Platonizing Biology: a dialogue with Michael Levin

Thanks to Karen for hosting this conversation on The Meaning Code.

We started with a high level issue: the relationship between metaphysics and/or (philosophical) cosmology and the special sciences. I wanted to be sure he understood that I as a philosopher am in no way trying to tell scientists how to define or understand their operational/instrumental domains of significance. Rather, I’m seeking to generalize the implications of his findings, & to shore up their epistemological conditions of possibility (while noting that epistemological problems are almost always disguised ontological problems—ie, in order to ask “what can we know?” we need to have decided what kind of things there are, including of course what kind of thing we are).

A few timestamped comments after relistening: