They ‘told’ cancer to stop, and it did: The science and philosophical implications of bioelectric fields
Seeing | Biology | 2024-12-28
Hans Busstra, MA
Prof. Michael Levin, PhD
‘Talking’ to cells without influencing genes or molecules: it can be done by influencing bioelectric fields. By manipulating the bioelectric fields in organisms like planaria and tadpoles, Prof. Michael Levin has shown how eyes and other organs can grow in unconventional locations, how planaria can be ‘told’ to grow two heads, and perhaps most importantly: how cancer cells can be ‘told’ to stop growing in frogs. These promising experiments might lead to groundbreaking new therapeutics. The importance of the pioneering empirical work of Prof. Michael Levin at Tufts University, on the intersection of bioelectricity, regeneration, and cognition, can hardly be overstated. Philosophically, his work has deep implications for how we think about evolution, cognition and consciousness.
In 2020, Levin’s Lab created so-called Zenobots, programmable, living organisms made from frog cells (Xenopus laevis), designed to perform specific tasks such as movement or carrying objects. They represent a fusion of biology and robotics, created by assembling cells into novel, self-organizing structures guided by bioelectric signals. In trying to make sense of what his work on Zenobots points to, Levin regards evolution as the process whereby nature explores a Platonic realm of possibilities, ‘hardware configurations’ that, in a sense, are pre-existing and waiting to be discovered. And when it comes to intelligence, Levin sees only collective intelligence, in the sense that all intelligent lifeforms we know of are structured as sets of cells. Therefore, we ourselves could also very well be part of a larger intelligence.
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CPU inventor and physicist Federico Faggin PhD, together with Prof. Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano, proposes that consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain, but a fundamental aspect of reality itself: quantum fields are conscious and have free will. In this theory, our physical body is a quantum-classical ‘machine,’ operated by free will decisions of quantum fields. Faggin calls the theory ‘Quantum Information Panpsychism’ (QIP) and claims that it can give us testable predictions in the near future. If the theory is correct, it not only will be the most accurate theory of consciousness, it will also solve mysteries around the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
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Not only does John von Neumann’s seminal work in the mathematical modelling of quantum mechanics imply the irreducible nature of mind, the resulting idealist understanding of nature could lead to profound, and positive, changes in how we relate to one another and the world at large in the context of our economic system, writes Dr. Cocks.
From the archives
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Documentary filmmaker Hans Busstra shares with us, with the aid of amazing and scientifically accurate animations of the molecular world, the background story of his journey from imaging the hardcore science of molecular biology to the fundamental insights of metaphysics.
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Astronomer Harriet Witt argues that it is our scientifically outdated language that leads us into thinking of the sky as a remote reality ‘up there,’ instead of a felt experience ‘in here.’ She argues for an update to the words and concepts we use daily, so the holistic reality of our existence, and of our intimate relationship with all of nature, can again be felt.
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In our quest for meaning and self-understanding, language remains a valuable tool, but we must recognize its limitations. By balancing our conceptual and perceptual selves, we can live more fully, appreciating life beyond the distortions of thoughts and words. In doing so, we reconnect with the dimension of existence we have long suspected: one that’s whole and prior to the concepts of time and location, argues Steven Pashko.
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Essays
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‘Talking’ to cells without influencing genes or molecules: it can be done by influencing bioelectric fields. By manipulating the bioelectric fields in organisms like planaria and tadpoles, Prof. Michael Levin has shown how eyes and other organs can grow in unconventional locations, how planaria can be ‘told’ to grow two heads, and perhaps most importantly: how cancer cells can be ‘told’ to stop growing in frogs. These promising experiments might lead to groundbreaking new therapeutics. The importance of the pioneering empirical work of Prof. Michael Levin at Tufts University, on the intersection of bioelectricity, regeneration, and cognition, can hardly be overstated. Philosophically, his work has deep implications for how we think about evolution, cognition and consciousness.
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Inside you there is a largely unexplored universe of 100 trillion bacteria. In this documentary, we embark on a journey into this microcosmos to discover the beauty and complexity of life’s origin on the nanoscale. In 2023 Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra created a documentary about bacteria that depicts our common ancestor in a never-before-seen manner. With the world’s leading artists in microscopy, like micro-photographer Wim van Egmond, SEM microscopist Jan Dijksterhuis, and a molecular cell biologist and his team at Digizyme Inc., he embarked on a unique mission: to capture the first moving images of a single bacterium at the molecular scale.
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Documentary filmmaker Hans Busstra shares with us, with the aid of amazing and scientifically accurate animations of the molecular world, the background story of his journey from imaging the hardcore science of molecular biology to the fundamental insights of metaphysics.
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Astronomer Harriet Witt argues that it is our scientifically outdated language that leads us into thinking of the sky as a remote reality ‘up there,’ instead of a felt experience ‘in here.’ She argues for an update to the words and concepts we use daily, so the holistic reality of our existence, and of our intimate relationship with all of nature, can again be felt.
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In our quest for meaning and self-understanding, language remains a valuable tool, but we must recognize its limitations. By balancing our conceptual and perceptual selves, we can live more fully, appreciating life beyond the distortions of thoughts and words. In doing so, we reconnect with the dimension of existence we have long suspected: one that’s whole and prior to the concepts of time and location, argues Steven Pashko.
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Arthur Haswell invites us to pay attention to and, once again, like our ancestors once did, hear the rhyme and rhythm with which the world worlds. Reality, he maintains, unfolds according to a form of music that, in ages past, humans were matter-of-factly sensitive to. Granted that, if we could sense it again, we could find the codas of the modern world to be excessively depressing, frightening, and bleak. For this reason, perhaps subconsciously, we may not wish to hear them. But, he suspects, we could also find in them much beauty and harmony that enrich our lives. This is a profoundly edifying essay.
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Prof. Dr. Caslav Brukner, Prof. Dr. Renato Renner and Dr. Eric Cavalcanti just won the Paul Ehrenfest Best Paper Award for Quantum Foundations. Their different no-go theorems make us reconsider the fundamental nature of reality. Bell’s theorem in quantum mechanics already confronted us with the fact that locality and ‘physical realism,’ in the sense that particles have predetermined physical properties prior to measurement, cannot both be true. But in certain variations of the Wigner’s Friend thought experiment an additional metaphysical assumption is now also put in question: the absoluteness of facts. In different words: can we safely assume that a measurement outcome for one observer is a measurement for all observers?
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The acquiescence of physicalism within the broader cultural milieu allows for the smuggling of assumptions into scientific inquiry, which are then, in a circular manner, considered to be validated by science itself. This disastrous interplay perpetuates a continued myopia in distinguishing between the ontological claims of physicalism and the assumptions of scientific inquiry, argues Adebambo Adedire.
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