FROM THE FOOTNOTES2PLATO ARCHIVE
Tag: biology
Explore the evolving conversation, or begin with a guide to its central questions.
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Evolution by Natural Induction (Dialogue with Timothy Jackson)
A near verbatim transcript: Matt Segall: Hey, Tim. Timothy Jackson: Hey, Matt. How are you? Matt Segall: Hanging in there, doing all right. Yeah. Matt Segall: Nice shirt. Timothy Jackson: Oh, this? Yeah, it’s a…
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Minds in the Making: Bringing Formal and Final Causes Back into Evolutionary Science, with Michael Levin
Michael, host of the podcast Third Eye Drops, invited me and the developmental biologist Michael Levin into dialogue. The video should be posted in the coming weeks, and I will share…
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God Beyond and Within (Dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Below is a ChatGPT summary of my conversation with Roman (which I’ve reviewed for accuracy). You can find the exact transcript on Substack. Roman began by sharing his thoughts on…
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Dialogue with Evan Thompson about “The Blind Spot”
The Theōros Project hosted philosopher Evan Thompson at CIIS for a dialogue with me about his new book (with Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser) The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human…
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Reading Whitehead on Evolutionary Theory (Dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim Jackson and I just read Whitehead’s 1929 book The Function of Reason together. Here is our discussion: I begin with historical context about two important biologists who influenced Whitehead…
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Evolution as Cosmic Cognition (dialogue with Richard Watson)
Matt Segall: Well, where do I want to begin? Richard, I know that you do a lot of work on evolutionary theory and evolution as a learning process or a cognitive…
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Discussing “The Blind Spot” (2024) with Timothy Jackson
Tim joined me to discuss Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson’s new book. Below are some timestamps of what we covered in this long conversation: 0:10 The contemporary urban life-world 10:36 In…
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More Reflections on “The Blind Spot”: Life, Cognition, and Consciousness
These are rough notes that capture some of my ongoing reflections after re-reading the core chapters of The Blind Spot. You can read my original review here: Blind Spot Review. I…
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Review of “The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience”
Review of The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience (MIT Press, 2024) by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, and Evan Thompson By Matthew David Segall In The Blind Spot, Frank, Gleiser, and…
Albert Einstein, Alfred North Whitehead, autopoiesis, Copernican Revolution, Daniel Dennett, Darwin, David Chalmers, Descartes, Donna Haraway, Edmund Husserl, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, Galileo, Goethe, Henri Bergson, Isabelle Stengers, Modern Philosophy, Ptolemy, reason, Rudolf Steiner, William James -
Some Philosophical Implications of Michael Levin’s New Paradigm Biology
Over the last year, I’ve had a couple of extremely stimulating conversations with the developmental biologist Mike Levin. The first was moderated by Karen Wong: Platonizing Biology: A Dialogue with…
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Polycomputing and Process Philosophy
Tim and I were at it again this afternoon. I begin by introducing some ideas from this preprint by Joshua Bongard and Michael Levin: “There’s Plenty of Room Right Here:…
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Whitehead’s Panprehensionism: A Feeling For Reality (Dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Video timestamps are available on YouTube. Below is Claude 3 Opus’ summary of the transcript (with a few edits by me): In this detailed conversation, Matt, a philosopher, and Tim,…
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Agency and Perception in Whitehead and the Free Energy Principle (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim and I continue to explore how Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism might intersect with contemporary scientific theories, especially the Free Energy Principle (FEP). The FEP suggests that organisms strive to…
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Whitehead and the Free Energy Principle: The Physics and Metaphysics of Information (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim Jackson and I met for another thought jam to explore the interplay between contemporary physics, information theory, biology, and Whitehead’s process philosophy. We got into the ontology of abstraction…
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The Art and Science of Improvisation: Dialogue with Merlin Sheldrake and Tim Jackson
I recently had a fascinating conversation with mycologist Merlin Sheldrake and evolutionary toxinologist Tim Jackson. Our discussion revolved around the themes of improvisation, the nature of life, and the interplay…
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On the Place of Life in the Cosmos: Whitehead and Contemporary Theoretical Biology
This is an excerpt from the final session of our “Intuiting Life” Seminar Series hosted by the Cobb Institute Science Advisory Committee last month. You can find the full playlist…
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Intuiting Life Seminar Series
Above is a playlist including four sessions from the “Intuiting Life” seminar series hosted by the Cobb Institute Science Advisory Committee. Click on the hamburger menu icon in the top…
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Thinking With Machines
A rough transcript of the video above of me cleaning dog poo out of my robot vacuum: My earlier conversation about machines and organisms with Levin:
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Taming the Technological Dragon, with Michael Levin
Selections from the transcript of this conversation (complied by AI): Matt Segall: I just finished your paper “Technological Approaches to Mind Everywhere” that came out last year and really enjoyed…
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Music, Memory, and the Song of Life (dialogue with Karen Wong)
Karen Wong invited me on The Meaning Code again to discuss ideas we both find enriching. Below I’ll share a near transcript of some interesting tidbits, including discussion of Michael…
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Energy is Information, Information is Communication: Thinking with Vervaeke and Henriques
Have a listen to Greg Henriques and John Vervaeke exploring the limits of reductive naturalism and the dangerous of decadent romanticism: John and Greg got some thoughts stirring, which I…
