Novel beings, novel goals: evolution & engineering of the agential material of life | Dr. Mike Levin

All agents, no matter their origin story or composition, have one thing in common: a degree of ability to pursue goal states in some problem space. In Dr. Michael Levin's lab, they borrow agential concepts from cognitive and behavioral science to describe biological phenomena such as development, regeneration, and cancer suppression. To advance these concepts, they create computer-designed synthetic living beings that exhibit novel behaviors yet no specific evolutionary history. This talk not only highlights recent successes but explores the implication of these findings for regenerative medicine, cognitive science, and human flourishing. Dr. Michael Levin is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University, an associate faculty at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, and the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. Subscribe to the John Templeton Foundation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TempletonFoundation To learn more, visit https://www.templeton.org and follow us on social media! X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/templeton_fdn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/templetonfoundation/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TempletonFoundation LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/jtflinkedin