Thoughtforms Life Conversation Between Richard Watson, Iain McGilchrist, and Michael Levin
Apr 2, 2023
Richard Watson, futurist and systems thinker, and Iain McGilchrist, psychiatrist and author on brain lateralization, join Michael Levin for a wide-ranging chat. They explore brain lateralization and why organisms defy simple mechanical explanations. They compare top-down and bottom-up processes, use musical metaphors for emergence, and debate what separates machines from living systems.
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Speckled Cells From Planar Polarity Break
- Michael Levin describes a unique experimental treatment that breaks cellular left-right concordance into speckled patterns.
- This planar polarity disruption shows cells losing coherent regional identity and informs collective decision-making.
Collective Decisions Define Individuals
- Collective intelligence emerges when many cells synchronize to act as one, defining 'how many individuals' depends on their coordinated decision.
- Physical manipulations (scratches) can change whether a tissue decides to be one embryo or multiple.
Third States From Oscillatory Cancellation
- Period-doubling chaos can produce resonant non-binary states (like period-three) via infinite oscillatory cancellations summing to zero.
- A perfectly balanced cancellation between opposites yields new qualitative states beyond simple dichotomies.
