Bioelectric networks enable scaling between matter and mind

In a new paper, biologist Michael Levin suggests that humans evolve from basic matter to complex cognitive beings, with a network of cells cooperating to generate a unified cognitive entity. His study explores the role of bioelectric signaling and challenges conventional assumptions about the origins of cognition, offering insights into both individual and evolutionary transformations of intelligent agents.

In a recent study published on Springer Link, Levin argues that each of us has gone from being matter, beginning as a dormant oocyte ("just chemistry and physics") to gradually becoming cognitive which includes complex metacognitive processes, hopes, and dreams.

According to Levin, people are made up of a massive number of cells cooperating to generate a coherent cognitive being with goals, preferences, and memories that belong to the whole rather than to its parts. In his paper, Levin argues that before neurons and brains were around, evolution used bioelectric signaling to overcome the difficulty of building and repairing complex bodies. With numerous papers on bioelectric signaling to his credit, Levin thinks that understanding bioelectric dynamics provides an understanding of the differing intelligences within and beyond history on earth.

In his paper, Levin discusses the need to explore the evolutionary origins and mechanisms of conventional cognition by considering various biological examples that challenge standard assumptions. He highlights three key examples: Physarum, a slime mold capable of learning and decision-making without a brain or neurons; Planaria, flatworms that can regenerate and retain behavioral memories even as their bodies change; and metamorphosis in insects and amphibians, which involves significant brain remodeling while preserving learned information.

Levin underscores the idea that changes in behavioral repertoires can occur at both evolutionary and individual scales, raising questions about the transformation of agents through rearrangements of their parts. The concept of collective intelligences and multi-scale competency architecture in biology is introduced, emphasizing that animals are composed of cells with their own competencies shaped by evolution and behavior. Levin also mentions the role of gene regulatory networks and developmental bioelectricity in coordinating information processing across different levels of organization.

Michael Levin., Bioelectric networks: the cognitive glue enabling evolutionary scaling from physiology to mind, Animal Cognition (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s10071-023-01780-3