#486 – Michael Levin: Hidden Reality of Alien Intelligence & Biological Life

Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.7 • 13K Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2025

⏱️ 208 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Levin is a biologist at Tufts University working on novel ways to understand and control complex pattern formation in biological systems.
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Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/michael-levin-2-transcript

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EPISODE LINKS:
Michael Levin’s X: https://x.com/drmichaellevin
Michael Levin’s Website: https://drmichaellevin.org
Michael Levin’s Papers: https://drmichaellevin.org/publications/
– Biological Robots: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.00880
– Classical Sorting Algorithms: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05375
– Aging as a Morphostasis Defect: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38636560/
– TAME: https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.10346
– Synthetic Living Machines: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abf1571

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OUTLINE:
(00:00) – Introduction
(00:29) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(10:09) – Biological intelligence
(18:42) – Living vs non-living organisms
(23:55) – Origin of life
(27:40) – The search for alien life (on Earth)
(1:00:44) – Creating life in the lab – Xenobots and Anthrobots
(1:13:46) – Memories and ideas are living organisms
(1:27:26) – Reality is an illusion: The brain is an interface to a hidden reality
(2:13:13) – Unexpected Intelligence in sorting algorithms
(2:38:51) – Can aging be reversed?
(2:42:41) – Mind uploading
(3:01:22) – Alien intelligence
(3:16:17) – Advice for young people
(3:22:46) – Questions for AGI

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following is a conversation with Michael Levin, his second time on the podcast. He is one of the
0:05.8	most fascinating and brilliant biologists and scientists I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with.
0:12.5	He and his labs at Tufts University study and build biological systems that help us understand
0:17.7	the nature of intelligence, agency, memory, consciousness, and life,
0:23.9	in all of its forms here on Earth and beyond.
0:28.7	And now, a quick few seconds mention of each sponsor.
0:32.1	Check them out in the description or at Lexfriedman.com slash sponsors.
0:36.4	It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast.
0:39.8	We got Shopify for selling stuff online,
0:42.6	Code Rabbit for AI-powered code review,
0:46.0	element for electrolytes, uplift desk,
0:49.1	for my favorite office desks that I'm sitting behind right now.
0:52.7	Miro for brainstorming ideas with your team and
0:55.7	masterclass for learning stuff from incredible people. Choose wise and my friends. And now on to the
1:03.5	full ad reads. I try to make them interesting, but if you must skip, please still check out the sponsors.
1:08.9	I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. To get in touch
1:12.4	with me, for whatever reason, go to Lexfremant.com slash contact. All right, let's go.
1:20.0	This episode is brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere the great-looking online store
1:30.0	with an engineering stack that utilizes the beauty and the elegance of ruby on rails
1:38.0	that DHH so beautifully articulated in my conversations with him.
1:45.1	I continue to tune in to DHS tweets and posts on X.
1:50.8	Just a beautiful human being.
	...

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