Michael Levin: evaluation

Transcript context

…the scaling process, but then there is more rapid scaling and there are slower scaling. So innovation, invention, I think is useful to understand so you can predict how likely it is on other planets, for example. Or to be able to describe the likelihood of these kinds of phenomena happening in certain kinds of environments. Again, specifically in answering how many alien civilizations there are. It’s useful. But it is also useful on a scientific level to have categories, not just ’cause it makes us feel good and fuzzy inside, but because it makes conversation possible and productive, I think. If everything is a spectrum, it becomes difficult to make concrete statements, I think. Like, we even use the terms of biology and physics. Those are categories. Technically, it’s all the same thing, really. Fundamentally, it’s all the same. There’s no difference between biology and physics. But it’s a useful category. If you go to the physics department and the biology department, those people are different in some categorical way. So somehow, I don’t know what the chicken or the egg is, but the categories… Maybe the categories create themselves because of the way we think about them and use them in language, but it does seem useful. Let me make the opposite argument. They’re absolutely useful. They’re useful specifically when you want to gloss over certain things. The categories are exactly useful when there’s a whole bunch of stuff. And this is what’s important about science, is like the art of being able to say something without first having to say everything, right? which would make it impossible. So, categories are great when you want to say, “Look, I know there’s a bunch of stuff hidden here. I’m going to ignore all that, and we’re just going to, like, let’s get on with this particular thing.” And all of that is great as long as you don’t lose track of the stuff that you glossed over. And that was what I’m afraid is happening in a lot of different ways. And in terms of, look, I’m very interested in life beyond Earth and all of these kinds of things so that we should also talk about what I call SUTI, S-U-T-I, the search for unconventional terrestrial intelligences. I think we got much bigger issues than actually recognizing aliens off Earth, but I’ll make this claim. I think the categorical stuff is actually hurting that search. Because if we try to define categories with the kinds of criteria that we’ve gotten used to, we are going to be very poorly set up to recognize life in novel embodiments. I think we have a kind of mind blindness. I think this is really key. To me, the cognitive spectrum is much more interesting than the spectrum of life. I think really what we’re talking about is the spectrum of cognition. And it is… Well, I know it’s weird as a biologist to say, I don’t think life is all that interesting a category. I think the categories of different types of minds, I think, is extremely interesting. And to the extent that we think our categories are complete and are cutting nature at its joints, we are going to be very poorly placed to recognize novel systems. So for example, a lot of people will say, “Well, this is intelligent and this isn’t,” right? And there’s a binary thing, and that’s useful occasionally for some things. I would like to say, instead of that, let’s admit that we have a spectrum, but instead of just saying, “Oh, look, everything’s intelligent,” right? Because if you do that, you’re right, you can’t do anything after that. What I’d like to say instead is, no, no, you have to be very specific as to what kind and how much. In other words, what problem spaces they’re operating in? e right, you can’t do anything after that. What I’d like to say instead is, no, no, you have to be very specific as to what kind and how much. In other words, what problem spaces they’re operating in? What kind of mind does it have? What kind of cognitive capacities does it have? You have to actually be much more specific. And we can even name, right? That’s fine. We can name different types of… I mean, this is doing predictive processing. This can’t do that, but it can form memories. What kind? Well, habituation and sensitization, but not associative conditioning. It’s fine to have categories for specific capabilities, but it actually makes for much more rigorous discussions because it makes you say, what is it that you are claiming this thing does? And it works in both directions. So, some people will say, “Well, that’s a cell. That can’t be intelligent.” And I’ll say, “Well, let’s be very specific. Here are some claims about… here’s some problem solving that it’s doing. Tell me why that doesn’t… you know, why doesn’t that match? Or in the opposite direction, somebody comes to me and says, “You’re right, you’re right. You know, the whole, the whole solar system, man. It’s just like this amazing…” I’m like, “Whoa, okay. Well, what is it doing?” Like, “Tell me what tools of cognitive and behavioral science are you using to reach that conclusion,” right? And so I think it’s actually much more productive to take this operational stance and say, “Tell me what protocols you think you can deploy with this thing that would lead you to use these terms.”…

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