants</p><p><br /></p><p>GS EPISODES MENTIONED</p><p>Michael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces &amp; Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyM</p><p><br /></p><p>GUEST LINKS</p><p>University of Southampton Profile: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5x27lw/professor-richard-watson</p><p>Personal Website: https://www.richardawatson.com</p><p>Natural Induction (Entropy, 2024, with Michael Levin): https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/9/765</p><p>Publications: https://www.richardawatson.com/publications-1</p><p>ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard-Watson-10</p><p><br /></p><p>LISTEN ON</p><p>YouTube - https://youtu.be/wAGFE2S6qXg</p><p>Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249</p><p><br /></p><p>SKOOL</p><p>Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about</p><p><br /></p><p>FOLLOW EVA