claim

active

claim:xenobots-anatomical-and-behavioral-goals-are-emergent-rather-than-directly-selected-over-aeons

Xenobots’ anatomical and behavioral goals are emergent, rather than directly selected over aeons.

Argues that goal states arise without direct evolutionary sculpting.

Source paper

extracted_from

Endless forms most beautiful 2.0: teleonomy and the bioengineering of chimaeric and synthetic organisms

(2023) · Clawson, Wesley P. · Levin, Michael

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Findings (3)

finding

Permanent two-headed planarians created by manipulating bioelectric circuits.
supports
From Oviedo et al. (2010) and Durant et al. (2017), shows memory of anatomical set points beyond genomic default.
Wild-type frog skin cells form novel proto-organisms (Xenobots) without genomic editing.
supports
From Blackiston et al. (2021) and Kriegman et al. (2020), reveals emergent goals from cellular collectives.
Xenobots perform kinematic self-replication by herding loose cells into new Xenobots.
supports
From Kriegman et al. (2021), a novel mode of reproduction never before seen.

Communities (2)

community

Causal emergence in biological systems
members_of
Examines how macro-scale causal power exceeds micro-scale in living and learning systems.
Bioelectric computation and morphological intelligence
members_of
Systems across kingdoms (neurons, plants, salamanders, xenobots) use bioelectric signaling to solve morphogenesis and behavior, independent of genetic specification.

Questions (1)

question

Where do the specific goal states come from? What determines the set points?
gates
Question about the origin of teleonomic targets.

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

Xenobots and other liberated cellular collectives reveal hidden morphogenetic capabilities normally suppressed by instructive signaling of other cells.claim0.811
Interpretive claim about the meaning of Xenobot behaviors.
Xenobots’ behavior reveals baseline geodesics through option space that are normally masked by larger collectives.hypothesis0.804
Hypothesis about the origin of novel goals in synthetic organisms.
Xenobots perform kinematic self-replication, a novel behavior not known in any other species on Earth, using a Von Neumann-style replication within 48 hours of creation.claim0.798
Highlights extraordinary plasticity and problem-solving.
Xenobots (frog skin cells) exhibit kinematic self-replication when provided with loose cells.finding0.787
Empirical result from Kriegman et al. 2021: frog cell-derived synthetic organisms replicate without sexual reproduction.
The large-scale morphological goals of an organism override and harness the local competencies of individual cells to adaptively navigate morphospace.claim0.780
Describes top-down control in morphogenesis.
Evolutionary algorithm-designed Xenopus cell clusters exhibit fast self-motile behavior purely from evolved novel shape and tissue distribution, not neural control or genomic information.finding0.771
Empirical result from Kriegman et al. 2020 demonstrating that 'reprogramming' occurs without altering DNA software
Harnessing the native capability of collective intelligence in the service of biomedicine or bioengineering will require a much better understanding of how to identify, characterise and motivate emergent agents in anatomical, physiological and transcriptional spaces.claim0.769
Identifies a key future research direction.
Computer-Designed Organisms (Xenobots)concept0.766
Organisms designed by evolutionary algorithm from Xenopus cells whose behavior is purely a function of evolved shape, not genomic information — inverting normal software/hardware conception

Cross-corpus bridges (12)

same_concept_as · Nomic cosine

External markdown files that talk about the same concept as this entity.

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Where do the anatomical and behavioral goals of xenobots originate if they were not directly selected for over aeons?questions/where-do-the-anatomical-and-behavioral-goals-of.md0.903
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Can novel body forms implemented in silico and synthesized in vivo achieve goal-directed behavior without evolutionary design?questions/can-novel-body-forms-implemented-in-silico-and.md0.837
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Can soft robots and xenobots exhibit genuine agency and goal-directed behavior through morphological computation?questions/can-soft-robots-and-xenobots-exhibit-genuine-agency.md0.835
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Where do the specific goal states originate in novel contexts not previously encountered by evolution?questions/where-do-the-specific-goal-states-originate-in.md0.820
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Can xenobots and other synthetic organisms reveal principles of biological agency and minimal intelligence?questions/can-xenobots-and-other-synthetic-organisms-reveal-principles.md0.817
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Where do goals, preferences, and behaviors of novel artificial beings come from if they've never been subject to evolutionary selection?questions/where-do-goals-preferences-and-behaviors-of-novel.md0.809
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Samuel Kriegmanthinkers/samuel-kriegman.md0.802
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Can synthetic organisms with artificial body plans possess genuine agency and learning capacity?questions/can-synthetic-organisms-with-artificial-body-plans-possess.md0.800
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Xenobotsframeworks/xenobots.md0.799
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What ethical considerations arise from creating novel living machines with engineered bodies and behaviors?questions/what-ethical-considerations-arise-from-creating-novel-living.md0.797
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Can organisms be designed and engineered to have novel body plans while maintaining viability and adaptive capacity?questions/can-organisms-be-designed-and-engineered-to-have.md0.796
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Xenobotsconcepts/biology/xenobots.md0.780