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Bioelectric networks: the cognitive glue enabling evolutionary scaling from physiology to mind
1Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, 200 Boston Ave., Suite 4600, Medford, MA, 02155, USA. michael.levin@tufts.edu.
Animal Cognition
|May 19, 2023
Summary
Discover how collective intelligence, from cellular development to complex brains, scales to create minds. This research explores the bioelectric basis of biological intelligence and its evolutionary origins.
Area of Science:
- Integrative Biology
- Developmental Biology
- Neuroscience
- Evolutionary Biology
Background:
- Human consciousness arises from simple matter, evolving complex metacognitive abilities.
- All intelligence, including human self-awareness, is fundamentally collective, emerging from cellular cooperation.
- Bioelectric signaling predates neurons and muscles, playing a crucial role in early biological organization.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the scaling principles of collective intelligence, termed basal cognition.
- To review the symmetry between intelligence in developmental morphogenesis and classical behavior.
- To understand the evolutionary repurposing of cellular machinery for behavioral intelligence.
Main Methods:
- Review of conserved mechanisms underlying collective cell intelligence in embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer suppression.
- Analysis of bioelectric dynamics in the construction of complex bodies and brains.
- Exploration of evolutionary transitions in intelligence from morphospace navigation to behavioral navigation.
Main Results:
- Identified deep symmetries between developmental intelligence and behavioral intelligence.
- Highlighted conserved bioelectric mechanisms enabling collective cell action for biological construction and regulation.
- Proposed an evolutionary narrative of intelligence, pivoting from developmental algorithms to behavioral navigation.
Conclusions:
- Understanding bioelectric dynamics is key to comprehending the natural evolution of intelligence.
- These principles are crucial for the bioengineered design of novel intelligences.
- Intelligence is a spectrum, rooted in collective cellular computation and bioelectric signaling.
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