framework
active
framework:scale-free-cognitionScale-Free Cognition
Central hypothesis proposing that cognitive capacities scale across biological organization levels from cells to organisms via computational boundaries.
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Thinkers (1)
thinker
- Michael Levinintroducesstudies
Concepts (4)
concept
- Collective Intelligenceassociated_withRecognition that selves are composite systems of competent parts; all intelligences are higher-level selves made of cells or components.
- BioelectricitysupportsProposed 'cognitive glue' common to both neural and developmental collective intelligence; implemented by ion channels and electrical synapses.
- Computational boundary of a SelfimplementsCore concept defining an Individual by the spatio-temporal boundary of events it can measure, model, and affect—demarcating the limits of its cognition.
- Homeostatic drivesupportsFundamental living process—reducing difference between current and optimal conditions—hypothesized as primal origin of goal-directedness and higher cognition.
Claims (2)
claim
- Levin's assertion that embryonic body-patterning reflects the same information-integration and goal-pursuit mechanisms as neural sensorimotor control.
- Levin's central claim that somatic cells coordinate not only their own proliferation but also toward massive anatomical structures—limb length, face configuration—as unified goal-seeking units.
Frameworks (1)
framework
- Basal CognitionextendssupportsAn interdisciplinary research framework that reconceptualizes intelligence as observer-relative problem-solving competencies existing on a continuum from simple to highly complex, extending cognition beyond neural systems to pre-neural and non-neural substrates including microbial control loops, plants, tissues, and cellular collectives. It grounds the study of evolutionary and developmental origins of cognitive and behavioral capacities by linking information processing at the chemical and cellular level to classical cognition, and provides philosophical foundations for understanding agency and goal-directedness in systems without nervous systems.
Related by similarity (8)
cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edgeEntities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.
- Bold, load-bearing tenet of the paper's framework.
- Mental actions including sentience; can be achieved by different biological and non-biological substrates.
- Alexander's thesis that wholeness and the fifteen properties are objectively real, not artifacts of cognition, and are fundamental to physics and biology.
- The process by which smaller agents join into a larger emergent Self with expanded cognitive light cones, mediated by gap junctions.
- The range from tiny to vast superintelligent minds and the question of how welfare and cost scale relative to each other
- Process by which low-level competencies scale to larger problem-solving abilities across levels of organization.