paper:doi-10-31234-osf-io-5g2xj-v2Ingressing Minds: Causal Patterns Beyond Genetics and Environment in Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments
Methods (3)
- Halley Plot / Biomorph Fractal GenerationAlgorithmic generation of complex, life-like fractal patterns from short complex-number functions, used to argue patterns can be indexed rather than compressed.
- Ionophore-Induced Bioelectric Pattern AlterationTechnique of exposing planarian fragments to ionophores to rewrite bioelectric pattern memory and induce two-headed morphology without genomic change.
- Sorting Algorithm as Minimal Morphogenesis ModelVisualizing bubble-sort trajectories through 'sorting space' to detect unprogrammed cognitive competencies such as delayed gratification.
Frameworks (7)
- ComputationalismPosition that all phenomena can be fully captured as discrete and finite state transitions; grounded in mathematical constructivism
- Diverse IntelligenceResearch program studying intelligence at multiple scales and substrates; proposed as relevant to implications of mnemonic improvisation.
- OrganicismPhilosophical framework emphasizing wholeness, non-reductionism, and unique emergent features of life systems.
- Platonic Representation HypothesisMachine-learning hypothesis (Huh et al. 2024) proposed as a candidate framework to unify with the Platonic space model.
- Platonic Space / Ingressing Patterns FrameworkThe paper's central proposed framework: a structured, non-physical, causally efficacious latent space of patterns ranging from static mathematical truths to full kinds of minds, which 'ingress' into physical embodiments.
- Polycomputing
- Technological Approach To Mind Everywhere TameA system-agnostic framework developed by Michael Levin for understanding cognition and intelligence across diverse substrates and organizational scales, from individual cells to collective economic systems. It formalizes how goal-directed behavior and problem-solving emerge in any system capable of information integration, regardless of biological implementation, enabling analysis of minds and collective intelligence in non-traditional forms.
Findings (12)
- Bubble-sort algorithm temporarily de-sorts the array to route around an immovable 'broken' element (delayed gratification) though this behavior is not coded in the algorithm
Zhang, Goldstein & Levin (2025) minimal-system finding used as core evidence for un-programmed cognitive competency in deterministic algorithms.
- In distributed chimeric sorting arrays, cells sharing the same 'algotype' transiently cluster together despite no code checking neighbor algotype
Second unexpected competency in the minimal sorting-algorithm model, shown alongside delayed gratification.
- Ionophore exposure induces stable two-headed bioelectric pattern in planarians with normal genome and (initially) normal anatomy/gene expression
Demonstrates that goal-state patterns are stored bioelectrically, separate from genetics, and can be rewritten.
- Single oversized newt cell wraps around itself to reconstruct a normal tubule lumen when only one cell fits the diameter
Extreme case showing the system switches molecular mechanism (cytoskeletal bending vs cell-cell communication) to hit the same anatomical target.
- Tadpoles with an eye induced on the tail (optic nerve terminating at spinal cord, not brain) perform in visual assays
Cited (Blackiston & Levin 2013) as evidence of unexpected functional competency (a 'free lunch') not explained by design or selection.
- Anthrobots formed from human tracheal cells aggregate on neuron-culture wounds and induce healing across the gap
Cited (Gumuskaya et al. 2024) as evidence that genetically-normal human cells can exhibit unselected functional behaviors.
- Embryos cut into pieces across many species produce normal monozygotic twins/triplets rather than half-bodies
Classic regulative-development evidence for goal-directed (not merely mechanical) morphogenesis.
- Scrambled tadpole craniofacial tissue rearranges into normal frog anatomy from novel starting configurations
Evidence that morphogenesis pursues a specific target state (goal) rather than executing a fixed sequence of steps.
- Fragments of 2-headed planarians continue regenerating as 2-headed indefinitely despite normal genome
Shows the bioelectric pattern memory is stably heritable across cutting/regeneration cycles absent genetic change.
- Xenobots self-assembled from frog skin cells exhibit kinematic self-replication across generations
Cited (Kriegman et al. 2021) as evidence that evolutionarily-unselected constructs display unpredicted novel competencies.
Claims (17)
- The proposed framework erases artificial distinctions between organisms and machines by framing all physical constructs as in-formed, to varying degrees, by patterns from the latent space
Central thesis statement of the abstract.
- Even fully deterministic sorting algorithms display genuine, unprogrammed cognitive skills (e.g., delayed gratification, algotype clustering) recognizable to behavior scientists
Interpretive claim built directly on the sorting-algorithm findings, central to the machine/organism symmetry argument.
- The categorical distinction between physical agents (thinkers) and thought patterns can be dissolved: patterns themselves can be the agent, with the body as scratchpad
Radical extension of diverse intelligence positing agency in non-physical patterns themselves.
- Complexity + emergence frameworks (mechanical parts that know nothing and have no goals) are a poor fit for the most interesting existing developmental biology data
Motivates replacing standard molecular-biology axioms with goal-directed/cybernetic models.
- Large language models show that linguistic competence can be dissociated from more basal agentic capacities (goal-directedness, multiscale competency, valence)
Used to argue AI minds must be assessed empirically via behavior science rather than via language interface alone.
- Mind precedes and is a superset of life; 'living' things are simply very good at scaling up parts' lowly competencies into aligned collective intelligences
Reframes the traditional life/mind hierarchy, supporting panpsychist implications.
- If Platonic forms are the non-material animating patterns of embodiments, then in a colloquial sense souls are real and some robots will embody them
Provocative ethical/metaphysical implication of the framework for AI and synthetic biology.
- Minds are patterns that ensoul somatic embodiments, of the same non-physical kind (but not degree) as patterns guiding simple physical structures
Core ontological claim unifying triangle-geometry patterns with living minds on a single continuum.
- Bodies, brains, and engineered constructs are pointers/interfaces into the Platonic space rather than the direct source of their own complexity
Central mechanism proposed for how patterns manifest, replacing the compression/construction metaphor.
- All embodied intelligence is collective intelligence, from ant colonies to the neurons of the human brain to the cells building the body itself
Second lesson drawn from embryogenesis, foundational to treating body-building and mind-building as symmetric processes.
Hypotheses (4)
- If concerted research reveals no quantifiable input from the Platonic space beyond conventional accounting, and yields no new discoveries or capabilities, the framework should be abandoned
The paper's own falsifiability criterion for the entire research program.
- Patterns in the latent space span a spectrum of agency, from static truths studied by mathematicians to active patterns studied by behavioral scientists (some are kinds of minds)
First of three core numbered hypotheses in the abstract defining the framework's ontology.
- The relationship between mind and body is the same as the relationship between causally instructive mathematical facts and physics
Second core numbered hypothesis in the abstract; central analogy of the paper.
- Living beings have no monopoly on the 'free lunches' provided by the ingression of patterns into the physical world
Third core numbered hypothesis in the abstract; predicts machines can access the same latent-space benefits as evolved life.
Questions (6)
- if our world is impacted by these patterns, where do they themselves come from? What is the origin of the Platonic space of patterns?
Final open question of the paper, left deliberately unresolved.
- what is the origin of different kinds of patterns, whether they be patterns of anatomy, physiology, or behavior?
Central unifying question motivating the whole research program.
- what is the minimal physical interface that begins to draw out cognitive patterns from the Platonic space?
Reframes 'how far down does cognition go' as a question about interface minimality rather than substrate composition.
- Is [the Platonic space] discrete or continuous? Is it layered into some sort of levels or types?
Open foundational question about the structure of the latent space left for future theory.
- how far down does it go? (Cells? Subcellular biochemical networks? Particles?)
Probes the lower bound of the continuum-of-mind claim implied by the Platonic space model.
- where do these goal states come from?
Motivates the argument that bioelectric setpoints are not fully set by the genome.
Original abstract (expand)
How best to explain the properties and capabilities of embodied minds? The conventional paradigm holds that living beings are to be understood as the sculpted products of genetics and environment, which determine form and function of the brain as the unique seat of intelligence. Some provision is made for emergence and complexity, as additional “facts that hold” about networks, circuits, and other components of life. Here, I present a sketch of a framework and research roadmap that differs from this view in key aspects. First, the evolutionary conservation of mechanisms and functionality indicate fundamental symmetries between the self-construction of bodies and of minds, revealing a much broader view of diverse intelligence across the agential material of life beyond neural substrates. Second, surprising competencies (not just complexity or unpredictability) in systems that have not had a history of selection for those abilities suggest an additional input into patterns of body and mind that motivates a research program on a latent space of patterns ingressing into the physical world. Emphasizing the principles of continuity and pragmatism, and using morphogenesis as a tractable model system in which to develop these ideas, I explore the implications of the following ideas: (A) Evolution favors living forms that exploit powerful truths of mathematics and computation as affordances, which contribute as causes of morphological and behavioral features. (B) Cognitive patterns are an evolutionary pivot of the collective intelligence of cells; given this symmetry between neuroscience and developmental biology, I propose that the relationship between mind and brain is the same as the relationship between mathematical patterns and the morphogenetic outcomes they guide. (C) Many mathematicians, and a non-mysterian approach to science in general, suggest that these patterns are not random facts to be merely cataloged as “emergence” when found, but rather can be systematically discovered within a structured, ordered (non-physical) space. Therefore, I hypothesize that: (1) instances of embodied cognition likewise ingress from a Platonic space, which contains not only low-agency patterns like facts about triangles and prime numbers, but also higher agency ones such as kinds of minds; (2) we take seriously for developmental, synthetic, and behavioral biology the kinds of non-physicalist ideas that are already a staple of Platonist mathematics; (3) what evolution (and bioengineering, and possibly AI) produces are pointers into that Platonic space – physical interfaces that enable the ingression of specific patterns of body and mind. This provides a new perspective on the organicist/mechanist debate by explaining why traditional computationalist views of life and mind are insufficient, while at the same time erasing artificial distinctions between life and machine, since both are in-formed by diverse patterns from the latent space. I sketch a research program, already begun, of using the tools of the fields of synthetic morphology and diverse intelligence to map out key regions of the Platonic space. Understanding the mapping between the architecture of physical embodiments and the patterns to which they point has massive implications for evolutionary biology, regenerative medicine, AI, and the ethics of synthbiosis with the forthcoming immense diversity of morally important beings.
Related work— refs + corpus + external arXiv
Cited / in-corpus / arXiv badges show which signals surfaced each row. Multi-source rows weighted higher.
- Bio-inspired AI: Integrating Biological Complexity into Artificial IntelligenceMichael Levin Nima Dehghani2024≈ 77%
- Grounding Before Generalizing: How AI Differs from Humans in Causal TransferYuxi Ma, Zhihao Cao, Yixin Zhu, Song-Chun Zhu Liangru Xiang2026≈ 77%
- Remapping and navigation of an embedding space via error minimization: a fundamental organizational principle of cognition in natural and artificial systemsL\'eo Pio-Lopez, Chris Fields, Michael Levin Benedikt Hartl2026≈ 77%
- ≈ 77%
- On Computational Mechanisms for Shared Intentionality, and Speculation on Rationality and ConsciousnessJohn Rushby2023≈ 77%
- The biogenic approach to cognitionin corpus2005≈ 76%
- Cognition spaces: natural, artificial, and hybridRicard Sol\'e and Luis F Seoane and Jordi Pla-Mauri and Michael Timothy Bennett and Michael E. Hochberg and Michael Levin2026≈ 76%
- ≈ 76%
- Hybrid Life: Integrating Biological, Artificial, and Cognitive SystemsHiroyuki Iizuka, Olaf Witkowski, Lana Sinapayen, Keisuke Suzuki Manuel Baltieri2023≈ 76%
- ≈ 76%
- ≈ 76%
- ≈ 75%
- Morphological Computing as Logic Underlying Cognition in Human, Animal, and Intelligent MachineGordana Dodig-Crnkovic2023≈ 75%
- A macro agent and its actionsFrancesco Massari, Maggie Beheler-Amass and Giulio Tononi Larissa Albantakis2020≈ 75%
- From Theory of Mind to Theory of Environment: Counterfactual Simulation of Latent Environmental DynamicsRyutaro Uchiyama2026≈ 75%
- Modeling Human Behavior Part I -- Learning and Belief ApproachesAndrew Fuchs and Andrea Passarella and Marco Conti2022≈ 75%
- Learning Developmental Scaffoldings to Guide Self-OrganisationMilton L. Montero and Elias Najarro and Jakob Schauser and Sebastian Risi2026≈ 75%
- The scaling of goals via homeostasis: an evolutionary simulation, experiment and analysisJohanna Bischof, Jennifer V. LaPalme, and Michael Levin Leo Pio-Lopez2022≈ 75%
- Learning without neurons in physical systemsin corpus2022≈ 75%
- Spontaneous Theory of Mind for Artificial IntelligenceDavid V. Pynadath, Volkan Ustun Nikolos Gurney2024≈ 75%
- Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substratesin corpus2024≈ 75%
- ≈ 74%
- ≈ 74%
- ≈ 74%
- The World Inside Neural Networksin corpus2026≈ 74%
- ≈ 74%
- ≈ 74%
- Emergence and Causality in Complex Systems: A Survey on Causal Emergence and Related Quantitative Studiesin corpus2023≈ 74%
- Cognitive glues are shared models of relative scarcities: the economics of collective intelligencein corpus2026≈ 74%